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| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 01:53:59 -0700 |
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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/22765-8.txt b/22765-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..eeb96e6 --- /dev/null +++ b/22765-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4864 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Lynton and Lynmouth, by John Presland and F. J. Widgery + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Lynton and Lynmouth + A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland + +Author: John Presland + F. J. Widgery + +Release Date: September 25, 2007 [EBook #22765] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LYNTON AND LYNMOUTH *** + + + + +Produced by Al Haines + + + + + + + + + + +[Frontispiece: Lee Bay] + + + + + + +LYNTON AND LYNMOUTH + +A PAGEANT OF CLIFF & MOORLAND + + +BY + +JOHN PRESLAND + + + + +ILLUSTRATED BY + +F. J. WIDGERY + + + + +LONDON + +CHATTO & WINDUS + +MCMXVII + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER + + I. DEVONSHIRE + II. SOME LITERARY ASSOCIATIONS + III. BARNSTAPLE + IV. LYNTON + V. LYNTON (_continued_), COUNTISBERRY, AND NORTHWARD + VI. PORLOCK AND EXMOOR + VII. IN SOMERSET + VIII. LUNDY + IX. THE LAST STRONGHOLDS OF TRADITION + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + +LEE BAY . . . . . . . . . . . . _frontispiece_ + +BOSSINGTON HILL + +DUNKERY BEACON + +THE DOONE VALLEY + +WOODY BAY AND DUTY POINT, WEST LYNTON + +THE SHEPHERD'S COTTAGE: DOONE VALLEY + +LYNMOUTH BAY AND FORELAND + +THE VALLEY OF ROCKS + +HEDDON'S MOUTH, NEAR LYNTON + +CASTLE ROCK, LYNTON + +DUTY POINT + +THE MOORS NEAR BRENDON TWO GATES + +HARVEST MOON, EXMOOR + +THE DOONE VALLEY IN WINTER + +LYNTON: THE DEVIL'S CHEESERING + +DUNKERY BEACON FROM HORNER WOODS + + + + +LYNTON AND LYNMOUTH + + +CHAPTER I + +DEVONSHIRE + +The original Celtic name for Devonshire, the name used by the Britons +whom Caesar found here when he landed, was probably "Dyfnaint," for a +Latinized form of it, "Dumnonia" or "Damnonia," was used by Diodorus +Siculus when writing of the province of Devon and Cornwall in the third +century A.D. So that the name by which the men of Devon call their +country is the name by which those ancient men called it who erected +the stone menhirs on Dartmoor, and built the great earth-camp of +Clovelly Dykes, or the smaller bold stronghold of Countisbury. At +least, conjecturally this is so, and it is pleasant to believe it, for +it links the Devon of our own day, the Devon of rich valleys and windy +moors, the land of streams and orchards, of bleak, magnificent cliff +and rock-guarded bay, of shaded combe and suave, fair villages, in an +unbroken tradition of name and habitation with the men of that silent +and vanished race. + +Up and down the length of England, from the Land's End to the +Northumbrian dales, lie the traces of these far-off peoples whose very +names are faint guesses preserved only in the traditions of local +speech. Strangely and suddenly we come upon the evidence of their life +and death: here a circle of stones on a barren moor or bleak hilltop, +there a handful of potsherds or a flint arrowhead; sometimes, indeed, +though rarely, the bones of their very bodies, laid aside in +earth-barrows or stone coffins for this unknown length of years. And +there the most unreflective among us feels a sudden awe and wonder at +the momentary vision of the profound antiquity of this land in which we +live, and for a few moments all desires and aims seem futile in face of +this immemorial past. + +Only for a few moments, though, and then we step from the "Druid +Circle," or turn away from the barrow, and the current of our everyday +life takes us up once more. + +Myself, I agree with Westcote. Westcote is a charming old gentleman of +King James the First's time, who wrote a book called "A View of +Devonshire in 1630." In Chapter I he discusses the ancient name of +Devonshire much as I have done, but because in the seventeenth century +you must have a Latin or a Greek at your elbow to give you +respectability as a writer, he brings forward a formidable array of +authorities--Ptolemaeus, Solinus Pylyhistor, and Diodorus Siculus. +But, having had them make their bow before the reader, he remarks that +all these gentlemen lived "far remoted" from Devonshire, and were +therefore liable to error in the transmission of names; "for, in my +opinion," says he, "those that declare the first names of strange +countries far remoted are as the poor which wear their garments all +bepatched and pieced, whereof the pieces that are added are much more +in quantity of cloth than the garment before, when it was first made." + +As an example of this error he instances the name of Peru. "When the +Spaniards had conquered Mexico, and were purposing to proceed farther, +their commander, in his manner, demanded of one of the natives he met +withal what the country was named, who answered, 'Peru,' by which name +it is known unto this day, which in his language was, 'I know not what +you say.'" + +Even more fantastic is the etymological origin of Andaluzia, for the +poor countryman of this story, when addressed by the conquering Moor, +merely remarked surlily to his ass, "gee-up Luzia!" or, in his own +tongue, "Ando Luzia!" which was taken by the Moor in remarkable good +faith, and has ever after been the name of that province. + +Westcote himself inclines to the origin De (or Di) Avon, "the country +of waters," "diu" being the Celtic for God, and "avon" the word for +river (which it certainly is), and the whole name agreeing with the +character of the country, which is a land of many waters, both great +rivers and small streams. But he goes on to observe tolerantly that +each man may think as he chooses, even to deriving the word Devonshire +from Dane-shire, the shire of the Danes, though it is known to have had +its name before ever the first Dane landed in England, and there seems +to be little likelihood, therefore, but only "a sympathie in letters." +He concludes his discussion by the couplet: + + "To no man am I so much thrall + To swear he speaketh truth in all." + +And with this tolerant and unpedantic frame of mind I am in hearty +accord. + +But if Caesar and the Romans, who for several centuries had a station +at Exeter, their great "camp on the Exe," called the wide province of +Devon and Cornwall "Damnonia," what did the Phoenicians call it when +they traded Cornish tin along the Mediterranean, and even, it is said, +into remote Africa, and ran their galleys into the little bay of Combe +Martin, to lade with the silver and lead which can still be mined +there, and which they may have carried to the old buried palaces of +Knossos, to be fashioned into amulets and trinkets by those Cretans who +built the dancing-floor of Ariadne and the maze of the Minotaur? That +is a question that we cannot answer; all the busy speech of all those +peoples is silent; only the old mine-workings remain, and the sacked +and buried palaces of Crete, and a Phoenician ingot-mould fished up in +Plymouth Harbour, and fitting, so 'tis said, an ingot which has been +found in Central Africa. + +With the coming of the Romans comes, as always, a little light, for +they were a shrewd and mighty people, who liked their house set in +order, and tabulated and recorded and organized, and have left traces +of their orderliness on the face of the land, and the speech of the +people, and the laws of the nations in three continents. They subdued +Damnonia, and held it from their armed camp at Exeter, where Roman +coins, pottery, brick, and inscriptions are found abundantly. Perhaps +also they held and transformed several of the great earth-camps for +their own uses, such as the Clovelly Dykes or the escarpments at +Ilfracombe, built by the Britons or some earlier people. But the +Romans do not appear to have settled in Devonshire as they did in East +Anglia and the Midlands; I believe there are few traces of their +dwellings, villas, roads, or baths, beyond Exeter in the West. + +When their rule weakened and declined in the fifth century, certainly +Damnonia would be one of the first provinces over which their +jurisdiction waned, because of its inaccessibility, its deep wooded +valleys, the wastes of Exmoor and Dartmoor, and the danger of its +coasts; and we may well suppose that the old Celtic traditions and +customs continued here but little modified by the Roman occupation. + +Then at some time in the fifth and sixth centuries the Saxons came, but +they seem to have come to Devonshire more peaceably than in their +fierce raids on the south and east coasts; they came as Christians to +the Christian British, and though they conquered them, they did not +drive them out, nor compel them into mountain fastnesses, as the +earlier Saxon conquerors drove the British into Wales. So that in +Devon, though to a lesser degree than in Cornwall, and still less than +in Wales, there is a larger admixture of original Celtic blood than in +Kent, Sussex, Essex, and the counties of the Saxon heptarchy. But, +according to Westcote--who is, for all his discursiveness, no bad +authority--the Britons and the Saxons came to loggerheads; for the +government being Saxon, and the laws and the language, the poor Britons +could neither hear nor make themselves understood, and so took arms +against the settlers, and were by them driven "beyond the river now +called Taw-meer" (_i.e._, Tamar), and so out of Devon into Cornwall. +This was done by King Athelstan, after he had beaten the Welsh at +Hereford and subdued the Picts and Scots. + +From this time forth, says Westcote, the Britons began to be called +"Corn-Welshmen or Cornishmen," and he gives an elaborate etymology of +the name, but adds that he need speak no further of Cornwall, "being +eased of that labour by the industrious labours of the right worthy and +worshipful gentleman Richard Carew, who . . . hath very eloquently +described it." + +The Saxons, as we know, led a struggling and turbulent existence for +five or six centuries in contest with the Danes. Probably the full +total of the misery inflicted on this country by the Danish raids can +never be reckoned, but that they crippled and exhausted Saxon England +by their frequency and the great duration of time over which they +extended is apparent by the advance made in civilization in the short +period between the breaking of their power and the coming of the +Normans. Devonshire was not spared by them, and the cliffs of +Teignmouth are said to be blood-red since a great slaughter of the +Danes in 970. Certainly the Saxon Chronicle records contests bloody +and pitiless enough, and tradition lingers still in many places where +history has no record. In Devon, for instance, wherever the +dwarf-elder grows folk say that Danish blood has been spilt, and that a +group of these trees marks the site of an old battlefield; indeed, the +dwarf-elder is still called "Danes-elder" in the West Country. + +Between Bideford and Appledore, on this northern coast of Devon, stands +Kenwith Castle--long called Hennaborough or Henry Hill--under whose +walls the great Alfred and his son met the Danes under Hubba, and +defeated them with great slaughter about the year 877. The English +captured the famous standard of the Danes, the Raven, which was +"wrought in needlework by the daughters of Lothbroc," and which had +magical properties--clapping its wings when defeat was at hand. The +remnant of the Danish force, carrying their wounded leader with them, +retreated to their ships, and Hubba died there on the beach, and was +buried by his followers before they fled aboard, under a great rock +called Hubba's Stone, and now in corrupt form Hubblestone, a name which +still clings near the spot, though probably the rock of Hubba is now +swept by the sea. But under this rock he lies, with his weapons and +trophies about him and his crown of gold on his head, until the last +trump shall rouse him. + +[Illustration: Bossington Hill from Porlock Hill] + +The grave of Hubba lies under the sea, like King Arthur's lost country +of Lyonesse, where the fisher-folk say they can hear the bells ring +from the drowned churches as they sail over them on still summer +mornings; but near Porlock the sea has yielded the strip of land it has +stolen from Bideford, and the Danish long-ships rode what are now the +green fields around Porlock. + +That it was so the very name Porlock shows, for Port-locan means an +enclosed place for ships, under which name it is mentioned twice in the +Saxon Chronicle. So the sea has retreated a mile and a half since the +Danish raid of A.D. 918, when they entered the Severn, harried Wales, +and landed at Porlock, only to be beaten back to their ships again by +the Saxons. + +Harold, the great English Harold who was slain at the Battle of +Hastings, made a raid from Ireland in 1052. He ran into Porlock with +nine ships, landed and went several miles inland, killing and looting, +and returned in safety. But this filibustering expedition, so greatly +to his discredit, and so unworthy to find a place among all his other +acts, was almost certainly done in anger and dictated by personal +revenge. For Porlock, which was plainly an important harbour and one +of the seats of the Saxon Kings--at least, it is mentioned as having a +"King's house" there--was the property of Algar, the son of Leofric, +Earl of Mercia. But Harold was the son of Godwin, Earl of Kent, and +Kent and Mercia were old and bitter enemies, and it was due to the +intrigues of Mercia that Earl Godwin was banished, and Harold went with +him to Ireland. Then, fourteen years later, William came to an England +weakened by internal strife, and Harold was slain at Hastings and the +Saxon lords dispossessed of their lands and goods, which were given to +the foreigner. Here the Domesday Book, with its plain bare statements, +gives us a grim record of the Conquest. All, or almost all, the Saxon +names of the overlords disappear, and the Norman take their place, +continuing down to our own day. This same Porlock was taken from +Algar, son of Leofric, and given to Baldwin Redvers. Countisbury was +taken from Ailmer, and held by William himself. Lynton was taken from +Ailward Touchstone--it is interesting to find the name of Shakespeare's +fool in Domesday Book--and held by William. Combe Martin (then called +"Comba") was taken from Aluric and held by Jubel. Bideford and +Clovelly were taken from Brihtric and given to Queen Matilda. + +There is a curious and romantic story about this Brihtric, son of +Aelfgar. He was one of the most powerful of the Saxon Thanes, and +seems to have owned lands not only in Devon, but in Dorset, Somerset, +and even in Gloucester, though the latter entries in Domesday may refer +to another Brihtric, who was not the son of Aelfgar. When he was a +young man, and before the marriage of Matilda to William of Normandy, +Brihtric was sent by King Edward on a diplomatic mission to the Count +of Flanders, Matilda's father, and there he met Matilda, who fell in +love with him and offered herself in marriage. He refused her, and she +married William; but later, when the cycle of events put her old lover +in the power of her husband, she sued for and obtained the grant of +many of his lands. Brihtric himself was seized at his house at Hanley, +in Worcestershire, on the very day that Wulfstan had hallowed his +chapel, and sent to Winchester, where he died in prison. + +This story, which would have made a stirring theme for Sir Walter +Scott, is found in the chronicles of Tewkesbury, in the Anglo-Norman +chronicles, and in Wace, the old rhyming historian of the twelfth +century. Here are a few lines of the old French version: + + "Laquele jadsi, quant fu pucele, + Ama un conte dangleterre, + Brictrich Mau le oi nomer + Apres le rois ki fu riche ber; + A lui la pucele enuera messager + Pur sa amour a lui procurer; + Meis Brictrich Maude refusa, + Dune ele m'lt se coruca, + Hastivement mer passa + E a Willam bastard se maria. + +which we may put into English so: + + "Who formerly, as a maiden, + Loved an English count, + Brihtric Maude heard him named; + And who, save the King, than he was richer? + To him the maiden sent a messenger + To obtain his love; + But Brihtric refused Matilda, + Whereat she waxed very angry, + Hastily passed over the sea + And married William the bastard." + + +But if this is one of the stories which is preserved to us, with its +fierce love, and its fierce hate, and its unsparing revenge, and all +the human hopes and acts and motives of which it gives but a bare +hint--the pride of Brihtric perhaps, or perhaps his love for another +woman, for an alliance with the Count of Flanders might satisfy an +ambitious man--how many tragic dramas, how many stories of cruelty and +oppression and exile and mourning, lie behind the bare short records of +the Domesday Book? All these sunny towns of North Devon and +Somerset--Lynton, Crinton, Porlock, Countisbury, Paracombe, +Challacombe, and north to Dunster, and south to Barnstaple and +Bideford--all these wooded or wind-swept spots, which look as if they +could have had no history, save of market-days and fairs, had their +individual drama in that fierce annexation. + +Sometimes, perhaps, they suffered hardly at all. Their Saxon lord +lived elsewhere; he was slain or banished, and they came imperceptibly +under the Norman rule. But more often, I imagine, particularly on the +smaller estates, the lord dwelt in patriarchal intercourse with his +tenants, with that freedom of speech and right of judgment, which, in +"Ivanhoe," Scott draws in the household and retinue of Cedric; and the +eviction was bitter, and the rule of the new lord oppressive and +hateful. + +Domesday Book was compiled in 1086, twenty years after the landing of +William, so that a new generation was already growing up, and the old +scars were beginning to heal. Here is a translation of the entry on +Lynton: + +"William has a manor called Lintona, which Ailward Touchstone held on +the day on which King Edward was alive and dead, and with this manor +was added formerly another called Incrintona, which Algar held. These +are held by William for one manor, and they rendered geld for one hide. +. . . Lintona is worth four pounds and Incrintona three pounds. When +William received them Lintona was worth 20 shillings and Incrintona 15. +. . ." + +It is interesting to note how all property throughout England had +advanced in value since "the day that King Edward was alive and dead"; +in the old English, "on pam timan pe Eadward cing was cucu and +dead"--_i.e._, on the fifth of January 1066--which is a clear +intimation that the firm rule of the Conqueror had increased the +material prosperity of the country in one generation. + +After the Conquest there was peace in Devonshire for many years, though +Exeter was besieged by Stephen for three months in 1137, when he and +Matilda, the mother of Henry II, rent England with a war of succession; +but the young Henry came to the throne in 1152, and ruled wisely and +strongly for thirty-five years. Under him Devon prospered, as did all +England, and the cloth-making industry, which in Westcote's time, in +the seventeenth century, was so notable a part of the wealth of Devon, +probably had its first considerable beginnings in this reign. + +But Henry II is remembered less for his wise laws and far-sighted +government than for the murder of Thomas à Becket, which clouded his +latter years and brought his enemies--his wife and his son among +them--swarming about his ears. This northern coast of Devon is linked +with that dark crypt in Canterbury where Becket fell in the sacerdotal +robes of High Mass; for it was a Tracy who was one of the four knights +who spurred from London to rid Henry "of this turbulent priest," and +the Tracys owned Lynton, Countisbury, and Morthoe. It is to Morthoe +that Tracy is supposed to have come after the murder, with the curse +upon him which descended to his family--that, wherever they went, + + "the Tracys + Have always the wind and the rain in their faces"-- + +and to have lived out the bitter end of his life with the horror of +sacrilege in his heart. There is a monument in the church of Morthoe +of William de Tracy, but it is of early fourteenth-century date, and +belongs to a descendant of King Henry's knight, who was rector of the +parish. A later Tracy was Baron of Barnstaple, and was appointed +Governor of the island of Lundy in the reign of Henry III. + +Nearly a century later Edward II, flying from the armies of his Queen +and the turbulent barons, took ship for Lundy, but was driven back to +Wales by contrary winds. And of this event a poem was made in the +reign of James I, which is quoted by Westcote as written by a "modern +poet," though he does not give us the name. The verse still retains a +smack of the Elizabethan diction--not the Shakespeare magic, indeed, +but the euphuistic, antithetical, fantastic balance of phrases: + + "To Lundy which in Sabrin's mouth doth stand, + Carried with hope (still hoping to find ease), + Imagining it were his native land, + England itself; Severn, the narrow seas; + With this conceit, poor soul, himself doth please. + And sith his rule is over-ruled by men, + On birds and beasts he'll king it once again." + + +Devon took its unhappy share in the Wars of the Roses, and Perkin +Warbeck besieged Exeter in 1497, but unsuccessfully, like most other +exploits of that unlucky adventurer. Fifty years later the West rose +in arms against Henry VIII, in support of the "old religion," and to +protest against the dissolution of the monasteries; but the rising was +put down, and Henry took and subdued Exeter, and carried through his +bold and often ruthless policy. + +But it is in the reign of Elizabeth that Devon takes on the special +glamour with which it is still associated in most minds. For it was +the sixteenth century which gave to England such men as Richard and +John Hawkins, Adrien and Humphrey Gilbert, John Davies--that sailor +friend of Adrien Gilbert's who, inspired by him, made the first dark +voyage into the Polar regions, and traded with the Esquimaux, as told +in Hakluyt's "Voyages"--and Sir Richard Grenville, with his "men of +Bideford in Devon," with whom he fought the _Revenge_ single-handed +against the fifty and three Spanish galleons in that last, greatest +fight of all; and Sir Walter Raleigh, a philosopher among courtiers, a +poet among princes, statesman, dreamer, adventurer, who planned nobly +and executed daringly, and failed more greatly than other men succeed. +Millais has drawn him for us, in his boyhood, sitting on the beach at +Budleigh Salterton, with the wind blowing his hair round his sensitive, +eager face, hugging his knees as he listens to the stories of the +sailor with the bright parrot-feathers in his hat, one of the men, +perhaps, who sailed with Frobisher or terrible John Hawkins, round the +world to the far-off coasts of adventure, the lands of gold and spices. +It is to Raleigh, and to his half-brother, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, that +we owe the first colony of America, "Virginia," called so by Raleigh +from the Virgin Queen, in the compliment of his day--to them is due the +praise of having seen that "colonization, trade, and the enlargement of +Empire, were all more important for the welfare of England than the +acquisition of gold," and this in an age which was dazzled by the +facilities of wealth lying ready to the greedy hand in that "New World." + +And this mind, so daring, so original, so diverse, which could turn a +sonnet or design a battleship (for the _Ark Raleigh_, built after his +plans, was admittedly the best ship of our fleet that met the Armada), +which had experienced the favour and disfavour of princes in the +fullest degree, which had known triumph and discouragement beyond the +ordinary measure of humanity, turned in the last dark years of +imprisonment to a steady contemplation of human activity, and, largely +conceiving here, as in all else, planned a "History of the World." Let +his own noble words be his epitaph: + +"O eloquent, just, and mighty Death! whom none could advise, thou hast +persuaded; what none have dared, thou hast done; and whom all the world +have flattered, thou only hast cast out of the world and despised; thou +hast drawn together all the far-stretched greatness, all the pride, +cruelty and ambition of man, and covered it all over with these two +narrow words, 'Hic jacet.'" + +And then there was Drake--Drake, whose name perhaps overshadows all +other names in Devon; Drake, who + + "was playing a rubber of bowls + When the great Armada came;" + +but, being told of the sighting of the fleet, remarked that "they must +wait their turn, good souls," and continued his game; Drake, who, the +year before the sailing of the Armada, "singed the King of Spain's +beard" most mightily, going up and down the coasts of Spain and +Portugal, plundering and burning the ships in their very harbours; who +sailed round the world, with the sun for "fellow traveller," as an +epitaph under his portrait in the Guildhall says of him; who, on the +first independent expedition which he led to America, received a +dangerous wound in his attack on Nombre de Dios, but concealed it from +his men, and led them to the public treasury, telling them "that he had +brought them to the mouth of the treasury of the world," and then +fainted over the great bars of silver and gold, and when they took him +up he was losing "so much blood as filled his very footsteps in the +sand;" Drake, who has become a legend and a myth in Devon, so that the +country-people say that he brought water from Dartmoor to Plymouth, by +compelling a stream to follow his horse's heels all the way into the +town; who, like King Arthur and Barbarossa, is not dead, but will +return again to his country if his people in their need strike on his +drum and call him. + +But beyond and behind all these great names, which ring in our ears +like martial music, are the nameless crowd of Devon men who sailed with +them, and fought with them, and worked with them, and loved them. Men +from Bideford and Appledore and Barnstaple, from Teignmouth and +Budleigh and Dartmouth, from every little harbour along the bold north +coast, from every creek and bay of the south, from the sheltered +villages among their trees, from the wind-swept, hilly little towns, +from the busy quayside or the lonely farm, came the men whose courage +and whose will, whose love of profit and greater love of adventure, +gave a lustre to England in the "golden days of Elizabeth." + +Those days passed, and were followed presently by the unhappy years of +the great Civil Wars. It was perhaps not unfitting that a +Grenville--Sir Bevil Grenville--led an army against the Parliamentarian +troops in the Battle of Lansdown Hill, though it was an army of +Cornishmen he led, and not of Devonshire men, for the Grenvilles were +then living at their Cornish home of Stowe. Sir Bevil was killed in +battle, but Anthony Payne, his servant, a great giant of a man, and a +true friend to his master, set Sir Bevil's young son upon his father's +horse, and bade him lead his father's men to victory, as, had he lived, +his father would have done. Afterwards Anthony Payne brought Sir +Bevil's body back to Stowe, and he wrote to Lady Grenville a letter +which deserves to be recorded for its true and simple dignity: + + +"HONOURED MADAM,-- + +"Ill news flieth apace: the heavy tidings hath no doubt already +travelled to Stowe that we have lost our blessed master by the enemies' +advantage. You must not, dear lady, grieve too much for your noble +spouse. You know, as we all believe, that his soul was in heaven +before his bones were cold. He fell, as he did often tell us he wished +to die, for the good Stewart cause, for his country and his King. He +delivered to me his last commands, and with such tender words for you +and for his children as are not to be set down with my poor pen, but +must come to your ears upon my best heart's breath. . . . I am coming +down with the mournfullest burden that ever a poor servant did bear, to +bring the great heart that is cold to Kilkhampton vault. Oh, my lady, +how shall I ever brook your weeping face? . . ." + + +This perhaps, is Cornish history and not Devonshire, except that the +name of Grenville is so inseparably linked in our minds with Devon. + +During the Royalist wars from 1642-1650 Exeter was twice besieged by +the Parliamentarians; Ilfracombe twice changed hands, in 1644 being +taken by Doddington for the Royalists, and two years later falling to +Fairfax after his capture of Barnstaple; Tiverton also was besieged by +the Royalists, though it seems to have held within itself the two +irreconcilable factions. But it was not in Devon that the fiercest +battles of that time were fought, nor the greatest and bitterest +disunion prevailed. Of the subsequent history of Devon I shall say +little. The unhappy expedition of the Duke of Monmouth landed at Lyme +Regis, just on the borders of Dorset and Devon, and he himself was +joyfully received in Exeter; but it was in Somerset that the battle of +Sedgemoor was lost, and Somerset that suffered chiefly from the Bloody +Assizes. + +Let us rather turn to the Devon of to-day, realizing with thankfulness +that the traditions of Drake and Frobisher, of Grenville and Hawkins, +still hold; that the heirs of the men who put out in their frail ships +for the New World, now buffet round our wild coasts in minesweeper or +trawler, destroyer or old cargo tubs, on a far more grim adventure. +Without the hope of gain, without the spur of glory, from every port +and harbour, from every creek and bay and inlet of our coasts comes the +patient, silent, heroic service of the men of the sea. + +And on many a hasty grave, in the shot-riddled mud of Flanders, or on +the barren beaches of Gallipoli or the ruined lands of Babylon, might +that poem of Sir Henry Newbolt's which he calls "April on Waggon Hill" +be set up as a fitting epitaph: + + "Lad, and can you rest now, + There beneath your hill? + Your hands are on your breast now, + But is your heart so still? + 'Twas the right death to die, lad, + A gift without regret, + But unless truth's a lie, lad, + You dream of Devon yet. + + "Ay, ay, the year's awaking, + The fire's among the ling, + The beechen hedge is breaking, + The curlew's on the wing; + Primroses are out, lad, + On the high banks of Lee, + And the sun stirs the trout, lad, + From Brendon to the sea. + + "I know what's in your heart, lad-- + The mare he used to hunt, + And her blue market-cart, lad, + With posies tied in front. + We miss them from the moor road, + They're getting old to roam, + The road they're on's a sure road + And nearer, lad, to home. + + "Your name, the name they cherish? + 'Twill fade, lad, 'tis true: + But stone and all may perish + With little loss to you. + While fame's fame you're Devon, lad, + The Glory of the West; + Till the roll's called in heaven, lad, + You may well take your rest." + + + + +CHAPTER II + +SOME LITERARY ASSOCIATIONS + +From Barnstaple to Dunster, and from Tiverton to Lynton, this beautiful +piece of country is peculiarly rich in literary associations. Nor is +this to be wondered at when we consider the variety and the loveliness +of the scenery, the great open, heathery wastes of Exmoor, the +wind-swept cliffs and highlands, the fair and luxuriant valleys where +the pure bright waters of these hill-fed streams flow through a green +tunnel of overarching trees, making a fertile paradise of flower and +fern in their course. And the magnificent bold rocks and forelands of +the coast, the streams broken into feathery spray falling down the +precipitous face of the cliffs, creek and gully and cave, the +wave-washed golden sands of the bays, or the line of foam fretting ever +at the foot of these granite crags. And beyond is the sea; from every +hilltop the eye turns to it, in the sheltered orchards the air is salt +with it, the thunder of its great breakers on the coast can be heard +far inland, an undercurrent beneath the singing of birds and the hum of +bees; it is never far from the eyes or from the mind, blue as faery +under a June sun, when the wheeling gulls are dazzling white flashes +above it, broken into greys and greens and purples by the sudden hail +of quick spring squalls, a heaving grey waste of waters under steady +rain, or a wild and elemental force, terrible and splendid, under the +fury of a gale. + +It is a land for poets and dreamers, a land to touch the fancy and stir +the imagination of men, a land of beauty and of adventure. + +It will not, therefore, be without interest to pick up thread after +thread by which the ports and hamlets, woods and waterfalls, are woven +into the history of our literature. + +[Illustration: Dunkerry Beacon] + +We find a trace, firstly, of the chief of poets and greatest name of +all--Shakespeare--in the municipal records of Barnstaple, where under +the date 1605 an entry records: "Geven to the Kynges players being in +the town this year xs." That is all, and Shakespeare is not named; but +we know that he was associated with the Kynges Players for many years, +and Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps, who is a well-known authority on this +subject, asserts that at this date Shakespeare was still one of the +company. It is a shadowy trace enough, but in view of the bare +outlines of the life and death of this man, whose name is almost +universal and whose history is almost completely obscure, we seize on +any tiny fact that may help to bring before us so wonderful a +personality. That Shakespeare was in Barnstaple, went up and down +Boutport Street, the old street that half encircles the town, running +"about the port," that he acted here, lodged here, if only for a week +or two, talked in the tavern and walked in the old town, with that +observant inner eye which noted the veriest detail of life, the swing +of a flower, the swallow under the eaves, the idiosyncrasy of dress or +gesture in the passers-by, and at the same time comprehended and +recorded the springs of action, the fumbling thoughts, the consciences, +the strivings, and the pretences, of the world of men and women that +moved around him--that Shakespeare was, once in his short and wonderful +life, actually in Barnstaple gives even to the most unreflective an +interest and a romance to this town. + +It was near Barnstaple, also, and during Shakespeare's lifetime, that +Thomas Westcote, gentleman, was born at Westcote, in the parish of +Marwood, in 1567. He wrote, towards the end of his life, a description +of the country called "A View of Devon," and a genealogy of the +principal families. It was not published until 1845, but is well +worthy of being preserved, not only for its antiquarian interest, as +being the earliest account of Devonshire, its agriculture and its +industries, but also for the pleasure of its quaint turns of phrase, +the ponderous classic authorities which he marshals to support a simple +fact--and there are indeed some strange wild-fowl among his +authorities--and above all for a gentle and unobtrusive humour which +seasons all the narrative. Westcote gives a list of the fish afforded +by the Devon seas (a very imperfect list by modern computation), and +adds: + +"It might be much more enlarged, but your server shall stand no longer +at the dresser, lest the first dish be stale ere the last come to the +table. Yet, notwithstanding, I will here confess that had you supped +with Aulus Gellius, the Roman Emperor, you might say my bill came much +too short; yea! by 1800; for as Suetonius, in lib. 9, and Josephus, +lib. 5, alledge, he was served at one meal with 2,000; (if you please +to believe there are so many species of fish;) but he had indeed a +large country to make his provision in, the whole then known +world. . . . But for the other supper of 7,000 divers kinds of fowls, +I will not undertake to name them here, nor in Africa, and Asia, with +all the assistance that Gesnerus can afford me." + +This is a style without hurry, indeed, in a peaceable rambling world, +and one can imagine Westcote, with his pointed beard and his tall hat +of the fashion of James I., taking a little walk in the afternoon sun +after having spent the morning with his quill-pen and his calf-bound, +close-printed classics--Suetonius, and Gesnerus, and Diodorus Siculus. +His book is interspersed with little rhymes, couplets or longer verses, +in the style of the "Arabian Nights" stories, and which George Meredith +in the "Shaving of Shagpat" has used with such quaint effect; on every +subject and for every statement Westcote has an authority and an +aphorism, whether it is of "Day labourers in Tin-works, and Hirelings +in Husbandry," of fishermen or merchantmen, of trade or +agriculture--"for, as Horace speaketh," says he, + + "Who much do crave, of much have need; + But well is he whom God indeed, + Though with a sparing hand, doth feed." + +Or again, speaking of "the commodities this country yields": + + "England hath store of bridges, hills, and wool, + Of churches, wells, and women beautiful." + + +He is no mere antiquarian, however, and quotes Chaucer and Robert of +Gloucester as well as Theocritus and Horace; he is seriously perturbed +at the decline of agriculture in Devonshire; in spite of the fertility +of the soil, he says, it yields insufficience of bread, beer, and +victual, to feed itself, for which the country has to have recourse to +Wales or Ireland, so much so that in 1610 there was 60,000 pounds of +corn brought into one harbour alone. The reason for this is the +increase in trades, so that . . . "the meanest sort of people will now +rather place their children to some of these mechanical trades than to +husbandry"; in spite, also, of the almost sacred character of +husbandry, which was clearly recognized in "elder times," so that even +the rudest and most savage peoples respected ploughmen and tillers of +the soil in time of war. He then quotes some melancholy verses of +Virgil, and gives the whole chapter a twist of humour by ending up +with--"But not a word of this in any case, especially that I told you +so; and we will proceed to the next and speak of mines." + +I will also "proceed to the next," and speak of Bishop Jewel, a +fellow-countryman of Westcote's, and one about whom he speaks in the +highest praise: "a perfect rich gem and true jewel indeed . . . so that +if anywhere the observation of Chrysostom be true, that there lies a +great hidden treasure in names, surely it may rightly be said to be +here: grace in John, and eminent perfection in jewel." + +John Jewel was born at Berrynarbor, near Ilfracombe, in 1522; he went +to Merton College, Oxford, where he had for tutor John Parkhurst, under +whom he early acquired a bent towards Protestantism. After the +accession of Mary he allowed himself, in a moment of weakness, to sign +an adherence to the Romish faith, but his recantation weighed upon his +conscience, he fled to the Continent, and there publicly withdrew it. +In the reign of Elizabeth he returned to England, and was one of the +Protestant doctors chosen to dispute before her at Westminster with a +like number of Catholic divines. He became Bishop of Salisbury in +1560, and held that office till his death in 1571. His chief work was +an "Apology for the Anglican Church"; and his chief opponent was Thomas +Harding, who was born at Comb Martin, the next parish, and who, like +Jewel, went to the grammar-school at Barnstaple in his early boyhood, +so that they were near neighbours and dear enemies. "As I cannot well +take a hair from your lying beard, so I wish I could pluck malice from +your blasphemous heart," says Harding to Jewel, in that savage personal +invective that religious controversialists have permitted themselves in +all ages. Jewel does not seem ever to have answered in this unworthy +strain, and the singular purity of his life, the sincerity of his +opinions, and a certain lovable quality to which all his contemporaries +bear witness, gave even his political adversaries a personal attachment +to him. "I should love thee, Jewel, wert thou not a Zwinglian," cries +one. "In thy faith thou art a heretic, but sure in the life thou art +an angel"--surely the most splendid tribute that a man can have, when +we consider the bitterness and animosity bred by a difference of +religious belief. To all who loved him--and it seems to have been his +whole generation--his name gave the opportunity of affectionate puns, +quips, and little epigrams; to Queen Elizabeth he was "my Jewel," and +the epitaph Westcote makes upon him is that of St. Gregory upon St. +Basil: "His words were thunder, and his life lightning," and his memory +"a fragrant sweet-smelling odour, blown abroad . . . throughout the +whole kingdom." + +We may find a lingering trace at Barnstaple, also, before going farther +north, of another eager spirit and earnest reformer, Shelley, whose +gift of poetry we accept, and whose quick courage we profit by, in a +world of thought where we breathe a little freer because of his efforts +and ideals, while we still despise or half shamefacedly apologize for +the strivings and struggles of his life. He prevailed upon Syle, a +printer of Barnstaple, to publish his "Letter to Lord Ellenborough," +which was in effect a violent and heated attack upon this Judge for the +sentence he had passed on the publisher of Tom Paine's "Age of Reason," +which was considered by Lord Ellenborough and that generation as a +dangerous and revolutionary document, subversive of the political +morals of the world. Those were the days of the French Revolution, and +it seemed to many, as honest as Shelley, that the whole social fabric +was threatening to crumble before the rising flood of anarchy, +bloodshed, and disorder. Syle was prevailed upon to withdraw the +greater number of copies--it speaks much for his courage and +convictions that he ever published it--and Shelley found it advisable +to leave Devon. + +For Shelley had been living at Lynton during the early days of his +ill-fated first marriage with the Harriet; the cottage where they lived +can still be seen, though much altered and modernized since the unhappy +young man and woman tried to work out together a means of right living +and mutual happiness, and made so tragic a failure of it. + +It was to Lynton, too, that Wordsworth, his sister Dorothy, and +Coleridge, came on a visit, and were so ravished by the beauty of the +place that they were nearly decided to settle here, and might have +founded a school of Devon poets instead of Lake poets. It was at +Lynton, also, that "The Ancient Mariner" was planned, to pay for the +expenses of the holiday, and was begun by Wordsworth and Coleridge +together, though there is actually very little of Wordsworth's work in +it, and the spirit of it, the air of mystery and the sense of brooding +elemental forces with which its simplest lines are somehow invested, +belongs to Coleridge alone, and to that strange genius of his, which +only twice or thrice in his life--in "Christabel," "The Ancient +Mariner," and "Kubla Khan"--produced poetry of inimitable, strange +beauty and wonder. + +If Lynton is beautiful now, with its new houses and hotels, and that +air of snugness that prosperity gives to places and persons, the poetic +appeal of its loveliness to Wordsworth and Coleridge can be well +imagined when only the low-browed, thatched little cottages clung to +the steep cliff-paths and clustered round the small harbour, and from +the surrounding heights and hills one looked down upon nothing but +green valleys, and from the valleys one looked up to the bare cliffs +and crags. + +Southey also was drawn to this corner of England by the fame of its +beauty; on one occasion, when walking across Exmoor, he was driven to +take refuge at Porlock from the heavy rain, and visitors to the Ship +Inn are still shown the corner by the wide old fireplace where the +poet, presumably, dried his knees and wrote the ode which begins with +the following inadequate description: + + "Porlock, thy verdant vale, so fair to sight, + Thy lofty hills, with fern and furze so brown, + Thy waters that so musical roll down + Thy woody glens, the traveller with delight + Recalls to memory, and the channel grey + Circling it, surging in thy level bay." + + +Then, George Eliot and Lewes discovered this north-west coast, and came +to Ilfracombe, with which they were delighted; and the unconventional +lady, with her broad-brimmed straw hat tied under her chin (in the days +when people wore bonnets), was soon a familiar enough figure, to be +seen scrambling over the rocks of the bay which is haunted by the +spirit of Tracy, or looking for seaweed and anemones in the clear +rock-pools at low-tide. Ilfracombe then, in the middle of the last +century, kept much of its original character as a seaport of +importance, which in its day had sent representatives to a shipping +council in the fourteenth century, had contributed six ships towards +the Siege of Calais--at a time when Liverpool was only of sufficient +size to send one--and had had enough strategical value to be the scene +of a projected French invasion under Napoleon. Already Ilfracombe was +beginning to be, however, what it now is pre-eminently, a "holiday +resort." It was patronized by royalty, and, following royalty, by "the +aristocracy and military," who came to enjoy the "overwhelming charms" +Nature poured forth here "with a tremendous and prolific grandeur which +we shall not pretend to describe," as Mr. Cornish mellifluously +exclaims in his "Rise and Progress of the Towns in North Devon." In +the seventies the present German Emperor, then Prince William of +Prussia, was sent here with his tutors; and there is a story, preserved +with great pride, of a fight on the beach between him and a +bathing-machine boy, at whose father's property the Prince was throwing +stones. An account of this historic battle is preserved in a doggerel +ballad, printed and sold locally, and composed Heaven knows where, +which is called "Tapping the War-Lord's Claret: Why Kaiser Bill hates +England." + + "When Kaiser Will'um was a y'uth + He com'd t' Combe one day, + And at the big hotel out there + He stopped on holiday. . . ." + + +He went bathing in Rapparee Cove, and when his tutors were out of sight +began blazing at the numbers on the boxes, though warned by "young +Alfie Price" not to; and after a wordy altercation the Kaiser knocked +down Alfie, who got up and went for him "just like a Devon bull." + + "He knacked the Kaiser on the nose, + And tapped the ry'al blid. . . ." + + +The tutors came up and intervened, and Alf was given thirty shillings +to keep the matter quiet; but Kaiser Bill swore implacable hate of the +English, because of the affront, built his Dreadnoughts and drilled his +army to avenge the insult of Rapparee Cove upon the English nation. + +Local publications are always, I think, of some interest, even when +they are as rough and simple a doggerel as the above; and there are two +magazines, printed and published at Barnstaple in the early years of +the nineteenth century, and which may be seen in the Athenaeum Library +of the town. They are the _Lundy Review_ and _The Cave_, and they +contain stories, poetry, puns, epigrams, acrostics, all with the mild, +faint flavour of a curate's tea-party in a cathedral town, and yet +invested with a kind of charm by the old-fashioned type, the yellowing +paper, and a small, dim picture--like the images of ourselves and our +furniture which we see in those old, round, diminishing mirrors--of the +life of a century ago. There is poetry of the Lake School fashion, +exhortations to Bideford and Woody Bay, to Lynton or "The Beauties of +Devon"; there is more poetry of the Byronic fashion, fierce and satiric +invective (yet never, be it understood, transgressing the bounds of +decency or good manners!) against the lady of the poet's affection; +there are stories, in which love and virtue triumph over temptation and +evil-doing; there is, of course, at least one story of a blind girl, +and one of a consumptive; there is much harmless punning, and in the +acrostics which the ladies of 1820 so much loved are fantastically +woven the names of the handsome young women of Barnstaple whose only +other record is now upon a tombstone. + +There is a strong tone of "patriotism," if by that we mean a dignified +contempt for foreign manners and customs, foreign thought and foreign +speech. I call to mind one article, where the writer is +good-humouredly but supremely contemptuous of the French, because of +their manner of pronouncing classical names. What can you expect of a +nation, says he, for whom Titus Livy is no better than a +"tom-tit-liv-ing" in a hedge, and Marcus Aurelius, the Emperor +philosopher, becomes "Mark O'Rail," a mere beggerly, abusive Irishman? + +This insularity of ours, which appears in a comic aspect in this +article in _The Cave_, continued throughout the nineteenth century, and +withstood the shock of the Crimea and the Indian Mutiny without +apparently being in any way shaken; it is breaking now, indeed, under +the humiliations of the South African War, when we were made to feel +our isolation in Europe, and under the stress of this greatest war of +all, when at last we feel and say that we are proud to stand with the +nations of the Continent in a common cause. + +But, in the nineteenth century, not only was our insular prejudice +extreme, but there was a pride in our very prejudice, which made it +seem hopelessly fixed and stultified. There is a trail of it through +all but the greatest writings of that time, Tennyson was not without +it, Charles Kingsley, Froude. . . . To the novel it became actually a +stock-in-trade, and as such it was used by Henry Kingsley in his novel +of "Ravenshoe." He was a younger brother of Charles, and his life was +as restless and adventurous as a novel. He was, besides being an +author, an explorer to the Australian goldfields--from which he came +back rich in observation of men and manners, but