The village of St. Margaret’s at Cliff is situated at a small distance
from the South Foreland, and about a mile from the high road half way
between Dover and Deal. It was formerly of some consequence, on account
of its fair for the encouragement of traders, held in the precincts of
its priory, which, on the dissolution of the monastic establishments by
Henry VIII., losing its privilege, or rather its utility, (for the fair
is yet held,) the village degenerated into an irregular group of poor
cottages, a decent farm-house, and an academy for boys, one of the best
commercial school establishments in the county of Kent. The church,
though time has written strange defeatures on its mouldering walls,
still bears the show of former importance; but its best claim on the
inquisitive stranger is the evening toll of its single bell, which is
generally supposed to be the curfew, but is of a more useful and
honourable character. It was established by the testament of one of its
inhabitants in the latter part of the seventeenth century, for the
guidance of the wanderer from the peril of the neighbouring precipices,
over which the testator fell, and died from the injuries he received. He
bequeathed the rent of a piece of land for ever, to be paid to the
village sexton for tolling the bell every evening at eight o’clock, when
it should be dark at that hour.
The cliffs in the range eastward of Dover to the Foreland are the most
precipitous, but not so high as Shakspeare’s. They are the resort of a
small fowl of the widgeon species, but something less than the widgeon,
remarkable for the size of its egg, which is larger than the swan’s, and
of a pale green, spotted with brown; it makes its appearance in May,
and, choosing the most inaccessible part of the precipice, deposits its
eggs, two in number, in holes, how made it is difficult to prove: when
the young bird is covered with a thin down, and before any feathers
appear, it is taken on the back of the parent, carried to the sea, and
abandoned to its own resources, which nature amply supplies means to
employ, in the myriads of mackerel fry that at that season colour the
surface of the deep with a beautiful pale green and silver. This aquatic
wanderer is said to confine its visit to the South Foreland and the
seven cliffs at Beachy-head, and is known by the name of Willy. Like the
gull, it is unfit for the table, but valuable for the downy softness of
its feathers.
It was in this range of Dover cliffs that Joe Parsons, who for more than
forty years had exclusively gathered samphire, broke his neck in 1823.
Habit had rendered the highest and most difficult parts of these awful
precipices as familiar to this man as the level below. Where the
overhanging rock impeded his course, a rope, fastened to a peg driven
into a cliff above, served him to swing himself from one projection to
another: in one of these dangerous attempts this fastening gave way, and
he fell to rise no more. Joe had heard of Shakspeare, and felt the
importance of a hero. It was his boast that he was a king too powerful
for his neighbours, who dared not venture to disturb him in his domain;
that nature alone was his lord, to whom he paid no quittance. All were
free to forage on his grounds, but none ventured. Joe was twice wedded;
his first rib frequently attended and looked to the security of his
ropes, and would sometimes terrify him with threats to cast him loose; a
promise of future kindness always ended the parley, and a thrashing on
the next quarrel placed Joe again in peril. Death suddenly took Judith
from this vale of tears; Parsons awoke in the night and found her
brought up in an everlasting roadstead: like a true philosopher and a
quiet neighbour, Joe took his second nap, and when day called out the
busy world to begin its matin labour, Joe called in the nearest gossip
to see that all was done that decency required for so good a wife. His
last helpmate survives her hapless partner. No one has yet taken
possession of his estate. The inquisitive and firm-nerved stranger casts
his eyes below in vain: he that gathered samphire is himself gathered.
The anchored bark, the skiff, the choughs and crows, the fearful
precipice, and the stringy root, growing in unchecked abundance, bring
the bard and Joe Parsons to remembrance, but no one now attempts the
“dreadful trade.”