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174 KIPLING'S SUSSEX
ordnance were here produced. The name of Hogge seems to have been confounded with that of Huggett; and there is a place on the confines of Buxted and Mayfield, called Huggett's furnace, where, according to tradition, the first iron ordnance was cast. The traditionary distich that:
" Master Huggett and his man John, They did cast the first can-non."
is firmly believed in the locality. Many persons of the name of Huggett still carry on the trade of blacksmith in East Sussex.
Buxted was one of the " iron-towns " of the Weald, and we are reminded how England put her trust in Sussex iron and Sussex oak in Puck's song :
" See you the dimpled track that runs, All hollow through the wheat ? O that was where they hauled the guns That smote King Philip's fleet."
The noble trees of the Weald were cut down without any consideration to feed the rapacious forges:
" Jove's oak, the warlike ash, veined elm, the softer beech, Short hazel, maple, plane, light asp, the bending wych, Tough holly, and smooth birch, must altogether burn" |
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