without having made a +pecuniary fortune--the editor of a paper, the _Edinburgh Daily Review_, +and a correspondent in the Franco-Prussian War. He was a prolific and +too hasty writer, but his novel of "Ravenshoe," whose scene is +principally laid on the northern strip of Somerset coast, bordering the +Bristol Channel, and which was his own favourite among his works, is +considered by many critics to reach a high level, and to stand +comparison with the work of his more famous brother. In the _Academy_ +of 1901 the following tribute to the book appeared under the initials +C.K.B.: "I first read 'Ravenshoe' at that period when absolute romance +and absolute fact have to live together; and very turbulent partners +they make. The appeal of the book was instant and permanent. Even +now, after a dozen years I cannot read the story unmoved. . . . Each +point holds me of old, by sheer force of its human presentation, its +resourceful dialogue, its unwearied vitality." + +I first read "Ravenshoe" in this year of 1917, and to me the world +seems to have travelled so far since its publication in 1862, that its +aims, its ideals, and its point of view, are hardly credible. Through +it all runs that facile spirit of optimism which seems to me to have +distinguished much of the thought of the mid-Victorian era, that air of +"All is for the best in this best of all possible worlds," that insular +pride of which I have been speaking, but which to us now appears the +narrowest and worst form of parochialism, a certainty that English +beef, English beer, English morals, and English standards, were the +ultimate excellence towards which a world of misguided foreigners might +ultimately aspire, that self-satisfaction, different from pride, that +glorying in prejudice, and wilful blindness to all features of national +life which do not bear out the theory of an earthly paradise. "Tell me +one thing, Lord Saltire; you have travelled in many countries. Is +there any land, east or west, that can give us what this dear old +England does--settled order, in which each man knows his place and his +duties? It is so easy to be good in England." + +"Well, no. It is the first country in the world. A few bad harvests +would make a hell of it, though." + +This was written at a time, remember, when the invention of machinery, +the rapid growth of industrialism, and the increasing mobility of the +population of the world, had broken down the old order of things, had +created large fortunes and reduced thousands to destitution; when men +poured into cities and lived crowded and unhealthy in slums, when the +opening phase of the grim battle between employer and employed was +fought, when trade-unionism was wrested from an unwilling Government, +when housing regulations, health regulations, and poor-laws, were +incapable of dealing with the wars of misery, poverty, and sickness, +they were designed to meet, when little by little vested interests and +class prejudices were brought before the judgment of reason and found +wanting--it was in such a period of our national history that Harry +Kingsley could write of "settled order, in which each one knows his +place and his duties." + +This attitude of mind is characteristic of a whole school of +mid-Victorian novelists, and George Meredith--whose earliest novel, +"Richard Feverel," was published about this date--broke many a lance +against it, and scolded us and laughed at us, and upset our dignified +conception of ourselves, and sometimes, in his irritable affection for +his countrymen, took a bludgeon to us, and broke our heads. + +I find it also in another and much greater novel, to attack which in a +book dealing with this corner of Devon and Somerset is indeed a sort of +_lèse-majesté_--for, to most people, who says "Exmoor" says "Lorna +Doone." + +Yet rereading the book in these present days--and even amid the scenes +whose beauty and whose character Blackmore has so firmly reproduced--I +find the parochialism, the self-satisfaction, and the prejudice, which +lumps the whole un-English world, with its revolutions, and ideals, and +racial problems, under one heading, as "dam-furriners." John Ridd is +English, therefore he despises what is not English; he is rather +stupid, therefore he despises intellect. "She was born next day with +more mind than body--the worst thing that can befall a man," he says of +his sister Eliza. He is a man, so, at the last stage of +self-satisfaction, he despises what is not man--woman. "Now I spoke +gently to Lorna, seeing how much she had been tried; and I praised her +for her courage, in not having run away, when she was so unable; and my +darling was pleased with this. . . . But you may take this as a +general rule, that a woman likes praise from the man she loves, and +cannot stop always to balance it." "But he led me aside in the course +of the evening, and told me all about it; saying that I knew, as well +as he did, that it was not women's business. . . . Herein I quite +agreed with him, because I always think that women, of whatever mind, +are best when least they meddle with things that appertain to men." As +the matter under discussion was a question of their all having their +throats cut by the Doones, and the farm being burnt over their heads, +it seems to us to have been, at least in some slight degree, the +women's business. + +The hero of "Ravenshoe," Charles, is of the same type, though not drawn +with the firmness of touch with which Blackmore depicts John Ridd, and +which makes him indeed a living personality to us, even if one to +quarrel with. + +Charles Ravenshoe is of the type which for many years we have striven +to present to the contemplation of the outside world as the perfect +Englishman. He is a bluff, hearty fellow, without serious vices, +without, also, serious virtues; he has, of course, a perfect +self-satisfaction, and a deep and unconscious selfishness, tempered by +an easy good-nature and a superficial benevolence, of wishing to get on +well with everybody, and to see everybody round him comfortable. He is +without ideals or spiritual aims, and has a contemptuous tolerance for +them, as in the case of his brother Cuthbert, who is deeply religious +and desirous of entering a monastery, and yet is held by the +temptations of the world, so that his mind is a continual striving and +renunciation. Charles's relationship with the lady of his choice may +be gauged by the following: "How is Adelaide?" asks his adopted sister. +"Adelaide is all that the fondest lover could desire," he answers. Did +the Englishmen of the nineteenth century really talk like that about +their dearest and most intimate affairs? + +And yet here is John Ridd, the accepted lover of Lorna, an honest, +clumsy, self-satisfied couple of yards of a man, for whom she has to be +properly grateful in a world of villains, and yet, for my part, I can +never look upon her marriage with him as other than a _mésalliance_. + +Of course, it must be understood, even by those who most violently +disagree with me, that these strictures are passed, not upon +Blackmore's novel, but upon the spirit of the age which made John Ridd +the hero of such a novel, the spirit which in the dress of "John Bull" +has insistently presented our less attractive qualities to the outside +world as the true Englishman, and which has been, by the outside world, +adopted and disliked; while such admirable traits as sincerity, +disinterestedness, and self-criticism, have been neglected by us and +ignored by them. + +For the novel itself it is difficult to have anything but praise. The +admirable sense of locality, and the art with which Blackmore has so +identified his persons of fiction with actual places till we no longer +disassociate them, but in the church of Oare, or the Doone Valley, or +Porlock, or Badgeworthy Water, think and speak of Lorna and John Kidd +as if they had had an actual existence; the firm and lively drawing of +the lesser characters, the charming pastoral scenes of the life on the +Ridds' farm, the really magnificent descriptions of the scenery of +Exmoor, and a particular gift of narrative, all place this novel of +Blackmore's on a high level in the literature of the nineteenth +century. His other novel, of which the scene is laid on this coast, is +"The Maid of Sker," less well known and of less artistic weight, but of +interest to anyone visiting the country between Barnstaple and Lynton, +and containing a particularly vivid account of old Barnstaple Fair. + +[Illustration: The Doone Valley] + +I have spoken of Henry Kingsley's novel "Ravenshoe," and it is +impossible to write of the literary associations of this district +without mention of his elder and more famous brother; for though +"Westward Ho!" deals with Bideford and its adjacent villages of +Appledore and Northam--it was at the latter village that Amyas Leigh +lived with his mother---and this book elects to deal only with the +country from Barnstaple northwards and westwards, yet Charles Kingsley +is the presiding local deity and guardian spirit, who has loved and +lived in and written in praise of the many beautiful spots, cliff and +cove, or valley and orchard, from the boundaries of Cornwall to +Somerset. + +The family of Kingsley, also, is intimately connected with many of the +families of these villages. The Rev. J. R. Chanter, Vicar of +Parracombe, married a Miss Kingsley. He himself is the author of a +short monograph on Lundy, a book which is now very scarce, but which +can be seen at the London Library, at the Bideford Public Library, and +at the Athenaeum at Barnstaple. The Kingsleys and the Chanters are +closely connected through two generations, and the strain of authorship +seems to persist in them, one member after another displaying an +exceptional talent. Miss Vallings, the young author of a quickly +celebrated novel, "Bindweed," is a granddaughter of Mr. Chanter, and a +grandniece of Kingsley's; and the bold and original writer "Lucas +Mallet" is Canon Kingsley's daughter, and a niece of Henry Kingsley. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +BARNSTAPLE + +Barnstaple is a pleasant English country town, with that air of +cleanliness and quiet prosperity, of excellent sanitation and odd +historic corners, side by side with big new modern buildings and +exquisite green gardens where the old gnarled apple-trees are afroth with +blossom in the spring, which is the peculiar flavour of an English +country town. The incongruity is the charm; you step from a modern +drapery store, with a respectable display of plate-glass, on to the clean +narrow pavement, and find yourself looking down a small dark passage +opposite, into a sunny paved court, where the houses are cream-washed, +and the roofs are atilt in odd delicious angles, and the casement windows +have still the old diamond panes of Elizabeth's day, and the sun lies +slanting across the pots of wallflower, and the small boys play marbles +as they played marbles there when the Armada sailed. Barnstaple is a +thriving little modern town, but it has many such charming scenes to the +visitor with an observant eye--a narrow cobbled street, with an irregular +sag of gabled houses either side, the cream and rose-coloured walls +mellow and sunny in the late afternoon, or a cluster of really beautiful +half-timbered houses of the sixteenth century, with carved oak doorposts +and beam-ends, such as those which are known as Church Row, and stand +back from the road, between Boutport Street, and the High Street, by St. +Peter's Church and St. Anne's Chapel. St. Peter's Church, which stands +between these two main streets in the very centre of the town, is of the +fourteenth century, and has a fine leaded spire, considered to be one of +the finest in Europe, which the nineteenth century was anxious to +abolish, and replace by a western tower of the more ordinary type. +Fortunately Sir Gilbert Scott was called in to restore the church, and +refused to have a hand in destroying the spire, so the old parish church +stands as it was built, but with its spire drawn curiously out of the +perpendicular by the action of the sun's rays on the lead. + +Within a few yards of St. Peter's stands the grammar-school, where Bishop +Jewel and his neighbour and enemy, Thomas Harding, went to school in the +early sixteenth century, and the poet Gay in the beginning of the +eighteenth. It was originally a chapel of St. Anne, and became a +grammar-school on the suppression of the chantries by Henry VIII. The +upper part of the building dates from 1450, but the crypt is much older, +and it is conjectured to be a Saxon foundation. The beauty of these +buildings--the church, the grammar-school, and the old houses--consists +so greatly in their surroundings, in the green of the grass and the +unfolding chestnut-trees against the old grey stone, the twinkle of +blossom by the angle of a house, and the soft sky of Devon above, that it +is difficult to reproduce; it is a beauty of atmosphere rather than of +outline, of sentiment and association. + +I like, too, this lack of the "picturesque cult" which one finds in these +English towns; the beautiful is allowed always to be the useful, and the +family washing hangs on a line outside many a Tudor house as easily as in +a London slum. In Boutport Street--that old street that runs more than +halfway round Barnstaple, "about the port"--stands the Golden Lion Hotel, +which was formerly the town house of the Earl of Bath, and was enriched +in the seventeenth century by most beautiful moulded plaster ceilings and +fireplaces, made by Italian craftsman who were brought over from Italy. +The front of the building has been altogether modernized, but much of the +beautiful decorated interior work remains, to enrich the rooms where the +many unseeing visitors take their meals. The Trevelyan Hotel, in the +High Street, which presents to the street a most unpretentious exterior, +and where, indeed, the principal rooms are the Victorian of Dickens, with +ugly curtains and carpets, wall-papers and furniture, Victorian pictures, +and Victorian bronzes on the coffee-room mantlepiece, has treasures +hidden away up its dark staircases and in its cheaper and more modest +bedrooms--defaced and disregarded, alas!--an Italian ceiling of fine +scroll-work cut in half by a partition boarding, and a fine mantlepiece, +with figures in relief, being built half over, and gas-jets thrust +through the moulding. They showed me a great open hearth, with decorated +mantle, which must have been that of the dining-room; at present the room +is used for lumber. Half of it has been pulled down to build a +staircase, and the low casement windows are blocked by a lean-to +coalshed, making the room so dark that I could barely see the plaster +modelling of the wall. + +This, I confess, is a vandalism, but I still consider it as the necessary +penalty we pay for not putting all the treasures of our past into +museums, labelling them neatly--and never looking at them. + +The Penrose Almshouses in Litchdon Street, a beautiful small quadrangle, +with a low colonnade surmounted by an ornamented lead gutter and steep +dormer windows in a red-tiled roof, are still kept to their old uses. +They stand the wear and tear of time as well as its mellowing, and, like +language, if they are here and there vulgarized by the usage of every +day, without it they would be a dead language. + +Queen Anne's Walk, overlooking the river, and close to the town station, +is a small colonnade of the Renaissance style, which is most familiar to +us in the architecture of Bath; it has an outlandish look, with its +classical lines seen against the background of the smooth river and green +Devonshire country, and has not the homely charm of Elizabethan or Stuart +building. + +It has, however, its peculiar beauty; it is suggestive of red-heeled +shoes and powder, and an artificial world of beaux and belles. It must +have been a pleasant enough place to walk in, until the railway came +between it and the river, and its earlier name of the Merchants' Walk (or +the Exchange) gives more of its character than its present name. + +One must beware, however, in the present popular quest for the "antique," +of overlooking the beauty of modern things; the market, for instance, +which is a vast rectangular building standing on the High Street, has a +strange and individual charm when you come into it out of the glare of +the white street. The windows are fitted with light green glass, which +gives a sort of ghostly twilight to its bare spaciousness, with heavy +masses of gloom among the pillars of the flanking colonnade. It has no +pretence to artistic ornament of any kind; it was built for a specific +purpose, which it answers admirably, and when it is crowded with stalls +on market-days, and noisy with buyers and sellers, it is a scene of +bustle and movement which would arouse the enthusiasm of a traveller if +he came upon it in some distant city of the East, though the difference +of language and costume is all there is between the two. But when it is +empty, with its bare walls and bare floor and high dark roof, sun and +shadow make from it a beauty which it is worth a moment's pause and +stepping aside to see. + +The Athenaeum, also, which stands in the open space at the head of the +Long Bridge, which is a noble structure of the thirteenth century, is a +modern building, endowed by the late Mr. Rock, and possessing one of the +best libraries in Devonshire. It is a plain, unpretentious building; on +the ground-floor a geological museum, very useful for a student--for it +contains a complete collection of Devonian rocks and fossils--and the +library upstairs. Sitting there on a summer afternoon, and seeing +through the open windows the smooth sunlit curve of the river below, and +the gentle slope of wooded hills beyond, the Athenaeum has a charm--that +charm of weather and daily custom--which architectural description fails +to convey for any building, whether it is the Parthenon or a farm-house. +Without it, places lack their intimate personality, as photographs lack +the personality of men and women. My memory of the Athenaeum Library is +of the familiar, slightly musty smell of books, of the faint creaking of +the librarian's boots, and the hum of bees and the whirr of a mowing +machine, of the smell of an early summer afternoon, the white glare of +the North Walk stretching beside the river, and the reflection of +anchored boats, very perfect on the still water. + +Barnstaple is a very ancient borough; it is spoken of in the Devonshire +Domesday as one of the four "burghs" of Devon, and as early as the reign +of Henry I, before the election of Mayors had become part of English +municipal life, it was entitled to elect a chief magistrate for its own +government. It was a fortified place under the Saxon Kings, and a large +grass-grown mound in the centre of the town (near the town station) marks +the site of Athelstan's castle. Athelstan is supposed to have come to +Barnstaple in the early tenth century, when he was engaged in driving the +British out of Devonshire, beyond the River Tamar, which marks the +boundary between Devon and Cornwall for the greater part; and this was +only done by him, Westcote affirms, after he had exhausted every means of +gentleness and clemency. The Taw, the Torridge, the Tamar, and the Tavy, +all comprise some form of the same syllable, "Taw"; and "Tamar" is a +corruption of "Taw-meer," which Westcote takes to mean the +river-boundary, "Taw" occurring in the names of the four principal rivers +"of these parts." + +There was a Saxon church at Barnstaple, probably on the site of the +present parish church of St. Peter's, and the tithes were given to the +Abbey of Malmesbury. The original ecclesiastic seal bore the seated +figure of King Athelstan. After the Conquest the barony of Barnstaple +(which comprised the church) was given to Judhael of Totnes; from him it +passed to the famous family of Tracy, from them to the Martins (whose +name remains in the little village of Martinshoe, near Lynton), and from +them, again, to the Audleys. + +It was a Lord Audley who distinguished himself so greatly in the Battle +of Poitiers, and, as his family were then in possession of Barnstaple, it +appears that the town changed hands frequently in the first three hundred +years after the Conquest. The story told of Lord Audley is that he had +made a vow that he would strike the first stroke in a battle for Edward +III or for his son, and that at Poitiers he fought with such desperate +courage in the forefront of the battle that he was carried off the field +severely wounded. After the battle the Black Prince inquired after him, +and was told that he lay wounded in a litter. "Go and know if he may be +brought hither, or else I will go and see him where he is," said the +Prince; so Audley had his litter taken up by eight of his servants, who +carried him to the Prince's tent. The Prince took him in his arms, and +kissed him, and praised him for the best and most valiant Knight of all +that had fought that day, nor, though the wounded Knight disclaimed it, +would he admit of any refusal, but gave him a yearly grant of 500 marks +out of his own inheritance. Lord Audley, being carried back to his own +tent, summoned his four esquires and divided the gift among them. The +Black Prince, presently hearing of this, had Sir James once more brought +before him, and asked if he did not consider the gift worthy of his +acceptance, or for what other reason he had so disposed of it. + +"Sire," said the Knight, "these four esquires have a long time well and +truly served me in many great dangers, and at this present especially, in +such wise that, if they had never done anything else, I was bound unto +them, and ere this time they had never anything of me in reward; and, +Sire, you know I was but one man alone, but by the courage, aid, and +comfort of them I took on me to accomplish my vow; and certainly I had +been dead in the battle had they not holpen me and endured the brunt of +the day. Wherefore, whenas nature and duty did oblige me to consider the +love they bear me, I should have showed myself too much ungrateful if I +had not rewarded them . . . but whereas I have done this without your +licence, I humbly crave pardon. . . ." + +The Black Prince once more embraced him, praised him for his generosity +as much as for his valour, and granted him a further 600 marks in place +of what he had given away. + +I have transcribed this episode because it seems to me a pretty tale of +chivalry, of valour and courtesy, of generosity and noble, if fantastic, +ideals. + +Under King Athelstan's rule Barnstaple was governed by two Bailiffs, "one +for the King to collect his duties, the other for the town to receive +their customs." Under Henry I it was granted a charter, which was +confirmed by John and enlarged by Elizabeth. + +The earliest industries of the town seem to have been pottery and +weaving; the pottery has always been of the cheaper, coarser kind, and +although some attempt was made at the close of the last century, when the +industry was revived, to bring it to a higher artistic level of colour +and glaze, it still, to my mind, continues mediocre, and has neither the +highly finished beauty of such work as the Ruskin pottery, nor the +genuinely simple lines or colouring of "peasant pottery," such as that +from Quimperle in Brittany. The Barum ware has a sort of bourgeois +mediocrity between these two different types, and there is room for a +bold innovator to reform the present models and methods. It is a pity, +perhaps, that he has not yet arisen, for a local industry of this kind +adds greatly to the vitality of a town. + +Of the weaving industry, what Westcote calls "lanificium," "the skill and +knowledge of making cloth, under which genus are contained the species of +spinning, knitting, weaving, tucking, pressing, dying, carding, combing +and such-like," we have records from the twelfth century; though until +the reign of Edward IV only friezes and plain coarse cloth were made. In +Edward's reign an Italian, "Anthony Bonvise," is reputed to have taught +Barnstaple the making of fine "kersies," and spinning with a distaff; +doubtless this was looked upon by the older generation of conservatives +as a deterioration to luxury and soft living; they would hark back to the +standards of a simpler age, when a King's breeches cost him no more than +three shillings, and "friezes" would be good enough for the noblest. For +Robert of Gloucester, in his Chronicle, tells us of King William Rufus: + + "As his chamberlain him brought, as he rose a day, + A morrow for to wear, a pair hose of say, + He asked what they costned; three shillings said the other. + 'Fie, a devil,' quoth the King, 'who say so vile deed? + King to wear any cloth, but it costned more: + Buy a pair of a mark, or thou shalt be acorye sore.' + A worse pair of ynou the other sith him brought, + And said they were for a mark, and unnethe so he bought. + 'Yea, bel ami,' quoth the King, 'they be well bought; + In this way serve me, or thou ne shalt serve me not.'" + + +It was King Stephen, I believe, + + "who was a luckless clown; + His breeches cost him half a crown;" + +but King Stephen had to contend with rebellion and civil war the whole of +his unhappy reign, so doubtless popular sentiment would assign him a +smaller share of the world's goods than King William Rufus. + +In Westcote's time, in the early seventeenth century, the wool that was +worked here in Devon was brought from all over England--Dorset, +Gloucester, Wales, London, and also Ireland; and clothmaking had become +so large an industry that agriculture had suffered considerably. "And +every rumour of war or contagious sickness . . . makes a multitude of the +poorer sort chargeable to their neighbours, who are bound to maintain +them . . . the meanest sort of people also will now rather place their +children to some of these mechanical trades than to husbandry, whereby +husbandry-labourers are more scarce, and hirelings more dear than in +former times." + +[Illustration: Woody Bay and Duty Point, West Lynton] + +This little passage in Westcote is, I think, of great interest, as +showing the difficulties which had already arisen in the time of James I, +with the extension of industry, which must always flourish at the expense +of agriculture, and which seems to tend, nevertheless, both to personal +and to national prosperity. + +It is a problem for which we have not yet found a solution, and at the +present time it comes before us with especial vividness and force. +Westcote gives a list of the various fabrics that are made in Devon; some +of them seem to be materials no longer in use, from the unfamiliarity of +the names. Exeter manufactured serges, both fine and coarse; Crediton +(the famous locality of the burning of Crediton Barns, in the Middle +Ages) made kersies; and Totnes a stuff called "narrow pin-whites," which +is, I believe, a coarse, loosely woven white material; Barnstaple and +Torrington were noted for "bays," single and double (perhaps of the same +texture as our modern baize), and for "frizados"; and Pilton, adjacent to +Barnstaple, was notorious rather than celebrated for the making of cotton +linings, so cheap and coarse a stuff that a popular "vae" or "woe" was +locally pronounced against them. "Woe unto you, Piltonians, that make +cloth without wool!" + +It was in the woollen trade that the family of De Wichehalse, afterwards +so intimately connected with Lynton, made the fortune that enabled them +to become one of the leading houses of Barnstaple, and to acquire the +beautiful estate near Lynton, which is now known as Lee Abbey. It may, +perhaps, be of interest to the "curious-minded" to give an inventory of +his shop, taken in 1607 at the death of Nicholas de Wichehalse, who had +married Lettice, the daughter of the Mayor of Barnstaple. + +The following are the chief items of the inventory, collected from +manuscript records by Mr. Chanter for the Devonshire Association: + + 182 yds. of coloured bays at . . . . . . 1s. 4d. a yd. + 49 " kersey at . . . . . . . . . . . 2s. 4d. " + broadcloth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8s. 0d. " + 147 yds. of coarse grey ffrize at . . . 11d. " + buffyns in remnants (whatever + they may be!) . . . . . . . . . . L1 9s. 4d. + Also lace, silk, black velvet, broad taffeta, leaven taffeta + . . . and 5 small boxes of marmalade. + + +Mr. Chanter conjectures that this last item is marmalade, and can read it +as nothing else, though he was not aware that it was a preserve of Queen +Elizabeth's time, nor why, even if it were, it should be in De +Wichehalse's shop. + +It was the prosperity of the De Wichehalses, the Salisburys, the +Deamonds, and other enterprising merchants, which beautified the town +with public buildings, almshouses, and their private residences--for the +enrichment of which, as I have already stated, Italian workmen were +brought over--and the seventeenth century was the time of the town's +greatest importance and prosperity, when Barnstaple traded with Virginia +and the West Indies, the Spaniards in South America and on the Continent. +The Customs receipts show a very great import of tobacco, and there was a +considerable manufacture of pipes, as a branch of local pottery. "The +Exchange," or "the Merchants' Walk," as Queen Anne's Walk was then +called, before it was rebuilt, must have witnessed the inception of many +a venture, been paced by many an anxious foot when the weather was bad +and the returning ship was long overdue, and seen many a bargain struck +by richly dressed merchants, with pointed beards lying over their ruffs, +gravely smoking their pipe of "Virginny" over the deal. + +That picturesqueness of dress and custom has passed away, but Barnstaple +is still a prosperous and pleasant city, lying on the sleek curve of the +River Taw, and surrounded by low smooth hills. Seen from the opposite +side of the river on a spring afternoon, from the steep road that leads +to Bishop's Tawton over Codden Hill, it has a fair aspect. The tall +modern Gothic tower of Holy Trinity stands out commandingly above the +clustered roofs by the river, and beyond the town, which is small enough, +seen from this height, to come within a single glance, lie the green and +fertile fields, and gentle, wooded hills. The road to Bishop's +Tawton--which was formerly an episcopal seat of the Bishops of Exeter--is +a typical Devonshire road, steep and stony, with high green banks and +hedges, which, on such an afternoon in spring, are starred with primroses +and clumps of dog-violets, celandines and wild-anemones, and wonderfully +green. It climbs from the London and South-Western Station, after +crossing the great thirteenth-century bridge from the Square, and within +a few minutes all signs of a town have dropped away, and we are in the +country of fields and farms. In less than a mile, indeed, we come upon +an old fortified farm; the massive whitewashed wall, three feet thick, +rises steeply from the hilly road. At one corner a giant yew has thrust +out part of the wall with its knotted roots, which are so huge that some +recent owner of the farm has cut a little summer house out of them, with +a thatched roof. The dwelling part of the farm faces this way, and, +being built on the hillside above the road, I catch only a glimpse of +steep gables and tall brick chimneys; but I looked in the open gateway of +the cobbled yard, and saw the great thatched barns, and the massive white +walls which surrounded them. The rear of the farm presented an almost +blank surface, save for one small door, which was open, a sudden black +oblong of shadow in the mellow whiteness. A cat sat cleaning itself in +the mild sunshine; otherwise there was no life nor movement. It looked +an enchanted place. + +Farther on I came to a fork of the road, where a little stream ran +swiftly past the thatched and whitewashed cottages, their tiny gardens +profusely bright with flowers--hyacinths, daffodils, forget-me-nots, and +the deep red of climbing japonica. In one of them an old woman in a pink +sunbonnet was leaning on a stick gossiping with a neighbour, while two or +three sunburned children with yellow hair were dabbling in a brook. It +was idyllically and typically English, that ideal England of artists +which is dreamed of and loved by the sons and daughters of the Colonies, +who, thinking of "home" which they have never seen, think of such a scene +of verdant and homely peace. + +Just beyond was a great barrow, a steep green mound perhaps twenty feet +high, with a little cottage beside it, and the small garden encroaching +on its green sides. I asked a child what she knew about it, wondering if +some local legend still lingered round the spot; but she told me "they +had dug a pond, beyond there, and this was the earth they had thrown up." +I did not explain to her the unlikeliness of such a heavy undertaking, +with a clear stream running by, but went on, wondering what British +chieftain or maraudering Dane lay buried under that great mound, awaiting +the last trump. + +Bishop's Tawton is said to have been the seat of the Saxon Bishops of +Devon, established here in the tenth century; a farm now occupies the +site of the old episcopal palace, but the church is Perpendicular, and +the only Saxon remains I could discover was the base of a stone Saxon +cross in the churchyard. On the opposite bank of the river is Tawstock +church, standing in the grounds of Sir Bourchier Wrey, and close to his +house. The church is built on rising ground, and set round by trees in +which rooks have built; clamorous and noisy, they fly round and round the +old grey tower morning and evening. When the October gales are tossing +the trees, and the rain-clouds are gathering on the hills their cawing +has a sound of ill-omen, which makes them seem the unresting and +malignant spirits of those fierce lords of the Dark Ages, evil-doers and +unrepentant. + +From Barnstaple to Lynton there are several methods of travel. Either +one may take train to Ilfracombe, and there take coach, following the +coast-road through Watermouth, Lydford, Combe Martin, Trentishoe, and the +Hunter's Inn, twenty miles of the most magnificent coast scenery in +England; or, if one has the courage to take pack on back, one may walk +it, past Watermouth Castle, and the tiny land-locked harbour beneath, +which was said by Kingsley to be the safest harbour on this coast, smooth +and sheltered always, however high the seas are running outside; past the +tiny village of Lydford, which bears the same name and reminds one of the +seventeenth-century poem of "Lydford Law," though the poem was written of +the town on the Lyd, near Tavistock. But here are a couple of verses: + + "Oft have I heard of Lydford law, + How in the morn they hang and draw, + And sit in judgment after. + At first I wondered at it much, + But since I find the matter such + As it deserves no laughter. + + "They have a castle on a hill; + I took it for some old wind-mill + The vanes blown off by weather. + To lie therein one night 'tis guessed + 'Twere better to be stoned or pressed + Or hanged, ere you come thither." + + +"Lydford law" and "Jedburgh justice" seem equally to have been synonyms +for arbitrary and summary punishment. + +But, leaving this digression, we proceed on our way, past Berrynarbor and +the old farm of Bowden, where Bishop Jewel was born, and the beautiful +church where he was baptized, with its great Perpendicular tower, built +of red and grey sandstone, rising above the wooded combe, and its old +lich-gate, set in the thickness of the churchyard wall, and almost hidden +by the luxuriant summer foliage; past Combe Martin, famous for its +ancient silver-mines rather than its beauty, yet with a very beautiful +church, with a Perpendicular tower even higher than that of Berrynarbor, +soaring above the sheltering elms, and throwing its long shadow across +the stream which curves round the church-yard among the old yew-bushes--a +church worth stepping aside to see, with a fine carved oak screen in the +interior, of the fifteenth century, the doors of the screen made in such +a way that they will not entirely close, in order to show plainly forth +to all sinners that the gates of heaven are always open; past Martinhoe +village, which was the scene of one of the most cruel and cold-blooded of +all the Doone murders, when they carried off the wife of Christopher +Badcock, a small tenant farmer, and, in rage at finding nothing in the +poor home but a little bacon and cheese, murdered her baby in a fit of +senseless brutality, reciting over it this couplet: + + "If any man asketh who killed thee, + Say 'twas the Doones of Bagworthy." + +And so we come to Heddon's Mouth, and of the seven miles from there to +Lynton I shall speak in the next chapter. + +[Illustration: The Shepherd's Cottage, Doone Valley] + +But the twenty miles of hilly road may prove too much even for good +walkers, and as the coach service between Ilfracombe and Lynton is +suspended at present, owing to the war, it is best to take the little +narrow-gauge railway that runs from Barnstaple to Lynton. There might be +many more unfavourable ways, too, of seeing this stretch of country. The +narrow line twists and winds across the hills, seeming to hang, +sometimes, on a tiny viaduct, while many feet below a mountain stream +pours down its rocky bed, and, owing to the narrowness of the gauge and +the steepness of the gradients, the train progresses hardly quicker than +a horse-drawn carriage, and one has leisure and opportunity to observe +all that one is passing. + +From Barnstaple to Chelfham the railway runs along the valley of the Yeo, +through the woodyards and past the whitewashed cottages of the town, and +then alongside of the river itself. This valley is most beautiful. I +came through it on a hot afternoon in spring. Just beside me ran the +clear brown water, breaking into swirls and eddies over the white stones; +on my right hand the hills rose, steeply wooded, with the lovely and +various colours of many trees, the rich brown of the yet unopened +beech-buds, the black buds of the ash, the twisted grey of alders, the +green of hawthorn, and yet more vivid green of early larches, the +delicate silver of palm, the bare branches of oak; on my left hand lay +the rich green pasture of the valley, and beyond the bare hills, brown in +the afternoon sunshine. Ten minutes away from Barnstaple Station, and I +saw a hawk hovering above the hillside, so quickly do the signs of +habitation drop away among these hills and valleys. + +We leave the valley of the Yeo, and climb the steep gradients to Bratton +Fleming and Blackmoor Gate, across the wind-swept open moors, bare and +brown in the afternoon sunshine. Fold behind fold lies the countryside +in great brown curves, here a cluster of trees in a sheltered valley, +there a lonely farm; sometimes a group of whitewashed buildings under +thatched roofs, more often a bleak granite building, built to withstand +the buffeting of winter storms, grey amid its setting of bare grey +ash-trees or twisted grey alders, with the brown hills behind and the +brilliant blue of the sky overhead. The air here is keen and brilliant; +there is an edge to all outlines, and a keenness to all colours, which +the softer and more humid air of sheltered country does not give. The +yellow of the primroses which cluster thickly in hollow and on bank has a +brilliance and delicacy which I have never seen in valley primroses, and +I cannot describe the exquisite clear rose of apple-blossom, above the +gnarled and twisted grey trunk, seen against this background of sombre +brown and dun, and the penetrating blue of moorland sky. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +LYNTON + +And so, round a spur of the hills, and high above the wooded gorges of +the West Lyn, we come to Lynton. + +It lies upon the north-western slope of a hill, deep among trees; the +few houses and hotels--which is all that it consists of--seem to have +their roots stuck deep into the ground, while their tall chimneys soar +above the tree-tops. If you are freakish-minded, indeed, you may pitch +cherry-stones down your neighbour's chimneys, for the houses stand one +atop of each other, clustering along the North Walk, which is cut round +the side of the cliff; some built high above the road, with steep green +banks of laurel and glossy dark myrtle; some built below it, so that as +you walk the chimney-pots and tall pointed gables lie within touching +distance of your hand. It is curiously unfamiliar to see houses from +such an angle, a perspective of the roofs, with the windows and doors +become unimportant; it is an aeroplane view of the world, or perhaps, +more properly, a bird's view, for you may pause and poise to look down +on Lynton and Lynmouth as no aeroplane at present can. + +[Illustration: Lynmouth Bay and Foreland] + +The stony white road from the station and from Lynmouth struggles up +the hill to a small open space--what in any Italian hill-town would be +called a piazza, though it is only a few score feet in extent--opposite +the church and the Valley of Rocks Hotel. This, I believe, is the only +level spot in the village, save a club tennis-ground, which has been +levelled out of the hillside, for the few shops or houses run +precipitately down the little side-streets, or up towards the top of +Hollerday Hill. It is also the original site of the old village of +Lynton, when it had no fame as a holiday resort, and barely a history, +being left alone on its lofty cliff, as of no special value to anyone; +for, although the present parish church is partly Perpendicular and +partly of a later date, while the chancel is modern, it stands upon the +foundations of a small earlier church, which, surrounded by a few poor +cottages, with walls of cob and roof of thatch, a rough ladder leading +to a sort of loft, which was the sleeping apartment of all the family, +and a little patch of herb garden in front of each, comprised the +village of Lynton when we find it first, in the thirteenth century, +mentioned as a parish in the "valor" of Pope Nicholas. + +Below it, then as now, lay the small fishing village of Lynmouth--or +Leymouth, as it was formerly called--a similar group of rude small +cottages, clustered in isolation, with the sea before and the great +moors behind, the people subsisting chiefly on coarse bread, salted +meat, and fish--often stale fish, for fish was the one thing of value +that Lynmouth yielded, and that would go to some representative of Ford +Abbey, under whose rule Lynton and Lynmouth came. Yet it should surely +have been easy, with a little help and instruction, to have grown many +varieties of vegetable food, for flowers grow in abundance, and +evergreens grow to a great size and beauty, while the variety of trees +is remarkable--larch, chestnut, sycamore, oak, ash and birch, elm and +beech, showing the fertility of the soil and the temperateness of the +climate, in spite of the seaward position of the village. + +But it is not the history of Lynton, nor its old associations, which +calls us to it, but its beauty entirely. Stand upon one of the +terraces of Lynton on a still summer evening, looking east to +Countisbury Foreland, and see the water of the bay still and gleaming +in the evening light, the great headlands ruddy and golden above it. +The steep sides of the gorge of the East Lyn are warm and sunlit, they +glow richly with purple and russet; over the rocks of the valley a +faint flicker of grey mist begins to hang above the stream. From the +trees around and below comes a great cawing of rooks, drowning the rush +of the water below; they settle into their nests in the great green +elms, then suddenly there is a caw, a scurry, a rush, and they fly up +as if shot out of the tree-tops. There is a flapping of wings, and +much angry sound; they circle once or twice, and then sink back to +their homes again. It is a beautiful sight to watch a rook volplaning +down to a tree as you can watch them from the terraces at Lynton; +moving on a level with your eye, you can see the detail of each +movement of their wings, see them let themselves drop through the air, +yet with muscles taut and legs and claws stretched ready for a foothold +on the particular slender branch which is home. + +As you watch, amused and interested, as this protracted nightly +programme is enacted--and never yet, throughout England, have any rooks +gone to bed quietly--the colour fades from the headland and the sea, +the mist has gained on the valley, drawing its grey wisps and streamers +higher and higher up the sides of the gorge; the tide has gone out, +very smooth and still, leaving a broad flat stretch of wet shore in the +little bay, which shines with the last of the daylight like a clear +mirror; the lights of the houses in Lynmouth begin to show through the +trees, pale yellow in the twilight, patches of soft colour, rather than +light; and the rushing of the river sounds very loud because of the +silence of the birds. Inland the hills lie, fold behind fold, in +gentle, misty curves; it is that exquisite hour which only northern +summers give, when the slowly-fading twilight and the slowly +brightening moon hold earth and sky in a faint pellucid light. + +Or take a walk, on a bright May morning, from Lynton to Heddon's Mouth, +along the cliffs, and see open before you, step by step, seven miles of +the loveliest coast scenery, perhaps, in England. + +First there is a wooded strip of road, called the North Walk, which +runs round the side of Hollerday Hill. The shadows are dewy in the +early morning, and birds are singing from the green mass of the trees +on either hand; there is a faint smell of wood-fires from the houses +below, acrid and very pleasant; the chestnut leaves are just opening, +and the sycamores have still the early flush of red on their tiny +leaves; it is very cool and fresh under the trees. Then the wood stops +abruptly, and the road runs out on the bare hillside and winds round +the great headland to the Valley of Rocks. Behind, the wall of cliff +rises steeply, great boulders and outcrop of rock, fantastic in the +sunlight; below it falls sheer to the sea, where the misty blue turns +green at the base of the cliff. Looking down the sheer slope, which is +dull brown with last year's heather, and grey with the wiry grey grass +that grows on moors and mountains, I could see the grey backs of the +gulls, flying far below me. It was a very still morning, but I saw a +fishing-smack, which had been lying motionless, catch a sudden rise of +wind and come about, leaving a white circle of foam in her wake. From +the height where I walked she looked infinitely little, like a ship in +a fairy-tale, no bigger than a walnut shell; I could see the clear +small reflection of her tiny hull in the smooth water, her sails +rosy-tinted in the morning sunlight, very beautiful and magical. There +was no fleck of cloud in all the wide blue of the sky, but the horizon +was hidden by a faint haze, sunlit but impenetrable, and from somewhere +in the mist came the reiterated wails of a siren, from some ship +groping its way up the Bristol Channel. + +I rounded a corner from shadow into sun, and below me lay a tiny creek, +a churn of foam round its rocks, the blue water running green and sandy +in the shallows, and a flock of wheeling gulls to possess it; before me +rose the great crag of the Castle Rock, each plane and angle of its +twisted slate pile cut sharply in light and shadow, and against this +sullen grey background a newly flowered gorse bush blazed in the +sunlight. + +[Illustration: The Valley of Rocks] + +The Castle Rock stands at the mouth of the Valley of Rocks, about which +so much has been written, which has been compared to an amphitheatre of +giants, or the scene of some titanic conflict, where the huge granite +crags and boulders have been torn up and tossed about by supernatural +and terrific forces. In honesty I must admit that this seems to me an +exaggeration. Any walker who goes with this in his mind must, I think, +be disappointed; the place is wild enough, and barren enough, a bleak, +bare, waterless brown dip in the high lands, without tree or stream to +soften it, except in a stone fold, a winter shelter for sheep, where a +few twisted and stunted alders exist stubbornly; but the outcrops of +rock from the brown grass are not specially remarkable to anyone +familiar with cliff scenery, and there are many gorges within twenty +miles of Lynton which are, to my mind, wilder and grander. There are +hut-circles of the neolithic age in the valley, though many of them +have been destroyed by the people who live round, to build the walls of +their own cottages; but the often-repeated fantasy of this valley as +the haunt of Druid rites seems to me, not only unsupported by evidence, +but without justification, in the formation of the valley or the +wildness of the rocks. + +Brown under the sunlight, shadeless and glaring, when a blustering +north-easter is blowing down it, the Valley of Rocks is a bitter and +inhospitable spot; I have been glad to go into the sheep-fold and +crouch under the lee of the stone wall for a moment's respite from the +wind and the stinging particles of sharp dust that it flung in my face +as I battled up the road. Once, in such a wind, I climbed the Castle +Rock, and squeezed myself between two great boulders looking seaward +over the choppy water--it was a land wind, which does not send the +waves rolling in great breakers, very splendid to see, but worries it +and dirties it, leaving broken cross waves of muddy grey water--and I +startled a pair of ravens who had built a nest on a sharp ledge of +rock, just beyond where I sat, and had not heard me coming, because of +the noise of the wind. They startled me also, as one of them flapped +out, close to my face, and flew screaming away, as I pulled myself up +into shelter, but the other stood on its jut of rock, almost within +arm's length, and looked at me. I saw its ugly long head as it turned, +its great beak and its neck of a bird of prey, and then it flew off; +and though I sat very still for a long time, hoping they might return, +they only flew round me and past me, showing me the great black sweep +of their wings as they went. But as I sat there, on that wild crag and +that wild morning, I noticed a tuft of dog-violets, growing out of a +fissure in the grey rock, and shaken and pounded by the bitter wind. +How wonderful is the tenacity of nature. A few grains of dust blown +into a crack of barren rock, a few seeds wind-carried also, and then +germination in the rain and sun, and when the spring comes, this little +clump of flowers in its due season, part of the intricate and mighty +forces of renewal throughout the fertile world. + +When I was walking from Lynton to Heddon's Mouth, however, I crossed +the mouth of the Valley of Rocks, just behind the Castle Crag, and kept +the road to Lee Bay. Here it runs a few hundred yards inland, through +the grounds of Lee Abbey, a green and fertile fold of ground between a +sea-headland, and gently wooded ground that rises inland. The abbey, +which is beautifully situated, with a hump of cliff sheltering it +seaward, and a great smooth slope of green sward running down to a tiny +bay, and set among a fine group of sheltering pine-cedars, was built +about 1850, and somewhat too much "after the Gothic style." Parts of +the house are of pleasant red brick, overgrown with glossy ivy, but a +portion of the building--dining-room or library, I do not know +which--is like an east window of the Perpendicular period, fitted with +sun-blinds! There was never an Abbey here, either, and the name is as +new as the Gothic, but there is history here, and tradition as well, +for the house stands on the site of the old Grange Farm of Lee, which +was a large, rambling, plain building, with gabled ends and thick +walls, thatched roof and tall chimneys, to which Hugh de Wichehalse +sent his family when the plague ravaged Barnstaple in 1627. + +After that the de Wichehalses were for nearly a century the chief +family of Lynton, and the last of them, Mary, to whom her father left +this estate, is said to have returned here, after the ruin of her +family and her betrayal by a faithless lover, and to have lived here +with a faithful servant until she was drowned off Duty Point, either by +an accident, or, as tradition asserts, by throwing herself down from +the cliff, which is the southern point of the little bay. Her body was +never found, and the mixture of fact and legend which has gathered +round her forms the basis of the tragic tale of Jennifred de Wichehalse +which is given by the Reverend Mundy. + +After leaving the grounds of Lee Abbey the road climbs steeply up the +opposite headland. Up this hot and stony road I went, leaving Lee Bay +below me, the tiniest of bays, a little blue rockgirt pool, guarded +with great shags of rock, into which runs a rivulet, down the greenest +and shadiest of gorges, where the trees meet overhead, and the clear +water runs between narrow banks of primroses, and the bright grass and +flowers follow the stream right down to the wave-smoothed stones of the +beach. + +The sun beat on me as I climbed the hill, and the dust rose as I walked +from the loose, stony road. I came gladly into the shelter of trees, +ash and oak chiefly, not yet out in leaf on this exposed slope, though +the celandines and wild anemone were in flower, and the ground and the +banks were green with new growth, ground-ivy and columbine, with its +heart-shaped glossy leaves, wild parsley, and the beautiful serrated +little leaves of the wild strawberry. On the left-hand side of the +road, on the higher slopes, the trees had all been cut (one of the sad +exigencies, I fear, of war), and they were burning the ground as I came +past; the smell of burning wood followed me, and the thin wreaths of +blue smoke, curling up the hillside, looked faint but ominous in the +morning sunshine like a warning beacon, indeed, of the approach of some +raider. + +As I paused for breath, and stood looking down at the exquisite blue +glimmer of the sea through the grey stems of the ash and the delicate +thin tassels of the larches, a drama of hunting passed before me. +There was a thin squeak of terror and a scurry of wings, and some +swallows fled past with a hawk in pursuit. He was almost upon the +hindermost, when he crossed the path of a rook, who rose at him, cawing +angrily, and was immediately joined by two or three others, who rose +from the trees. The hawk turned with incredible swiftness; I saw the +great white bars of his underwings as he "banked" steeply, and went +off. The swallows had escaped and the rooks sank back into the green +tree-tops. All this happened within a yard or two of me; I saw it in +detail, terror in the movements of the swallows, and the eager stretch +of the hawk's head and the gleam of his eyes. + +This is to me one of the charms of walking along these lonely high +cliffs: you must go quietly, and if not alone, then with a companion +who will stop often and stand quietly, and you will see birds from +beautiful and unfamiliar angles; below you, showing the broad stretch +of their wings and the markings of their backs, or on the level of your +eye, so that you can see the distinctive shape of their head and beak, +their flight and their movements. To see two buzzard hawks above a +blue sea, circling below you, and then rising higher and higher in a +great sweeping spiral, their wings taut till they have the upward curve +of a bow, and motionless as they ascend, save for an occasional broad +beat as they come, perhaps, to what airmen call a "pocket" in the air, +and so up until they are two specks against the dazzling brightness of +the sky, and you can no longer look at them--this is to me pleasure and +occupation enough for a long summer's morning. Or to watch the gulls, +hanging motionless head on to a brisk wind, or swooping and diving for +fish, black and white and grey changing swiftly across them as they +turn different angles of back and breast and wing to the sun; or to sit +on a high moorland as the evening falls, and hear the melancholy call +of the plover across the brown heather, and watch their strange, broken +flight as they fly low, and waver, and seem to fall as if you had +winged them--sitting there quietly with your hands before you and +intending no harm to any bird on God's earth--and then with a sudden +turn, which shows you all the white underpart of their wings, rising +again and flying strongly, their broad black wings dark against the +evening sky. All this may be had by anyone who will walk solitarily +and with seeing eyes. + +How beautiful are birds in flight!