I called the attention of our chief local antiquarian to the succession of broad terraces and suggested their decorative origin. He shook his head and assured me that they were ages older than the ducal residence in the High Street. They belonged to the Norman period and were coeval with the Castle walls. When I told him that I was at a loss to know why the Norman builder should first raise a screen-wall forty feet up from a moat, to make it difficult for an enemy to scale, and then go to an amazing amount of trouble to make it easily accessible to quite a large attacking force by a long range of terraces, he smiled the smile of the local antiquarian--a kindly toleration of the absurdities of the tyro--saying,--
"My dear sir, they would not mind such an attack. They could always repel it by throwing stones down from the top--it's ten feet thick there--yes, heavy stones, and melted lead, and boiling water."
I did not want to throw cold water upon his researches as to the defence of a mediæval stronghold, so I thanked him for his information. He disclaimed all pretensions to exclusive knowledge, and said that he would be happy to tell me anything else that I wanted to learn about such things.
I could not resist expressing my fear to him, as we were parting, that the Water Company would not sanction the domestic supply from the kitchen boiler being used outside the house for defensive purposes; but he stilled my doubts by an assurance that in those days there was no Water Company. This was well enough so far as it went, but when I asked where the Castle folk got their water if there was no Company to supply it, he was slightly staggered, I could see; but, recovering himself, he said there would certainly have been a Sussex dew-pond within the precincts, and, as every one knew, this was never known to dry up.
I did not say that in this respect they had something in common with local antiquarians; but asked him if it was true that swallows spent the winter in the mud at the bottom of these ponds. He told me gravely that he doubted if this could be; for there was not enough mud in even the largest dew-pond to accommodate all the swallows. So I saw that he was as sound a naturalist as he was an antiquarian.