--the dart of a kingfisher, the sweep +of a hawk, the dip and turn of a swallow, the tremulous beat of a +rising lark, even the scurry of a park sparrow for the little bit of +bread you throw him, all different and all beautiful; and what tiny, +ineffectual, maimed creatures they are when they are dead, and their +wings folded! What pitiful little structures of flesh and bones and +tiny heart and brain to be so bright and swift in the wide air! + +The road rounds a headland and dips again to Woody Bay. The sweep of +the cliffs here is bold and beautiful, the bay is quite a wide sweeping +curve for this land of creek and gorge, and the slopes of the cliffs +are heavily wooded (which has probably led to the present corruption of +the name from the earlier form of Wooda Bay); but there has been an +outbreak of new houses and a new sanded road, which alarmed me, being +in the mind for birds and solitude, and I kept the high white road +which goes round the summit of the cliffs. Woody Bay is beginning to +be popular in the summer months among those less conventional folk who +like to live off the beaten track during their holidays, and are not +frightened by long distances or difficulties of access, but it is still +quite a tiny place and has not yet suffered that exploitation of the +picturesque which has overtaken Ilfracombe and Torquay, and many +beautiful spots in Devon. Seen from the high road that runs round the +cup of the hills its sprinkle of new little pink houses below look like +toys, and their dainty chalet-villa architecture fits the illusion; so +also does its smoothed green terrace of fields, which seem no bigger +than the nursery tablecloth, with Noah's ark animals, cows and horses, +feeding on them. + +The road crosses the stream which runs into the bay, and I rested here, +sitting on the parapet of the bridge, before I took to the unshaded, +stony white upper road. There was a pleasant sound of falling water, +and the stream ran below me, between banks that were very green with +moss and beautifully shaded by sycamores. + +From Woody Bay the scene grows wilder and grander. Seaward tower the +rocky cliffs, falling sheer to their base, jagged slate rocks which are +the home of gulls and ravens, with precipitous slopes of short and +slippery grass, where the mountain sheep feed; inland the brown moor +stretches, bare and open to the sky, with a cluster of little cottages +and a grey church hidden and sheltered in a dip of the ground. + +From Woody Bay the road strikes inland to Martinhoe, which takes its +name from the same overlords of the district whose appellation is found +in Combe Martin (which in Domesday is written simply as Comba or Combe) +and across the moors to Parracombe, which has been the home of the +yeoman family of Blackmore since 1683. The little grey twelfth-century +tower which William de Tracy is said to have built, as he built many +churches in expiation of the murder of Thomas à Becket, stands just +above the railway line from Lynton to Barnstaple, but the church used +by the small population of the village--and this and Trentishoe only +number together three hundred souls--stands lower down the combe. As +one passes these villages, isolated on the wide moors and guarded each +by its lonely small church, rising squarely and almost without ornament +against the background of the hills, one thinks often of those +beautiful lines of Kipling's in the poem he calls "Sussex": + + "Here through the strong unhampered days + The twinkling silence thrills; + Or little, lost, Down churches praise + The Lord who made the hills." + + +I crossed a wild and desolate gorge, barren, rocky and windswept; the +tinkle of clear water ran down over the grey boulders out of sight and +dropped down the face of the cliff into the sea; brown and grey lay the +hillsides and rocks under the glaring noonday sun; there was no living +soul in sight, no movement, save far below the flight of a pair of +ravens or the white flick of a gull's wings out to sea. Gorge beyond +gorge lay the land, still and colourless in the circle of a sea and sky +widely and splendidly blue. I felt that I walked on a younger earth, +just emerged from its fierce chaos of whirling molten matter, and as +yet unsoftened by luxuriant vegetable growth, an earth of stark rocks +and hot mud, teeming with potential life, of dry thin air and blazing +sunshine, very harsh and desolate and beautiful. + +[Illustration: Heddon's Mouth, near Lynton] + +Then a great cleft runs inland, fenced by a bold headland on either +hand, and I have rounded Highveer Point and am looking down Heddon's +Mouth. Heddon is the corruption of the Celtic word "etin," which means +a giant, and the Celtic spirit which so named this wild valley had +indeed a sense of the poetry and grandeur of places. Sheer either side +rise the slate hills, bare, waterless, and treeless. The southern hill +is one steep slope of scree; the northern hill, Highveer Point, on +which I stand, is covered with dead gorse and heather, which they have +been burning in the spring, and the sharp smell lingers still. A +thousand feet below runs the river, shut narrowly between these great +cliffs, with hardly foothold for a sparse sprinkle of trees between +these dark walls, and for the ribbon of white road that runs from the +sea to Hunter's Inn, a mile inland. There two streams meet, and the +place is as green as a little paradise, and bright with running waters, +but it lies round the bend of the hill on which I stand, and what I see +before me is this shadowless great gorge, without tree or shrub or +flower, the magnificent shoulders of cliff lifted against the hot and +cloudless sky; inland the heat shimmering on the rounded surface of +hill behind hill, and out to sea a little froth of white where the blue +water breaks into foam on the point of some just submerged jag of rock. +A vast silence holds the place, save for the deep undertone of the +rushing water far below, so deep and so distant that it is rather like +a dull vibration in my brain than a sound in my ears. The heavy +buzzing of a fly and the rattle of the wind in the brim of my straw hat +do not break this impression of great silence; they seem to lie on it +rather, like feathers on the surface of a deep pool. The shadow of a +hawk goes slowly past me on the dusty white road and across the bare +hillside, on an outcrop of rock, bleak and grey in this brilliant +light, a butterfly, a red admiral, stands motionless, his wonderful +wings of crimson and iridescent blue stretched wide, and shining in the +sunlight with incredible colour. + +There are scenes of a different beauty at Lynton from that of these few +miles of cliff--and to me lacking something of the spaciousness and +splendour of Heddon's Mouth--but beautiful none the less. Go into +Lynmouth, down the steep and stony road--a true Devonshire road, still +the same as Celia Fiennes described them in her tour through England in +1695: "Ye lanes are full of stones and dirt for ye most part, because +they are so close ye sun and wind cannot come at them"--among the +steep, tree-embowered, whitewashed houses, which with the sun blazing +on their flat white walls suggest rather a little village of the +Pyrenees or Northern Italy than Devonshire cottages, that and the +luxuriance of the trees through which the East Lyn and the West Lyn +foam down to the little beach, and the prodigal flowering of bushes and +shrubs. Follow the East Lyn up to Watersmeet, which is about two miles +from Lynmouth through one of the most beautiful wooded gorges in +England. Past the hotels you go, and a little straggle of small modern +houses, past the untidy little patch which would be the suburb of a +larger community, with upturned boats and washing drying in the sun, +and within five minutes a turn of the road hides Lynmouth and the sea +from your backward look, and you stand in the heart of a valley and +beyond signs of habitation. The southern slope is beautifully wooded, +showing every range and variety of green, from the light vivid green of +larches to the dull brownish tone of the oaks. The northern slope +rises brown and rocky, the edges clear-cut against the brilliant sky; +there is a great sound of birds, and always the noise of water running +over stones. + +As you ascend the river the gorge becomes narrow and more thickly +wooded; the path winding along it is hot and close and still; the water +is clear brown in its depths, and green in the shallows and where it +slides over a mossy stone; it bubbles into foam in its tiny waterfalls +and cataracts and miniature whirlpools; it is deliciously sweet and +cool. The green moss grows to the very edge of its white stones, and +ferns and hart's-tongues and lilies-of-the-valley clothe the sides of +the hill; there are celandines and primroses and wild strawberry in +flower, and the lovely white cup of the ivy-leafed bell-flower. +Nowhere, perhaps, save in the west of England (I do not speak only of +Devon, for I know of little valleys in Cornwall which are as fertile as +the Garden of Eden, held in the rocky jaws of some bleak cliff), but in +what we call "the West," is there such peculiar beauty of contrast, +bold outlines of cliff and cove, great stretches of moor lying open to +the sky, and wooded combe and valley or small green sheltered hollow of +such blossoming fertility. + +The Watersmeet, the point where the Hoaroak Water joins the East Lyn, +breaking down over a thunderous small white waterfall, and a beautiful +spot enough, is vulgarized by notices embodying the commercial rivalry +of two different tea-houses. By one you are invited to walk on the +right bank of the river, as being the only public footpath (given in +the official guide of the Lynton Urban District Council); by the other +you are invited to a "unique view" of the Watersmeet, and assured you +will be solicited for patronage in no way. + +On the loneliest, loveliest day in early summer this smacks of tourist +parties, and I made haste to leave the river path and the sheltering +trees and climb the road to Brendon, a road as steep and hot, as stony +and glaring, as I have ever climbed. Up and up I went for half an +hour, seeing nothing but the banks and hedges on either hand; every +turn in the road I thought was the last span that would bring me out on +the hill-tops, and every turn of the road showed me another. But at +last I stood above Brendon, and before me spread the moors, brown and +purple in the sunlight, and the little old grey church of Brendon just +below me, in a slight dip of the high ground. + +[Illustration: Castle Rock, Lynton] + +The woods of the Lyn Valley climbed to my feet, and I sat down in the +shade of the outermost fringe of trees to eat my lunch, and dream and +muse, and doze away the first hot hours of the afternoon. I sat +looking down over the valley; below me and to right and left the green +spikes of the larches were aflutter in the wind; before me rose a great +bare shoulder of hill, outlined sharply against the blue. Overhead the +sun was blazing, but in the wood the sunlight hung mistily among the +trunks and branches of oak and birch; it looked as if the wood were +filled with tremulous sunlit water, rather than with air and sun. The +air from off the moors was keen and very sweet. I lay on the dry, +clean turf and moss, looking up at the cloudless sky; a solitary +swallow hawking far up seemed no bigger than a fly, and a brilliant +green fly on a leaf above me, buzzing turbulently, seemed portentously +big and important. I lost my sense of space and time and of the world +in relation to men, set, as it were, as the background to men, and I +slipped into a world which belongs to the birds and the mice and the +moles, and the fish in the clear stream below; I watched the +chaffinches and thrushes, and a little grey ash-tree near me which was +full of linnets, delicious, sleek, grey, sweet-piping, busy little +birds, sliding and skimming in and out of the tree, a little home of +song and love-making, of intimate and familiar life. I heard a cuckoo +calling from the thick woods of the valley below, like the note of a +bell, very far away. I noticed the unopened buds of the ash shining +like silver against the flawless blue sky; it seemed to me I had lain +there a hundred years looking at them, and hearing the thin song of the +linnets, in a world entranced from movement or the passing of time. +And then I fell asleep. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +LYNTON (_continued_), COUNTISBURY, AND NORTHWARD + +The word "Lynton," Mr. Chanter tells us in his interesting monograph on +the village, means the town on the lyn, and "lyn" is the Celtic word, not +for river, but for pool, and occurs in this meaning all over England, in +Northumberland, Yorkshire, Kent, Herefordshire. It is strange, perhaps, +that this rushing mountain stream should have been named from its very +rarely occurring pools, but the authority is indubitable. + +The Celtic folk who named it, the "early Britons," as our childish +history books used to call them, were not, of course, the first +inhabitants of this wild and wooded spot; there are neolithic +remains--hut circles and burial-places--fairly thickly scattered along +this coast, and a certain number of flint implements have been found. +The hut circles in the Valley of Rocks, of which traces still remain, +though many of them have been destroyed quite recently, within the last +two hundred years or so, belong to this period, and it is probable that +the earth-camps of Lynton and Countisbury, of Parracombe, Martinhoe, and +Ilfracombe, were built by the immense labour of this vanished people. +Remains of the early Bronze period show that there was a moderate +population in this district before the Roman Conquest. Of Roman remains +there are none, save a few coins of doubtful authenticity found at +Countisbury, which are supposed to have been scattered and buried by a +resident clergyman at the close of the last century, with the avowed +intention of "fogging" later antiquarians--surely the strangest +"fourberie" ever indulged in by a reverend gentleman. All other evidence +points to the fact that the Romans never occupied North Devon, though +they may have held in temporary garrison one or other of the existing +camps of the district. + +These camps open up most interesting avenues of speculation; many of them +were undoubtedly built as defences, some few--such as the small earthwork +on the din's edge at Martinhoe--as beacons or signalling stations, and +some are conjectured to have been built for burial purposes, not the mere +barrows for single internment, but in connection with sepulchral +ceremonies and rites of the worship of the dead. Such, perhaps, is the +small camp at Parracombe, which is built with a strong double fosse, but +the inner fosse deeper than the outer, which does not seem to have been +the case with camps built only for defence. There are two other camps at +Parracombe, one on the common and one on a high hill; near Lynton there +are two simple earth enclosures, called popularly Roborough Castle and +Stock Castle, and seven miles south of Lynton there is a square enclosure +called High Bray Castle, which commands a view of the fortified camps of +the district from Barnstaple to Braunton and Martinhoe. Tradition has it +that Alfred held this camp against the Danes, not that he built it, for +even in his day its foundation had become legendary and was ascribed to +"men of old time." + +The Saxons do not seem to have built earth-camps, but stone +fortifications on hills, like Athelstan's castle at Barnstaple, or +Kenwith Castle, though they used the barrow-camps at their need. The +Romans, we know, were mighty engineers, and their roads and buildings +bear witness to the endurance of their handiwork, but many of these camps +are indisputably not Roman, and their names bear witness to their Celtic +origin. Such is the camp at Countisbury, which name is almost certainly +the same as Canterbury--"Kant-ys-bury," the "camp on the headland," and +which is one of the most perfect in Devonshire. It stands on a hill a +thousand feet above the sea, commanding a view of the coast from Porlock +to Heddon's Mouth, with the line of the Welsh coast opposite; it consists +of a triple rampart and fosse, rising boldly one within the other, with a +gate cut in the northern face of the rampart, and with a small mound +exactly in the centre of the inner camp. How did these peoples of the +Celtic speech build a work of such engineering magnitude, without the +tools and appliances of the Roman civilization, with implements of flint, +or at best of bronze, a work of such strategical foresight, of such +nicety of proportion, and of such enduring strength, that now after the +lapse of probably twenty-five centuries its bold proportions can be +traced by the most casual glance of the passer-by of the road that runs +past, now that the sheep clamber and feed in its deep fosses, and daisies +sprinkle the grass of its ramparts? + +The Saxons seem to have come more or less peaceably to the Britons of +North Devon, who had taken little impress, probably, of the alien Roman +civilization, except Christianity, for many of the churches round still +carry the name of a Celtic saint, showing that the Saxons did not come +devastating villages and destroying the little churches (in which case, +of course, the churches would carry the name of a Saxon saint of their +later Christianity), but settled with the inhabitants, intermarried, and +probably adopted their worship. There is the church of St. Culbone, St. +Brendon--that tiny village of Brendon, near Lynton, which must have been +a village, with a rude little church of its own, before Hengist and Horsa +landed--of St. Dubricius at Porlock, of St. Brannock at Braunton, near +Barnstaple. + +St. Brannock ought to have been an Irish saint; the legends of him have a +levity, and a fantastic and humorous twist, that we do not find in the +stories of the Teutonic saints. He was the son of the King of Calabria, +and came to North Devon somewhere about A.D. 300. He searched the hearts +of the inhabitants by various miracles, among them by having a cow +killed, cut in pieces, and boiled in a cauldron, and then, calling the +cow by name, out it walked, alive and whole, and never a penn'orth the +worse. The story of this is carved on one of the bench-ends of the pews +in the present fourteenth-century church of St. Brannock, and there is a +large carved boss of the roof representing a sow and her litter, because +St. Brannock is said to have been commanded in a dream to build a church +on the spot where he should first meet a sow. He pressed the deer into +the service of God, and yoked them, making them draw timber from the +woods to build the church. This is how the rhyme goes--a fairly modern +version of a much older doggerel: + + "He had nor horse, nor ox, nor ass, but the deer so little + and limber; + They ran in the forest to please themselves, why shouldn't + they draw his timber?" + + +There is also another rhyme which seems to show that a bond of affection +sprang up between him and the cow which had had to serve his miracle: + + "St. Brannock fed on venison when he sat down to table; + Behind him stood his favourite cow, and his + valet-de-chambre Abel!" + +I do not know why his servant should have been called Abel. + +The Norman Conquest also came peaceably to this beautiful and remote +place; the census of the population of Lynton and Countisbury given in +Domesday, which was compiled in 1086, twenty years after the Conquest, +gives the numbers for the two villages as 425. In 1801 the population +numbered no more than 601, these numbers being as many as the district +could support until the modern distribution of supplies; and the +comparatively small increase in seven hundred years shows that in William +the Conqueror's reign sobriety of government and security of the life of +the individual gave these localities freedom to develop to the limit of +their capacity. Countisbury had been held by Ailmar "on the day on which +King Edward was alive and dead," and it "rendered geld for half a hide." +A "hide" was the unit of assessment on which the Danegeld was paid in +Saxon times-- + + 1 virgate = 1/4 of a hide. + 1 ferling = 1/4 of a virgate (also identified with sixteen acres). + 1 ploughland = as much land as 8 oxen could cultivate. + (In Devonshire 1 ploughland was equivalent to 4 ferlings.) + + +The "manor" consisted of the "demesne," which was the lord's home-farm, +attached to his dwelling, and the villagers' land, which was held by the +villeins for their own use, on the condition of the cultivation of their +lord's ground. Hence it will be seen that the condition of the peasantry +in the eleventh century, while actually serfdom, with enforced labour, +and no right of moving from the dominion of the lord under which they +were born, was virtually better than the conditions of the agricultural +population at the beginning of the nineteenth century (and some would +say, even, at the present day) in that they practically owned +smallholdings and were in a position where industry and enterprise could +be better rewarded than many a labourer of our own time could expect, +whose prospects--so long as he remained an agricultural labourer, and in +England--were inalterably bounded by eighteen shillings a week. + +The manor of Countisbury rendered geld for half a hide, of which the lord +held one virgate and four ploughs, and the villeins held one virgate and +six ploughs. Here is a list of the possessions of the overlord in 1086: + + +"There William has 12 villeins, and 6 bordars, and 15 serfs, and 1 +swineherd (who renders 10 swine by the year), and 1 packhorse, and 32 +head of cattle, and 24 swine, and 300 sheep less 13, and 35 goats, and 50 +acres of wood, and 2 acres of meadow, 1 leuga in length and 1 furlong in +breadth; and it is worth by the year 4 pounds, and it was worth 20 +shillings when William received it." + + +The Danish raids also, though they were frequent up and down this coast, +seem to have passed by Lynton; the narrowness of the landing beach, the +steep rise of the cliffs immediately from the shore, the rocky bed of the +river and the thick woods which fence the valley, all made it difficult +of attack, while Porlock and Ilfracombe lay within a few miles, offering +smoother harbours and easier access. There are several notices in the +Saxon Chronicle of Danish raids on the coasts of the Severn Sea, in A.D. +845 and in A.D. 917, when the Lidwiccas, under Ohtor and Rhoald, landed +and devastated a great portion of this north-west country, but they +probably came to Watchet, near Minehead, and even then all that Lynton +saw of the fierce raid was the smoke of the beacon fires from Dunkery +Beacon to Martinhoe Beacon, near Heddon's Mouth. + +In the twelfth century the manors of Lynton and Countisbury were in the +possession of Henry de Tracy, Becket's murderer, and by him were given to +the Abbey of Ford, in whose right they remained until the dissolution of +the monasteries by Henry VIII. Ford Abbey was a foundation of Cistercian +monks, an order which was always engaged in matters of practical value, +and under their rule something was done to improve the breed of mountain +sheep round this district and produce wool of greater market value; they +also attempted some development of agriculture and the fishery of +Lynmouth. They had, indeed, extensive rights of fishery by land and +sea--a very valuable asset, it must be remembered, in the Middle Ages, +when the mass of the population lived almost exclusively on salt fish, +and meat was scarce, except on the tables of the noble. Their rights +extended over Lynmouth, Martinhoe, Countisbury, and the coast of Wales, +and the monopoly of deep-sea fishing along the Severn Sea. This went +beyond the old manorial claim, which was "from the shore so far seaward +as a horsed knight could, at low water-springs, reach with his spear." +Beyond was the King's, and was free and open to all his subjects, though +a claim for deep-sea rights was allowed if it could be proved to be of +very ancient usage, as in the case of Ford Abbey. Lynmouth was a noted +resort for herrings all through the Middle Ages, and curing-houses stood +on the beach for many years until 1607, when nearly all were swept away +by a great storm, and never after properly reconstructed. The herrings +also at some time in the seventeenth century left these coasts +completely--tradition says because of the avarice of a parson of Lynton, +a hard man and greedy, who cared rather to fleece his flock than feed +them, and who imposed such heavy tithes on his poor parishioners, that, +in spite of the prosperity of their fishing, they were unable to pay +them. So the herrings left the district, and the parson could whistle +for them, until he mended his ways and reduced his tithes, when they +magically returned. + +At the dissolution of the monasteries very little difference in the daily +routine of their lives can have been felt by the country people round +Lynton and Countisbury. John Chidley, who had been bailiff for Ford +Abbey, applied to the King for continuation in his office, which was +granted to him, and he administered the property for Henry VIII, Edward +VI, and, Elizabeth, as he had administered it for the Abbey of Ford. + +Nor did the Civil Wars touch it nearly. Barnstaple and Dunster were +taken and retaken by the Parliamentarian troops, and armies marched from +Dunster west to Bideford across Exmoor and the great commons, but no +armed troops came down into Lynton; perhaps hardly even a straggler found +his way there. In the tragic rebellion of 1685 a bloody little drama was +enacted here indeed, but that is connected with the history of the de +Wichehalses, the family of chief interest and importance who have lived +at Lynton. They did not come to Lynton before the early seventeenth +century; their home was a small hamlet called Wych, near Chudleigh in +Devonshire, though Blackmore invents for them a romantic Dutch pedigree, +and asserts that they fled to England to escape from Spanish persecution +in the Netherlands; this story, however, has been proved entirely without +foundation by the careful researches of Mr. Chanter. In the time of +Elizabeth, he says, these de Wichehalses had overflowed all over the +country; we find them at Exeter, Chudleigh, Ashcombe, and Powderham. In +1530 one, Nicholas de Wichehalse, settled at Barnstaple and started in +the woollen trade; he married into the Salisbury family, who were in the +same business; and when he died he decreed by will that his nephew John +should marry his stepdaughter, Katherine Salisbury. The next Nicholas de +Wichehalse married Lettice Deamond, the daughter of the Mayor of +Barnstaple, and it is an inventory of his shop, taken in 1607, that I +have quoted in a previous chapter. + +His son Hugh married in due course, and continued to live at his family +mansion in Crock Street, until, in 1627, the fear of the plague which +ravaged Barnstaple and Bideford (it was supposed to have been brought +into the towns by an infected mattress which had been thrown overboard by +a plague-stricken ship, and was fished out of the river just below +Barnstaple by four children who were fishing) drove the de Wichehalses +out of the city. + +Hugh de Wichehalse decided to send his family to the purer air of the old +Grange Farm of Lee, near Lynton. One can picture the removal: his wife, +his children, his servants, and a whole string of packhorses (carriages +were still rare as a means of transport), coming down Boutport Street, +and across Pilton Causeway, up the beautiful and fertile valley of the +Yeo, to Westland Pound on the edge of Blackmoor, and its inn, where in +all probability they slept. The next day they would be on the high +barren moors, where the air was too sweet and keen for infection, and so +would come across Parracombe Common, Martinhoe Common, Lynton Common, and +down the Valley of Rocks to Lee (what is now called Lee Abbey). + +The farm stood about a mile and a half or two miles from Lynton, and +after the busy life of the town their solitude must have seemed to them +excessive, for their near neighbours would live half a dozen miles away, +and were inaccessible in winter. There were the Berrys from Crosscombe, +a branch of the Berrynarbor family into which Hugh's sister had married; +the Knights at West Lyn; the Pophams, who came from Porlock. + +The family lived there for the next eighty years. Hugh was buried in the +parish church at Lynton, and his monument can be seen there; it is he to +whom Blackmore refers in "Lorna Doone" as Baron Hugh, who was somewhat +too much hand-in-glove with the Doones; but the "young Squire Marwood," +who rode too frequently past the Ridds' farm and kissed Annie Ridd, is a +character of fiction, for Hugh de Wichehalse's son was called John, and +not Marwood, there was never one of that name. + +John was a strong Parliamentarian, and married into the Venner family; +but very soon they were in opposite camps, and there was great distrust +and anger between them. Colonel Venner commanded a regiment in +Monmouth's haphazard and ill-fated army in 1685. Wade, a renegade lawyer +from Holland, with a captain's commission, served in his regiment, and +after the defeat of Monmouth at Sedgemoor, Wade and Ferguson (a notorious +factious Scotchman, and the father of all plots) escaped to Bridgewater +and from thence got passage down to Ilfracombe. There they hired a small +ship and worked their way up the coast, hoping to rescue other refugees; +they were sighted and chased by one of the King's frigates, and were +forced to run ashore, when Lynton became the scene of one of those grim +and terrible rebel hunts which made the West Country tragic and bloody +during that summer of 1685. Wade was discovered at Brendon by John de +Wichehalse; he made a run for it, and was shot by de Wichehalse's +servant, John Babb. The Babbs were said never to have prospered +afterwards; their crops failed, the fisheries failed, and they became +extinct in the second generation. The last of them, Ursula Babb, the +grand-daughter of John, was to be seen wandering up and down the little +beach of Lynmouth, a half-crazed old crone, cursed with the evil-eye, and +babbling disjointed and incoherent stories of the ruin of the de +Wichehalses. + +Partly because of discord between him and the Venner family, partly +because of the strong feeling which was aroused locally by the action of +de Wichehalse, who had the body of a rebel who was shot in Bonham Wood +quartered and hung on the paled gate opposite Lee, he left Lynton and +went to live in London. The simple Devonshire estates could not support +the expenses of living in London; bit after bit his property was +mortgaged and frittered away, and when he died he possessed East Leymouth +(now Lynmouth) only, which he left to his daughter Mary. She it was who +became the heroine of all the stories of the "last of the de +Wichehalses," which, indeed, she was. She met a sudden and unexplained +death off Duty Point, and the White Lady of Castle Rock--a phenomenon +caused by a small aperture, bearing a slight resemblance to a woman's +figure, among the dark masses of the rock--is popularly supposed to be +connected with her fate. Of her brothers, Charles, the younger, was +killed at the Battle of Almanza in 1707, when the English, under Lord +Galway, lost 18,000 men and all their transport, and the elder brother, +John, died at Port Mahon, in Minorca, in 1721, while on garrison duty, +and this branch of the family became extinct. + +[Illustration: Duty Point] + +And this is positively all the history of Lynton, until, in the time of +the French Revolution, when the turbulent state of the Continent made it +inadvisable to spend a holiday abroad, its beauty was discovered by those +eager to find in England that enjoyment of the picturesque which before +they had looked for in Italy and Southern France. We use "picturesque" +now in a slightly derogatory sense, or we use it patronizingly, because +it is old-fashioned and belongs to the nineteenth century, and Ruskin and +Wordsworth, and even Horace Walpole and his "Gothic" ruin on Strawberry +Hill; and we are of the twentieth century, and have discovered the beauty +of docks and harbours and tall factory chimneys and railway stations, +under the guidance of Whistler and Brangwyn and such folk, and we do not +fret at laying a railway through Perthshire or the Lake District, because +railways are fast becoming almost as romantic and old-fashioned to us as +stage-coaches (in these days of aeroplanes and automobiles); but at least +let us remember that it is to the nineteenth century that we owe that +acute appreciation, not only of the visible beauty of the world, but of +the spirit that lies behind it, that personal and intimate character of +places which is one of our dear possessions. Mountains and woods, cliff +and cove, have become to us a truism of beauty, but let us at least be +grateful to the generation which first dared to see more in the boundless +Scotch hills and moors than "savage and disgusting country," or to +compare the pinnacles of the Alps to human handiwork--greatly to their +disadvantage. And the small absurdities, the "ruins" that they loved, +the "abbeys" they erected, were only part of that general half-conscious +striving to apprehend and express the spirit of romance with which we are +still moved in our own day, which Kipling expresses in his own fashion +and Conrad in his, down to the small-change of literature which struggles +for expression in our magazines and periodicals. + +So when Shelley and Coleridge and Wordsworth came to Lynton, and found it +beautiful, and nearly decided to live there and be the poets of Devon +instead of the poets of the Lake District, it was because they found in +it that quality of beauty which they needed; and when, a little later, +Lynton was "discovered" by one or more people of wealth--notably by Mr. +Coutts, the banker, who built houses there and hotels, and began to noise +its beauty up and down the London world--it was just the outermost ripple +of the vast disturbance of the French Revolution which touched the little +spot, part of the free new eager spirit which sent men questing for a +loveliness they could neither make nor control, and of which they must be +humble and passive spectators, and part also of vast causes and changes, +which drove Englishmen to seek their holidays within their own shores. + +Before closing this second chapter on Lynton, I cannot forbear to speak +yet further of the beautiful scenery in which it lies. There is +Summerhouse Hill, or Lyn Cleave, as it is more charmingly and +appropriately called, the great rocky height, a thousand feet above +Lynmouth, which looks down on the two villages and which divides the +valleys of the East and West Lyn. Lying on the short dry springy turf, +in the mellow sunlight of late afternoon, you can look along the velvety +wooded valley of the East Lyn, where the stream is hidden by the tufted +banks of the trees, and by shifting ever so slightly on your elbows as +you lie at ease you can look into the bare brown rocky valley of the West +Lyn, and see the gleam of the river foaming over its rocks a thousand +feet below. All round is the cawing of rooks, as they sail majestically +back to their nests, grave and cheerful with their abundance of food and +their security of tenure. England belongs to the rooks, says a friend of +mine. We English may live here, we may build houses and farms, we may +plough and sow and reap, we may make revolutions or wars, sending our +armies marching through the countryside in creeping dusty columns, but we +are only illusions on the page of history, shadows flitting across the +face of the land; the rooks are perpetual, ineradicable, and possessive. +They feed behind our plough; they flock in our green trees; they build in +our valleys and in the shelter of our houses; summer and winter they are +seen flying under our English skies; they mate and nest and bicker round +our cathedrals and our cottages; they are noisy and turbulent and +unrestrained before us, as if we were no more than the hedges we plant +and prune; they are irrepressible as street-arabs, and arrogant as +monarchs. If all human life were by some unimagined catastrophe swept +from the length and breadth of England, the cawing of the rooks would +sound as certainly, and they would fly forth to their morning meal and +back across the evening sky to their tall green elm-trees as if they had +never sailed over the heads of men who looked up and saw in them the +symbol of peace, security, and comfort, which they loved to call England. + +For a good walker the road that lies between Lynmouth and Porlock is an +adventure worth taking, though it gives a taste of the steep and +shadeless roads which lead up and down these moors, pitilessly +sun-scorched in summer, and pitilessly bleak and windswept in winter, +when the rain and sleet comes stinging and driving in your face, and yet +somehow, at all times of the year, worth adventuring for the splendid, +open, untamed beauty they show you. + +If you take carriage (in which case you will walk the greater part of the +way!), you will start from Lynmouth, and ascend the steep hill that leads +right up the cliff to Countisbury Foreland--I should have said the +steepest two miles of carriage road in England, had I not also climbed +Porlock Hill, twelve miles northward. The surface of the road is loose, +and scoured by winter rains, and on a windy day the dust comes swirling +down it like a miniature sandstorm. I have, indeed, seen even a car +obliged to draw up to let the blinding red swirl go by; and from Lynton, +on the opposite side of the valley, the whole headland has been blurred +and obliterated by the dust, as if it were a fog. + +If you are not driving, you may go up the East Lyn Valley, past the +Watersmeet, till you strike the path for Brendon, a more sheltered way on +a hot morning, but steep also, for the hills are not to be avoided, and +you have somehow to climb 1,300 feet from the sea to Countisbury. +Countisbury itself is a tiny, bare, white-washed hamlet, with a small +bare white inn with the sign of the Blue Ball; it stands on the borders +of Devon and Somerset, and hence some have supposed the name to mean the +"county's boundary"--but this, I think, is a case of false analogy, and +the Celtic origin of the "camp on the headland" is far more likely. + +[Illustration: The Moors near Brendon Two Gates] + +The Foreland is a great bold promontory looking towards the Welsh coast, +which hangs on the horizon like a low silver cloud above the faint haze +of the summer sea. Below lie Sillery Sands, and the caves of the beach; +beyond, the opening heights of Exmoor, in long flat curves, featureless, +spacious, and beautiful, purple and sombre under the wrack of +rain-clouds, grey and arid in the fierce blaze of the midsummer sun, most +lovely of all on crisp September mornings, when the heather is abloom in +miles on miles of changing purples and the air has a keen, clean edge, as +if it were blown off the top of the world. The air of Exmoor has always +this sharp sweetness, however much the sun may blaze, as John Ridd knew; +and looking over the wide-stretching countryside, one sees many a farm +that might have been his, a sturdy, whitewashed affair, flanked +generously with out-buildings, and standing high, but sheltered, in a +hollow of the ground, cut off from its neighbours by the rising hills, +and even more isolated in winter by the deep ruts of the roads, muddy and +impassable, that wind from valley to valley. + +A mile beyond County Gate is the village of Oare, where John Kidd and +Lorna were married; and as we follow the Porlock road across the moors we +see on our right the dip of the Doone Valley, where Lorna's bower was, +and a few scattered remains of stone huts show the habitations of the +outlaws. It is a scene of wildness and grandeur; on the left lies the +blue sea, on the right the dun-coloured moors. There are no trees, save +for a few writhen and stunted alders, covered with lichen till they are +the colour of stone, and look like petrified remains of an earlier age; +they are grown all to one side under the stress of the prevailing wind. +The only signs of life are the scattered sheep, their grey backs scarcely +visible among the heather and close furze, a great buzzard hawk poised +far up in the blue, and, when his shadow has passed, sailing slowly over +the shadeless ground, the sweet, monotonous song of mounting larks. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +PORLOCK AND EXMOOR + +The road now lies in Somerset; we pass Glenthorne, lying five hundred +feet below, among its beautiful green woods and stretches of vivid +green turf, and separated by some five miles of barren brown moors from +the village of Porlock. The road that leads from Exmoor down to +Porlock is incredibly steep, the steepest coach-road in England. It +twists dangerously in sharp right-angle turns, the surface is loose and +stony, worn by the dragging of brakes and the scouring of winter rains, +and on a summer afternoon it is so hot, so dusty and glaring, and so +steep, that it seems impossible for man or beast to climb. As soon as +you are at the top, however, the fresh air of Exmoor fills your lungs +and freshens your face, so let nobody be dissuaded from it. + +Porlock itself was a port in Saxon times and in the reign of William +the Conqueror (I have told elsewhere how not only the Danes, but Saxon +Earl Harold, drove his ships into the harbour on a fierce raiding +expedition), but it is now an inland village, and between it and the +sea lie two miles of flat land of the most wonderful luxuriance. _De +gustibus_ indeed, and to me Porlock is one of the most beautiful spots +in all England. It lies in a green bay--what was a bay eight centuries +ago--between two towering headlands. On three sides of it rise the +heights of Exmoor, barren, beautiful, and windswept; before it stretch +the lands over which the Danes sailed, running out to a thin strip of +marshland, and then a silvery flat beach, and then the tremulous silver +curve of the sea, not like the line of wave that breaks at the foot of +cliffs, but a true marshland sea, seeming to come from nowhere, +infinitely smooth and faint and distant from the level shore to the dim +horizon. + +There are many kinds of beauty in the world: beauty of hot suns and +delicate mists, of sea and shore, mountain and lake and city; there is +the beauty of barren moors and of green orchards, and of flat fertile +marshlands where streams run amid a luxuriance of tangled growth, +kingcups and meadowsweet and loose-strife and forget-me-nots, and +feathery willows and rushes where the reed-warblers sing. And at +Porlock there is such a gathering up of these different beauties that +it is difficult to describe the pleasure that one has in it. I have +told you how it is fenced by Exmoor, and lies within sight of Dunkery +Beacon, the highest point of the moors; but it is impossible to convey +adequately the peculiar beauty of those great smooth dipping curves, +the satisfying breadth and harmony of their line, the way the sunlight +lies upon them, and the rich deep shadows that slide into their folds. +And below, round Porlock, lie the orchards. I came there once in the +spring, and as we turned the last angle of the stony road I saw before +me such a sweep of blossom, such a foam of cherry and pear, white above +the luxuriant grass, and of that delicate flushed rose of the +apple-blossom, so exquisite a range of green, the hazy green of willows +and the bright clear green of hawthorn, that it seemed impossible it +should lie just under those miles on miles of moor where nothing +bloomed but furze and heather. + +The green fields that stretched away to the sea were just such fields +as in the "Romaunt of the Rose" or the poems of the troubadours, fields +verdantly green, and starred with daisies and golden with +buttercups--the "enamelled meads" of Chaucer and the little illumined +pictures of the fourteenth-century manuscripts; and the hedges were +just such hedges, incredibly green, with here and there a break for the +misty silver of the blackthorn. Wherever flowers could bloom they +bloomed, in the gardens, in the hedges, by the roadside, in the +crannies of the walls. + +Porlock village itself is a quiet, charming spot which, in spite of the +temptation of visitors who come here in considerable numbers in the +autumn, when stag-hunting on Exmoor is in season, keeps most of its +old-world simplicity, and has not much "modernized" itself. It is +rambling, calm, and whitewashed; the bank itself is a long, low, cream +building with a thatched roof, and a lovely note of colour from a +climbing japonica. The Ship Inn also is a pleasant old building, with +a dark, cool coffee-room and heavy, timbered roof. "Southey's corner," +where he is said to have written his poem, "Porlock, thy verdant +vale . . .," on being detained at the Ship by the heavy moorland rain, +is by an old open fireplace, and has been cut off from a larger room by +thin partitioning walls. It is a pleasant homely place, with its sound +of horses from the stable-yard, and the clink of its old pewter pots +from the bar, with its low raftered ceiling and brick floor, and the +sunlight seen from its open doors. + +Porlock Church has a square tower, with a heavy, octagonal, truncated +spire, which gives the little church an over-weighted appearance, but +very distinctive in this country, of tall Perpendicular towers. It is +dedicated to St. Dubricius, who is a Celtic saint of the sixth century, +who crowned and anointed Arthur of the Round Table; in the twelfth +century he became a very famous saint once more, after having been +nearly forgotten for several hundred years. Many miracles were worked +at his tomb, and churches were dedicated to him. The present church at +Porlock was built about the thirteenth century by Sir Simon Fitz-Roges, +who was a crusader, but I am inclined to think that the dedication to +St. Dubric belonged to the early simple church (probably a thatched and +whitewashed barn) which was there at the time of the Conquest, and +which, like the neighbouring churches of St. Culbone and St. Brendon, +harks back to Celtic Christianity of pre-Saxon times. The church was +altered in the fifteenth century, and the Harington Chantry, which now +contains the tomb of Baron Harington and his wife, was added, and the +present spire, in place of the old one, which was blown down in a gale. +It is a little, quiet, grey English church, set peacefully in its green +churchyard, shaded by a huge ancient yew, perhaps as old as itself. In +the winter rain and wind beat round its solid grey walls, in spring the +daffodils bloom in the churchyard, and on summer days the bees are busy +among the clover and daisies over the graves. There are thousands of +such small, sober, beautiful churches in England; they are the monument +on which a fragment of the history of the race is inscribed; they are +the nucleus of the village life; the beginning and the end of its +activities have their sanction within its walls; they are rich with the +continued service of men's lives, generation from generation taking up +the duty and its privilege; they rise above the clustering roofs of the +village, tower or spire, as the visible landmark of faith--not of a +creed that can change and ebb and flow, but of a faith in the spiritual +core that lies at the heart of material life, like the village church +among the homes of its village. + +We who pass casually, and pause, and step in and look, with a curious +and antiquarian eye, for a bit of old brasswork or carved screen, miss +the intimate beauty of these churches as much, perhaps, as if we read +them in a catalogue: "St. Dubric; 12th cent.; fine marble monument of +15th cent. . . ., and so on." The plainest and simplest holds within +its whitewashed walls the beauty of continuous tradition; you must see +it in all its aspects of daylight and evening light, summer and winter, +the rainy, tumultuous November afternoons and the long, golden, mellow +evenings of June, to realize what it offers, of peace and order, +tenderness and calm. + +Inside Porlock Church, which is light and white and simple, there is a +beautiful canopied tomb of the fifteenth century, with the recumbent +figures of Baron Harington and his wife Elizabeth Courteny, carved in +alabaster. Whoever made these marble figures was an artist; not only +is the detail of the dress intricately and beautifully carved, the +foliated wreath of his helmet, the elaborate decoration of her girdle, +and the curved "horns" of her head-dress rolled either side of her +face, but the whole pose and outline of the figures is firm and +gracious. + +I find that this tomb is quite famous among virtuosi, though I was +unaware of it when I came upon the monument in the quiet of a workaday +afternoon; but its beauty at once claimed my eye, presenting something +so different from the average mediaeval tomb, of interest chiefly for +its age. These figures are slightly defaced, the sharp edges worn +smooth by time, and scores of initials have been scratched roughly on +the surface of his armour or her mantle; but there is a certainty of +line, a sharpness, and at the same time a suavity of angle, a way of +disposing the head and hands and body, all within the stiff convention +of rigid tomb carving, that to any lover of sculpture reveals the sure +hand of a master, whether he were a nameless stonemason, working in a +secluded village, or a renowned man, invited from far. + +Standing by this beautiful tomb I can see the sunlight through the open +door, with a black splash across the gold, of the great yews beyond; I +hear the crowing of cocks and the voice of children, the creak of a +passing cart and the song of birds, all the simple, jolly sounds of +that everyday life which is the plain fabric on which all history, of +nations and empires and monarchs, is (if you like) the embroidery. + +From Porlock to the little port of Porlock Weir is a walk of two miles +along a narrow lane between high green hedges. The road leads nowhere +else but there and back; it is a kind of enchanted road which goes to +an enchanted village, a village at the world's end, beyond the circle +of mere reality. Every cottage in Porlock Weir is just such a little +cottage as J. M. Barrie's fairies might build, low-browed under a steep +thatch, with great tall chimneys, in which are cut just such little +windows as would frame a fairy's head, looking out and laughing and +nodding at you; whitewashed, half-timbered cottages, grouped together +in a jumble of delicious curves and angles, with dusky, deep oak +doorways, and stone steps hollowed by the feet that have gone in and +out, and long leaded windows, softly yellow with lamplight in the +mellow twilight of summer evenings, and gardens--oh, gardens that are +small, and walled with stone, and running over with colour and bloom as +no other gardens in the world could ever be! Hydrangeas, geranium, +larkspur and evening primrose, columbine, forget-me-not, roses--and, +indeed, the roses have gone wild with freedom, and threaten to overflow +and drown the village, trailing over the wall, running up the tall +chimneys, thrusting in at the open windows--nor are there names for all +the flowers that bloom here, for all the mellow gold and crimson and +blue and yellow and purple that glow in the sunlight, and fade gently +into shadows of themselves as night falls. Beyond is the sea, all +round the flowering meadows of the marsh, behind the moors; to anyone +who has had the fortune to see Porlock Weir on such a day in May as +this I recall, when this England of ours seems, to our fancy, to gather +up all beauties of colour and sound and scent and sunlight of which the +long winter and the chill, reluctant spring have starved us, and offer +them all at once in immeasurable bounty, this village will seem to them +to have the loveliness of magic. + +The beauty of Exmoor is a stranger beauty and more remote than that of +these lovely villages. It is the beauty of space, I suppose, and the +great open arch of the sky; it is the clouds and cloud shadows, the +changing light from dawn to evening through the blazing colourless +hours of midsummer noon to the tender light of the falling day, when +the land lies in long, suave, misty curves; it is the swirl of mist +down its hillsides, and the solemn banking of great heavy rain-clouds, +purple and black, above it, that gives it so rich and varied a beauty: +for it is like a great open canvas, on which an artist's hand makes +wonderful pictures of a myriad changes of sun and shadow. Anyone who +has seen Exmoor, as Mr. Widgery has seen and loved and painted it, on a +still September night, under the mellow splendour of the harvest moon, +high above the infinite shadowy blue of the horizon and the misty moor, +has seen a rare loveliness he must travel far to match. + +[Illustration: Harvest Moon, Exmoor] + +The "forest" of Exmoor is about thirty-five miles in extent from east +to west, and twenty from north to south, running from the valley of +Crowcombe, near the Quantocks, to Hangman Point, near Combe Martin. It +is a stretch of country which makes its appeal to the sportsman, the +antiquarian, the artist, and the mere idle, happy walker; it is a +little country within a country, having many peculiarities of scenery +and structure, plant life and animal life, history and custom, peculiar +to itself. + +And, firstly, though from Saxon times until 1818 it ranked as a "royal +forest," it is not a forest at all. Trees will hardly live on Exmoor, +not even the black fir, the hardiest tree of all; only here and there a +few twisted and stunted alders planted along the shelter of a wall, and +degenerated into "scrub." As soon as you descend from the heights, +indeed, the country becomes luxuriantly wooded, as at Glenthorne and +Lynton and Horner Woods; but the great expanse of Exmoor is bare brown +land, covered with short tussocky grass and grey furze. Why, then, was +it called a "forest" in Saxon times? Did "forest" mean also moorland, +wild and unarable land? This opinion has been held by many +authorities, but there is the contrary one put forward, that Exmoor was +at some time a forest, and that all the land from Crowcombe to Combe +Martin was clothed with oak and beech. We know, indeed, that in early +times, certainly, England was much more densely wooded than now; the +rocky foundation on which Exmoor lies is covered with a peaty deposit +which is formed of decayed vegetable substance--the myriad leaves, +perhaps, of many hundred autumns--and near the Chains, which are a +series of dangerous bogs near Dunkery Beacon, stumps and roots of +bog-oak have been pulled out of the ground. This last fact does not +seem to me in any way conclusive, for Exmoor may have had wooded +thickets, without being a forest covering half a county, like the New +Forest. + +And, if it were, what causes led to its deforestation? The climate of +Britain was not, we know, more sheltered and temperate in old days than +now, so it seems necessary to suppose human agency to account for so +great a change. There is one theory, ingenious but fantastic, which +asserts that the whole forest was felled to provide timber props for +the mine-workings of Devon and Cornwall. Whether this took place in +Celtic times, when the trade with Phoenicia was at its height, or +subsequently--in which case it is strange there is no historical record +of so remarkable a fact--or whether those prehistoric peoples who built +huge camps and erected mighty monoliths were yet capable of so +stupendous a feat as felling the timber of sixty thousand acres, and +carting it over roadless country, is at least open to question. There +is another theory, that the Romans in their struggle to subdue the +Britons, who took refuge in these wooded fastnesses, fired the forest, +and burned them out, as they are supposed to have done with Hatfield +Moor in Yorkshire, which, now a peaty moor, was 12,000 acres of forest +land until Ostorius, having slain many Britons, drove the remnant into +the forest and destroyed it. An ingenious gentleman, in support of +this theory, instances Cow Castle (or Cae Castle), near Simonsbath, +which is a large British camp in the centre of Exmoor, and juxtaposes +with it Showlsborough Castle, a few miles away, just beyond the limits +of Exmoor, which is held to be a Roman camp, and where certainly two +Roman swords have been found within recent years, advancing this as +proof that a serious campaign between Romans and Britons was fought +across Exmoor. + +All these are interesting speculations; one hesitates to dismiss a +theory because of its apparent unlikeliness, until it has been proved +wrong, for in this unrecorded past of ours so many things are possible; +nevertheless, it seems to me difficult to believe that the Romans would +have or could have burnt forty to sixty thousand acres of +woodland--above all, in a climate so humid and a country so well +watered as ours. + +Exmoor is not generally heather-covered, but its tors and hillsides are +clothed with a wiry colourless grass and the hardy, prickly furze. +Heather grows abundantly on its boundaries, and above all on the common +lands, such as Brendon Common, Lynton, and Parracombe Common, which +surround it, and which are distinguished from the moorland proper. +Native agriculturists say, I believe, that the heather grows to its +finest on land which has been turned up by man's labour--like nettles, +which grow so wildly in deserted gardens and ruined villages--and that +this common land on the edge of the moor bears evidence of having once +been cultivated. With the break-up of the feudal system, certainly, at +the beginning of the sixteenth century, much land in England went out +of cultivation with the abolition of forced labour, and became +pasturage or mere rough common. The people around here say that, if +you turn up a strip of land on Exmoor, where nothing grows but grass +and furze, and leave it, in a year or so the heather will come. But +that heather, unlike nettles, does not grow only where the land has +been turned by the plough is proved enough by the heather which grows +on steep hillsides, such as the Scotch mountains or Dunkery Beacon, +which can never have been brought under cultivation. + +To all who live in the West Country, who says Exmoor says "the red +deer." This is the last corner in England where the red deer, an +ancient and native inhabitant of these islands, lives in his natural +state, and where he can be hunted with the freedom, and yet with the +traditional pomps and usages, with which our Saxon and Norman nobles +hunted him. The hunting passion of the Norman Kings is familiar to us +in our history; how William the Conqueror "loved the tall red deer as +his father," and how he laid waste hamlets and villages in Hampshire, +and the little crops of the toiling villagers, to plant the New Forest +for his pleasure in the deer; and how his son William Rufus met his +death there, while hunting, by an untraced arrow piercing his eye, and +retribution for William's act was made plain to all men. The Saxon +Kings, doubtless, hunted with less pomp, but with an equal passion. +There was a Saxon palace at Porlock, and also at Dulverton, from which +they might hunt on Exmoor, and it may very well be that Alfred the +Great came to Porlock for rest and refreshment among the labours of his +life, his lawgiving and his translating of Latin books into the +Anglo-Saxon tongue for his people's good, and his bitter and incessant +struggle with the Danes. + +The laws by which the Kings protected their sport were among the most +cruel and oppressive ever made in England. They were not, so far as I +can find, imposed by the Saxon Kings upon their countrymen, but by the +conquering Norman and Plantagenets. Canute, the Danish King, is said +first to have made death or mutilation the penalties for poaching; but +throughout the Middle Ages the game laws were intricate, rigid, and of +incredible cruelty. To cut off a man's thumbs so that he could not +hold his tools, to lame him, to hang him, for snaring a hare or +shooting a deer in a land abounding with game, while he tilled another +man's ground and went hungry on his salt fish and coarse bread, while +all around him bred and ran the flesh food his stomach craved, and the +King who owned it lived far away, and neither hunted it nor ate it from +spring to winter--this seems one of the stupid and anomalous cruelties +of which the human race is so amazingly capable. It was a concession, +granted by Henry II, for men to be allowed to keep dogs at all, even +for the guarding of their homes and their small flocks; but even so the +animals had to be brought before some magistrate every three years, and +maimed, by cutting off the three claws of the fore-feet, to prevent +them from pursuing or seizing game. + +There is a description of stag-hunting in Chaucer's "Book of the +Duchess," which dates somewhere from the end of the fourteenth century, +which is substantially the same, I suppose, as a modern hunt on Exmoor; +a few of the terms are different. The stag is "embossed," meaning +"hidden in a thicket," and Chaucer says he is "rechased" when he means +he is headed back, while the note which the huntsman sounds to recall +the hounds when the stag is lost is a "forloyn." But stag-hunting +elsewhere than on Exmoor is virtually an archaic imitation of a sport. +The beast is carted to the meet, loosed, chased, and when brought to +bay is recaptured and carted back to captivity. Here it is a natural +affair, and rendered necessary by the depredations which the deer +commit on the farmers' crops; it also contains an element of danger to +the hunters, and calls for coolness, decision, and endurance: for the +pace is killing, the going rough, the hills tremendously steep, there +are rocky combes down which the rider has to plunge, streams to ford, +bogs which make the going unsafe, if not actually dangerous--and a +rider, unfamiliar with Exmoor, who finds himself caught in an October +mist had better jog quietly home before worse befall him--and, at the +last, the chance of losing the stag, or having him, as happens +occasionally, plunge desperately off the rocks into the sea. + +The red deer is the most beautiful of all wild creatures in England; +seen in his native setting on these high, windy moors, the brown grass +and patches of purple heather all round him, the clear brown and white +streams of the combes where he waters, the blue shadows of hill behind +hill, and the grey billows of mist and cloud the wind sends rolling +down the hillsides, he is a noble beast indeed. + +Wild-horses also run on Exmoor. Mr. Page, in his "Exploration of +Exmoor," advances the theory that they are not native ponies, like +those of the New Forest or parts of Scotland, but the descendants of +horses which the Phoenicians brought in their galleys when they traded +with Cornwall and Devon; for their bones are smaller and lighter than +those of our native ponies, and beautifully white and polished like +ivory, as are the bones of the Arab horses of the north coast of +Africa. This is an entertaining theory, with its romantic conjectures: +the picture of the Phoenician oared galleys pulling into Combe Martin +or Porlock Bay; the scenes on the beach, with the swarthy, beak-nosed +sailors, the Celts, eager for trade and curious to look at any +foreigners come from beyond the sea; the heaps of tin and silver, the +ivory and gold and Eastern gauds with which the Phoenicians bartered; +the plunging, high-spirited little horses, wild with release from the +galleys. But though the Phoenicians certainly came, it is very likely +the horses did not; for Mr. Snell, another authority on Exmoor, thinks +that the ponies are indigenous, like the red deer, and are at least as +old as the first human inhabitants of this north-west corner. + +They are small creatures, as active as cats, and at Bampton Fair, where +many hundreds are driven in for the last Thursday in October, and the +narrow streets are packed with them from end to end, there are scenes +of great liveliness and disorder. Dulverton, which is the centre of +Exmoor, used also to have a fair, which consisted mainly of Exmoor +ponies and sheep; but it has passed out of existence by reason of +railways and shops, and the greater facility for commercial exchange of +our era, and the charming cobbled, whitewashed town--which was quite an +important town, remember, when John Ridd's cousin Rachael lived +there--now dozes undisturbed among the brown hills. + +The sheep of Exmoor are of a horned variety; we all know what excellent +mutton they make from its praises in "Lorna Doone," and John Fry's +lyrical outburst over the saddle of mutton "six year old, and without a +tooth in mun head," and sure to eat as soft as cream. John Fry was +referring to the custom among the farmers of not killing their sheep +until the teeth begin to go. Their coats are exceedingly thick, and +their wool a very valuable asset to the whole county; it was more +particularly so in the Middle Ages, when cloth-making was the staple +industry of England. There is a woolpack in the coat-of-arms of +Minehead, and the most striking feature of the little mediaeval town of +Dunster is the yarn-market in the centre of the main street. + +Wolves were plentiful on Exmoor at that time, and doubtless did much +damage among the sheep; in hard winters, even, they would have come +down into the little villages of Simonsbath and Parracombe, but the +last of them was killed in the reign of Elizabeth. In her reign, also, +wild-pigs could be hunted here, while the existence of such names as +Crane Tor, Lynx Tor, Bear Down, is evidence of an even greater variety +of game in Saxon times than now. Yet there is abundance still, hares +and foxes, badger and otter; the otter, indeed, makes grievous +depredations among the salmon that come up the river to spawn, for, +like a dingo among sheep, he slays promiscuously what he does not eat. +It is, I suppose, a lingering tradition of our old stern game laws that +imposes a severe penalty for poaching when a man picks up a salmon +which an otter has killed and left. + +Birds abound on Exmoor; snipe and woodcock, partridge and black-game, +plover and wild-duck. Nothing could more exactly express the +loneliness and wildness of this great open country than, when you are +walking solitary, to hear the harsh, melancholy cry of the bittern from +the reedy, desolate bogs, or in the falling daylight of a cloudy +February afternoon to see the plover rise from the tussocks of brown +grass at your feet, and go flying and wailing above you, in that +broken-winged, broken-hearted way of theirs, or to watch the duck +flying home across the sunset, with their strange honk-honk! + +For all that I have said about the barrenness of these great moors, +Exmoor is the land of sweet waters. The Exe, the Barle, the Quarine, +rising near Dunkery Beacon, the Haddes from the Brendon Hills, the Lyn, +the Wear Water, the Badgeworthy (up which little John Ridd fished for +loach), the Parley Water, the Horner, which runs into Porlock Bay, the +East Water, all these beautiful clear, clean streams abound with fish, +and have the freshness and the sparkle of this sparkling upland air. +Wherever there is a fold in the ground there is running water--though +geographically one should put it in the opposite way, that wherever the +water runs there is a fold in the ground--and wherever it runs flowers +and ferns and trees grow in beautiful abundance. I have already +described the luxuriant green of the wooded gorges of the Lyn, the +variety of trees and the luxuriance of ferns and mosses; the Horner +Woods, near Porlock, have the same green loveliness, though a sharper +air blows through them, as they stand nearer the Exmoor heights and +less sheltered by steep rocks than those that overshadowed the Lyn, and +on a summer afternoon there is a sharp smell of resin from the +sun-warmed pines, and the keen air stirs even in the depths of the wood. + +And besides these rivers there are numberless little unnamed streams, +everywhere the tinkle and chatter of water, breaking over stones, +slipping through the peaty earth, falling in a thin spray down the face +of the cliffs, spreading out across the white rocks of an encircled +cove, incessant movement and change of colour and light, a ceaseless +ripple and gleam of reflected water across the lichened trunk of some +old tree, sweet and incessant sound. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +IN SOMERSET + +"In Somerset," says Miss Celia Fiennes with considerable severity, +"they are likewise as careless when they make cider; they press all +sorts of Apples together, else they might have as good sider as in any +other parts, even as good as the Herriforshire." + +This young lady, with her keen criticisms, her spirit of intrepidity, +and her variable spelling, betook herself on a tour on horseback +through England in the reign of William and Mary, and kept a diary of +her travel, noting with equal solemnity the state of agriculture or the +quality of pastry which she encounters in her journey. She was the +daughter of Colonel Fiennes, a Parliamentary soldier, and being a +delicate girl, was recommended fresh air and exercise by her doctor. +"My journeys, as they were begun to regain my health by variety and +change of air and exercise, so whatever promoted, that was +pursued . . .," she says, rather elliptically, in her preface, and +admonishes Ladies and Gentlemen to follow her example, and profit by +the spectacle of their own country--advice which we of this generation +have taken _au sérieux_, and of which the present book and those akin +to it are sufficient witness! + +Her remarks on Somerset are not all strictures, for it is here, she +tells us, that she had the best tarts and "clouted cream" that she ever +had in her life; and this although Devon has given its name to this +excellent dainty, while Cornwall fiercely asserts that it is a Celtic +recipe, and stolen from them by the Saxons of Devon, after they were +driven over the Tamar. + +With Somerset, however, we are not dealing in the limits of this book, +neither with its characteristics of scenery or of speech--which, to the +observant eye and ear, make every county in England rich in +individuality and infinitely various, so that Hampshire can never be +confounded with Sussex, nor Somerset with Dorset--but only with that +small strip of it between Porlock and Dunster which lies on the borders +of Exmoor, and belongs to it geographically. After leaving Porlock, +however, the six miles of road that runs across the moor to Minehead is +on a lower level, and (as the aesthetic writers would say), in a lower +key than the magnificent barren stretch of uplands from Lynton to +Porlock. The way still lies across Exmoor, but the "forest" lands are +beginning to lose their wildness; they run down to about five hundred +feet above the sea, while the summit of Dunkery Beacon is fifteen +hundred, though rising but little above the moors that surround it; for +the road between Countisbury and Porlock is over twelve hundred feet +above the beach it overhangs. From Porlock the wooded valleys are more +frequent and more thickly wooded, and the villages lie nestled more +sleekly; the winds are less keen and strong, the sun itself seems more +tempered than when it blazes upon Heddon's Mouth; a more suave and +temperate beauty begins gradually to take the place of the wild open +spaces and grey cliffs. + +The villages indeed are beautiful: Selworthy, Luccombe, and Wootton +Courtney, each with its lovely grey church, embowered in trees, its +street of whitewashed houses, its angles of light and shadow, and +gardens filled with colour. Luccombe, which is said to contain the +same Anglo-Saxon word _locan_, to enclose, as Porlock, lies under one +of the spurs of Dunkery on a little stream which falls into the Horner +Water, and is, indeed, enclosed in a steep wooded combe. The church +stands behind a tall row of cypresses, which, though planted only +seventy years ago, have grown as tall as the church-tower, and bear +witness to the fertility of the soil and the mildness of the climate; +they give the churchyard a foreign and outlandish look, I think, and +harmonize less perfectly with the characteristically English +architecture of the church than their neighbour, the old yew. The +tower is battlemented, and has some individual gargoyle heads around +its gutter, and the barrel roof of the interior has richly carved +wooden bosses, with the remains of painting upon them. + +The church at Selworthy has also a carved and painted wooden roof, +though of finer workmanship than Luccombe; the church itself was +originally built of red stone, but the tower is the only part +remaining, and this has been covered with stucco. The window and +tracery of the south aisle is of the lightest and most delicate +Perpendicular, but the interior has been a good deal restored. The +church is beautifully situated. It lies high above Selworthy, and +before it stretch the long flat curves of Exmoor; below, Luccombe +Church tower can just be seen above its surrounding trees; to the +south-east, beyond the green luxuriance of Horner Woods, rises the +outline of Dunkery. From it a path leads down to Selworthy Green, +which is rather a famous beauty-spot, lying on the slope of a hill, +neatly surrounded by trees--and the woods here are very beautiful by +virtue of the great variety of the trees, beech, oak, chestnut and very +fine walnut, and of the fair growth and dignity of the individual +tree--amid a little circle of seven cottages which form Sir Thomas +Acland's almshouses. The cottages are old and whitewashed, and the +thatched roofs sink into beautiful curves and hollows where the shadows +lie smoothly; in the summer, when visitors from Minehead mostly see +them, the windows stand open to the warm air, and in the shade of the +porches, sweet-scented with climbing roses, they can be given tea by +the old pensioners. + +It is beautiful indeed, and yet to me it has lost something of the +appeal of those lovely and desolate little villages--of Brendon, or +Parracombe, or Oare--more bleak and windswept, more sun-scorched and +barren, thrusting each into some cleft or hollow of the high brown +lands, with the wide sky over each, and each its small square church to +witness to the fear of God. Some quality of freedom and individuality +which is their charm is not in Selworthy. + +This is a mere question of taste; we are all apt to look at a place +with the eye of extraneous opinion. The beauty of Selworthy is not, +indeed, except fancifully, affected by its being a landowner's village, +a swept-and-garnished village where the roofs are repaired by Sir +Thomas Acland's thatcher, for fear they should fall into the evil ways +of slate, and spoil the lovely contours of the village. A landlord has +as much right to preserve the beauty of his property as he has to the +upkeep of his fences, and we are indeed fortunate to live in an age +when the mellowed beauty of ancient buildings has become almost a +religion. But to me there is a smugness about such a village, which +has become the hobby, the by no means selfish or unenlightened hobby, +of a single man, which does much to temper my enjoyment. Selworthy, +with its thatch and cob, its neat old pensioners, its suavity, its +absence of what is unsightly, is an anomaly; it can only be preserved +against the growing pressure of the twentieth century by the artificial +barriers erected by wealth. Parracombe, smaller, lonelier, with its +white farms and outbuildings and cottages, is the natural outcome of a +small and scattered population, who are not rich enough to build newer +houses, and who live as their forefathers did because their isolation +on Exmoor, and the barren land on which they live, has not induced men +from other districts to come and "expand." + +The little village of Culbone, near Porlock--if one may call half a +dozen cottages a village--is not an anomaly; indeed, it is a kind of +geographical whim. The cleft in which it lies faces towards the north, +and it is so deep and so deeply wooded that for four of the winter +months there is no direct ray of sunlight in the gorge, only the sky or +the light high up on the summits to remind the score of folk who live +there that they are not shut in a green prison. Even at midsummer +their sunrise is several hours later than for the rest of the world. +Among the darkest part of the green thickets stands the church, which +is probably the smallest parish church in England, or shares that +distinction with the church of Lullington in Sussex or St. Lawrence's +in the Isle of Wight. One or two of the tiny churches in Cornwall are +smaller. There is St. Piran's, but that is now a ruin on a beach, with +only the low walls of the very early building remaining; and there is +the church of St. Enodoc, near Wadebridge, which the saint must have +forgotten and the world overlooked, for it got lost among the low +sandhills and the sand drifted over, and it is only fifty years since +it has been found again, a delight to the few who ever see it, with its +squat grey tower barely seen over a tall hedge of tamarisk, and before +it the short grass rich with thyme, giving place to the sand-hills +which run out to the long level stretch of the beach, and behind it the +sand-hills yielding to the clean dry grass of the downs. + +But these charming small buildings are mostly of very simple and +primitive construction, and St. Culbone has the construction of a +perfect parish church within the limits of its thirty-four feet from +east window to west door, with a nave, and a tiny chancel thirteen feet +long, and a small truncated spire, similar to that of Porlock Church. +Its patron saint is the Celtic St. Columban--Culbone is a simple +corruption of his name--who lived about the same time that St. +Dubricius crowned Arthur at Caerleon, about A.D. 517; of how this tiny +church came to be built (for the present fifteenth-century building +stands on the site of a pre-Saxon foundation, which was dedicated to +the Celtic saint), or what refuge or sanctuary it was, there is no +historical record; doubtless a remnant of the British, harassed by +Saxon raids on Porlock, hid themselves in this dark gorge, and there +built and dedicated a church to their own saint of the dove's name, in +the hope that he would save them from the claws of the invaders. + +Of Minehead as it is now, no greater contrast can be imagined with +Porlock and St. Culbone, except that of Ilfracombe, with the grand +desolation of Heddon's Mouth and the solitariness of Trentishoe or +Morthoe. For both Ilfracombe and Minehead have become so popular for +summer visiting that most of their original character is lost under a +flood of new houses, trim streets and shops, which have grown to meet +the requirements of a large but fluctuating population. Unduly to +deplore this is, I suppose, a form of intellectual snobbery. Both +Minehead and Ilfracombe are still undoubtedly beautiful in their +setting of sea and moorland, the one upon lofty cliffs, the other among +gently rounded and wooded hills; and it is fitting that more people +than the favoured and aristocratically-minded few, who elect to stay in +cottages and shun their fellow-men, should be given opportunity to +enjoy them. + +Minehead is a place with a history; its position on the Bristol Channel +made it a port of considerable value, and throughout the Middle Ages it +did a large trade with Ireland, and a foreign trade with France and +Spain, only second to that of Bristol from the West of England. In the +seventeenth century, like Bristol also, it had an extensive trade with +Virginia and the West Indies, and it exported annually forty thousand +barrels of herrings to the Mediterranean. But the herrings left these +coasts, as I have already had occasion to state in speaking of Lynton, +and an Act passed in the reign of Charles II, forbidding the import of +Irish cattle, though passed with the intention of protecting the +English farmers against Irish competition, had the usual result of such +short-sighted policy, and, while it crippled the Irish trade and ruined +the prosperity of such ports as Minehead, it ultimately benefited +nobody. Any ship smuggling cattle, that was captured, was sold, and a +part of the proceeds went to charity and a part to the Crown. The "Cow +Charity" is a fund which is still administered in Minehead. + +Minehead was a "manor" in Domesday Book, and was given along with +Dunster by the Conqueror to William de Mohun, who was one of the first +of his nobles to support his English expedition, and who brought to the +standard of Duke William fifty-seven knights in his retinue, with their +esquires and their men-at-arms. The name Minehead is a corruption of +the Norman lord's name with the Anglo-Saxon word _heved_, a head; it +used to be written "Manheved." + +The Mohuns held it until the time of Henry IV, when, there being only +daughters, it passed out of the direct line, and was sold by Lady Mohun +to the Luttrells, who have held it until the present time. It was +incorporated by Queen Elizabeth, and governed by a "port-reeve," and +later by two constables. The place was then of a size to consist of a +Lower, Middle and Upper Town; the Lower Town, now called Quay Town, is +the oldest remaining part. It lies under the high hill of Culver +Cliff, around the harbour, and has more of the look of a Devon or +Cornwall fishing village--the steep, narrow streets, the whitewashed +cottages with their large chimney-stacks and leaded windows--than the +aspect of modern Minehead would lead one to expect. It was here, +indeed, that the sea broke in the great gale of 1860, when the shipping +in the harbour tore from its moorings, and was driven literally upon +the houses of Quay Town, as the sea-wall gave way under the pounding of +the waves, and the _Royal Charter_, getting clear from Culver Cliff, +was driven on to the rocks off Anglesea, and lost with all hands. + +Thirty years later, in 1891, the Minehead shipping was again wrecked by +one of the fiercest storms that has ever been recorded over England. +It began on March 9, and raged for four days, chiefly over Somerset, +Devon, and Cornwall. Shipping was driven on to the rocks from Land's +End to Bristol; at Plymouth the solid iron seats on the Hoe were torn +up and hurled about by the force of the wind; the heavy snowdrifts +stopped all communication, even by train; some unfortunate people were +practically buried in their houses; and along with the tragedies and +devastation the strangest and most fantastic adventures happened, such +as an old woman, struggling back from market, having her basket of +provisions blown bodily out of her hand, and picking it up four days +later, with every article in it unharmed, not even a burst packet of +tea! Where the roads were not blocked with snowdrifts, they were +mostly impassable from fallen trees, for the force of the wind was +greater than anything which has been experienced in England, partaking +more of the character of a cyclone, with the wind varying from N.E. to +S.E. and with very rapid changes, but of greater duration than an +average cyclone, for it raged from the 9th to the 13th. + +Many fine and historic old trees were lost, and at Edgcumbe Park alone, +near Plymouth, it was estimated that at least two thousand were blown +down, and the damage was so extensive that it took two years to clear +the park; while at Cotehele, near the little town of Calstock, the +damage was beyond description. One hundred thousand feet of timber, it +was calculated, suffered in this one small district; and Cotehele +House, which before had lain behind a screen of trees, was afterwards +open to view from the town by this violent deforestation. Here is one +of the most interesting descriptions of the storm, written by Mr. +Coulter, the steward at Cotehele: + +"The wind, having blown a gale the whole day, continued to increase in +violence as evening approached, and from seven till nine p.m. +accomplished, if not all, the greater part of the devastation to house +and woods. The noise of the storm resembled the frantic yells and +fiendish laughter of millions of maniacs, broken, at frequent +intervals, by what sounded like deafening and rapid volleys of heavy +artillery, and, as these died away, louder and louder again rose the +appalling screams of the storm, with slight intervals of lull and +perfect calm, only to return with tenfold violence, which made the +whole house tremble and vibrate. . . . Several of the windows facing +east were swept in as easily as a spider's web; lead and glass +scattered all over the rooms, leaving only the shattered frames, +through which rushed the resistless wind and blinding snow. . . . +Through the joints of doors and windows, the cracks and crevices, +before unknown to the eye, the drifting snow penetrated and piled up in +ridges, so that rooms and passages had to be cleared like the pavement +in the streets. . . . On an examination of Cotehele Woods, the scene +presented gives one the idea of an earthquake rather than that of a +storm. The majority of the trees are from two to three hundred years +old, torn up by the roots, and tearing up like so much turf yards of +macadamized road and huge blocks of strong stone walls." + +The violent storm in the South of England in February, 1916, gives one +only a faint idea of this famous blizzard of 1891; for, great though +the damage was, it was more local, and the storm was of shorter +duration and did not interrupt the train and telegraph services over +many scores of miles, as the earlier storm did, travellers in the West +being out of touch with their friends for as much as four days or a +week, snow-bound in some small village until the railway line was +cleared and the postal service re-established. + +[Illustration: The Doone Valley in Winter] + +The fury of such a storm across these always windy Exmoor heights can +hardly be imagined; only Conrad could convey in words some adequate +idea of the fury and the force, as he has done in "Typhoon." Anyone +who was in Exmoor during these three days would have been fortunate to +have reached shelter alive, and not to have been lost, as were so many +unfortunate sheep and ponies, in the deep snowdrifts. There is a scene +in "Lorna Doone," where John Ridd and his servant Fry go out on a bleak +stormy morning to rescue their sheep from the snow, which gives a vivid +picture of what must have been many times enacted in the Exmoor valleys +during those wild March days. Of the loveliness of the scene when the +snow had fallen, and after the fury of the wind had abated, when the +March sun shone on the smooth upland curves and beautiful rounded +hollows of the moors, stainlessly white and wonderful under the +clearing sky, Mr. Widgery's picture of Lorna's Bower under snow gives a +beautiful impression. + +Apart from its cattle industry and its herrings, Minehead was noted in +the seventeenth century for its alabaster mines, "harder than ye +Darbishire alabaster," says Thomas Gerard in his "Particular +Description of Somerset," written in 1633; "but for variety of mixture +and colours it surpasseth any, I dare say, of this kingdom." The mines +are said to have been discovered by a Dutchman, but I cannot find that +they were much worked, or were very abundant; for there is no record of +them a century and a half later. They were not like the Combe Martin +silver-mines, which were worked for centuries--some say in the time of +the Phoenicians, when the mines of Cornwall furnished tin for half the +bronze in Europe--which helped Henry V to pay for his wars in France, +and were reopened by Adrien Gilbert in Queen Elizabeth's time, and a +great cup and cover, fashioned from the silver, was presented by him to +the City of London, and may still be seen among the city plate. The +water got into the workings, and they were running poor after so many +centuries, and were finally abandoned in the seventeenth century; for +which Combe Martin is the more picturesque, according to our modern +standards, if less prosperous. + +There is another industry of Minehead, or, more properly, a curiosity; +for there are no traces of the most enterprising approaching the matter +from a commercial standpoint. "There is on the rocks at low-water a +species of limpet which contains a liquor very curious for marking fine +linen," says our seventeenth-century authority, and he gives directions +for breaking the mollusc "with one sharp blow," and taking out "by a +bodkin" the little white vein that lies transversely by the head--a +somewhat delicate operation. "The letters and figures made with this +liquor on linen," he continues, "will appear of a light green colour, +and, if placed in the sun, will change into the following colours: if +in winter about noon, if in summer an hour or two after sun-rising and +so much before setting, for in the heat of the day in summer it will +come on so fast that the succession of each colour will scarcely be +distinguished. + +"Next to the first light green it will appear of a deep green, and in a +few minutes change to a full sea-green; after which it will alter to a +blue, then to a purplish-red; after which, lying an hour or two (if the +sun shines) it will be of a deep purple-red, beyond which the sun does +no more. But this last beautiful colour, after washing in scalding +soap and water, will, on being laid out to dry, be a fair bright +crimson which will abide all future washing." + +Is this indeed the "murex," as Browning calls it, of the Tyrian purple, +which can be found on the Minehead rocks at low-tide by the +holiday-makers of our day?--that "purple dye" for which, the weary +Roman usurper said, + + "We'll stain the robe again from clasp to hem + With blood of friends and kinsmen . . .," + +and yet which is only + + "Crushed from a shellfish, that the fisherman + Brings up in hundreds, yet rejects as food." + + +In coming to Dunster we come to the last of the many beautiful places +that lie within the compass of this fifty miles of England, places with +so varied a loveliness that nowhere else, I think, can you match with +them. + +There is Barnstaple, suave and clean and sunny, with its well-kept +streets and smooth, broad river, and its air of all prosperity and +peace, the very type and pattern of a decent English country-town; and +almost within stone's throw of it the moors begin, lying widely under +the expanse of the sky, with the perpetual running of waters, and the +lonely farms, from which the smoke curls up, blue against the brown +hillside. There are the sombre and unpretending small villages, +Parracombe, Brendon, Bratton-Fleming, each with its history and its +little church, and the homesteads from which the young men have gone, +in their humble twos and threes, to take their part in this war of +millions. There is the grand solitude of Heddon's Mouth and the +raven-haunted cliffs to Lynton; there is Lynton itself, drowned in the +green woods that surge up the steep hillside; there is the West Lyn +Gorge, shadeless and sultry even on a spring day, and the East Lyn +Valley, where ferns and lilies of the valley grow, and every green +thing that loves moisture and shade; and the Watersmeet, where there is +a perpetual rushing of waters which drowns the song of the birds; there +is Porlock, between the moors and the marshes, and the drowned forest +of Porlock Bay; there is the green magnificence of Horner Woods or +Bossington, and the cloud-wreaths that gather and lift on the summit of +Dunkery; and here, easternmost of our journey, is Dunster, the castle +on its wooded hill rising above the long street of the village, and the +edge of Exmoor beyond, dipping now from its bleak heights in gentle +wooded undulations to the shores of the Bristol Channel. The Tower on +the Hill, that is the meaning of the word "Dunster," and the name +fittingly describes it; for it dominates many miles of beautiful and +fertile country, and stands feudally above the village, perceptible +from every angle of the street, at once a guardian and a menace. It +has stood so for a thousand years, for it was a stronghold of the Saxon +Kings before William the Conqueror gave it to William de Mohun, and he +built his gloomy Norman fortress, with its massive, windowless walls, +and squat strong towers, of which nothing now remains save a +bowling-green which marks the site of the old keep. + +The main part of the present building dates from "the spacious days of +great Elizabeth," when her nobles needed rather magnificent +country-houses than fortresses for defence; but the gatehouse, with its +four flanking towers, was built in the time of Henry V, and the oldest +part of the castle is the gateway by the side of the main entrance, +which was built by Reginald de Mohun in the time of Henry III, while +Henry Luttrell added the south front in the "antique taste" of a +hundred years ago. Yet, like so many cathedrals, and not a few of the +castles and great houses of England, like Hampton Court or Ely +Cathedral, the varying styles of architecture do not give an appearance +of patchiness or incongruity, but rather a feeling as of the vitality +of the old building, and the continuity of life within it, that century +after century adapts and adds to the uses of the present the habitation +of their ancestors. The sun and rain mellow all, and the ivy makes all +green; stone urn and Roman column grow old and gracious beside steep +Elizabethan gables and fantastic chimneys, and the grey pointed arches +of the fifteenth-century gateway are as good to ride under to the meet +on crisp September mornings as a Renaissance doorway or an +eighteenth-century portico. Much of the charm of these old buildings +cannot be reproduced by brush or camera; it lies in their intimate +association with the scene around them, sunshine and cloud, summer and +winter, their hills and their streams; it is the sense of age which +they convey, of long-continued tradition and a certain mellow security. + +It was in 1376 that the Luttrells bought the castle from the Mohuns; +and they hold it still; the old receipt for the purchase-money is still +preserved in the castle hall, with various ancient and yellowing +title-deeds, and a list of the "muniments" of the castle, made by +William Prynne, who was sent there as a prisoner by Cromwell in 1650, +after having suffered branding and the loss of his ears at Royalist +hands for his "seditious teachings," and who, firebrand and fanatic as +he was, beguiled his imprisonment with this curiously peaceable +occupation. + +The village is as beautiful as the castle; in the long, irregular +street every house is three to four hundred years old. The projecting +upper stories are supported on great timber balks, often with the ends +grotesquely carved. Under the projecting eaves the swallows build, and +twitter about the diamond-paned windows which reflect so richly the +sunset light. In the steep roofs there are dormer-windows, and the old +tiles have mellowed to a deep rose-red, stained yellow with lichen, and +sink into irregular planes and angles of beautiful, varied colour. +There are tall brick chimneys and steep gables, and all manner of odd +delicious scraps and jags of architecture, where one building has +crowded upon its neighbour in its growth, like trees in a forest. +There are old gardens also, long sunny walls with old fruit-trees that +look like hoary serpents writhing up them, until the spring comes and +the delicate, exquisite forms of plum or peach blossom break out of the +gnarled boughs; there are wallflowers and lavender and rosemary, for +the sweet scent and the "remembrance" of them, and tall hollyhocks to +nod over high brick walls; creepers, green or flowering, to grow over +the whitewashed spaces, and great trees for shade on summer afternoons. + +In the centre of the long main street is the yarn-market, a beautiful +wooden building of the seventeenth century, built by Sir George +Luttrell when Dunster was still a centre of the wool industry. It is +built with wide overhanging caves, pierced by eight little +dormer-windows, with a lantern at the apex of the roof, and is a unique +little building whose characteristic features have been sketched and +photographed many scores of times, and is comparable, perhaps, only +with the butter-market at Bingley in Yorkshire. Opposite is the +Luttrell Arms, a quiet, comfortable, harmonious stone building of the +eighteenth century, but with part of the older building still preserved +inside--a wall that overlooks a paved court, with windows set in frames +of beautiful carved oak, and a gabled roof, a moulded plaster +over-mantle also, and yet with that general air of disregard for these +treasures, amid a hurrying to and fro with plates and bottles, which, +to me, is one of the special charms of these long-established country +inns. + +To anyone who loves England, and that beauty which is so +characteristically English, where the life of the present day is +visibly linked with the life of the past through long centuries of +security, where age has ripened all, the great old trees, the colours +of old oak and weather-beaten tiles and warm brick, has gently +undulated straight lines, and softened all sharp angles, where the very +sunlight has the mellowness of old wine, to a mind perceptive of this +peculiar and intimate charm of England, Dunster makes a special call, +set amid the suave curves of its rich country, crowned by its ancient +castle, dignified by its old, beautiful church (grown, like the castle, +through Norman and Early English and Perpendicular styles of +architecture), yet intimate and familiar, and beautiful most of all +because of the use and wont of daily life within its walls. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +LUNDY + +It is curious in this twentieth century of ours, when every corner of +the habitable globe is docketed, measured, mapped, and surveyed, when a +railroad runs across "darkest Africa," and the great ice-wall of the +Antarctic cannot keep its inviolability from the feet of those resolute +and heroic explorers who go with camera, microscope, and theodolite, +against such forces of Nature as would daunt anything but the resolute +human heart--it is curious to come across small corners of the world +where the law of nations seemingly does not run, and the current of the +modern world sweeps by, leaving them in a backwater, strangely aloof +and undisturbed. + +Such is the island of Herm, in the Channel Isles; such are one or two +volcanic rocks in the Greek Archipelago, which you may purchase for a +song, and live on if you can, though their barren waterlessness under +the midsummer suns will compel you to put out to sea again for all the +dangers of swift currents and black crags; such, too, I imagine, are +some of those enchanted small islands in the South Seas of which Conrad +writes: "It was as if the earth had gone on spinning, and had left that +crumb of its surface alone in space"; such, too, is Lundy. + +But Lundy is only fourteen miles from the English coast, this populous +and organized England, and in the mouth of the Bristol Channel, in the +direct track of all the shipping of the West--sighted, it is estimated, +by at least a million vessels a year in their business up and down the +world--and yet, to within the last generation, it was almost as +inaccessible as in the days when the de Mariscos built their castle +there and defied the King and all his armies. + +Even now, though in the summer pleasure steamers run from Ilfracombe +and Minehead, and land their noisy crowds on the south-eastern corner +of the island, the narrow peninsula of Lametor, it is during barely +three months of the year; they have ceased before the coming of the +October gales, and the island goes back to its solitude, and the wild +clamour of its innumerable sea-birds, while its few inhabitants wait +their bi-weekly post, and the coming of the Trinity boat on the 1st and +15th of the month, for news of the outside world. + +For Lundy is a great rock, about three and a half miles long, and +averaging half a mile in depth, cutting the strong tidal stream which +runs round the south coast of Wales and up the Bristol Channel, with +steep cliffs and outlying crags and peaks of rock over which the surf +is flung ceaselessly, even on still summer days, and with a dangerous +tidal race at its northern end and the south-west and south-east +angles. It stands, too, in the highway of the winds as well as of the +waters, and is so scored and buffeted by gales that hardly any trees, +except the stunted dwarf-elder, can survive the winter fury on its open +slopes. When a westerly gale is blowing, many ships run in under its +lee-shore for shelter; but its only landing-place is at the south-east +angle by Rat Island, and that becomes dangerous in an easterly wind, so +that boats have to be beached on the south or west side, though with +difficulty and some danger. Add to this that the road from the +landing-stage is so narrow and steep that it could be held by two men, +and its suitability as a robber stronghold becomes clear. + +It is a land of romance, singular in every aspect: in the formation of +its rocks, in the birds that haunt its cliffs and the beasts that haunt +its caves, in its antiquities, and the whole course of its adventurous +history. It is a granite rock, with here and there patches of +clay-shale, notably at the south-eastern corner; but the granite is +differentiated from the granite of Devon, to which it is so proximate, +and of so marked a character that it can be traced in many buildings +along the northern coasts of Devon and Cornwall, principally in towers +and churches, proving that quarries must have been worked on Lundy at +some time during the Middle Ages, and before the fifteenth century; for +there is comparatively little building of churches after that date. A +company was formed in 1863 to work the Lundy granite-quarries, and it +was intended to use this stone in the building of the Thames +Embankment; but the difficulty of shipment from so inaccessible a spot +proving insuperable, the enterprise was abandoned. + +But apart from the height and boldness of these granite cliffs, rising +in places almost sheer to a height of more than seven hundred feet, +with outlying reefs and insular rocks bristling black and jagged +through the foaming waters, with gully, creek, and cave, worn by the +action of rain and sea, there is a further wildness given to the island +by a great series of clefts or fissures, running for a considerable +distance in a line irregularly parallel to the cliff, sometimes from +ten to twenty feet across, and as much as eighty feet deep, where they +can be measured; at other places too narrow for sounding, but seeming +to strike right down into the bowels of the earth. Locally this +phenomenon is called the "earthquake," and the popular tradition of the +island ascribes its appearance to the great earthquake at Lisbon in +1755; but it is certainly older than that date. However, the shock of +that great disturbance may have further rent the granite and displaced +the mighty boulders. It extends for about two miles from the southern +coast, running in a northerly direction, and where the slate formation +meets the granite it is fractured in the same sharp manner. Some +upheaval of the earth's crust in far-off prehistoric times must have +cracked the granite and made these mighty chasms; the wildness and +singularity of their appearance, and the confined locality in which +they occur--for there is no trace of such disturbance elsewhere in the +island--make one wonder if it were no imprisoned demon or angry god, +chained in the blackness under Lundy, who, stretching his mighty sinews +to be free, so contorted and rent the solid granite above him. The +absence of legend or ancient tradition (for the tradition of the Lisbon +earthquake is comparatively recent) about so arresting a spectacle I +ascribe to the condition of Lundy's history; there has been no +continued habitation of the simple people of the land to pass on, from +generation to generation, the ancient names and the ancient stories of +their dwelling-place, untouched by the changes of rule and ownership +which go over them. + +For this reason another strange phenomenon of Lundy, about which the +imagination of an earlier people must have lingered, passes barely +remarked. There is a great promontory on the coast, opposite the reef +called the Hen and Chickens, which is pierced by a sort of tunnel about +eight hundred feet in length and sixty feet in height, through which a +boat can sail on calm days at high-water; and in the centre of the +tunnel, bubbling up through the sea, rises a perpetual spring of fresh +water. This is called the Virgin's Well, and I can discover no story +or legend with which it is connected, though the name may possibly +contain some earlier myth, not based upon Christian worship. + +[Illustration: Lynton: The Devil's Cheesering] + +The names of other remarkable features of the island, the great rocks +which are piled along its coasts, are all descriptive and not legendary +names--the Devil's Chimney, the Cheeses, the Templar's Rock, the +Gannett Rock, the Mousehole. These names will have been given in +comparatively recent times, at least since the Saxon invasion, for they +show a different mentality from the Celtic names which are found widely +in Cornwall, Devon, Wales, and Northumberland, and which have a poetic +and imaginative quality. Such is the difference between Heddon's +Mouth, "the Giant's Mouth," or Dunster, "the Tower on the Hill," and +such names as I have quoted above. The very name of Lundy itself, +which is "Lund-ei," the island of Lund, as Caldy is "Cald-ei," the +island of Cald, show a Teutonic origin, perhaps Scandinavian, but not +named so by the Celts of Britain or Ireland. + +But "there were great men before Agamemnon"; certainly there were great +men on this island before the adventurer Lund landed upon it and gave +it his name. + +In 1850, in digging foundations near a farmhouse in the southern part +of the island, a great grave, or series of graves, was discovered. +There were two stone coffins, made of hewn blocks of granite, just deep +enough to contain a body, and with the covers sloped and cut each from +a single block. One was ten feet in length, and contained the huge +skeleton of a man, over eight feet high; the other was eight feet long, +and contained a skeleton well over six feet, which "was imagined to be +that of a woman," but on what grounds I cannot discover, as it does not +seem to have been carefully examined, and is therefore probably mere +conjecture, based upon its juxtaposition to the larger coffin. In the +account of the excavation a "macabre" incident is recorded. One of the +workmen, seizing the shin-bone of the giant, placed it against his own +leg, and found that it reached halfway up his thigh; whereupon, taking +up the lower jawbone, he fitted it easily over his own lower jaw, +though he was a burly man and bearded. + + "To what base uses a man may return, Horatio! . . ." + + "Imperious Caesar, dead and turned to clay, + Might stop a hole to keep the wind away: + O that that earth, which kept the world in awe, + Should patch a wall to expel the winter's flaw." + + +For that these were the bones of a man mighty in his day the +workmanship of his coffin goes to prove. For he lay with a stone rest +for his head and feet, made each of a cubic block of fine granite, and +a deep depression hollowed in his pillow to take his head, resting +sideways towards his shoulder. As these great blocks were cut and +squared and hollowed with stone tools, the labour which they betoken +may be imagined; and none, I suppose, but an imperious Caesar could +have exacted it. The skeleton was covered and surrounded by a mass of +limpet-shells. There were seven other skeletons buried in a line with +these two, but without coffins, and they were not of the race of +giants; and then, at a little distance, there was a great pit, filled +with the bones of men, women, and children, as if a slaughtered +multitude had been flung into a common grave. In this pit were found +some beads, light blue in colour, some sherds of red glazed pottery, +and a few fragments of bronze. Over all was scattered a vast heap of +limpet-shells. + +Here is one of the fascinating problems of archaeology, which comes +with the touch of romance to the dry study of minutiae: When were these +burials made? Are they of two different dates? The giant of the stone +coffin perhaps belonged to the far-off Stone Age, already grown dim and +legendary to these later peoples, who knew of the working of metal and +the making of glass. And were they sacrificed to him, as a dark hero +or demi-god of the past, to propitiate him against plague or conquest? +And what is the magical significance of the limpet-shells, which cover +them and him alike? These questions, and many others, will, I am +convinced, be answered by the patient research of archaeology within +comparatively few years. The suggestion that this interment is Danish, +and is the remnant of the force defeated by Alfred the Great outside +Kenwith Castle, is, I think, untenable; the bones of women and children +being found with those of men alone disproves it, apart from the +inaccessibility of Lundy and the very great antiquity of the stone +coffins. + +But whoever they may be who left their bones here, it is certain the +story of their lying there is a tragedy, of bloody sacrifice or more +bloody massacre, like all the histories of wild animals and of +primitive peoples. + +Not far from the Giant's Grave, as this site is locally called, is +another relic of hoary antiquity, in the shape of a tumulus, which, +when opened, laid bare a kistvaen, or sepulchral chamber, formed of a +great block of granite, weighing nearly five tons, resting on two +upright granite slabs, and enclosing a space about six feet square. +This method of burial is well known throughout the old world; such +burial chambers have been found in Greece, and in considerable numbers +in Ireland, where they are primitive Celtic. In the Lundy kistvaen no +skeleton was found, nor anything, indeed, save a small fragment of +pottery, though "there was a rank odour in the cavity, very different +from that of newly turned earth." + +There is a logan-stone on the eastern side of the island, which, within +the memory of Mr. Heaven, the last owner of the island, was a true +logan-stone, and could be rocked with the hands, but has now slipped +from its socket. But the whole question of these logan-stones is +controversial, some claiming them as relics of antiquity of whose use +and meaning we are ignorant, and others as the chance product of the +natural forces of rain and weather. + +The same also may be said of the "rock-basins," of which a very perfect +example may be found in the Punchbowl Valley, being a granite basin of +four feet in diameter, with a uniform thickness of six inches, with +both the concave and convex surfaces segments of a perfect sphere. +Later opinion inclines to a human, and not a chance, origin for these +interesting phenomena. + +But, leaving the dim and still conjectural paths of archaeology, let us +turn to the history of Lundy. Here again we are confronted with facts +which a conscientious historian would hesitate to assert, save as +legend. For this singular land, where the King's writ does not run, +which is not assimilated even yet to municipal government, was for +centuries, even down to the eighteenth century, a robber stronghold, +from which, as from those castles on the Rhine, and still earlier and +more powerful castles of the Aegean lords, built athwart the peninsulas +of the trade-routes, the garrison swooped maraudering upon the peaceful +occupations of unprotected folk. + +Lundy is supposed, not upon very certain authority, to have been called +"Herculea" in Roman times; and there is no record, nor even tradition, +of how it came by its present name, only a vague conjecture of a +Scandinavian origin, of which I have already spoken. But there are +evidences of a much earlier occupation than the Roman--indeed, so far +as I know, there have been no Roman remains found yet upon the +island--and it is no unlikely supposition that the great skeleton of +the Giant's Grave was some such feared and piratical chieftain as the +first recorded lord of the island, the fierce de Marisco. These +Mariscos were a branch of the great family of Montmorency, and they +were ever a thorn in the side of their liege-lord, whether in England, +Ireland, or Lundy. They must have owned Lundy since the days of the +Norman Conquest, if they had not seized it before; for the great castle +Marisco, built upon the extreme verge of the cliffs, commanding the bay +and the landing-place, and overlooking in a wide sweep all the southern +coast of the island, was already built in the eleventh century. From +this impregnable fortress, with its massive walls nine feet in +thickness, its squat, strong Norman turrets, its encircling fosse, and +the perpendicular cliffs by which its seaward wall was made unscalable, +Sir Jordan de Marisco used to sally with his retainers, making war on +all alike, levying toll--_blackmail_, if ever there was, in the true +meaning of the word--disobeying the laws of the land, and outraging the +dictates of common humanity. So that, though he had married a +Plantagenet, a blood relation of the King's, Henry II declared his +estate of Lundy forfeited, and granted it to the Knights-Templars. +Whether peace was made between Sir Jordan and Henry, or whether Henry +was not strong enough to enforce his edict (though he was a powerful +and determined monarch), I do not know; but in 1199, in the reign of +King John, Sir Jordan's son William following in his father's evil +ways, the grant of Lundy was confirmed to the Templars. + +But this fortress was a hard nut to crack. The only approach is from +the south-eastern corner, by a steep and narrow path commanded by the +castle, and held by Marisco's men, and it was no light undertaking for +the invaders to beach their boats and effect a landing against wind, +weather, and attack. So that, although a tax was levied upon Devon and +Cornwall to support an undertaking for the siege of Lundy, it does not +appear to have been taken; for it was granted to Henry de Tracy (of the +famous family of Tracy, cursed since the murder of Becket), and a few +years later to one Robert Walerand. Then for some years de Marisco +seems to have found even its mighty walls and granite cliffs too +insecure, for he is found fighting among the French, and in 1217 was +taken prisoner in a sea-fight, when Eustace the Monk, the pilot of the +French fleet, was slain. Yet a few months later, in November of the +same year, he was reinstated in possession of Lundy, and his wife, his +sons and daughters, who had been seized by Henry III as hostages, were +restored to him. Now favoured, now disgraced, but turbulent to the +last, he died in possession of Lundy, but in the very year of his death +having paid ransom to Henry of 300 marks. + +His grandson, also William de Marisco, filled up the tale of violence +and ill-doing, and forfeited at length the family inheritance, by his +share in the attempted murder of the King at Woodstock. This is +Westcote's account of the plot, given in his "View of +Devonshire": . . . "Only Matthew Paris speaketh of one William de +Marisco who, conspiring the death of Henry III, persuaded a Knight +sometime of his Court to murder him, and with that intent got at night +by a window into the King's bedchamber; but He, in whose protection the +lives of princes are, disappointed him, for the King lay elsewhere. He +seeking from chamber to chamber with a naked weapon in his hand, Mrs. +Byset, one of the Queen's women, sitting late up at her devotions, +shrieking at the fearful sight of him, awakened the King's guard, who +presently took him." + +The unhappy and probably demented youth was put to death, and de +Marisco fled to his island, which he further fortified, and there, +attaching to himself a band of outlaws and malefactors, lived by +piracy. Retribution came in its due course, for, having made himself +detested by all decent men, many knights and nobles joined against him, +and contrived to take him by strategem. He was brought to London, +tried, and condemned to death with sixteen accomplices, dragged from +Westminster to the Tower, and there hanged. "When he had there +breathed out his wretched soul," he was drawn and quartered--a literal +account of which, as given in Matthew Paris, I forbear to set down--and +the quarters of his body sent to the four principal cities of England. +His father, Geoffrey, fled to France, and the island came under the +government of Henry de Tracy for the Crown. + +Yet in the reign of Edward I, one of the Irish branch of the Marisco +family was reinstated in possession for a few years, though Edward II +gave it to his favourite and his worst enemy, Hugh Spencer. It was +there also, be it remembered, that he purposed taking refuge from his +Barons, but was driven to Wales by contrary winds. In the time of +Edward III the island came to the Luttrells, the great family that +owned Dunster, Minehead, and many manors on the North Somerset coast; +in the time of Westcote, in the reign of James I, it was in the +possession of the Grenvilles. + +It is difficult, and perhaps tedious, to attempt to follow in detail +the many families who had, or laid claim to, possession of Lundy +throughout the course of history; it is clear that it was a stronghold +of importance, from the frequent references to it in our records. It +was claimed and loaned and bought and held in fee from the eleventh to +the nineteenth century. It was the scene of a wild and fantastic +adventure in the reign of Charles I, when three Turkish pirate-ships +swooped upon it, and made slave-raids into Devon and Cornwall, taking +sixty men out of a church one Sunday morning, and carrying them away +prisoner. "Egypt was never more infested with caterpillars," wrote the +captain of a ship of war in 1630, "than the Channel with Biscayers." + +The Turks sailed south with their human booty, but the Channel and the +Devon coast became the prey of an English buccaneer, the famous Admiral +Nutt, who was more boldly and splendidly piratical even than the +buccaneers of "Treasure Isle," and who faced the King's navy and got +clear to his stronghold of Lundy, though they dropped thirty great shot +among his fleet, of which Nutt received ten through his own ship. What +became of the Admiral I do not know; he was not captured and hanged, +and so may have sailed away to the Barbadoes or the Mediterranean, and +there have met his death and scuttled his ship in a last fight against +odds, or perhaps been marooned by a mutinous crew, or set adrift in an +open boat to die of hunger and thirst, or been stabbed in a drunken +scuffle over a bottle of rum. + +He passes away from the history of Lundy, but now a French man-o'-war +and now a Spanish made raids up the Bristol Channel and upon Lundy, +until Thomas Bushel held it for Charles I and established some measure +of order. It was claimed from Bushel by Lord Say and Sele as his +"inheritance," and he wrote to the King for permission to deliver it +up, but proposing: + + +". . . If your Majesty shall require my longer stay here, be confident, +sir, I shall sacrifice both life and fortune before the loyalty of + +"Your obedient humble servant, + "THOMAS BUSHEL." + + +Bushel received the following letter from Charles, which I transcribe +because of the light which it throws on the King's character, a letter +written in answer to a faithful and disinterested servant in a mood of +petulant self-pity. ". . . Now, since the place is inconsiderable in +itself, and yet may be of great advantages to you in respect of your +mines, we do hereby give you leave to use your discretion in it, with +this caution, that you do take example from ourselves, and be not +over-credulous of vain promises, which hath made us great only in our +sufferings and will not discharge our debts." This letter, more than +any single document I know, shows the hopeless weakness of the Stuart +character, and the unhappiness of serving the Stuart cause; this letter +might have been written by Mary, Queen of Scots, or by James II, or by +the Old Pretender, or by the Young Pretender; in all alike we find what +this letter shows, a certain gracious melancholy, a lack of moral +courage, a great self-pity, and a great selfishness. + +Thomas Bushel gave up the island into the hands of Colonel Fiennes, a +Parliamentarian soldier, and the father of the intrepid young lady, +Celia Fiennes, who, a few years later, travelled through the length and +breadth of England on horseback, and wrote an account of her +journeyings. Lord Say and Sele, who claimed the island, was her +grandfather on the mother's side. + +After the Restoration, and under the corrupt administration of Charles, +the Dutch ravaged the shipping of the Channel, as the French did in the +reign of William and Mary and Queen Anne, and as pirates did at all +times, whenever a body of desperate men could establish themselves on +Lundy, and from there make raids on the coastal traffic. The last and +worst pirate of all, the most inhuman, as the meanest, a trafficker in +human misery for the sake of gold, false even to the partners in his +base contract, was Benson, a rich man by inheritance, and belonging to +one of the oldest Bideford families, the leading citizen of Bideford +and Appledore, and a member of Parliament for Barnstaple. + +In 1747 he entered into a contract with the Government for the +exportation of convicts, and gave bond to the Sheriff to transport them +to Virginia or Maryland, which was the horrible method of treating +criminals then in common use. But in 1748 he leased Lundy Island from +Lord Gower, and, transporting the convicts there, began building walls +and cultivating the island with this slave-labour. The great wall, +called the Quarter Wall, on Lundy was built by these unhappy convicts. +After a few years, however, Benson was discovered in smuggling, and a +large quantity of tobacco and other goods was found in caves and +chambers cut out of the rock. For this he was fined 5,000 pounds; but +when his importation of convicts was discovered, and he was taxed with +it, he excused himself by declaring that to send them to Lundy was the +same as sending them to America, so long as they were transported +anywhere out of England. The termination of his villainous career in +England was owing to a conspiracy to defraud an insurance company, a +vulgar and inglorious crime without the element of danger and adventure +which in some slight degree may be said to have invested the exploits +of the other pirates who have infested Lundy. + +Benson, having laded a vessel called the _Nightingale_ with a valuable +cargo of pewter, linen, and salt, insured her heavily before she +sailed, ostensibly, for Maryland. But he had arranged with her master, +Lancey, to put back at night and land the cargo at Lundy, and then to +burn and scuttle the _Nightingale_. This was accordingly done, and the +crew took to the boats and were picked up by a homeward-bound ship; +but, as usual in these circumstances, one of the crew, animated by some +personal pique, "blew the gaff," in the parlance of roguery. Lancey +was taken, tried, and hanged, and Benson escaped to Portugal. + +Little more remains to be said of the history of Lundy. In 1834 it was +purchased by Mr. Heaven, and remained the property of his family for +over sixty years, till 1906, when it once again came on the market, and +was bid for by Germans, but was withdrawn from sale, and remains in +English possession. + +But I cannot close this short account of the island without a brief +reference to the wild life which abounds on the pinnacles of its +inaccessible rocks, on the fern-covered, steep slopes, and in its +numberless sea-washed caves, which are haunted by seals, or were until +within the last few years; for the brutality and selfish carelessness +of chance visitors allowed to land by the courtesy of the owner have +driven away much of the timid wild life which had taken refuge against +the advancing tide of civilization. Seals used to be observed in fair +numbers, particularly at the southern end in a great cave called Seal +Cave, and walruses were occasional visitors. But lobsters and crabs +are still caught in very great numbers, and, together with the +innumerable conies which breed on the island, form the staple industry +of the island. + +Lundy is also the last stronghold of the original old English "black +rat," which has been invaded and destroyed throughout England and +Scotland by the common Scandinavian brown rat; Rat Island, at the +south-eastern corner by the landing-stage, commemorates in its name +this last fortress of a dying race. + +But it is for its birds that Lundy is perhaps most notable. To those +who first approach its mighty cliffs it might appear to be the haunt of +all the birds in creation. There are gulls of many varieties, falcons, +kestrels, ravens, crows, cormorants, kittiwakes, puffins; there is the +razor-billed auk, and that now extinct bird, the Great Auk, was seen on +the island no later than the last century. + +But, indeed, it was no surprise to me to hear of this extinct species +lingering on Lundy; the strangeness and wildness of the place might +lead one to expect it to be the haunt of the Dodo, or that monstrous +and fabulous bird of the "Arabian Nights," the Giant Roc. + +The hoopoe, the pretty little Southern bird which haunts the gardens of +Greece, sings its "tio, tio, tio, tio, tix" of Aristophanes' comedy on +this wind-swept Northern isle; the rose-coloured starling, that rare +and beautiful bird of a warmer clime, has been seen here in the spring; +the eagle and the golden eagle hover above its crags; the sparrow-hawk +and the great gyrfalcon prey upon the small birds and little rodents; +even the wild and shy osprey was known to build its eyrie upon Lundy to +within the last half-century. + +Many of these birds are visitors only, and do not breed here; for in +the spring and the autumn, when the great tides of migration set north +and south, Lundy lies in the track of their going, and here the birds +alight, in their hundreds of thousands, to rest the wings tired with +the going and coming from Africa or Asia across the miles of water. + +But whether in winter or summer, spring or autumn, any bold walker who +ventures round the cliffs and coves of Lundy will find himself +surrounded with such a crowd of screaming sea-fowl, diving, swooping, +poising, or darting, in such myriads as if the foot of man had never +yet scared them from their breeding-places, as the sea-fowl swooped and +screamed from their inviolate heights when the first Norsemen ran their +beaked ship on to the desert beaches of Iceland. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE LAST STRONGHOLDS OF TRADITION + +Schools, newspapers, and railways have gone far in the past hundred +years to destroy the wealth of oral tradition which once satisfied the +imagination and taxed the memories of the country-dwelling population +of England. And do not let us too greatly deplore this; let us +recognize that it is better for the general welfare of the world that a +man who dwells three hundred miles from London should have some +interest, however slight, in international politics, and some +knowledge, however fragmentary, of natural forces, rather than a +slipshod belief in ghosts, witches, and the omnipotence of "squire." +It is not from such minds that empire is made or deserved, and if with +the increase of cheap schooling, cheap printing, and cheap travelling +much that is beautiful in language or in legend is swept aside and +forgotten, we who have, by the fortune of training, been allowed to see +the beauty of the old things must recognize that what the generation +gains is more for its happiness than what it discards, as a new brass +Birmingham bedstead is cleaner, healthier, and more desirable for a +small crowded cottage than a worm-eaten old wooden four-poster. + +This reminder I make to myself more than to any "gentle reader"; for I +have a passionate attachment to antiquity and a curiosity in legend +which leads me into remote paths of speculation and fancy. Some of the +most interesting survivals of ancient tradition are those customs, far +more common all over England than is supposed, which contain some very +ancient religious rite, long ago forgotten by the people, who practise +as a superstition, or sometimes as a pastime, what was once an act of +worship. The Christian Church, indeed, embodies many of these +survivals of paganism, not in its dogma or liturgy, but in its customs. +Such, for instance, is the giving of eggs at Easter, the eating of hot +cross buns on Good Friday, the games of All Hallowe'en, the harvest +festival. + +Such customs as "touching with a dead hand" as a cure for sickness, +covering the mirrors in a house where one has just died, watching at +the church door on Midsummer Night to see the souls of all the +worshippers pass in, and those who will not live out the year remain +behind and do not pass out--these are part of the common stock of +beliefs, not confined to Devonshire or Scotland, nor directly traceable +to Celt or Saxon or Latin, but surviving from the remote past of the +human race, when the slowly emerging mind was struggling with its +apprehensions of life and death. But there are other customs, +surviving in the wilder and less accessible parts of our country, in +Scotland, Northumberland, Devon, and Cornwall, which seem to throw a +flash of light on the history of vanished peoples, by their +resemblance--though worn and rubbed by time, like a defaced coin--to +certain rites, well known to us in history, as practised by the Romans, +or the Druid peoples, or the worshippers of Baal. + +Of such kind is a ceremony, until a few years ago very common in +Devonshire, where the first armful of corn that is cut is bound into a +little sheaf, called "the nek," and set aside from the rest of the +field. At the end of the first day's reaping the oldest man present +takes the little sheaf and holds it aloft, crying, "We ha' un!" (We +have it!) The cry is repeated three times, and the rest of the +reapers, standing round the old man with their reaping-hooks in their +hands, bow down at each cry. The spokesman then cries out three times, +"Thee Nek!" or, as it is stated by some witnesses of the scene, +"Arnack, Arnack, Arnack!" and the little sheaf is carried off the field +and hung up in the church. I do not know the meaning of the cries, but +the whole ceremony is undoubtedly a dedication of the corn to the +Corn-Spirit, and the little sheaf which is carried home and hung up is +a rough image of the Corn-Maiden, like those plaited straw figures of +Demeter and Persephone the Greek husbandmen used to make, and which the +peasants of Sicily make still. Whether the observance of this rite in +Devonshire is of Roman date, or whether it goes farther back, to a +remoter tradition of preclassical times, it is difficult to say. + +So it is, also, of the Devonshire custom of making an offering of wine +and honey to bees on the day of their owner's death, and of reversing +their hives until the corpse has been carried out of the house. The +Greeks poured honey, but not wine, in their rites for the dead, and in +all the ceremonies which had to do with the worship of the earth +deities--the ancient autochthonic gods, older than the Olympians. But +wine was strictly an offering to the gods of the heavens, not to the +gods of the underworld, or of death. + +There is another custom, still very common in North Devon and Somerset, +for the young men of the countryside to climb the nearest hill-top to +see the sunrise over the ridge of the Quantocks or the distant Mendips +on Easter morning. They account for their action by saying it is "for +luck"; but this custom, if connected popularly with Christian worship, +has at its roots an older, sterner, and perhaps bloody origin. For, +searching back into the mists of antiquity, we find that those early +and mysterious peoples whose priests we call the "Druids," to whom the +mistletoe was sacred (and with which we decorate our houses at +Christmas, the festival of "peace and good-will"), offered human +sacrifices to their dark gods on high mountains and at the hour of +sunrise. + +Whether the Britons whom Caesar describes as sacrificing human beings +in vast wicker cages were the Druidical peoples who built Stonehenge +and the great stone circles of Dartmoor and Cumberland, or whether with +them the mode of worship was already traditional, preserved by a +priestly oligarchy from a yet remoter age, and connected by I know not +what strange links with the fierce Eastern worship of Baal or Melkarth, +it is impossible to say with certainty at present, though the names by +which the Cumberland men still call the peaks and valleys round the +small Druid circle near Keswick contain the elements of those foreign +Phoenician words. + +But at least we may assume that the accurate astronomical arrangements +of these Druid stones connected human sacrifice with the movements of +the sun, and the tradition which sends the young men of the countryside +up Dunkery Beacon on Easter morn is certainly older than the first +Roman galley that beached in our bays. + +Dunkery Beacon is the highest peak in the West of England; it rises +above Exmoor black and bold above bog and heather, commanding a view +from the Malvern Hills of Worcestershire on the north to the high lands +of Plymouth on the south-west, two hundred miles distant the one from +the other. The great sweep of the Bristol Channel shines below it on +the west, and beyond that lie the blue hills of Monmouthshire and +Pembrokeshire; eastward the counties of Somerset, Devon, and Dorset lie +under the eyes, and on a clear day it has been computed that no fewer +than fifteen counties can be seen from this one eminence. + +[Illustration: Dunkery Beacon, from Horner Woods] + +So notable a height might well have been chosen by those Druid peoples +as a fitting stage for the celebration of their worship, and the +tradition which holds it "lucky" to climb the Beacon on a spring +morning is just such a memory and faint superstition as lingers from an +old and forgotten faith. The country-folk round Keswick used to drive +their cattle up to the Druid circle on the hill-top near on the first +of May, light a fire within the circle, and drive their cattle through +the smoke "for luck," unconscious that they were remembering the +worship of the god Moloch, to whom beasts and human beings were +sacrificed at his Asiatic shrines by passing them through the fire. + +On Dunkery Beacon, so far as I can ascertain, there are no remains of a +Druid circle, but only two stone platforms arranged for beacon fires. +As a beacon it has been used for many hundred years. In the time of +Alfred the Great it flamed a warning of the coming of the Danes; it was +doubtless lighted at the coming of William the Conqueror into the West; +when the Armada went beating up the Channel; time and again when the +rumour ran that Napoleon had started for these shores; the country-folk +lighted it several times as a warning that the Doones were out on one +of their raids, till one night they climbed the beacon and threw the +watchman on the fire, after which it was left black and silent for all +the evil that the Doones did, until in due course retribution overtook +them and their stronghold was seized. So that I conjecture that the +circle of stones (if there were one) was pulled down to build the +beacon fires. + +But the "Hunting of the Earl of Rone" which takes place at Combe Martin +on Ascension Day is probably the most interesting of all ancient +survivals in North Devon. It is a curious ceremony, partaking +something of the nature of a Guy Fawkes mummery, something, I consider, +of a much older and traditional character. + +The "Earl of Rone," actually, was the son of the Earl of Tyrone, the +"Red Hand of Erin," who, in the reign of James I, fled from Ireland and +landed at Combe Martin, wandered about the countryside with a band of +companions, and was finally pursued and captured in Lady Wood, outside +the village. In the Ascensiontide sports the Earl wears a grotesque +costume: a mask, and a smock padded with straw, and round his neck a +chain of biscuits. He has with him a hobby-horse and buffoon covered +with fantastic trappings, and carrying a small article called a +"mapper" (which is conjectured to be a misreading for "snapper"), and +representing the teeth and jaws of a horse. The Earl has also a +donkey, decorated with flowers and with a necklace of biscuit, and the +hunters wear a sort of fantastic grenadier costume. For a week before +Ascension Day this strange cortege goes in procession round the +neighbourhood. The ceremony on Ascension Day is as follows: The Earl +of Rone hides in Lady Wood, and is there pursued by the soldiers, fired +upon, and captured. He is then placed on the donkey, with his face +towards the tail, and led into the village, accompanied by the fool +with his hobby-horse. They make several halts, at each of which the +Earl is again fired upon and falls wounded from his donkey, mourned by +the fool, but amid the general rejoicing of the spectators. Finally he +is replaced by the fool, and the affair becomes a mere matter of +buffoonery without special significance. Contributions are levied from +the public, and enforced by the "mapper," by which they are seized and +held until they have paid. The fool also has a besom, which he dips in +the gutter, and with which he sprinkles the recalcitrant. + +But among much that is mere horseplay, and common to all popular +celebrations which have no religious significance to keep in check a +natural holiday exuberance, we can discover two distinct traditions. +The one is the actual Guy Fawkes celebration of the capture of the +rebel and outlaw Shane O'Neill; the other is much older, going back +into the remote past of unwritten history, and connected with those +strange religious ceremonies which a study of comparative religions has +shown us to be a natural development of the mind of primitive peoples, +struggling out of the darkness of mere barbarism. Over and over again +we find, among the customs of savage tribes, or behind the elaborate +ceremonial of such civilized nations as the Greeks and Romans, or +lingering in strange and now meaningless ceremonies such as the one I +have just described, this primitive idea of the individual who is +harmful to the community. From being baleful he became sacred. They +cast him out of their city, as the Jews did their scapegoat, to wander +in desert places, and as the Greeks did in a city festival which was +older than the Homeric gods among them, and which symbolized, in +classical times, the days when they had literally stoned a man and a +woman from their midst, bound, and with chaplets of flowers on their +heads and necklaces of black figs around their necks. It is recorded, +among the South Sea Islands, that a traveller once witnessed such a +sacrifice as this memorized in the classic Greek festival. Then, by a +queer but common inversion of idea, this baleful but sacred individual +is fetched back into the community, as the outcast, hidden in Lady +Wood, was brought back into Combe Martin, being beaten and reviled, and +yet keeping his sacred character as a being set apart from the rest of +men. His mask and traditional dress, his necklace of biscuit, and the +decking of the donkey with flowers and bread, all point to the +sacrificial character of this ceremony, though long ago forgotten and +become the opportunity for frolic and holiday-making. + +The custom of "beating the bounds," which was familiar enough in many +country districts in the last century, is also a remains of primitive +tribal rites; it is a summer festival, falling usually at +Ascensiontide, and is held with greater or less ceremony. Now, indeed, +it has become just a holiday affair for children, who dress up and +parade the town or village with a hobby-horse and a few vague +ceremonies, now become shadowy and meaningless, as in the beating of +the bounds which takes place in the older part of the town of Minehead. + +There are many scores of superstitious practices, as distinguished from +these remains of actual ritual of which I have spoken, still in use +among country-folk. In Devonshire they still take a sick child, very +early in the morning, and hold it over a stream which is running east, +with a long thread tied to its finger, so that as the water carries the +thread eastwards away from the child the sickness will also be carried +away. This, which seems to us so incomprehensible a belief, is one of +that very large class of primitive practices which imitate a certain +desired condition, as in the rain-making of certain tribes of red +Indians, when, having danced ceremonially round a large tub of water, +one of the number takes a mouthful and spirts it into the air in +imitation of rain. This is what they call a "charm"; there are charms +for the stanching of blood, for making the cows yield well, for the +cure of toothache, for averting evil from a young child; when a +Devonshire woman is asked to a christening, she still takes with her a +saffron cake, and gives it to the first stranger that she meets on her +way to church. But when the cattle are diseased, they have, or had as +late as 1883, when the ceremony was witnessed and recorded, a rite +which is more than a charm; for a sheep or calf is taken from the herd +and sacrificed, and either burned, or buried in a corner of the field +belonging to the farmer whose cattle are diseased. + +But there is another practice in Devon and Cornwall which we may +proclaim a superstition, but to which the tragedies of these wild +coasts give but too grim an earnestness to those who practise it. When +a ship is long overdue, and a woman can bear the suspense no longer, +she goes down to the seashore and calls her husband by name. Over and +over again she calls him, her neighbours standing by, until over the +waters the voice of her drowned husband comes in answer. Then she +turns and goes to her desolate cottage, with hope put out of her heart. +How often these cries of sorrow and bereavement have gone out from +these rocky coasts, calling the drowned men by their simple, homely +names of field and cottage use from under the grey waters, how often +the waiting women have been comforted or strengthened by a despairing +certainty, we cannot know or realize who do not live and die by the sea. + +Apart from those customs and practices, which contain the germ of some +very ancient ritual or primitive belief, there is another class of +tradition which is purely fantastic, such as ghosts, witches who change +into rabbits and cats, fairies, dragons, and strange portents. Of such +kind is the story of the Ghost of Porlock Weir, a buccaneer named +Lucott, and no unlikely personage to haunt any of these seaside +hamlets. He was a malicious and obstinate ghost who appeared boldly a +week after his funeral--when the inhabitants might reasonably have +supposed they had at last got rid of the bad old man--and though he was +exorcised by no less than eleven clergymen he refused to be laid. At +last the Vicar of Porlock tamed him with a consecrated wafer, compelled +him to ride with him to Watchet, and there imprisoned him in a small +box, which was straight-way thrown into the sea, and he was seen no +more. + +There are elements in this story like that of Anstey's novel, where a +genie is imprisoned in a brass pot, which is fished up out of the sea +and opened, with startling results to a quiet modern community; and it +is to be hoped that nobody will bring Lucott ashore again, along with a +catch of fish. + +There is another strange tale, also, concerning one John Strange of +Porlock, who, on August 23 of 1499, was hewing wood, and upon sitting +down to his midday meal on a log at the edge of the clearing, and +cutting a piece of bread, observed blood to flow from the incision. He +went to his neighbours about it, and with them to his parish priest, +and the matter became one of importance, for I find that a Commission +was appointed and recorded in the Register of Wells, to inquire into +this strange occurrence. Witnesses were called and examined, oaths +taken, the learned Commission sat upon it as solemnly as if it had been +a case of heresy. John Strange, summoned from his little cottage at +Porlock, was, we can well imagine, a half-unwilling hero. Nobody seems +to have arrived at any conclusion, and nobody seems to have suggested +that perhaps John Strange had cut his finger! + +There is an even stranger and more splendidly fantastic story in +Westcote's "View of Devon," of fiery dragons seen flying about certain +barrows or tumuli near Challacombe, and alighting on them, and how a +certain labouring man, having bought a small plot of waste land near +by, began depleting Broaken Bunow to build himself a house with the +material. And how, digging into the hillock, he came upon "a little +place, as it had been a large oven, fairly, strongly and closely walled +up," and breaking into this he discovered an earthen pot, which, hoping +it might contain some treasure, he stretched out his hand to seize, +when, as he put his hand upon it he heard a noise as of a great +trampling of horses coming towards him. So he rose and looked about +him, but, seeing nothing, knelt again to secure the pot, when the same +thing happened again, and so a third time also. Nevertheless he drew +out the pot and took it home, and found it to contain no treasure, but +only a few ashes and little bones. And a very little time after he +lost his senses both of sight and hearing, and died within three months. + +There is another barrow also, near the same place, where I am inclined +to believe that a "mystical sciencer" worked a trick on two worthy +fellows, whom he promised to enrich with silver and gold if they would +dig into the hillock for him and find therein a great brass pan which +contained the treasure. This they did, and came to the brass pan +covered with a large stone, which the strongest of them tried to lift, +and was taken with such a faintness "that he could neither work nor +stand," and therefore called to the other to take his place. This the +man did, and was also taken with faintness; and when they both +recovered, which was in a very short space of time, the "mystical +sciencer" told them that the birds were flown and the nest only left. +And sure enough they found this true: the empty brass pan, with the +bottom bright and clean, as if a treasure had lain there, and all the +rest of it cankered with rust. Whether this sciencer was some obscure +Roger Bacon, and had discovered the use of a volatile anaesthetic +centuries ago, or whether he was enjoying a solitary practical joke at +the expense of two simpletons, is impossible to say. "It is at your +choice to believe either or neither," as Westcote says of the two +foregoing stories. "I have offered them to the shrine of your +judgment, and what truth soever there is in them, they are not unfit +tales for winter nights, when you roast crabs by the fire, whereof this +parish yields none, the climate is too cold, only the fine dainty +fruits of whortles and blackberries." + +One of the pleasantest of tales for winter nights is given by Westcote +himself in his introductory chapters, where he speaks of the air of +Devon as "very healthy, temperate, sweet, and pure," and giving long +life to the inhabitants, more particularly in the good old times, when +men were content to live temperately and frugally, and did not weaken +themselves with delicacies, but subsisted on the bare sustenance +afforded by the earth. Indeed, in the most ancient times they lived on +bark and roots, and on a certain "confection," of which if they took a +small quantity no larger than a bean they neither hungered nor thirsted +for a long while afterwards--so, at least, Diodorus Siculus and Dio +Nicaeus have affirmed, and we can therefore only suppose, in the face +of such authority, that the recipe is long since lost, and that the +habits of Devonshire men have certainly changed since the days when +they lived a hundred and twenty years. + +But that must have been before the Phoenicians came to Britain, for +they are certainly reputed to have brought the secret of clotted (or +clouted) cream with them, and to have landed in Cornwall and Devon with +their scald-pans with them, so that the degeneration of the Damnonii in +the matter of delicacies is of very ancient date. + +I cannot pass from an account of the wonders of Devon without repeating +Miss Celia Fiennes's description of a "ffowle" (as she calls it) which +lives on the island of Lundy, and which was formerly the property of +her grandfather, Lord Saye and Sele, and "yt lives partly in the water +and partly out, and soe may be called an amphibious Creature." She +does not claim to have seen it herself, for all her wanderings up and +down England a-horseback--which was, by the way, sufficient of an +adventure for a young lady in the seventeenth century--but she is none +the less detailed in her description. This queer bird has one foot +like a turkey, and one like a goose, and its habit of laying its eggs +is "in a place the sun shines on, and sets it soe exactly upright on +the small end, and there it remains until taken up, and all the art and +skill of persons cannot set it up soe again to abide." + +She does not give the name of this strange "ffowle," but Lundy is no +unfitting habitat for an amphibious creature which is at least as rare +as the Dodo. + +Stories of Henry de Tracy, who murdered Thomas à Becket, are numerous +up and down the coast; for the Tracys owned a considerable amount of +property here--Lynton, Crinton, Countisbury, and Parracombe--and, in +spite of historical evidence of the family's continued prosperity, +tradition asserts that the curse brought down by sacrilege was +fulfilled, and that Henry de Tracy wanders up and down these desolate +coves, condemned to weave ropes of sand that can never draw his +wretched soul out of torment till the last trump shall sound. He has +become, indeed, a figure of legend, merged with such strange persons as +the Wandering Jew and all those restless and unreleased spirits who, +like Sisyphus of Greek legend or Tregeagle of Cornish, for ever toil at +a for ever unaccomplished task. + +The legends which have sprung up round the name of Coppinger have been +of quick growth, for "Cruel Coppinger" was a Danish sea-captain who was +wrecked off Hartland at the end of the eighteenth century. He came +naked ashore, the only survivor from the ship, having swum through the +stormy waves. He staggered up the beach, seized the red cloak from an +old woman's shoulders, wrapped himself in it, and leapt on the horse of +a young girl who stood by, urged the horse into a gallop, and +disappeared from the beach. That was a sufficiently striking entrance +to the stage of Devon, and he filled his part adequately. The young +girl with whom he had ridden off was Dinah Hamlyn; he was taken by her +to her father's farm, where he was fed and clothed. He married Dinah, +and after her father's death, within a year, he ill-treated shamefully +her and her mother, though it was to them that he practically owed his +life, ship-wrecked strangers in the eighteenth century being apt to +disappear among an inhospitable people. Coppinger lived by smuggling +and wrecking; he was brave, violent, and of great physical strength, +and he terrorized the population of these little villages by acts of +savagery and cruelty. A ganger who had had the boldness to interfere +with him he seized, and beheaded on the gunnel of his own boat, and +even for this no one dared to bring him to justice. He played violent +practical jokes, by inviting to dinner with him unfortunate people who +dared not refuse, and serving them up cats or offal for their meal. + +He was in every way a scoundrel and a blackguard, and became such a +pest that at last he earned retribution; and after many local attempts +to convict him of smuggling or wrecking, the revenue officers came out +from Bude to the Bristol Channel to hunt him down. He was seen last on +the Gull Rock, off Hartland Point, signalling one evening to a ship +which lay in the offing. He was taken off by a boat, but almost +immediately a storm came up, the ship was blotted out from the sight of +those watching from the cliffs, and when the squall passed she had +totally disappeared. No one ever knew whether she had foundered with +all hands, or had run out of sight behind Lundy, or whether she had +become, by reason of the wicked wretch aboard her, a second _Flying +Dutchman_, shaping an endless course through stormy seas. + +There is a verse of rough doggerel which the children in these parts +still repeat, and which embodies the story of this tyrant: + + "Will you hear of cruel Coppinger? + He came from a foreign land; + He was brought to us by the salt water, + He was carried away by the wind." + + +Probably Coppinger's wild and picturesque rush from the beach, like a +Centaur in a scarlet cloak, was an actual measure of prudence; for in +those cruel times of wreckers and smugglers the survivors who landed +from a wreck were often murdered by the people they were thrown +amongst, because "dead men tell no tales," and the unfortunate seamen +might otherwise give evidence of false lights which had seemed to +promise safety and refuge, and had drawn them on to the rocks. Such +was the case of a French ship which was drawn ashore at Hele by +wreckers, and the only survivor was taken to Champernownesheyes (the +old gabled farmhouse which was formerly the home of the well-known +Devonshire family of Champernowne), and there murdered. There is a +curious ghost-story told in connection with this: The farm in due time +passed into other hands, and all memory of the wreck or the +disappearance of the one unfortunate survivor was lost. But one +evening, while the farmer who was then living at Champernownesheyes was +smoking his pipe in the garden, he fell to idly counting the windows, +and, having done this several times, he discovered that there was one +window unaccounted for. He called his wife, and then the servants, +and, having made sure of this, they located the position of the strange +window, and, going upstairs, they broke down the wall which they judged +to be opposite, and found, indeed, that the window lighted a small +room, furnished in sixteenth-century style, and containing a bed, hung +with mouldering tapestry, on which lay a skeleton--the bones of the +shipwrecked survivor who had been murdered. As they broke into the +room, and went to fling open the long-closed window, they heard a great +rushing noise, and cries and groans, and they declared that the garden +was filled with evil spirits, rustling and whispering, mopping and +mowing, for upwards of an hour afterwards. + +There are, of course, many more tales, legends, and traditions, than I +have been able to deal with in the space of one chapter; every village +has them, every cove and creek, dark wooded hollow, or twisted and +fantastic rock, and to collect and collate, to sift and inquire into +all the wealth of folk-lore that our country still holds would be an +attractive but a life-long work. All I have attempted to give in these +few pages is some general idea of the intimate life of these +country-folk, what beliefs and customs, inherited often from the days +before Christianity, what charms and legends and lore, go to the +fashioning of their minds, just as I have tried to give a general idea +of the beauty and wildness, the peculiar and intimate quality, of the +country in which they live. + + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Lynton and Lynmouth, by +John Presland and F. J. 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J. Widgery + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Lynton and Lynmouth + A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland + +Author: John Presland + F. J. Widgery + +Release Date: September 25, 2007 [EBook #22765] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LYNTON AND LYNMOUTH *** + + + + +Produced by Al Haines + + + + + +</pre> + + +<A NAME="img-front"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-front.jpg" ALT="Lee Bay" BORDER="2" WIDTH="415" HEIGHT="627"> +<H3 CLASS="h3center" STYLE="width: 415px"> +Lee Bay +</H3> +</CENTER> + +<BR><BR> + +<H1 ALIGN="center"> +LYNTON AND LYNMOUTH +</H1> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +A PAGEANT OF CLIFF & MOORLAND +</H2> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +BY +</H3> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +JOHN PRESLAND +</H2> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +ILLUSTRATED BY +<BR> +F. J. WIDGERY +</H3> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +LONDON +<BR> +CHATTO & WINDUS +<BR> +MCMXVII +</H4> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +CONTENTS +</H2> + +<BR> + +<CENTER> + +<TABLE WIDTH="100%"> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">CHAPTER</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> </TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">I. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap01">DEVONSHIRE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">II. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap02">SOME LITERARY ASSOCIATIONS</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">III. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap03">BARNSTAPLE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">IV. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap04">LYNTON</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">V. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap05">LYNTON (<I>continued</I>), COUNTISBERRY, AND NORTHWARD</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VI. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap06">PORLOCK AND EXMOOR</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap07">IN SOMERSET</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VIII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap08">LUNDY</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">IX. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap09">THE LAST STRONGHOLDS OF TRADITION</A></TD> +</TR> + +</TABLE> + +</CENTER> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS +</H2> + +<BR> + +<H3> +<A HREF="#img-front"> +LEE BAY . . . . . . . . . . . . <I>frontispiece</I> +</A> +</H3> + +<H3> +<A HREF="#img-008"> +BOSSINGTON HILL +</A> +</H3> + +<H3> +<A HREF="#img-024"> +DUNKERY BEACON +</A> +</H3> + +<H3> +<A HREF="#img-044"> +THE DOONE VALLEY +</A> +</H3> + +<H3> +<A HREF="#img-058"> +WOODY BAY AND DUTY POINT, WEST LYNTON +</A> +</H3> + +<H3> +<A HREF="#img-066"> +THE SHEPHERD'S COTTAGE: DOONE VALLEY +</A> +</H3> + +<H3> +<A HREF="#img-070"> +LYNMOUTH BAY AND FORELAND +</A> +</H3> + +<H3> +<A HREF="#img-074"> +THE VALLEY OF ROCKS +</A> +</H3> + +<H3> +<A HREF="#img-084"> +HEDDON'S MOUTH, NEAR LYNTON +</A> +</H3> + +<H3> +<A HREF="#img-090"> +CASTLE ROCK, LYNTON +</A> +</H3> + +<H3> +<A HREF="#img-104"> +DUTY POINT +</A> +</H3> + +<H3> +<A HREF="#img-110"> +THE MOORS NEAR BRENDON TWO GATES +</A> +</H3> + +<H3> +<A HREF="#img-122"> +HARVEST MOON, EXMOOR +</A> +</H3> + +<H3> +<A HREF="#img-146"> +THE DOONE VALLEY IN WINTER +</A> +</H3> + +<H3> +<A HREF="#img-160"> +LYNTON: THE DEVIL'S CHEESERING +</A> +</H3> + +<H3> +<A HREF="#img-184"> +DUNKERY BEACON FROM HORNER WOODS +</A> +</H3> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap01"></A> + +<H1 ALIGN="center"> +LYNTON AND LYNMOUTH +</H1> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER I +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +DEVONSHIRE +</H3> + +<P> +The original Celtic name for Devonshire, the name used by the Britons +whom Caesar found here when he landed, was probably "Dyfnaint," for a +Latinized form of it, "Dumnonia" or "Damnonia," was used by Diodorus +Siculus when writing of the province of Devon and Cornwall in the third +century A.D. So that the name by which the men of Devon call their +country is the name by which those ancient men called it who erected +the stone menhirs on Dartmoor, and built the great earth-camp of +Clovelly Dykes, or the smaller bold stronghold of Countisbury. At +least, conjecturally this is so, and it is pleasant to believe it, for +it links the Devon of our own day, the Devon of rich valleys and windy +moors, the land of streams and orchards, of bleak, magnificent cliff +and rock-guarded bay, of shaded combe and suave, fair villages, in an +unbroken tradition of name and habitation with the men of that silent +and vanished race. +</P> + +<P> +Up and down the length of England, from the Land's End to the +Northumbrian dales, lie the traces of these far-off peoples whose very +names are faint guesses preserved only in the traditions of local +speech. Strangely and suddenly we come upon the evidence of their life +and death: here a circle of stones on a barren moor or bleak hilltop, +there a handful of potsherds or a flint arrowhead; sometimes, indeed, +though rarely, the bones of their very bodies, laid aside in +earth-barrows or stone coffins for this unknown length of years. And +there the most unreflective among us feels a sudden awe and wonder at +the momentary vision of the profound antiquity of this land in which we +live, and for a few moments all desires and aims seem futile in face of +this immemorial past. +</P> + +<P> +Only for a few moments, though, and then we step from the "Druid +Circle," or turn away from the barrow, and the current of our everyday +life takes us up once more. +</P> + +<P> +Myself, I agree with Westcote. Westcote is a charming old gentleman of +King James the First's time, who wrote a book called "A View of +Devonshire in 1630." In Chapter I he discusses the ancient name of +Devonshire much as I have done, but because in the seventeenth century +you must have a Latin or a Greek at your elbow to give you +respectability as a writer, he brings forward a formidable array of +authorities—Ptolemaeus, Solinus Pylyhistor, and Diodorus Siculus. +But, having had them make their bow before the reader, he remarks that +all these gentlemen lived "far remoted" from Devonshire, and were +therefore liable to error in the transmission of names; "for, in my +opinion," says he, "those that declare the first names of strange +countries far remoted are as the poor which wear their garments all +bepatched and pieced, whereof the pieces that are added are much more +in quantity of cloth than the garment before, when it was first made." +</P> + +<P> +As an example of this error he instances the name of Peru. "When the +Spaniards had conquered Mexico, and were purposing to proceed farther, +their commander, in his manner, demanded of one of the natives he met +withal what the country was named, who answered, 'Peru,' by which name +it is known unto this day, which in his language was, 'I know not what +you say.'" +</P> + +<P> +Even more fantastic is the etymological origin of Andaluzia, for the +poor countryman of this story, when addressed by the conquering Moor, +merely remarked surlily to his ass, "gee-up Luzia!" or, in his own +tongue, "Ando Luzia!" which was taken by the Moor in remarkable good +faith, and has ever after been the name of that province. +</P> + +<P> +Westcote himself inclines to the origin De (or Di) Avon, "the country +of waters," "diu" being the Celtic for God, and "avon" the word for +river (which it certainly is), and the whole name agreeing with the +character of the country, which is a land of many waters, both great +rivers and small streams. But he goes on to observe tolerantly that +each man may think as he chooses, even to deriving the word Devonshire +from Dane-shire, the shire of the Danes, though it is known to have had +its name before ever the first Dane landed in England, and there seems +to be little likelihood, therefore, but only "a sympathie in letters." +He concludes his discussion by the couplet: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"To no man am I so much thrall<BR> +To swear he speaketh truth in all."<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +And with this tolerant and unpedantic frame of mind I am in hearty +accord. +</P> + +<P> +But if Caesar and the Romans, who for several centuries had a station +at Exeter, their great "camp on the Exe," called the wide province of +Devon and Cornwall "Damnonia," what did the Phoenicians call it when +they traded Cornish tin along the Mediterranean, and even, it is said, +into remote Africa, and ran their galleys into the little bay of Combe +Martin, to lade with the silver and lead which can still be mined +there, and which they may have carried to the old buried palaces of +Knossos, to be fashioned into amulets and trinkets by those Cretans who +built the dancing-floor of Ariadne and the maze of the Minotaur? That +is a question that we cannot answer; all the busy speech of all those +peoples is silent; only the old mine-workings remain, and the sacked +and buried palaces of Crete, and a Phoenician ingot-mould fished up in +Plymouth Harbour, and fitting, so 'tis said, an ingot which has been +found in Central Africa. +</P> + +<P> +With the coming of the Romans comes, as always, a little light, for +they were a shrewd and mighty people, who liked their house set in +order, and tabulated and recorded and organized, and have left traces +of their orderliness on the face of the land, and the speech of the +people, and the laws of the nations in three continents. They subdued +Damnonia, and held it from their armed camp at Exeter, where Roman +coins, pottery, brick, and inscriptions are found abundantly. Perhaps +also they held and transformed several of the great earth-camps for +their own uses, such as the Clovelly Dykes or the escarpments at +Ilfracombe, built by the Britons or some earlier people. But the +Romans do not appear to have settled in Devonshire as they did in East +Anglia and the Midlands; I believe there are few traces of their +dwellings, villas, roads, or baths, beyond Exeter in the West. +</P> + +<P> +When their rule weakened and declined in the fifth century, certainly +Damnonia would be one of the first provinces over which their +jurisdiction waned, because of its inaccessibility, its deep wooded +valleys, the wastes of Exmoor and Dartmoor, and the danger of its +coasts; and we may well suppose that the old Celtic traditions and +customs continued here but little modified by the Roman occupation. +</P> + +<P> +Then at some time in the fifth and sixth centuries the Saxons came, but +they seem to have come to Devonshire more peaceably than in their +fierce raids on the south and east coasts; they came as Christians to +the Christian British, and though they conquered them, they did not +drive them out, nor compel them into mountain fastnesses, as the +earlier Saxon conquerors drove the British into Wales. So that in +Devon, though to a lesser degree than in Cornwall, and still less than +in Wales, there is a larger admixture of original Celtic blood than in +Kent, Sussex, Essex, and the counties of the Saxon heptarchy. But, +according to Westcote—who is, for all his discursiveness, no bad +authority—the Britons and the Saxons came to loggerheads; for the +government being Saxon, and the laws and the language, the poor Britons +could neither hear nor make themselves understood, and so took arms +against the settlers, and were by them driven "beyond the river now +called Taw-meer" (<I>i.e.</I>, Tamar), and so out of Devon into Cornwall. +This was done by King Athelstan, after he had beaten the Welsh at +Hereford and subdued the Picts and Scots. +</P> + +<P> +From this time forth, says Westcote, the Britons began to be called +"Corn-Welshmen or Cornishmen," and he gives an elaborate etymology of +the name, but adds that he need speak no further of Cornwall, "being +eased of that labour by the industrious labours of the right worthy and +worshipful gentleman Richard Carew, who … hath very eloquently +described it." +</P> + +<P> +The Saxons, as we know, led a struggling and turbulent existence for +five or six centuries in contest with the Danes. Probably the full +total of the misery inflicted on this country by the Danish raids can +never be reckoned, but that they crippled and exhausted Saxon England +by their frequency and the great duration of time over which they +extended is apparent by the advance made in civilization in the short +period between the breaking of their power and the coming of the +Normans. Devonshire was not spared by them, and the cliffs of +Teignmouth are said to be blood-red since a great slaughter of the +Danes in 970. Certainly the Saxon Chronicle records contests bloody +and pitiless enough, and tradition lingers still in many places where +history has no record. In Devon, for instance, wherever the +dwarf-elder grows folk say that Danish blood has been spilt, and that a +group of these trees marks the site of an old battlefield; indeed, the +dwarf-elder is still called "Danes-elder" in the West Country. +</P> + +<P> +Between Bideford and Appledore, on this northern coast of Devon, stands +Kenwith Castle—long called Hennaborough or Henry Hill—under whose +walls the great Alfred and his son met the Danes under Hubba, and +defeated them with great slaughter about the year 877. The English +captured the famous standard of the Danes, the Raven, which was +"wrought in needlework by the daughters of Lothbroc," and which had +magical properties—clapping its wings when defeat was at hand. The +remnant of the Danish force, carrying their wounded leader with them, +retreated to their ships, and Hubba died there on the beach, and was +buried by his followers before they fled aboard, under a great rock +called Hubba's Stone, and now in corrupt form Hubblestone, a name which +still clings near the spot, though probably the rock of Hubba is now +swept by the sea. But under this rock he lies, with his weapons and +trophies about him and his crown of gold on his head, until the last +trump shall rouse him. +</P> + +<A NAME="img-008"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-008.jpg" ALT="Bossington Hill from Porlock Hill" BORDER="2" WIDTH="611" HEIGHT="439"> +<H3 CLASS="h3center" STYLE="width: 611px"> +Bossington Hill from Porlock Hill +</H3> +</CENTER> + +<P> +The grave of Hubba lies under the sea, like King Arthur's lost country +of Lyonesse, where the fisher-folk say they can hear the bells ring +from the drowned churches as they sail over them on still summer +mornings; but near Porlock the sea has yielded the strip of land it has +stolen from Bideford, and the Danish long-ships rode what are now the +green fields around Porlock. +</P> + +<P> +That it was so the very name Porlock shows, for Port-locan means an +enclosed place for ships, under which name it is mentioned twice in the +Saxon Chronicle. So the sea has retreated a mile and a half since the +Danish raid of A.D. 918, when they entered the Severn, harried Wales, +and landed at Porlock, only to be beaten back to their ships again by +the Saxons. +</P> + +<P> +Harold, the great English Harold who was slain at the Battle of +Hastings, made a raid from Ireland in 1052. He ran into Porlock with +nine ships, landed and went several miles inland, killing and looting, +and returned in safety. But this filibustering expedition, so greatly +to his discredit, and so unworthy to find a place among all his other +acts, was almost certainly done in anger and dictated by personal +revenge. For Porlock, which was plainly an important harbour and one +of the seats of the Saxon Kings—at least, it is mentioned as having a +"King's house" there—was the property of Algar, the son of Leofric, +Earl of Mercia. But Harold was the son of Godwin, Earl of Kent, and +Kent and Mercia were old and bitter enemies, and it was due to the +intrigues of Mercia that Earl Godwin was banished, and Harold went with +him to Ireland. Then, fourteen years later, William came to an England +weakened by internal strife, and Harold was slain at Hastings and the +Saxon lords dispossessed of their lands and goods, which were given to +the foreigner. Here the Domesday Book, with its plain bare statements, +gives us a grim record of the Conquest. All, or almost all, the Saxon +names of the overlords disappear, and the Norman take their place, +continuing down to our own day. This same Porlock was taken from +Algar, son of Leofric, and given to Baldwin Redvers. Countisbury was +taken from Ailmer, and held by William himself. Lynton was taken from +Ailward Touchstone—it is interesting to find the name of Shakespeare's +fool in Domesday Book—and held by William. Combe Martin (then called +"Comba") was taken from Aluric and held by Jubel. Bideford and +Clovelly were taken from Brihtric and given to Queen Matilda. +</P> + +<P> +There is a curious and romantic story about this Brihtric, son of +Aelfgar. He was one of the most powerful of the Saxon Thanes, and +seems to have owned lands not only in Devon, but in Dorset, Somerset, +and even in Gloucester, though the latter entries in Domesday may refer +to another Brihtric, who was not the son of Aelfgar. When he was a +young man, and before the marriage of Matilda to William of Normandy, +Brihtric was sent by King Edward on a diplomatic mission to the Count +of Flanders, Matilda's father, and there he met Matilda, who fell in +love with him and offered herself in marriage. He refused her, and she +married William; but later, when the cycle of events put her old lover +in the power of her husband, she sued for and obtained the grant of +many of his lands. Brihtric himself was seized at his house at Hanley, +in Worcestershire, on the very day that Wulfstan had hallowed his +chapel, and sent to Winchester, where he died in prison. +</P> + +<P> +This story, which would have made a stirring theme for Sir Walter +Scott, is found in the chronicles of Tewkesbury, in the Anglo-Norman +chronicles, and in Wace, the old rhyming historian of the twelfth +century. Here are a few lines of the old French version: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Laquele jadsi, quant fu pucele,<BR> +Ama un conte dangleterre,<BR> +Brictrich Mau le oi nomer<BR> +Apres le rois ki fu riche ber;<BR> +A lui la pucele enuera messager<BR> +Pur sa amour a lui procurer;<BR> +Meis Brictrich Maude refusa,<BR> +Dune ele m'lt se coruca,<BR> +Hastivement mer passa<BR> +E a Willam bastard se maria.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +which we may put into English so: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Who formerly, as a maiden,<BR> +Loved an English count,<BR> +Brihtric Maude heard him named;<BR> +And who, save the King, than he was richer?<BR> +To him the maiden sent a messenger<BR> +To obtain his love;<BR> +But Brihtric refused Matilda,<BR> +Whereat she waxed very angry,<BR> +Hastily passed over the sea<BR> +And married William the bastard."<BR> +</P> + +<P> +But if this is one of the stories which is preserved to us, with its +fierce love, and its fierce hate, and its unsparing revenge, and all +the human hopes and acts and motives of which it gives but a bare +hint—the pride of Brihtric perhaps, or perhaps his love for another +woman, for an alliance with the Count of Flanders might satisfy an +ambitious man—how many tragic dramas, how many stories of cruelty and +oppression and exile and mourning, lie behind the bare short records of +the Domesday Book? All these sunny towns of North Devon and +Somerset—Lynton, Crinton, Porlock, Countisbury, Paracombe, +Challacombe, and north to Dunster, and south to Barnstaple and +Bideford—all these wooded or wind-swept spots, which look as if they +could have had no history, save of market-days and fairs, had their +individual drama in that fierce annexation. +</P> + +<P> +Sometimes, perhaps, they suffered hardly at all. Their Saxon lord +lived elsewhere; he was slain or banished, and they came imperceptibly +under the Norman rule. But more often, I imagine, particularly on the +smaller estates, the lord dwelt in patriarchal intercourse with his +tenants, with that freedom of speech and right of judgment, which, in +"Ivanhoe," Scott draws in the household and retinue of Cedric; and the +eviction was bitter, and the rule of the new lord oppressive and +hateful. +</P> + +<P> +Domesday Book was compiled in 1086, twenty years after the landing of +William, so that a new generation was already growing up, and the old +scars were beginning to heal. Here is a translation of the entry on +Lynton: +</P> + +<P> +"William has a manor called Lintona, which Ailward Touchstone held on +the day on which King Edward was alive and dead, and with this manor +was added formerly another called Incrintona, which Algar held. These +are held by William for one manor, and they rendered geld for one +hide.… Lintona is worth four pounds and Incrintona three pounds. When +William received them Lintona was worth 20 shillings and Incrintona +15.…" +</P> + +<P> +It is interesting to note how all property throughout England had +advanced in value since "the day that King Edward was alive and dead"; +in the old English, "on pam timan pe Eadward cing was cucu and +dead"—<I>i.e.</I>, on the fifth of January 1066—which is a clear +intimation that the firm rule of the Conqueror had increased the +material prosperity of the country in one generation. +</P> + +<P> +After the Conquest there was peace in Devonshire for many years, though +Exeter was besieged by Stephen for three months in 1137, when he and +Matilda, the mother of Henry II, rent England with a war of succession; +but the young Henry came to the throne in 1152, and ruled wisely and +strongly for thirty-five years. Under him Devon prospered, as did all +England, and the cloth-making industry, which in Westcote's time, in +the seventeenth century, was so notable a part of the wealth of Devon, +probably had its first considerable beginnings in this reign. +</P> + +<P> +But Henry II is remembered less for his wise laws and far-sighted +government than for the murder of Thomas à Becket, which clouded his +latter years and brought his enemies—his wife and his son among +them—swarming about his ears. This northern coast of Devon is linked +with that dark crypt in Canterbury where Becket fell in the sacerdotal +robes of High Mass; for it was a Tracy who was one of the four knights +who spurred from London to rid Henry "of this turbulent priest," and +the Tracys owned Lynton, Countisbury, and Morthoe. It is to Morthoe +that Tracy is supposed to have come after the murder, with the curse +upon him which descended to his family—that, wherever they went, +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 3em">"the Tracys</SPAN><BR> +Have always the wind and the rain in their faces"—<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +and to have lived out the bitter end of his life with the horror of +sacrilege in his heart. There is a monument in the church of Morthoe +of William de Tracy, but it is of early fourteenth-century date, and +belongs to a descendant of King Henry's knight, who was rector of the +parish. A later Tracy was Baron of Barnstaple, and was appointed +Governor of the island of Lundy in the reign of Henry III. +</P> + +<P> +Nearly a century later Edward II, flying from the armies of his Queen +and the turbulent barons, took ship for Lundy, but was driven back to +Wales by contrary winds. And of this event a poem was made in the +reign of James I, which is quoted by Westcote as written by a "modern +poet," though he does not give us the name. The verse still retains a +smack of the Elizabethan diction—not the Shakespeare magic, indeed, +but the euphuistic, antithetical, fantastic balance of phrases: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"To Lundy which in Sabrin's mouth doth stand,<BR> +Carried with hope (still hoping to find ease),<BR> +Imagining it were his native land,<BR> +England itself; Severn, the narrow seas;<BR> +With this conceit, poor soul, himself doth please.<BR> +And sith his rule is over-ruled by men,<BR> +On birds and beasts he'll king it once again."<BR> +</P> + +<P> +Devon took its unhappy share in the Wars of the Roses, and Perkin +Warbeck besieged Exeter in 1497, but unsuccessfully, like most other +exploits of that unlucky adventurer. Fifty years later the West rose +in arms against Henry VIII, in support of the "old religion," and to +protest against the dissolution of the monasteries; but the rising was +put down, and Henry took and subdued Exeter, and carried through his +bold and often ruthless policy. +</P> + +<P> +But it is in the reign of Elizabeth that Devon takes on the special +glamour with which it is still associated in most minds. For it was +the sixteenth century which gave to England such men as Richard and +John Hawkins, Adrien and Humphrey Gilbert, John Davies—that sailor +friend of Adrien Gilbert's who, inspired by him, made the first dark +voyage into the Polar regions, and traded with the Esquimaux, as told +in Hakluyt's "Voyages"—and Sir Richard Grenville, with his "men of +Bideford in Devon," with whom he fought the <I>Revenge</I> single-handed +against the fifty and three Spanish galleons in that last, greatest +fight of all; and Sir Walter Raleigh, a philosopher among courtiers, a +poet among princes, statesman, dreamer, adventurer, who planned nobly +and executed daringly, and failed more greatly than other men succeed. +Millais has drawn him for us, in his boyhood, sitting on the beach at +Budleigh Salterton, with the wind blowing his hair round his sensitive, +eager face, hugging his knees as he listens to the stories of the +sailor with the bright parrot-feathers in his hat, one of the men, +perhaps, who sailed with Frobisher or terrible John Hawkins, round the +world to the far-off coasts of adventure, the lands of gold and spices. +It is to Raleigh, and to his half-brother, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, that +we owe the first colony of America, "Virginia," called so by Raleigh +from the Virgin Queen, in the compliment of his day—to them is due the +praise of having seen that "colonization, trade, and the enlargement of +Empire, were all more important for the welfare of England than the +acquisition of gold," and this in an age which was dazzled by the +facilities of wealth lying ready to the greedy hand in that "New World." +</P> + +<P> +And this mind, so daring, so original, so diverse, which could turn a +sonnet or design a battleship (for the <I>Ark Raleigh</I>, built after his +plans, was admittedly the best ship of our fleet that met the Armada), +which had experienced the favour and disfavour of princes in the +fullest degree, which had known triumph and discouragement beyond the +ordinary measure of humanity, turned in the last dark years of +imprisonment to a steady contemplation of human activity, and, largely +conceiving here, as in all else, planned a "History of the World." Let +his own noble words be his epitaph: +</P> + +<P> +"O eloquent, just, and mighty Death! whom none could advise, thou hast +persuaded; what none have dared, thou hast done; and whom all the world +have flattered, thou only hast cast out of the world and despised; thou +hast drawn together all the far-stretched greatness, all the pride, +cruelty and ambition of man, and covered it all over with these two +narrow words, 'Hic jacet.'" +</P> + +<P> +And then there was Drake—Drake, whose name perhaps overshadows all +other names in Devon; Drake, who +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 3em">"was playing a rubber of bowls</SPAN><BR> +When the great Armada came;"<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +but, being told of the sighting of the fleet, remarked that "they must +wait their turn, good souls," and continued his game; Drake, who, the +year before the sailing of the Armada, "singed the King of Spain's +beard" most mightily, going up and down the coasts of Spain and +Portugal, plundering and burning the ships in their very harbours; who +sailed round the world, with the sun for "fellow traveller," as an +epitaph under his portrait in the Guildhall says of him; who, on the +first independent expedition which he led to America, received a +dangerous wound in his attack on Nombre de Dios, but concealed it from +his men, and led them to the public treasury, telling them "that he had +brought them to the mouth of the treasury of the world," and then +fainted over the great bars of silver and gold, and when they took him +up he was losing "so much blood as filled his very footsteps in the +sand;" Drake, who has become a legend and a myth in Devon, so that the +country-people say that he brought water from Dartmoor to Plymouth, by +compelling a stream to follow his horse's heels all the way into the +town; who, like King Arthur and Barbarossa, is not dead, but will +return again to his country if his people in their need strike on his +drum and call him. +</P> + +<P> +But beyond and behind all these great names, which ring in our ears +like martial music, are the nameless crowd of Devon men who sailed with +them, and fought with them, and worked with them, and loved them. Men +from Bideford and Appledore and Barnstaple, from Teignmouth and +Budleigh and Dartmouth, from every little harbour along the bold north +coast, from every creek and bay of the south, from the sheltered +villages among their trees, from the wind-swept, hilly little towns, +from the busy quayside or the lonely farm, came the men whose courage +and whose will, whose love of profit and greater love of adventure, +gave a lustre to England in the "golden days of Elizabeth." +</P> + +<P> +Those days passed, and were followed presently by the unhappy years of +the great Civil Wars. It was perhaps not unfitting that a +Grenville—Sir Bevil Grenville—led an army against the Parliamentarian +troops in the Battle of Lansdown Hill, though it was an army of +Cornishmen he led, and not of Devonshire men, for the Grenvilles were +then living at their Cornish home of Stowe. Sir Bevil was killed in +battle, but Anthony Payne, his servant, a great giant of a man, and a +true friend to his master, set Sir Bevil's young son upon his father's +horse, and bade him lead his father's men to victory, as, had he lived, +his father would have done. Afterwards Anthony Payne brought Sir +Bevil's body back to Stowe, and he wrote to Lady Grenville a letter +which deserves to be recorded for its true and simple dignity: +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +"HONOURED MADAM,— +</P> + +<P> +"Ill news flieth apace: the heavy tidings hath no doubt already +travelled to Stowe that we have lost our blessed master by the enemies' +advantage. You must not, dear lady, grieve too much for your noble +spouse. You know, as we all believe, that his soul was in heaven +before his bones were cold. He fell, as he did often tell us he wished +to die, for the good Stewart cause, for his country and his King. He +delivered to me his last commands, and with such tender words for you +and for his children as are not to be set down with my poor pen, but +must come to your ears upon my best heart's breath.… I am coming +down with the mournfullest burden that ever a poor servant did bear, to +bring the great heart that is cold to Kilkhampton vault. Oh, my lady, +how shall I ever brook your weeping face?…" +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +This perhaps, is Cornish history and not Devonshire, except that the +name of Grenville is so inseparably linked in our minds with Devon. +</P> + +<P> +During the Royalist wars from 1642-1650 Exeter was twice besieged by +the Parliamentarians; Ilfracombe twice changed hands, in 1644 being +taken by Doddington for the Royalists, and two years later falling to +Fairfax after his capture of Barnstaple; Tiverton also was besieged by +the Royalists, though it seems to have held within itself the two +irreconcilable factions. But it was not in Devon that the fiercest +battles of that time were fought, nor the greatest and bitterest +disunion prevailed. Of the subsequent history of Devon I shall say +little. The unhappy expedition of the Duke of Monmouth landed at Lyme +Regis, just on the borders of Dorset and Devon, and he himself was +joyfully received in Exeter; but it was in Somerset that the battle of +Sedgemoor was lost, and Somerset that suffered chiefly from the Bloody +Assizes. +</P> + +<P> +Let us rather turn to the Devon of to-day, realizing with thankfulness +that the traditions of Drake and Frobisher, of Grenville and Hawkins, +still hold; that the heirs of the men who put out in their frail ships +for the New World, now buffet round our wild coasts in minesweeper or +trawler, destroyer or old cargo tubs, on a far more grim adventure. +Without the hope of gain, without the spur of glory, from every port +and harbour, from every creek and bay and inlet of our coasts comes the +patient, silent, heroic service of the men of the sea. +</P> + +<P> +And on many a hasty grave, in the shot-riddled mud of Flanders, or on +the barren beaches of Gallipoli or the ruined lands of Babylon, might +that poem of Sir Henry Newbolt's which he calls "April on Waggon Hill" +be set up as a fitting epitaph: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Lad, and can you rest now,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">There beneath your hill?</SPAN><BR> +Your hands are on your breast now,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">But is your heart so still?</SPAN><BR> +'Twas the right death to die, lad,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">A gift without regret,</SPAN><BR> +But unless truth's a lie, lad,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">You dream of Devon yet.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Ay, ay, the year's awaking,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">The fire's among the ling,</SPAN><BR> +The beechen hedge is breaking,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">The curlew's on the wing;</SPAN><BR> +Primroses are out, lad,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">On the high banks of Lee,</SPAN><BR> +And the sun stirs the trout, lad,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">From Brendon to the sea.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"I know what's in your heart, lad—<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">The mare he used to hunt,</SPAN><BR> +And her blue market-cart, lad,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">With posies tied in front.</SPAN><BR> +We miss them from the moor road,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">They're getting old to roam,</SPAN><BR> +The road they're on's a sure road<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And nearer, lad, to home.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Your name, the name they cherish?<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">'Twill fade, lad, 'tis true:</SPAN><BR> +But stone and all may perish<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">With little loss to you.</SPAN><BR> +While fame's fame you're Devon, lad,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">The Glory of the West;</SPAN><BR> +Till the roll's called in heaven, lad,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">You may well take your rest."</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap02"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER II +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +SOME LITERARY ASSOCIATIONS +</H3> + +<P> +From Barnstaple to Dunster, and from Tiverton to Lynton, this beautiful +piece of country is peculiarly rich in literary associations. Nor is +this to be wondered at when we consider the variety and the loveliness +of the scenery, the great open, heathery wastes of Exmoor, the +wind-swept cliffs and highlands, the fair and luxuriant valleys where +the pure bright waters of these hill-fed streams flow through a green +tunnel of overarching trees, making a fertile paradise of flower and +fern in their course. And the magnificent bold rocks and forelands of +the coast, the streams broken into feathery spray falling down the +precipitous face of the cliffs, creek and gully and cave, the +wave-washed golden sands of the bays, or the line of foam fretting ever +at the foot of these granite crags. And beyond is the sea; from every +hilltop the eye turns to it, in the sheltered orchards the air is salt +with it, the thunder of its great breakers on the coast can be heard +far inland, an undercurrent beneath the singing of birds and the hum of +bees; it is never far from the eyes or from the mind, blue as faery +under a June sun, when the wheeling gulls are dazzling white flashes +above it, broken into greys and greens and purples by the sudden hail +of quick spring squalls, a heaving grey waste of waters under steady +rain, or a wild and elemental force, terrible and splendid, under the +fury of a gale. +</P> + +<P> +It is a land for poets and dreamers, a land to touch the fancy and stir +the imagination of men, a land of beauty and of adventure. +</P> + +<P> +It will not, therefore, be without interest to pick up thread after +thread by which the ports and hamlets, woods and waterfalls, are woven +into the history of our literature. +</P> + +<A NAME="img-024"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-024.jpg" ALT="Dunkerry Beacon" BORDER="2" WIDTH="616" HEIGHT="439"> +<H3 CLASS="h3center" STYLE="width: 616px"> +Dunkerry Beacon +</H3> +</CENTER> + +<P> +We find a trace, firstly, of the chief of poets and greatest name of +all—Shakespeare—in the municipal records of Barnstaple, where under +the date 1605 an entry records: "Geven to the Kynges players being in +the town this year xs." That is all, and Shakespeare is not named; but +we know that he was associated with the Kynges Players for many years, +and Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps, who is a well-known authority on this +subject, asserts that at this date Shakespeare was still one of the +company. It is a shadowy trace enough, but in view of the bare +outlines of the life and death of this man, whose name is almost +universal and whose history is almost completely obscure, we seize on +any tiny fact that may help to bring before us so wonderful a +personality. That Shakespeare was in Barnstaple, went up and down +Boutport Street, the old street that half encircles the town, running +"about the port," that he acted here, lodged here, if only for a week +or two, talked in the tavern and walked in the old town, with that +observant inner eye which noted the veriest detail of life, the swing +of a flower, the swallow under the eaves, the idiosyncrasy of dress or +gesture in the passers-by, and at the same time comprehended and +recorded the springs of action, the fumbling thoughts, the consciences, +the strivings, and the pretences, of the world of men and women that +moved around him—that Shakespeare was, once in his short and wonderful +life, actually in Barnstaple gives even to the most unreflective an +interest and a romance to this town. +</P> + +<P> +It was near Barnstaple, also, and during Shakespeare's lifetime, that +Thomas Westcote, gentleman, was born at Westcote, in the parish of +Marwood, in 1567. He wrote, towards the end of his life, a description +of the country called "A View of Devon," and a genealogy of the +principal families. It was not published until 1845, but is well +worthy of being preserved, not only for its antiquarian interest, as +being the earliest account of Devonshire, its agriculture and its +industries, but also for the pleasure of its quaint turns of phrase, +the ponderous classic authorities which he marshals to support a simple +fact—and there are indeed some strange wild-fowl among his +authorities—and above all for a gentle and unobtrusive humour which +seasons all the narrative. Westcote gives a list of the fish afforded +by the Devon seas (a very imperfect list by modern computation), and +adds: +</P> + +<P> +"It might be much more enlarged, but your server shall stand no longer +at the dresser, lest the first dish be stale ere the last come to the +table. Yet, notwithstanding, I will here confess that had you supped +with Aulus Gellius, the Roman Emperor, you might say my bill came much +too short; yea! by 1800; for as Suetonius, in lib. 9, and Josephus, +lib. 5, alledge, he was served at one meal with 2,000; (if you please +to believe there are so many species of fish;) but he had indeed a +large country to make his provision in, the whole then known +world.… But for the other supper of 7,000 divers kinds of fowls, +I will not undertake to name them here, nor in Africa, and Asia, with +all the assistance that Gesnerus can afford me." +</P> + +<P> +This is a style without hurry, indeed, in a peaceable rambling world, +and one can imagine Westcote, with his pointed beard and his tall hat +of the fashion of James I., taking a little walk in the afternoon sun +after having spent the morning with his quill-pen and his calf-bound, +close-printed classics—Suetonius, and Gesnerus, and Diodorus Siculus. +His book is interspersed with little rhymes, couplets or longer verses, +in the style of the "Arabian Nights" stories, and which George Meredith +in the "Shaving of Shagpat" has used with such quaint effect; on every +subject and for every statement Westcote has an authority and an +aphorism, whether it is of "Day labourers in Tin-works, and Hirelings +in Husbandry," of fishermen or merchantmen, of trade or +agriculture—"for, as Horace speaketh," says he, +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Who much do crave, of much have need;<BR> +But well is he whom God indeed,<BR> +Though with a sparing hand, doth feed."<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Or again, speaking of "the commodities this country yields": +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"England hath store of bridges, hills, and wool,<BR> +Of churches, wells, and women beautiful."<BR> +</P> + +<P> +He is no mere antiquarian, however, and quotes Chaucer and Robert of +Gloucester as well as Theocritus and Horace; he is seriously perturbed +at the decline of agriculture in Devonshire; in spite of the fertility +of the soil, he says, it yields insufficience of bread, beer, and +victual, to feed itself, for which the country has to have recourse to +Wales or Ireland, so much so that in 1610 there was 60,000 pounds of +corn brought into one harbour alone. The reason for this is the +increase in trades, so that … "the meanest sort of people will now +rather place their children to some of these mechanical trades than to +husbandry"; in spite, also, of the almost sacred character of +husbandry, which was clearly recognized in "elder times," so that even +the rudest and most savage peoples respected ploughmen and tillers of +the soil in time of war. He then quotes some melancholy verses of +Virgil, and gives the whole chapter a twist of humour by ending up +with—"But not a word of this in any case, especially that I told you +so; and we will proceed to the next and speak of mines." +</P> + +<P> +I will also "proceed to the next," and speak of Bishop Jewel, a +fellow-countryman of Westcote's, and one about whom he speaks in the +highest praise: "a perfect rich gem and true jewel indeed … so that +if anywhere the observation of Chrysostom be true, that there lies a +great hidden treasure in names, surely it may rightly be said to be +here: grace in John, and eminent perfection in jewel." +</P> + +<P> +John Jewel was born at Berrynarbor, near Ilfracombe, in 1522; he went +to Merton College, Oxford, where he had for tutor John Parkhurst, under +whom he early acquired a bent towards Protestantism. After the +accession of Mary he allowed himself, in a moment of weakness, to sign +an adherence to the Romish faith, but his recantation weighed upon his +conscience, he fled to the Continent, and there publicly withdrew it. +In the reign of Elizabeth he returned to England, and was one of the +Protestant doctors chosen to dispute before her at Westminster with a +like number of Catholic divines. He became Bishop of Salisbury in +1560, and held that office till his death in 1571. His chief work was +an "Apology for the Anglican Church"; and his chief opponent was Thomas +Harding, who was born at Comb Martin, the next parish, and who, like +Jewel, went to the grammar-school at Barnstaple in his early boyhood, +so that they were near neighbours and dear enemies. "As I cannot well +take a hair from your lying beard, so I wish I could pluck malice from +your blasphemous heart," says Harding to Jewel, in that savage personal +invective that religious controversialists have permitted themselves in +all ages. Jewel does not seem ever to have answered in this unworthy +strain, and the singular purity of his life, the sincerity of his +opinions, and a certain lovable quality to which all his contemporaries +bear witness, gave even his political adversaries a personal attachment +to him. "I should love thee, Jewel, wert thou not a Zwinglian," cries +one. "In thy faith thou art a heretic, but sure in the life thou art +an angel"—surely the most splendid tribute that a man can have, when +we consider the bitterness and animosity bred by a difference of +religious belief. To all who loved him—and it seems to have been his +whole generation—his name gave the opportunity of affectionate puns, +quips, and little epigrams; to Queen Elizabeth he was "my Jewel," and +the epitaph Westcote makes upon him is that of St. Gregory upon St. +Basil: "His words were thunder, and his life lightning," and his memory +"a fragrant sweet-smelling odour, blown abroad … throughout the +whole kingdom." +</P> + +<P> +We may find a lingering trace at Barnstaple, also, before going farther +north, of another eager spirit and earnest reformer, Shelley, whose +gift of poetry we accept, and whose quick courage we profit by, in a +world of thought where we breathe a little freer because of his efforts +and ideals, while we still despise or half shamefacedly apologize for +the strivings and struggles of his life. He prevailed upon Syle, a +printer of Barnstaple, to publish his "Letter to Lord Ellenborough," +which was in effect a violent and heated attack upon this Judge for the +sentence he had passed on the publisher of Tom Paine's "Age of Reason," +which was considered by Lord Ellenborough and that generation as a +dangerous and revolutionary document, subversive of the political +morals of the world. Those were the days of the French Revolution, and +it seemed to many, as honest as Shelley, that the whole social fabric +was threatening to crumble before the rising flood of anarchy, +bloodshed, and disorder. Syle was prevailed upon to withdraw the +greater number of copies—it speaks much for his courage and +convictions that he ever published it—and Shelley found it advisable +to leave Devon. +</P> + +<P> +For Shelley had been living at Lynton during the early days of his +ill-fated first marriage with the Harriet; the cottage where they lived +can still be seen, though much altered and modernized since the unhappy +young man and woman tried to work out together a means of right living +and mutual happiness, and made so tragic a failure of it. +</P> + +<P> +It was to Lynton, too, that Wordsworth, his sister Dorothy, and +Coleridge, came on a visit, and were so ravished by the beauty of the +place that they were nearly decided to settle here, and might have +founded a school of Devon poets instead of Lake poets. It was at +Lynton, also, that "The Ancient Mariner" was planned, to pay for the +expenses of the holiday, and was begun by Wordsworth and Coleridge +together, though there is actually very little of Wordsworth's work in +it, and the spirit of it, the air of mystery and the sense of brooding +elemental forces with which its simplest lines are somehow invested, +belongs to Coleridge alone, and to that strange genius of his, which +only twice or thrice in his life—in "Christabel," "The Ancient +Mariner," and "Kubla Khan"—produced poetry of inimitable, strange +beauty and wonder. +</P> + +<P> +If Lynton is beautiful now, with its new houses and hotels, and that +air of snugness that prosperity gives to places and persons, the poetic +appeal of its loveliness to Wordsworth and Coleridge can be well +imagined when only the low-browed, thatched little cottages clung to +the steep cliff-paths and clustered round the small harbour, and from +the surrounding heights and hills one looked down upon nothing but +green valleys, and from the valleys one looked up to the bare cliffs +and crags. +</P> + +<P> +Southey also was drawn to this corner of England by the fame of its +beauty; on one occasion, when walking across Exmoor, he was driven to +take refuge at Porlock from the heavy rain, and visitors to the Ship +Inn are still shown the corner by the wide old fireplace where the +poet, presumably, dried his knees and wrote the ode which begins with +the following inadequate description: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Porlock, thy verdant vale, so fair to sight,<BR> +Thy lofty hills, with fern and furze so brown,<BR> +Thy waters that so musical roll down<BR> +Thy woody glens, the traveller with delight<BR> +Recalls to memory, and the channel grey<BR> +Circling it, surging in thy level bay."<BR> +</P> + +<P> +Then, George Eliot and Lewes discovered this north-west coast, and came +to Ilfracombe, with which they were delighted; and the unconventional +lady, with her broad-brimmed straw hat tied under her chin (in the days +when people wore bonnets), was soon a familiar enough figure, to be +seen scrambling over the rocks of the bay which is haunted by the +spirit of Tracy, or looking for seaweed and anemones in the clear +rock-pools at low-tide. Ilfracombe then, in the middle of the last +century, kept much of its original character as a seaport of +importance, which in its day had sent representatives to a shipping +council in the fourteenth century, had contributed six ships towards +the Siege of Calais—at a time when Liverpool was only of sufficient +size to send one—and had had enough strategical value to be the scene +of a projected French invasion under Napoleon. Already Ilfracombe was +beginning to be, however, what it now is pre-eminently, a "holiday +resort." It was patronized by royalty, and, following royalty, by "the +aristocracy and military," who came to enjoy the "overwhelming charms" +Nature poured forth here "with a tremendous and prolific grandeur which +we shall not pretend to describe," as Mr. Cornish mellifluously +exclaims in his "Rise and Progress of the Towns in North Devon." In +the seventies the present German Emperor, then Prince William of +Prussia, was sent here with his tutors; and there is a story, preserved +with great pride, of a fight on the beach between him and a +bathing-machine boy, at whose father's property the Prince was throwing +stones. An account of this historic battle is preserved in a doggerel +ballad, printed and sold locally, and composed Heaven knows where, +which is called "Tapping the War-Lord's Claret: Why Kaiser Bill hates +England." +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"When Kaiser Will'um was a y'uth<BR> +He com'd t' Combe one day,<BR> +And at the big hotel out there<BR> +He stopped on holiday. . . ."<BR> +</P> + +<P> +He went bathing in Rapparee Cove, and when his tutors were out of sight +began blazing at the numbers on the boxes, though warned by "young +Alfie Price" not to; and after a wordy altercation the Kaiser knocked +down Alfie, who got up and went for him "just like a Devon bull." +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"He knacked the Kaiser on the nose,<BR> +And tapped the ry'al blid. . . ."<BR> +</P> + +<P> +The tutors came up and intervened, and Alf was given thirty shillings +to keep the matter quiet; but Kaiser Bill swore implacable hate of the +English, because of the affront, built his Dreadnoughts and drilled his +army to avenge the insult of Rapparee Cove upon the English nation. +</P> + +<P> +Local publications are always, I think, of some interest, even when +they are as rough and simple a doggerel as the above; and there are two +magazines, printed and published at Barnstaple in the early years of +the nineteenth century, and which may be seen in the Athenaeum Library +of the town. They are the <I>Lundy Review</I> and <I>The Cave</I>, and they +contain stories, poetry, puns, epigrams, acrostics, all with the mild, +faint flavour of a curate's tea-party in a cathedral town, and yet +invested with a kind of charm by the old-fashioned type, the yellowing +paper, and a small, dim picture—like the images of ourselves and our +furniture which we see in those old, round, diminishing mirrors—of the +life of a century ago. There is poetry of the Lake School fashion, +exhortations to Bideford and Woody Bay, to Lynton or "The Beauties of +Devon"; there is more poetry of the Byronic fashion, fierce and satiric +invective (yet never, be it understood, transgressing the bounds of +decency or good manners!) against the lady of the poet's affection; +there are stories, in which love and virtue triumph over temptation and +evil-doing; there is, of course, at least one story of a blind girl, +and one of a consumptive; there is much harmless punning, and in the +acrostics which the ladies of 1820 so much loved are fantastically +woven the names of the handsome young women of Barnstaple whose only +other record is now upon a tombstone. +</P> + +<P> +There is a strong tone of "patriotism," if by that we mean a dignified +contempt for foreign manners and customs, foreign thought and foreign +speech. I call to mind one article, where the writer is +good-humouredly but supremely contemptuous of the French, because of +their manner of pronouncing classical names. What can you expect of a +nation, says he, for whom Titus Livy is no better than a +"tom-tit-liv-ing" in a hedge, and Marcus Aurelius, the Emperor +philosopher, becomes "Mark O'Rail," a mere beggerly, abusive Irishman? +</P> + +<P> +This insularity of ours, which appears in a comic aspect in this +article in <I>The Cave</I>, continued throughout the nineteenth century, and +withstood the shock of the Crimea and the Indian Mutiny without +apparently being in any way shaken; it is breaking now, indeed, under +the humiliations of the South African War, when we were made to feel +our isolation in Europe, and under the stress of this greatest war of +all, when at last we feel and say that we are proud to stand with the +nations of the Continent in a common cause. +</P> + +<P> +But, in the nineteenth century, not only was our insular prejudice +extreme, but there was a pride in our very prejudice, which made it +seem hopelessly fixed and stultified. There is a trail of it through +all but the greatest writings of that time, Tennyson was not without +it, Charles Kingsley, Froude.… To the novel it became actually a +stock-in-trade, and as such it was used by Henry Kingsley in his novel +of "Ravenshoe." He was a younger brother of Charles, and his life was +as restless and adventurous as a novel. He was, besides being an +author, an explorer to the Australian goldfields—from which he came +back rich in observation of men and manners, but without having made a +pecuniary fortune—the editor of a paper, the <I>Edinburgh Daily Review</I>, +and a correspondent in the Franco-Prussian War. He was a prolific and +too hasty writer, but his novel of "Ravenshoe," whose scene is +principally laid on the northern strip of Somerset coast, bordering the +Bristol Channel, and which was his own favourite among his works, is +considered by many critics to reach a high level, and to stand +comparison with the work of his more famous brother. In the <I>Academy</I> +of 1901 the following tribute to the book appeared under the initials +C.K.B.: "I first read 'Ravenshoe' at that period when absolute romance +and absolute fact have to live together; and very turbulent partners +they make. The appeal of the book was instant and permanent. Even +now, after a dozen years I cannot read the story unmoved.… Each +point holds me of old, by sheer force of its human presentation, its +resourceful dialogue, its unwearied vitality." +</P> + +<P> +I first read "Ravenshoe" in this year of 1917, and to me the world +seems to have travelled so far since its publication in 1862, that its +aims, its ideals, and its point of view, are hardly credible. Through +it all runs that facile spirit of optimism which seems to me to have +distinguished much of the thought of the mid-Victorian era, that air of +"All is for the best in this best of all possible worlds," that insular +pride of which I have been speaking, but which to us now appears the +narrowest and worst form of parochialism, a certainty that English +beef, English beer, English morals, and English standards, were the +ultimate excellence towards which a world of misguided foreigners might +ultimately aspire, that self-satisfaction, different from pride, that +glorying in prejudice, and wilful blindness to all features of national +life which do not bear out the theory of an earthly paradise. "Tell me +one thing, Lord Saltire; you have travelled in many countries. Is +there any land, east or west, that can give us what this dear old +England does—settled order, in which each man knows his place and his +duties? It is so easy to be good in England." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, no. It is the first country in the world. A few bad harvests +would make a hell of it, though." +</P> + +<P> +This was written at a time, remember, when the invention of machinery, +the rapid growth of industrialism, and the increasing mobility of the +population of the world, had broken down the old order of things, had +created large fortunes and reduced thousands to destitution; when men +poured into cities and lived crowded and unhealthy in slums, when the +opening phase of the grim battle between employer and employed was +fought, when trade-unionism was wrested from an unwilling Government, +when housing regulations, health regulations, and poor-laws, were +incapable of dealing with the wars of misery, poverty, and sickness, +they were designed to meet, when little by little vested interests and +class prejudices were brought before the judgment of reason and found +wanting—it was in such a period of our national history that Harry +Kingsley could write of "settled order, in which each one knows his +place and his duties." +</P> + +<P> +This attitude of mind is characteristic of a whole school of +mid-Victorian novelists, and George Meredith—whose earliest novel, +"Richard Feverel," was published about this date—broke many a lance +against it, and scolded us and laughed at us, and upset our dignified +conception of ourselves, and sometimes, in his irritable affection for +his countrymen, took a bludgeon to us, and broke our heads. +</P> + +<P> +I find it also in another and much greater novel, to attack which in a +book dealing with this corner of Devon and Somerset is indeed a sort of +<I>lèse-majesté</I>—for, to most people, who says "Exmoor" says "Lorna +Doone." +</P> + +<P> +Yet rereading the book in these present days—and even amid the scenes +whose beauty and whose character Blackmore has so firmly reproduced—I +find the parochialism, the self-satisfaction, and the prejudice, which +lumps the whole un-English world, with its revolutions, and ideals, and +racial problems, under one heading, as "dam-furriners." John Ridd is +English, therefore he despises what is not English; he is rather +stupid, therefore he despises intellect. "She was born next day with +more mind than body—the worst thing that can befall a man," he says of +his sister Eliza. He is a man, so, at the last stage of +self-satisfaction, he despises what is not man—woman. "Now I spoke +gently to Lorna, seeing how much she had been tried; and I praised her +for her courage, in not having run away, when she was so unable; and my +darling was pleased with this.… But you may take this as a +general rule, that a woman likes praise from the man she loves, and +cannot stop always to balance it." "But he led me aside in the course +of the evening, and told me all about it; saying that I knew, as well +as he did, that it was not women's business.… Herein I quite +agreed with him, because I always think that women, of whatever mind, +are best when least they meddle with things that appertain to men." As +the matter under discussion was a question of their all having their +throats cut by the Doones, and the farm being burnt over their heads, +it seems to us to have been, at least in some slight degree, the +women's business. +</P> + +<P> +The hero of "Ravenshoe," Charles, is of the same type, though not drawn +with the firmness of touch with which Blackmore depicts John Ridd, and +which makes him indeed a living personality to us, even if one to +quarrel with. +</P> + +<P> +Charles Ravenshoe is of the type which for many years we have striven +to present to the contemplation of the outside world as the perfect +Englishman. He is a bluff, hearty fellow, without serious vices, +without, also, serious virtues; he has, of course, a perfect +self-satisfaction, and a deep and unconscious selfishness, tempered by +an easy good-nature and a superficial benevolence, of wishing to get on +well with everybody, and to see everybody round him comfortable. He is +without ideals or spiritual aims, and has a contemptuous tolerance for +them, as in the case of his brother Cuthbert, who is deeply religious +and desirous of entering a monastery, and yet is held by the +temptations of the world, so that his mind is a continual striving and +renunciation. Charles's relationship with the lady of his choice may +be gauged by the following: "How is Adelaide?" asks his adopted sister. +"Adelaide is all that the fondest lover could desire," he answers. Did +the Englishmen of the nineteenth century really talk like that about +their dearest and most intimate affairs? +</P> + +<P> +And yet here is John Ridd, the accepted lover of Lorna, an honest, +clumsy, self-satisfied couple of yards of a man, for whom she has to be +properly grateful in a world of villains, and yet, for my part, I can +never look upon her marriage with him as other than a <I>mésalliance</I>. +</P> + +<P> +Of course, it must be understood, even by those who most violently +disagree with me, that these strictures are passed, not upon +Blackmore's novel, but upon the spirit of the age which made John Ridd +the hero of such a novel, the spirit which in the dress of "John Bull" +has insistently presented our less attractive qualities to the outside +world as the true Englishman, and which has been, by the outside world, +adopted and disliked; while such admirable traits as sincerity, +disinterestedness, and self-criticism, have been neglected by us and +ignored by them. +</P> + +<P> +For the novel itself it is difficult to have anything but praise. The +admirable sense of locality, and the art with which Blackmore has so +identified his persons of fiction with actual places till we no longer +disassociate them, but in the church of Oare, or the Doone Valley, or +Porlock, or Badgeworthy Water, think and speak of Lorna and John Kidd +as if they had had an actual existence; the firm and lively drawing of +the lesser characters, the charming pastoral scenes of the life on the +Ridds' farm, the really magnificent descriptions of the scenery of +Exmoor, and a particular gift of narrative, all place this novel of +Blackmore's on a high level in the literature of the nineteenth +century. His other novel, of which the scene is laid on this coast, is +"The Maid of Sker," less well known and of less artistic weight, but of +interest to anyone visiting the country between Barnstaple and Lynton, +and containing a particularly vivid account of old Barnstaple Fair. +</P> + +<A NAME="img-044"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-044.jpg" ALT="The Doone Valley" BORDER="2" WIDTH="613" HEIGHT="443"> +<H3 CLASS="h3center" STYLE="width: 613px"> +The Doone Valley +</H3> +</CENTER> + +<P> +I have spoken of Henry Kingsley's novel "Ravenshoe," and it is +impossible to write of the literary associations of this district +without mention of his elder and more famous brother; for though +"Westward Ho!" deals with Bideford and its adjacent villages of +Appledore and Northam—it was at the latter village that Amyas Leigh +lived with his mother—-and this book elects to deal only with the +country from Barnstaple northwards and westwards, yet Charles Kingsley +is the presiding local deity and guardian spirit, who has loved and +lived in and written in praise of the many beautiful spots, cliff and +cove, or valley and orchard, from the boundaries of Cornwall to +Somerset. +</P> + +<P> +The family of Kingsley, also, is intimately connected with many of the +families of these villages. The Rev. J. R. Chanter, Vicar of +Parracombe, married a Miss Kingsley. He himself is the author of a +short monograph on Lundy, a book which is now very scarce, but which +can be seen at the London Library, at the Bideford Public Library, and +at the Athenaeum at Barnstaple. The Kingsleys and the Chanters are +closely connected through two generations, and the strain of authorship +seems to persist in them, one member after another displaying an +exceptional talent. Miss Vallings, the young author of a quickly +celebrated novel, "Bindweed," is a granddaughter of Mr. Chanter, and a +grandniece of Kingsley's; and the bold and original writer "Lucas +Mallet" is Canon Kingsley's daughter, and a niece of Henry Kingsley. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap03"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER III +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +BARNSTAPLE +</H3> + +<P> +Barnstaple is a pleasant English country town, with that air of +cleanliness and quiet prosperity, of excellent sanitation and odd +historic corners, side by side with big new modern buildings and +exquisite green gardens where the old gnarled apple-trees are afroth with +blossom in the spring, which is the peculiar flavour of an English +country town. The incongruity is the charm; you step from a modern +drapery store, with a respectable display of plate-glass, on to the clean +narrow pavement, and find yourself looking down a small dark passage +opposite, into a sunny paved court, where the houses are cream-washed, +and the roofs are atilt in odd delicious angles, and the casement windows +have still the old diamond panes of Elizabeth's day, and the sun lies +slanting across the pots of wallflower, and the small boys play marbles +as they played marbles there when the Armada sailed. Barnstaple is a +thriving little modern town, but it has many such charming scenes to the +visitor with an observant eye—a narrow cobbled street, with an irregular +sag of gabled houses either side, the cream and rose-coloured walls +mellow and sunny in the late afternoon, or a cluster of really beautiful +half-timbered houses of the sixteenth century, with carved oak doorposts +and beam-ends, such as those which are known as Church Row, and stand +back from the road, between Boutport Street, and the High Street, by St. +Peter's Church and St. Anne's Chapel. St. Peter's Church, which stands +between these two main streets in the very centre of the town, is of the +fourteenth century, and has a fine leaded spire, considered to be one of +the finest in Europe, which the nineteenth century was anxious to +abolish, and replace by a western tower of the more ordinary type. +Fortunately Sir Gilbert Scott was called in to restore the church, and +refused to have a hand in destroying the spire, so the old parish church +stands as it was built, but with its spire drawn curiously out of the +perpendicular by the action of the sun's rays on the lead. +</P> + +<P> +Within a few yards of St. Peter's stands the grammar-school, where Bishop +Jewel and his neighbour and enemy, Thomas Harding, went to school in the +early sixteenth century, and the poet Gay in the beginning of the +eighteenth. It was originally a chapel of St. Anne, and became a +grammar-school on the suppression of the chantries by Henry VIII. The +upper part of the building dates from 1450, but the crypt is much older, +and it is conjectured to be a Saxon foundation. The beauty of these +buildings—the church, the grammar-school, and the old houses—consists +so greatly in their surroundings, in the green of the grass and the +unfolding chestnut-trees against the old grey stone, the twinkle of +blossom by the angle of a house, and the soft sky of Devon above, that it +is difficult to reproduce; it is a beauty of atmosphere rather than of +outline, of sentiment and association. +</P> + +<P> +I like, too, this lack of the "picturesque cult" which one finds in these +English towns; the beautiful is allowed always to be the useful, and the +family washing hangs on a line outside many a Tudor house as easily as in +a London slum. In Boutport Street—that old street that runs more than +halfway round Barnstaple, "about the port"—stands the Golden Lion Hotel, +which was formerly the town house of the Earl of Bath, and was enriched +in the seventeenth century by most beautiful moulded plaster ceilings and +fireplaces, made by Italian craftsman who were brought over from Italy. +The front of the building has been altogether modernized, but much of the +beautiful decorated interior work remains, to enrich the rooms where the +many unseeing visitors take their meals. The Trevelyan Hotel, in the +High Street, which presents to the street a most unpretentious exterior, +and where, indeed, the principal rooms are the Victorian of Dickens, with +ugly curtains and carpets, wall-papers and furniture, Victorian pictures, +and Victorian bronzes on the coffee-room mantlepiece, has treasures +hidden away up its dark staircases and in its cheaper and more modest +bedrooms—defaced and disregarded, alas!—an Italian ceiling of fine +scroll-work cut in half by a partition boarding, and a fine mantlepiece, +with figures in relief, being built half over, and gas-jets thrust +through the moulding. They showed me a great open hearth, with decorated +mantle, which must have been that of the dining-room; at present the room +is used for lumber. Half of it has been pulled down to build a +staircase, and the low casement windows are blocked by a lean-to +coalshed, making the room so dark that I could barely see the plaster +modelling of the wall. +</P> + +<P> +This, I confess, is a vandalism, but I still consider it as the necessary +penalty we pay for not putting all the treasures of our past into +museums, labelling them neatly—and never looking at them. +</P> + +<P> +The Penrose Almshouses in Litchdon Street, a beautiful small quadrangle, +with a low colonnade surmounted by an ornamented lead gutter and steep +dormer windows in a red-tiled roof, are still kept to their old uses. +They stand the wear and tear of time as well as its mellowing, and, like +language, if they are here and there vulgarized by the usage of every +day, without it they would be a dead language. +</P> + +<P> +Queen Anne's Walk, overlooking the river, and close to the town station, +is a small colonnade of the Renaissance style, which is most familiar to +us in the architecture of Bath; it has an outlandish look, with its +classical lines seen against the background of the smooth river and green +Devonshire country, and has not the homely charm of Elizabethan or Stuart +building. +</P> + +<P> +It has, however, its peculiar beauty; it is suggestive of red-heeled +shoes and powder, and an artificial world of beaux and belles. It must +have been a pleasant enough place to walk in, until the railway came +between it and the river, and its earlier name of the Merchants' Walk (or +the Exchange) gives more of its character than its present name. +</P> + +<P> +One must beware, however, in the present popular quest for the "antique," +of overlooking the beauty of modern things; the market, for instance, +which is a vast rectangular building standing on the High Street, has a +strange and individual charm when you come into it out of the glare of +the white street. The windows are fitted with light green glass, which +gives a sort of ghostly twilight to its bare spaciousness, with heavy +masses of gloom among the pillars of the flanking colonnade. It has no +pretence to artistic ornament of any kind; it was built for a specific +purpose, which it answers admirably, and when it is crowded with stalls +on market-days, and noisy with buyers and sellers, it is a scene of +bustle and movement which would arouse the enthusiasm of a traveller if +he came upon it in some distant city of the East, though the difference +of language and costume is all there is between the two. But when it is +empty, with its bare walls and bare floor and high dark roof, sun and +shadow make from it a beauty which it is worth a moment's pause and +stepping aside to see. +</P> + +<P> +The Athenaeum, also, which stands in the open space at the head of the +Long Bridge, which is a noble structure of the thirteenth century, is a +modern building, endowed by the late Mr. Rock, and possessing one of the +best libraries in Devonshire. It is a plain, unpretentious building; on +the ground-floor a geological museum, very useful for a student—for it +contains a complete collection of Devonian rocks and fossils—and the +library upstairs. Sitting there on a summer afternoon, and seeing +through the open windows the smooth sunlit curve of the river below, and +the gentle slope of wooded hills beyond, the Athenaeum has a charm—that +charm of weather and daily custom—which architectural description fails +to convey for any building, whether it is the Parthenon or a farm-house. +Without it, places lack their intimate personality, as photographs lack +the personality of men and women. My memory of the Athenaeum Library is +of the familiar, slightly musty smell of books, of the faint creaking of +the librarian's boots, and the hum of bees and the whirr of a mowing +machine, of the smell of an early summer afternoon, the white glare of +the North Walk stretching beside the river, and the reflection of +anchored boats, very perfect on the still water. +</P> + +<P> +Barnstaple is a very ancient borough; it is spoken of in the Devonshire +Domesday as one of the four "burghs" of Devon, and as early as the reign +of Henry I, before the election of Mayors had become part of English +municipal life, it was entitled to elect a chief magistrate for its own +government. It was a fortified place under the Saxon Kings, and a large +grass-grown mound in the centre of the town (near the town station) marks +the site of Athelstan's castle. Athelstan is supposed to have come to +Barnstaple in the early tenth century, when he was engaged in driving the +British out of Devonshire, beyond the River Tamar, which marks the +boundary between Devon and Cornwall for the greater part; and this was +only done by him, Westcote affirms, after he had exhausted every means of +gentleness and clemency. The Taw, the Torridge, the Tamar, and the Tavy, +all comprise some form of the same syllable, "Taw"; and "Tamar" is a +corruption of "Taw-meer," which Westcote takes to mean the +river-boundary, "Taw" occurring in the names of the four principal rivers +"of these parts." +</P> + +<P> +There was a Saxon church at Barnstaple, probably on the site of the +present parish church of St. Peter's, and the tithes were given to the +Abbey of Malmesbury. The original ecclesiastic seal bore the seated +figure of King Athelstan. After the Conquest the barony of Barnstaple +(which comprised the church) was given to Judhael of Totnes; from him it +passed to the famous family of Tracy, from them to the Martins (whose +name remains in the little village of Martinshoe, near Lynton), and from +them, again, to the Audleys. +</P> + +<P> +It was a Lord Audley who distinguished himself so greatly in the Battle +of Poitiers, and, as his family were then in possession of Barnstaple, it +appears that the town changed hands frequently in the first three hundred +years after the Conquest. The story told of Lord Audley is that he had +made a vow that he would strike the first stroke in a battle for Edward +III or for his son, and that at Poitiers he fought with such desperate +courage in the forefront of the battle that he was carried off the field +severely wounded. After the battle the Black Prince inquired after him, +and was told that he lay wounded in a litter. "Go and know if he may be +brought hither, or else I will go and see him where he is," said the +Prince; so Audley had his litter taken up by eight of his servants, who +carried him to the Prince's tent. The Prince took him in his arms, and +kissed him, and praised him for the best and most valiant Knight of all +that had fought that day, nor, though the wounded Knight disclaimed it, +would he admit of any refusal, but gave him a yearly grant of 500 marks +out of his own inheritance. Lord Audley, being carried back to his own +tent, summoned his four esquires and divided the gift among them. The +Black Prince, presently hearing of this, had Sir James once more brought +before him, and asked if he did not consider the gift worthy of his +acceptance, or for what other reason he had so disposed of it. +</P> + +<P> +"Sire," said the Knight, "these four esquires have a long time well and +truly served me in many great dangers, and at this present especially, in +such wise that, if they had never done anything else, I was bound unto +them, and ere this time they had never anything of me in reward; and, +Sire, you know I was but one man alone, but by the courage, aid, and +comfort of them I took on me to accomplish my vow; and certainly I had +been dead in the battle had they not holpen me and endured the brunt of +the day. Wherefore, whenas nature and duty did oblige me to consider the +love they bear me, I should have showed myself too much ungrateful if I +had not rewarded them … but whereas I have done this without your +licence, I humbly crave pardon.…" +</P> + +<P> +The Black Prince once more embraced him, praised him for his generosity +as much as for his valour, and granted him a further 600 marks in place +of what he had given away. +</P> + +<P> +I have transcribed this episode because it seems to me a pretty tale of +chivalry, of valour and courtesy, of generosity and noble, if fantastic, +ideals. +</P> + +<P> +Under King Athelstan's rule Barnstaple was governed by two Bailiffs, "one +for the King to collect his duties, the other for the town to receive +their customs." Under Henry I it was granted a charter, which was +confirmed by John and enlarged by Elizabeth. +</P> + +<P> +The earliest industries of the town seem to have been pottery and +weaving; the pottery has always been of the cheaper, coarser kind, and +although some attempt was made at the close of the last century, when the +industry was revived, to bring it to a higher artistic level of colour +and glaze, it still, to my mind, continues mediocre, and has neither the +highly finished beauty of such work as the Ruskin pottery, nor the +genuinely simple lines or colouring of "peasant pottery," such as that +from Quimperle in Brittany. The Barum ware has a sort of bourgeois +mediocrity between these two different types, and there is room for a +bold innovator to reform the present models and methods. It is a pity, +perhaps, that he has not yet arisen, for a local industry of this kind +adds greatly to the vitality of a town. +</P> + +<P> +Of the weaving industry, what Westcote calls "lanificium," "the skill and +knowledge of making cloth, under which genus are contained the species of +spinning, knitting, weaving, tucking, pressing, dying, carding, combing +and such-like," we have records from the twelfth century; though until +the reign of Edward IV only friezes and plain coarse cloth were made. In +Edward's reign an Italian, "Anthony Bonvise," is reputed to have taught +Barnstaple the making of fine "kersies," and spinning with a distaff; +doubtless this was looked upon by the older generation of conservatives +as a deterioration to luxury and soft living; they would hark back to the +standards of a simpler age, when a King's breeches cost him no more than +three shillings, and "friezes" would be good enough for the noblest. For +Robert of Gloucester, in his Chronicle, tells us of King William Rufus: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"As his chamberlain him brought, as he rose a day,<BR> +A morrow for to wear, a pair hose of say,<BR> +He asked what they costned; three shillings said the other.<BR> +'Fie, a devil,' quoth the King, 'who say so vile deed?<BR> +King to wear any cloth, but it costned more:<BR> +Buy a pair of a mark, or thou shalt be acorye sore.'<BR> +A worse pair of ynou the other sith him brought,<BR> +And said they were for a mark, and unnethe so he bought.<BR> +'Yea, bel ami,' quoth the King, 'they be well bought;<BR> +In this way serve me, or thou ne shalt serve me not.'"<BR> +</P> + +<P> +It was King Stephen, I believe, +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 3em">"who was a luckless clown;</SPAN><BR> +His breeches cost him half a crown;"<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +but King Stephen had to contend with rebellion and civil war the whole of +his unhappy reign, so doubtless popular sentiment would assign him a +smaller share of the world's goods than King William Rufus. +</P> + +<P> +In Westcote's time, in the early seventeenth century, the wool that was +worked here in Devon was brought from all over England—Dorset, +Gloucester, Wales, London, and also Ireland; and clothmaking had become +so large an industry that agriculture had suffered considerably. "And +every rumour of war or contagious sickness … makes a multitude of the +poorer sort chargeable to their neighbours, who are bound to maintain +them … the meanest sort of people also will now rather place their +children to some of these mechanical trades than to husbandry, whereby +husbandry-labourers are more scarce, and hirelings more dear than in +former times." +</P> + +<A NAME="img-058"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-058.jpg" ALT="Woody Bay and Duty Point, West Lynton" BORDER="2" WIDTH="614" HEIGHT="449"> +<H3 CLASS="h3center" STYLE="width: 614px"> +Woody Bay and Duty Point, West Lynton +</H3> +</CENTER> + +<P> +This little passage in Westcote is, I think, of great interest, as +showing the difficulties which had already arisen in the time of James I, +with the extension of industry, which must always flourish at the expense +of agriculture, and which seems to tend, nevertheless, both to personal +and to national prosperity. +</P> + +<P> +It is a problem for which we have not yet found a solution, and at the +present time it comes before us with especial vividness and force. +Westcote gives a list of the various fabrics that are made in Devon; some +of them seem to be materials no longer in use, from the unfamiliarity of +the names. Exeter manufactured serges, both fine and coarse; Crediton +(the famous locality of the burning of Crediton Barns, in the Middle +Ages) made kersies; and Totnes a stuff called "narrow pin-whites," which +is, I believe, a coarse, loosely woven white material; Barnstaple and +Torrington were noted for "bays," single and double (perhaps of the same +texture as our modern baize), and for "frizados"; and Pilton, adjacent to +Barnstaple, was notorious rather than celebrated for the making of cotton +linings, so cheap and coarse a stuff that a popular "vae" or "woe" was +locally pronounced against them. "Woe unto you, Piltonians, that make +cloth without wool!" +</P> + +<P> +It was in the woollen trade that the family of De Wichehalse, afterwards +so intimately connected with Lynton, made the fortune that enabled them +to become one of the leading houses of Barnstaple, and to acquire the +beautiful estate near Lynton, which is now known as Lee Abbey. It may, +perhaps, be of interest to the "curious-minded" to give an inventory of +his shop, taken in 1607 at the death of Nicholas de Wichehalse, who had +married Lettice, the daughter of the Mayor of Barnstaple. +</P> + +<P> +The following are the chief items of the inventory, collected from +manuscript records by Mr. Chanter for the Devonshire Association: +</P> + +<PRE STYLE="font-family: Courier New; font-size: 10pt"> + 182 yds. of coloured bays at . . . . . . 1s. 4d. a yd. + 49 " kersey at . . . . . . . . . . . 2s. 4d. " + broadcloth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8s. 0d. " + 147 yds. of coarse grey ffrize at . . . 11d. " + buffyns in remnants (whatever + they may be!) . . . . . . . . . . L1 9s. 4d. + Also lace, silk, black velvet, broad taffeta, leaven taffeta + . . . and 5 small boxes of marmalade. +</PRE> + +<P> +Mr. Chanter conjectures that this last item is marmalade, and can read it +as nothing else, though he was not aware that it was a preserve of Queen +Elizabeth's time, nor why, even if it were, it should be in De +Wichehalse's shop. +</P> + +<P> +It was the prosperity of the De Wichehalses, the Salisburys, the +Deamonds, and other enterprising merchants, which beautified the town +with public buildings, almshouses, and their private residences—for the +enrichment of which, as I have already stated, Italian workmen were +brought over—and the seventeenth century was the time of the town's +greatest importance and prosperity, when Barnstaple traded with Virginia +and the West Indies, the Spaniards in South America and on the Continent. +The Customs receipts show a very great import of tobacco, and there was a +considerable manufacture of pipes, as a branch of local pottery. "The +Exchange," or "the Merchants' Walk," as Queen Anne's Walk was then +called, before it was rebuilt, must have witnessed the inception of many +a venture, been paced by many an anxious foot when the weather was bad +and the returning ship was long overdue, and seen many a bargain struck +by richly dressed merchants, with pointed beards lying over their ruffs, +gravely smoking their pipe of "Virginny" over the deal. +</P> + +<P> +That picturesqueness of dress and custom has passed away, but Barnstaple +is still a prosperous and pleasant city, lying on the sleek curve of the +River Taw, and surrounded by low smooth hills. Seen from the opposite +side of the river on a spring afternoon, from the steep road that leads +to Bishop's Tawton over Codden Hill, it has a fair aspect. The tall +modern Gothic tower of Holy Trinity stands out commandingly above the +clustered roofs by the river, and beyond the town, which is small enough, +seen from this height, to come within a single glance, lie the green and +fertile fields, and gentle, wooded hills. The road to Bishop's +Tawton—which was formerly an episcopal seat of the Bishops of Exeter—is +a typical Devonshire road, steep and stony, with high green banks and +hedges, which, on such an afternoon in spring, are starred with primroses +and clumps of dog-violets, celandines and wild-anemones, and wonderfully +green. It climbs from the London and South-Western Station, after +crossing the great thirteenth-century bridge from the Square, and within +a few minutes all signs of a town have dropped away, and we are in the +country of fields and farms. In less than a mile, indeed, we come upon +an old fortified farm; the massive whitewashed wall, three feet thick, +rises steeply from the hilly road. At one corner a giant yew has thrust +out part of the wall with its knotted roots, which are so huge that some +recent owner of the farm has cut a little summer house out of them, with +a thatched roof. The dwelling part of the farm faces this way, and, +being built on the hillside above the road, I catch only a glimpse of +steep gables and tall brick chimneys; but I looked in the open gateway of +the cobbled yard, and saw the great thatched barns, and the massive white +walls which surrounded them. The rear of the farm presented an almost +blank surface, save for one small door, which was open, a sudden black +oblong of shadow in the mellow whiteness. A cat sat cleaning itself in +the mild sunshine; otherwise there was no life nor movement. It looked +an enchanted place. +</P> + +<P> +Farther on I came to a fork of the road, where a little stream ran +swiftly past the thatched and whitewashed cottages, their tiny gardens +profusely bright with flowers—hyacinths, daffodils, forget-me-nots, and +the deep red of climbing japonica. In one of them an old woman in a pink +sunbonnet was leaning on a stick gossiping with a neighbour, while two or +three sunburned children with yellow hair were dabbling in a brook. It +was idyllically and typically English, that ideal England of artists +which is dreamed of and loved by the sons and daughters of the Colonies, +who, thinking of "home" which they have never seen, think of such a scene +of verdant and homely peace. +</P> + +<P> +Just beyond was a great barrow, a steep green mound perhaps twenty feet +high, with a little cottage beside it, and the small garden encroaching +on its green sides. I asked a child what she knew about it, wondering if +some local legend still lingered round the spot; but she told me "they +had dug a pond, beyond there, and this was the earth they had thrown up." +I did not explain to her the unlikeliness of such a heavy undertaking, +with a clear stream running by, but went on, wondering what British +chieftain or maraudering Dane lay buried under that great mound, awaiting +the last trump. +</P> + +<P> +Bishop's Tawton is said to have been the seat of the Saxon Bishops of +Devon, established here in the tenth century; a farm now occupies the +site of the old episcopal palace, but the church is Perpendicular, and +the only Saxon remains I could discover was the base of a stone Saxon +cross in the churchyard. On the opposite bank of the river is Tawstock +church, standing in the grounds of Sir Bourchier Wrey, and close to his +house. The church is built on rising ground, and set round by trees in +which rooks have built; clamorous and noisy, they fly round and round the +old grey tower morning and evening. When the October gales are tossing +the trees, and the rain-clouds are gathering on the hills their cawing +has a sound of ill-omen, which makes them seem the unresting and +malignant spirits of those fierce lords of the Dark Ages, evil-doers and +unrepentant. +</P> + +<P> +From Barnstaple to Lynton there are several methods of travel. Either +one may take train to Ilfracombe, and there take coach, following the +coast-road through Watermouth, Lydford, Combe Martin, Trentishoe, and the +Hunter's Inn, twenty miles of the most magnificent coast scenery in +England; or, if one has the courage to take pack on back, one may walk +it, past Watermouth Castle, and the tiny land-locked harbour beneath, +which was said by Kingsley to be the safest harbour on this coast, smooth +and sheltered always, however high the seas are running outside; past the +tiny village of Lydford, which bears the same name and reminds one of the +seventeenth-century poem of "Lydford Law," though the poem was written of +the town on the Lyd, near Tavistock. But here are a couple of verses: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Oft have I heard of Lydford law,<BR> +How in the morn they hang and draw,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And sit in judgment after.</SPAN><BR> +At first I wondered at it much,<BR> +But since I find the matter such<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">As it deserves no laughter.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"They have a castle on a hill;<BR> +I took it for some old wind-mill<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">The vanes blown off by weather.</SPAN><BR> +To lie therein one night 'tis guessed<BR> +'Twere better to be stoned or pressed<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Or hanged, ere you come thither."</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P> +"Lydford law" and "Jedburgh justice" seem equally to have been synonyms +for arbitrary and summary punishment. +</P> + +<P> +But, leaving this digression, we proceed on our way, past Berrynarbor and +the old farm of Bowden, where Bishop Jewel was born, and the beautiful +church where he was baptized, with its great Perpendicular tower, built +of red and grey sandstone, rising above the wooded combe, and its old +lich-gate, set in the thickness of the churchyard wall, and almost hidden +by the luxuriant summer foliage; past Combe Martin, famous for its +ancient silver-mines rather than its beauty, yet with a very beautiful +church, with a Perpendicular tower even higher than that of Berrynarbor, +soaring above the sheltering elms, and throwing its long shadow across +the stream which curves round the church-yard among the old yew-bushes—a +church worth stepping aside to see, with a fine carved oak screen in the +interior, of the fifteenth century, the doors of the screen made in such +a way that they will not entirely close, in order to show plainly forth +to all sinners that the gates of heaven are always open; past Martinhoe +village, which was the scene of one of the most cruel and cold-blooded of +all the Doone murders, when they carried off the wife of Christopher +Badcock, a small tenant farmer, and, in rage at finding nothing in the +poor home but a little bacon and cheese, murdered her baby in a fit of +senseless brutality, reciting over it this couplet: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"If any man asketh who killed thee,<BR> +Say 'twas the Doones of Bagworthy."<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +And so we come to Heddon's Mouth, and of the seven miles from there to +Lynton I shall speak in the next chapter. +</P> + +<A NAME="img-066"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-066.jpg" ALT="The Shepherd's Cottage, Doone Valley" BORDER="2" WIDTH="620" HEIGHT="457"> +<H3 CLASS="h3center" STYLE="width: 620px"> +The Shepherd's Cottage, Doone Valley +</H3> +</CENTER> + +<P> +But the twenty miles of hilly road may prove too much even for good +walkers, and as the coach service between Ilfracombe and Lynton is +suspended at present, owing to the war, it is best to take the little +narrow-gauge railway that runs from Barnstaple to Lynton. There might be +many more unfavourable ways, too, of seeing this stretch of country. The +narrow line twists and winds across the hills, seeming to hang, +sometimes, on a tiny viaduct, while many feet below a mountain stream +pours down its rocky bed, and, owing to the narrowness of the gauge and +the steepness of the gradients, the train progresses hardly quicker than +a horse-drawn carriage, and one has leisure and opportunity to observe +all that one is passing. +</P> + +<P> +From Barnstaple to Chelfham the railway runs along the valley of the Yeo, +through the woodyards and past the whitewashed cottages of the town, and +then alongside of the river itself. This valley is most beautiful. I +came through it on a hot afternoon in spring. Just beside me ran the +clear brown water, breaking into swirls and eddies over the white stones; +on my right hand the hills rose, steeply wooded, with the lovely and +various colours of many trees, the rich brown of the yet unopened +beech-buds, the black buds of the ash, the twisted grey of alders, the +green of hawthorn, and yet more vivid green of early larches, the +delicate silver of palm, the bare branches of oak; on my left hand lay +the rich green pasture of the valley, and beyond the bare hills, brown in +the afternoon sunshine. Ten minutes away from Barnstaple Station, and I +saw a hawk hovering above the hillside, so quickly do the signs of +habitation drop away among these hills and valleys. +</P> + +<P> +We leave the valley of the Yeo, and climb the steep gradients to Bratton +Fleming and Blackmoor Gate, across the wind-swept open moors, bare and +brown in the afternoon sunshine. Fold behind fold lies the countryside +in great brown curves, here a cluster of trees in a sheltered valley, +there a lonely farm; sometimes a group of whitewashed buildings under +thatched roofs, more often a bleak granite building, built to withstand +the buffeting of winter storms, grey amid its setting of bare grey +ash-trees or twisted grey alders, with the brown hills behind and the +brilliant blue of the sky overhead. The air here is keen and brilliant; +there is an edge to all outlines, and a keenness to all colours, which +the softer and more humid air of sheltered country does not give. The +yellow of the primroses which cluster thickly in hollow and on bank has a +brilliance and delicacy which I have never seen in valley primroses, and +I cannot describe the exquisite clear rose of apple-blossom, above the +gnarled and twisted grey trunk, seen against this background of sombre +brown and dun, and the penetrating blue of moorland sky. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap04"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER IV +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +LYNTON +</H3> + +<P> +And so, round a spur of the hills, and high above the wooded gorges of +the West Lyn, we come to Lynton. +</P> + +<P> +It lies upon the north-western slope of a hill, deep among trees; the +few houses and hotels—which is all that it consists of—seem to have +their roots stuck deep into the ground, while their tall chimneys soar +above the tree-tops. If you are freakish-minded, indeed, you may pitch +cherry-stones down your neighbour's chimneys, for the houses stand one +atop of each other, clustering along the North Walk, which is cut round +the side of the cliff; some built high above the road, with steep green +banks of laurel and glossy dark myrtle; some built below it, so that as +you walk the chimney-pots and tall pointed gables lie within touching +distance of your hand. It is curiously unfamiliar to see houses from +such an angle, a perspective of the roofs, with the windows and doors +become unimportant; it is an aeroplane view of the world, or perhaps, +more properly, a bird's view, for you may pause and poise to look down +on Lynton and Lynmouth as no aeroplane at present can. +</P> + +<A NAME="img-070"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-070.jpg" ALT="Lynmouth Bay and Foreland" BORDER="2" WIDTH="616" HEIGHT="447"> +<H3 CLASS="h3center" STYLE="width: 616px"> +Lynmouth Bay and Foreland +</H3> +</CENTER> + +<P> +The stony white road from the station and from Lynmouth struggles up +the hill to a small open space—what in any Italian hill-town would be +called a piazza, though it is only a few score feet in extent—opposite +the church and the Valley of Rocks Hotel. This, I believe, is the only +level spot in the village, save a club tennis-ground, which has been +levelled out of the hillside, for the few shops or houses run +precipitately down the little side-streets, or up towards the top of +Hollerday Hill. It is also the original site of the old village of +Lynton, when it had no fame as a holiday resort, and barely a history, +being left alone on its lofty cliff, as of no special value to anyone; +for, although the present parish church is partly Perpendicular and +partly of a later date, while the chancel is modern, it stands upon the +foundations of a small earlier church, which, surrounded by a few poor +cottages, with walls of cob and roof of thatch, a rough ladder leading +to a sort of loft, which was the sleeping apartment of all the family, +and a little patch of herb garden in front of each, comprised the +village of Lynton when we find it first, in the thirteenth century, +mentioned as a parish in the "valor" of Pope Nicholas. +</P> + +<P> +Below it, then as now, lay the small fishing village of Lynmouth—or +Leymouth, as it was formerly called—a similar group of rude small +cottages, clustered in isolation, with the sea before and the great +moors behind, the people subsisting chiefly on coarse bread, salted +meat, and fish—often stale fish, for fish was the one thing of value +that Lynmouth yielded, and that would go to some representative of Ford +Abbey, under whose rule Lynton and Lynmouth came. Yet it should surely +have been easy, with a little help and instruction, to have grown many +varieties of vegetable food, for flowers grow in abundance, and +evergreens grow to a great size and beauty, while the variety of trees +is remarkable—larch, chestnut, sycamore, oak, ash and birch, elm and +beech, showing the fertility of the soil and the temperateness of the +climate, in spite of the seaward position of the village. +</P> + +<P> +But it is not the history of Lynton, nor its old associations, which +calls us to it, but its beauty entirely. Stand upon one of the +terraces of Lynton on a still summer evening, looking east to +Countisbury Foreland, and see the water of the bay still and gleaming +in the evening light, the great headlands ruddy and golden above it. +The steep sides of the gorge of the East Lyn are warm and sunlit, they +glow richly with purple and russet; over the rocks of the valley a +faint flicker of grey mist begins to hang above the stream. From the +trees around and below comes a great cawing of rooks, drowning the rush +of the water below; they settle into their nests in the great green +elms, then suddenly there is a caw, a scurry, a rush, and they fly up +as if shot out of the tree-tops. There is a flapping of wings, and +much angry sound; they circle once or twice, and then sink back to +their homes again. It is a beautiful sight to watch a rook volplaning +down to a tree as you can watch them from the terraces at Lynton; +moving on a level with your eye, you can see the detail of each +movement of their wings, see them let themselves drop through the air, +yet with muscles taut and legs and claws stretched ready for a foothold +on the particular slender branch which is home. +</P> + +<P> +As you watch, amused and interested, as this protracted nightly +programme is enacted—and never yet, throughout England, have any rooks +gone to bed quietly—the colour fades from the headland and the sea, +the mist has gained on the valley, drawing its grey wisps and streamers +higher and higher up the sides of the gorge; the tide has gone out, +very smooth and still, leaving a broad flat stretch of wet shore in the +little bay, which shines with the last of the daylight like a clear +mirror; the lights of the houses in Lynmouth begin to show through the +trees, pale yellow in the twilight, patches of soft colour, rather than +light; and the rushing of the river sounds very loud because of the +silence of the birds. Inland the hills lie, fold behind fold, in +gentle, misty curves; it is that exquisite hour which only northern +summers give, when the slowly-fading twilight and the slowly +brightening moon hold earth and sky in a faint pellucid light. +</P> + +<P> +Or take a walk, on a bright May morning, from Lynton to Heddon's Mouth, +along the cliffs, and see open before you, step by step, seven miles of +the loveliest coast scenery, perhaps, in England. +</P> + +<P> +First there is a wooded strip of road, called the North Walk, which +runs round the side of Hollerday Hill. The shadows are dewy in the +early morning, and birds are singing from the green mass of the trees +on either hand; there is a faint smell of wood-fires from the houses +below, acrid and very pleasant; the chestnut leaves are just opening, +and the sycamores have still the early flush of red on their tiny +leaves; it is very cool and fresh under the trees. Then the wood stops +abruptly, and the road runs out on the bare hillside and winds round +the great headland to the Valley of Rocks. Behind, the wall of cliff +rises steeply, great boulders and outcrop of rock, fantastic in the +sunlight; below it falls sheer to the sea, where the misty blue turns +green at the base of the cliff. Looking down the sheer slope, which is +dull brown with last year's heather, and grey with the wiry grey grass +that grows on moors and mountains, I could see the grey backs of the +gulls, flying far below me. It was a very still morning, but I saw a +fishing-smack, which had been lying motionless, catch a sudden rise of +wind and come about, leaving a white circle of foam in her wake. From +the height where I walked she looked infinitely little, like a ship in +a fairy-tale, no bigger than a walnut shell; I could see the clear +small reflection of her tiny hull in the smooth water, her sails +rosy-tinted in the morning sunlight, very beautiful and magical. There +was no fleck of cloud in all the wide blue of the sky, but the horizon +was hidden by a faint haze, sunlit but impenetrable, and from somewhere +in the mist came the reiterated wails of a siren, from some ship +groping its way up the Bristol Channel. +</P> + +<P> +I rounded a corner from shadow into sun, and below me lay a tiny creek, +a churn of foam round its rocks, the blue water running green and sandy +in the shallows, and a flock of wheeling gulls to possess it; before me +rose the great crag of the Castle Rock, each plane and angle of its +twisted slate pile cut sharply in light and shadow, and against this +sullen grey background a newly flowered gorse bush blazed in the +sunlight. +</P> + +<A NAME="img-074"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-074.jpg" ALT="The Valley of Rocks" BORDER="2" WIDTH="616" HEIGHT="442"> +<H3 CLASS="h3center" STYLE="width: 616px"> +The Valley of Rocks +</H3> +</CENTER> + +<P> +The Castle Rock stands at the mouth of the Valley of Rocks, about which +so much has been written, which has been compared to an amphitheatre of +giants, or the scene of some titanic conflict, where the huge granite +crags and boulders have been torn up and tossed about by supernatural +and terrific forces. In honesty I must admit that this seems to me an +exaggeration. Any walker who goes with this in his mind must, I think, +be disappointed; the place is wild enough, and barren enough, a bleak, +bare, waterless brown dip in the high lands, without tree or stream to +soften it, except in a stone fold, a winter shelter for sheep, where a +few twisted and stunted alders exist stubbornly; but the outcrops of +rock from the brown grass are not specially remarkable to anyone +familiar with cliff scenery, and there are many gorges within twenty +miles of Lynton which are, to my mind, wilder and grander. There are +hut-circles of the neolithic age in the valley, though many of them +have been destroyed by the people who live round, to build the walls of +their own cottages; but the often-repeated fantasy of this valley as +the haunt of Druid rites seems to me, not only unsupported by evidence, +but without justification, in the formation of the valley or the +wildness of the rocks. +</P> + +<P> +Brown under the sunlight, shadeless and glaring, when a blustering +north-easter is blowing down it, the Valley of Rocks is a bitter and +inhospitable spot; I have been glad to go into the sheep-fold and +crouch under the lee of the stone wall for a moment's respite from the +wind and the stinging particles of sharp dust that it flung in my face +as I battled up the road. Once, in such a wind, I climbed the Castle +Rock, and squeezed myself between two great boulders looking seaward +over the choppy water—it was a land wind, which does not send the +waves rolling in great breakers, very splendid to see, but worries it +and dirties it, leaving broken cross waves of muddy grey water—and I +startled a pair of ravens who had built a nest on a sharp ledge of +rock, just beyond where I sat, and had not heard me coming, because of +the noise of the wind. They startled me also, as one of them flapped +out, close to my face, and flew screaming away, as I pulled myself up +into shelter, but the other stood on its jut of rock, almost within +arm's length, and looked at me. I saw its ugly long head as it turned, +its great beak and its neck of a bird of prey, and then it flew off; +and though I sat very still for a long time, hoping they might return, +they only flew round me and past me, showing me the great black sweep +of their wings as they went. But as I sat there, on that wild crag and +that wild morning, I noticed a tuft of dog-violets, growing out of a +fissure in the grey rock, and shaken and pounded by the bitter wind. +How wonderful is the tenacity of nature. A few grains of dust blown +into a crack of barren rock, a few seeds wind-carried also, and then +germination in the rain and sun, and when the spring comes, this little +clump of flowers in its due season, part of the intricate and mighty +forces of renewal throughout the fertile world. +</P> + +<P> +When I was walking from Lynton to Heddon's Mouth, however, I crossed +the mouth of the Valley of Rocks, just behind the Castle Crag, and kept +the road to Lee Bay. Here it runs a few hundred yards inland, through +the grounds of Lee Abbey, a green and fertile fold of ground between a +sea-headland, and gently wooded ground that rises inland. The abbey, +which is beautifully situated, with a hump of cliff sheltering it +seaward, and a great smooth slope of green sward running down to a tiny +bay, and set among a fine group of sheltering pine-cedars, was built +about 1850, and somewhat too much "after the Gothic style." Parts of +the house are of pleasant red brick, overgrown with glossy ivy, but a +portion of the building—dining-room or library, I do not know +which—is like an east window of the Perpendicular period, fitted with +sun-blinds! There was never an Abbey here, either, and the name is as +new as the Gothic, but there is history here, and tradition as well, +for the house stands on the site of the old Grange Farm of Lee, which +was a large, rambling, plain building, with gabled ends and thick +walls, thatched roof and tall chimneys, to which Hugh de Wichehalse +sent his family when the plague ravaged Barnstaple in 1627. +</P> + +<P> +After that the de Wichehalses were for nearly a century the chief +family of Lynton, and the last of them, Mary, to whom her father left +this estate, is said to have returned here, after the ruin of her +family and her betrayal by a faithless lover, and to have lived here +with a faithful servant until she was drowned off Duty Point, either by +an accident, or, as tradition asserts, by throwing herself down from +the cliff, which is the southern point of the little bay. Her body was +never found, and the mixture of fact and legend which has gathered +round her forms the basis of the tragic tale of Jennifred de Wichehalse +which is given by the Reverend Mundy. +</P> + +<P> +After leaving the grounds of Lee Abbey the road climbs steeply up the +opposite headland. Up this hot and stony road I went, leaving Lee Bay +below me, the tiniest of bays, a little blue rockgirt pool, guarded +with great shags of rock, into which runs a rivulet, down the greenest +and shadiest of gorges, where the trees meet overhead, and the clear +water runs between narrow banks of primroses, and the bright grass and +flowers follow the stream right down to the wave-smoothed stones of the +beach. +</P> + +<P> +The sun beat on me as I climbed the hill, and the dust rose as I walked +from the loose, stony road. I came gladly into the shelter of trees, +ash and oak chiefly, not yet out in leaf on this exposed slope, though +the celandines and wild anemone were in flower, and the ground and the +banks were green with new growth, ground-ivy and columbine, with its +heart-shaped glossy leaves, wild parsley, and the beautiful serrated +little leaves of the wild strawberry. On the left-hand side of the +road, on the higher slopes, the trees had all been cut (one of the sad +exigencies, I fear, of war), and they were burning the ground as I came +past; the smell of burning wood followed me, and the thin wreaths of +blue smoke, curling up the hillside, looked faint but ominous in the +morning sunshine like a warning beacon, indeed, of the approach of some +raider. +</P> + +<P> +As I paused for breath, and stood looking down at the exquisite blue +glimmer of the sea through the grey stems of the ash and the delicate +thin tassels of the larches, a drama of hunting passed before me. +There was a thin squeak of terror and a scurry of wings, and some +swallows fled past with a hawk in pursuit. He was almost upon the +hindermost, when he crossed the path of a rook, who rose at him, cawing +angrily, and was immediately joined by two or three others, who rose +from the trees. The hawk turned with incredible swiftness; I saw the +great white bars of his underwings as he "banked" steeply, and went +off. The swallows had escaped and the rooks sank back into the green +tree-tops. All this happened within a yard or two of me; I saw it in +detail, terror in the movements of the swallows, and the eager stretch +of the hawk's head and the gleam of his eyes. +</P> + +<P> +This is to me one of the charms of walking along these lonely high +cliffs: you must go quietly, and if not alone, then with a companion +who will stop often and stand quietly, and you will see birds from +beautiful and unfamiliar angles; below you, showing the broad stretch +of their wings and the markings of their backs, or on the level of your +eye, so that you can see the distinctive shape of their head and beak, +their flight and their movements. To see two buzzard hawks above a +blue sea, circling below you, and then rising higher and higher in a +great sweeping spiral, their wings taut till they have the upward curve +of a bow, and motionless as they ascend, save for an occasional broad +beat as they come, perhaps, to what airmen call a "pocket" in the air, +and so up until they are two specks against the dazzling brightness of +the sky, and you can no longer look at them—this is to me pleasure and +occupation enough for a long summer's morning. Or to watch the gulls, +hanging motionless head on to a brisk wind, or swooping and diving for +fish, black and white and grey changing swiftly across them as they +turn different angles of back and breast and wing to the sun; or to sit +on a high moorland as the evening falls, and hear the melancholy call +of the plover across the brown heather, and watch their strange, broken +flight as they fly low, and waver, and seem to fall as if you had +winged them—sitting there quietly with your hands before you and +intending no harm to any bird on God's earth—and then with a sudden +turn, which shows you all the white underpart of their wings, rising +again and flying strongly, their broad black wings dark against the +evening sky. All this may be had by anyone who will walk solitarily +and with seeing eyes. +</P> + +<P> +How beautiful are birds in flight!—the dart of a kingfisher, the sweep +of a hawk, the dip and turn of a swallow, the tremulous beat of a +rising lark, even the scurry of a park sparrow for the little bit of +bread you throw him, all different and all beautiful; and what tiny, +ineffectual, maimed creatures they are when they are dead, and their +wings folded! What pitiful little structures of flesh and bones and +tiny heart and brain to be so bright and swift in the wide air! +</P> + +<P> +The road rounds a headland and dips again to Woody Bay. The sweep of +the cliffs here is bold and beautiful, the bay is quite a wide sweeping +curve for this land of creek and gorge, and the slopes of the cliffs +are heavily wooded (which has probably led to the present corruption of +the name from the earlier form of Wooda Bay); but there has been an +outbreak of new houses and a new sanded road, which alarmed me, being +in the mind for birds and solitude, and I kept the high white road +which goes round the summit of the cliffs. Woody Bay is beginning to +be popular in the summer months among those less conventional folk who +like to live off the beaten track during their holidays, and are not +frightened by long distances or difficulties of access, but it is still +quite a tiny place and has not yet suffered that exploitation of the +picturesque which has overtaken Ilfracombe and Torquay, and many +beautiful spots in Devon. Seen from the high road that runs round the +cup of the hills its sprinkle of new little pink houses below look like +toys, and their dainty chalet-villa architecture fits the illusion; so +also does its smoothed green terrace of fields, which seem no bigger +than the nursery tablecloth, with Noah's ark animals, cows and horses, +feeding on them. +</P> + +<P> +The road crosses the stream which runs into the bay, and I rested here, +sitting on the parapet of the bridge, before I took to the unshaded, +stony white upper road. There was a pleasant sound of falling water, +and the stream ran below me, between banks that were very green with +moss and beautifully shaded by sycamores. +</P> + +<P> +From Woody Bay the scene grows wilder and grander. Seaward tower the +rocky cliffs, falling sheer to their base, jagged slate rocks which are +the home of gulls and ravens, with precipitous slopes of short and +slippery grass, where the mountain sheep feed; inland the brown moor +stretches, bare and open to the sky, with a cluster of little cottages +and a grey church hidden and sheltered in a dip of the ground. +</P> + +<P> +From Woody Bay the road strikes inland to Martinhoe, which takes its +name from the same overlords of the district whose appellation is found +in Combe Martin (which in Domesday is written simply as Comba or Combe) +and across the moors to Parracombe, which has been the home of the +yeoman family of Blackmore since 1683. The little grey twelfth-century +tower which William de Tracy is said to have built, as he built many +churches in expiation of the murder of Thomas à Becket, stands just +above the railway line from Lynton to Barnstaple, but the church used +by the small population of the village—and this and Trentishoe only +number together three hundred souls—stands lower down the combe. As +one passes these villages, isolated on the wide moors and guarded each +by its lonely small church, rising squarely and almost without ornament +against the background of the hills, one thinks often of those +beautiful lines of Kipling's in the poem he calls "Sussex": +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Here through the strong unhampered days<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">The twinkling silence thrills;</SPAN><BR> +Or little, lost, Down churches praise<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">The Lord who made the hills."</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P> +I crossed a wild and desolate gorge, barren, rocky and windswept; the +tinkle of clear water ran down over the grey boulders out of sight and +dropped down the face of the cliff into the sea; brown and grey lay the +hillsides and rocks under the glaring noonday sun; there was no living +soul in sight, no movement, save far below the flight of a pair of +ravens or the white flick of a gull's wings out to sea. Gorge beyond +gorge lay the land, still and colourless in the circle of a sea and sky +widely and splendidly blue. I felt that I walked on a younger earth, +just emerged from its fierce chaos of whirling molten matter, and as +yet unsoftened by luxuriant vegetable growth, an earth of stark rocks +and hot mud, teeming with potential life, of dry thin air and blazing +sunshine, very harsh and desolate and beautiful. +</P> + +<A NAME="img-084"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-084.jpg" ALT="Heddon's Mouth, near Lynton" BORDER="2" WIDTH="612" HEIGHT="442"> +<H3 CLASS="h3center" STYLE="width: 612px"> +Heddon's Mouth, near Lynton +</H3> +</CENTER> + +<P> +Then a great cleft runs inland, fenced by a bold headland on either +hand, and I have rounded Highveer Point and am looking down Heddon's +Mouth. Heddon is the corruption of the Celtic word "etin," which means +a giant, and the Celtic spirit which so named this wild valley had +indeed a sense of the poetry and grandeur of places. Sheer either side +rise the slate hills, bare, waterless, and treeless. The southern hill +is one steep slope of scree; the northern hill, Highveer Point, on +which I stand, is covered with dead gorse and heather, which they have +been burning in the spring, and the sharp smell lingers still. A +thousand feet below runs the river, shut narrowly between these great +cliffs, with hardly foothold for a sparse sprinkle of trees between +these dark walls, and for the ribbon of white road that runs from the +sea to Hunter's Inn, a mile inland. There two streams meet, and the +place is as green as a little paradise, and bright with running waters, +but it lies round the bend of the hill on which I stand, and what I see +before me is this shadowless great gorge, without tree or shrub or +flower, the magnificent shoulders of cliff lifted against the hot and +cloudless sky; inland the heat shimmering on the rounded surface of +hill behind hill, and out to sea a little froth of white where the blue +water breaks into foam on the point of some just submerged jag of rock. +A vast silence holds the place, save for the deep undertone of the +rushing water far below, so deep and so distant that it is rather like +a dull vibration in my brain than a sound in my ears. The heavy +buzzing of a fly and the rattle of the wind in the brim of my straw hat +do not break this impression of great silence; they seem to lie on it +rather, like feathers on the surface of a deep pool. The shadow of a +hawk goes slowly past me on the dusty white road and across the bare +hillside, on an outcrop of rock, bleak and grey in this brilliant +light, a butterfly, a red admiral, stands motionless, his wonderful +wings of crimson and iridescent blue stretched wide, and shining in the +sunlight with incredible colour. +</P> + +<P> +There are scenes of a different beauty at Lynton from that of these few +miles of cliff—and to me lacking something of the spaciousness and +splendour of Heddon's Mouth—but beautiful none the less. Go into +Lynmouth, down the steep and stony road—a true Devonshire road, still +the same as Celia Fiennes described them in her tour through England in +1695: "Ye lanes are full of stones and dirt for ye most part, because +they are so close ye sun and wind cannot come at them"—among the +steep, tree-embowered, whitewashed houses, which with the sun blazing +on their flat white walls suggest rather a little village of the +Pyrenees or Northern Italy than Devonshire cottages, that and the +luxuriance of the trees through which the East Lyn and the West Lyn +foam down to the little beach, and the prodigal flowering of bushes and +shrubs. Follow the East Lyn up to Watersmeet, which is about two miles +from Lynmouth through one of the most beautiful wooded gorges in +England. Past the hotels you go, and a little straggle of small modern +houses, past the untidy little patch which would be the suburb of a +larger community, with upturned boats and washing drying in the sun, +and within five minutes a turn of the road hides Lynmouth and the sea +from your backward look, and you stand in the heart of a valley and +beyond signs of habitation. The southern slope is beautifully wooded, +showing every range and variety of green, from the light vivid green of +larches to the dull brownish tone of the oaks. The northern slope +rises brown and rocky, the edges clear-cut against the brilliant sky; +there is a great sound of birds, and always the noise of water running +over stones. +</P> + +<P> +As you ascend the river the gorge becomes narrow and more thickly +wooded; the path winding along it is hot and close and still; the water +is clear brown in its depths, and green in the shallows and where it +slides over a mossy stone; it bubbles into foam in its tiny waterfalls +and cataracts and miniature whirlpools; it is deliciously sweet and +cool. The green moss grows to the very edge of its white stones, and +ferns and hart's-tongues and lilies-of-the-valley clothe the sides of +the hill; there are celandines and primroses and wild strawberry in +flower, and the lovely white cup of the ivy-leafed bell-flower. +Nowhere, perhaps, save in the west of England (I do not speak only of +Devon, for I know of little valleys in Cornwall which are as fertile as +the Garden of Eden, held in the rocky jaws of some bleak cliff), but in +what we call "the West," is there such peculiar beauty of contrast, +bold outlines of cliff and cove, great stretches of moor lying open to +the sky, and wooded combe and valley or small green sheltered hollow of +such blossoming fertility. +</P> + +<P> +The Watersmeet, the point where the Hoaroak Water joins the East Lyn, +breaking down over a thunderous small white waterfall, and a beautiful +spot enough, is vulgarized by notices embodying the commercial rivalry +of two different tea-houses. By one you are invited to walk on the +right bank of the river, as being the only public footpath (given in +the official guide of the Lynton Urban District Council); by the other +you are invited to a "unique view" of the Watersmeet, and assured you +will be solicited for patronage in no way. +</P> + +<P> +On the loneliest, loveliest day in early summer this smacks of tourist +parties, and I made haste to leave the river path and the sheltering +trees and climb the road to Brendon, a road as steep and hot, as stony +and glaring, as I have ever climbed. Up and up I went for half an +hour, seeing nothing but the banks and hedges on either hand; every +turn in the road I thought was the last span that would bring me out on +the hill-tops, and every turn of the road showed me another. But at +last I stood above Brendon, and before me spread the moors, brown and +purple in the sunlight, and the little old grey church of Brendon just +below me, in a slight dip of the high ground. +</P> + +<A NAME="img-090"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-090.jpg" ALT="Castle Rock, Lynton" BORDER="2" WIDTH="616" HEIGHT="450"> +<H3 CLASS="h3center" STYLE="width: 616px"> +Castle Rock, Lynton +</H3> +</CENTER> + +<P> +The woods of the Lyn Valley climbed to my feet, and I sat down in the +shade of the outermost fringe of trees to eat my lunch, and dream and +muse, and doze away the first hot hours of the afternoon. I sat +looking down over the valley; below me and to right and left the green +spikes of the larches were aflutter in the wind; before me rose a great +bare shoulder of hill, outlined sharply against the blue. Overhead the +sun was blazing, but in the wood the sunlight hung mistily among the +trunks and branches of oak and birch; it looked as if the wood were +filled with tremulous sunlit water, rather than with air and sun. The +air from off the moors was keen and very sweet. I lay on the dry, +clean turf and moss, looking up at the cloudless sky; a solitary +swallow hawking far up seemed no bigger than a fly, and a brilliant +green fly on a leaf above me, buzzing turbulently, seemed portentously +big and important. I lost my sense of space and time and of the world +in relation to men, set, as it were, as the background to men, and I +slipped into a world which belongs to the birds and the mice and the +moles, and the fish in the clear stream below; I watched the +chaffinches and thrushes, and a little grey ash-tree near me which was +full of linnets, delicious, sleek, grey, sweet-piping, busy little +birds, sliding and skimming in and out of the tree, a little home of +song and love-making, of intimate and familiar life. I heard a cuckoo +calling from the thick woods of the valley below, like the note of a +bell, very far away. I noticed the unopened buds of the ash shining +like silver against the flawless blue sky; it seemed to me I had lain +there a hundred years looking at them, and hearing the thin song of the +linnets, in a world entranced from movement or the passing of time. +And then I fell asleep. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap05"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER V +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +LYNTON (<I>continued</I>), COUNTISBURY, AND NORTHWARD +</H3> + +<P> +The word "Lynton," Mr. Chanter tells us in his interesting monograph on +the village, means the town on the lyn, and "lyn" is the Celtic word, not +for river, but for pool, and occurs in this meaning all over England, in +Northumberland, Yorkshire, Kent, Herefordshire. It is strange, perhaps, +that this rushing mountain stream should have been named from its very +rarely occurring pools, but the authority is indubitable. +</P> + +<P> +The Celtic folk who named it, the "early Britons," as our childish +history books used to call them, were not, of course, the first +inhabitants of this wild and wooded spot; there are neolithic +remains—hut circles and burial-places—fairly thickly scattered along +this coast, and a certain number of flint implements have been found. +The hut circles in the Valley of Rocks, of which traces still remain, +though many of them have been destroyed quite recently, within the last +two hundred years or so, belong to this period, and it is probable that +the earth-camps of Lynton and Countisbury, of Parracombe, Martinhoe, and +Ilfracombe, were built by the immense labour of this vanished people. +Remains of the early Bronze period show that there was a moderate +population in this district before the Roman Conquest. Of Roman remains +there are none, save a few coins of doubtful authenticity found at +Countisbury, which are supposed to have been scattered and buried by a +resident clergyman at the close of the last century, with the avowed +intention of "fogging" later antiquarians—surely the strangest +"fourberie" ever indulged in by a reverend gentleman. All other evidence +points to the fact that the Romans never occupied North Devon, though +they may have held in temporary garrison one or other of the existing +camps of the district. +</P> + +<P> +These camps open up most interesting avenues of speculation; many of them +were undoubtedly built as defences, some few—such as the small earthwork +on the din's edge at Martinhoe—as beacons or signalling stations, and +some are conjectured to have been built for burial purposes, not the mere +barrows for single internment, but in connection with sepulchral +ceremonies and rites of the worship of the dead. Such, perhaps, is the +small camp at Parracombe, which is built with a strong double fosse, but +the inner fosse deeper than the outer, which does not seem to have been +the case with camps built only for defence. There are two other camps at +Parracombe, one on the common and one on a high hill; near Lynton there +are two simple earth enclosures, called popularly Roborough Castle and +Stock Castle, and seven miles south of Lynton there is a square enclosure +called High Bray Castle, which commands a view of the fortified camps of +the district from Barnstaple to Braunton and Martinhoe. Tradition has it +that Alfred held this camp against the Danes, not that he built it, for +even in his day its foundation had become legendary and was ascribed to +"men of old time." +</P> + +<P> +The Saxons do not seem to have built earth-camps, but stone +fortifications on hills, like Athelstan's castle at Barnstaple, or +Kenwith Castle, though they used the barrow-camps at their need. The +Romans, we know, were mighty engineers, and their roads and buildings +bear witness to the endurance of their handiwork, but many of these camps +are indisputably not Roman, and their names bear witness to their Celtic +origin. Such is the camp at Countisbury, which name is almost certainly +the same as Canterbury—"Kant-ys-bury," the "camp on the headland," and +which is one of the most perfect in Devonshire. It stands on a hill a +thousand feet above the sea, commanding a view of the coast from Porlock +to Heddon's Mouth, with the line of the Welsh coast opposite; it consists +of a triple rampart and fosse, rising boldly one within the other, with a +gate cut in the northern face of the rampart, and with a small mound +exactly in the centre of the inner camp. How did these peoples of the +Celtic speech build a work of such engineering magnitude, without the +tools and appliances of the Roman civilization, with implements of flint, +or at best of bronze, a work of such strategical foresight, of such +nicety of proportion, and of such enduring strength, that now after the +lapse of probably twenty-five centuries its bold proportions can be +traced by the most casual glance of the passer-by of the road that runs +past, now that the sheep clamber and feed in its deep fosses, and daisies +sprinkle the grass of its ramparts? +</P> + +<P> +The Saxons seem to have come more or less peaceably to the Britons of +North Devon, who had taken little impress, probably, of the alien Roman +civilization, except Christianity, for many of the churches round still +carry the name of a Celtic saint, showing that the Saxons did not come +devastating villages and destroying the little churches (in which case, +of course, the churches would carry the name of a Saxon saint of their +later Christianity), but settled with the inhabitants, intermarried, and +probably adopted their worship. There is the church of St. Culbone, St. +Brendon—that tiny village of Brendon, near Lynton, which must have been +a village, with a rude little church of its own, before Hengist and Horsa +landed—of St. Dubricius at Porlock, of St. Brannock at Braunton, near +Barnstaple. +</P> + +<P> +St. Brannock ought to have been an Irish saint; the legends of him have a +levity, and a fantastic and humorous twist, that we do not find in the +stories of the Teutonic saints. He was the son of the King of Calabria, +and came to North Devon somewhere about A.D. 300. He searched the hearts +of the inhabitants by various miracles, among them by having a cow +killed, cut in pieces, and boiled in a cauldron, and then, calling the +cow by name, out it walked, alive and whole, and never a penn'orth the +worse. The story of this is carved on one of the bench-ends of the pews +in the present fourteenth-century church of St. Brannock, and there is a +large carved boss of the roof representing a sow and her litter, because +St. Brannock is said to have been commanded in a dream to build a church +on the spot where he should first meet a sow. He pressed the deer into +the service of God, and yoked them, making them draw timber from the +woods to build the church. This is how the rhyme goes—a fairly modern +version of a much older doggerel: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"He had nor horse, nor ox, nor ass, but the deer so little<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">and limber;</SPAN><BR> +They ran in the forest to please themselves, why shouldn't<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">they draw his timber?"</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P> +There is also another rhyme which seems to show that a bond of affection +sprang up between him and the cow which had had to serve his miracle: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"St. Brannock fed on venison when he sat down to table;<BR> +Behind him stood his favourite cow, and his<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">valet-de-chambre Abel!"</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +I do not know why his servant should have been called Abel. +</P> + +<P> +The Norman Conquest also came peaceably to this beautiful and remote +place; the census of the population of Lynton and Countisbury given in +Domesday, which was compiled in 1086, twenty years after the Conquest, +gives the numbers for the two villages as 425. In 1801 the population +numbered no more than 601, these numbers being as many as the district +could support until the modern distribution of supplies; and the +comparatively small increase in seven hundred years shows that in William +the Conqueror's reign sobriety of government and security of the life of +the individual gave these localities freedom to develop to the limit of +their capacity. Countisbury had been held by Ailmar "on the day on which +King Edward was alive and dead," and it "rendered geld for half a hide." +A "hide" was the unit of assessment on which the Danegeld was paid in +Saxon times— +</P> + +<PRE STYLE="font-family: Courier New; font-size: 10pt"> + 1 virgate = 1/4 of a hide. + 1 ferling = 1/4 of a virgate (also identified with sixteen acres). + 1 ploughland = as much land as 8 oxen could cultivate. + (In Devonshire 1 ploughland was equivalent to 4 ferlings.) +</PRE> + +<P> +The "manor" consisted of the "demesne," which was the lord's home-farm, +attached to his dwelling, and the villagers' land, which was held by the +villeins for their own use, on the condition of the cultivation of their +lord's ground. Hence it will be seen that the condition of the peasantry +in the eleventh century, while actually serfdom, with enforced labour, +and no right of moving from the dominion of the lord under which they +were born, was virtually better than the conditions of the agricultural +population at the beginning of the nineteenth century (and some would +say, even, at the present day) in that they practically owned +smallholdings and were in a position where industry and enterprise could +be better rewarded than many a labourer of our own time could expect, +whose prospects—so long as he remained an agricultural labourer, and in +England—were inalterably bounded by eighteen shillings a week. +</P> + +<P> +The manor of Countisbury rendered geld for half a hide, of which the lord +held one virgate and four ploughs, and the villeins held one virgate and +six ploughs. Here is a list of the possessions of the overlord in 1086: +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +"There William has 12 villeins, and 6 bordars, and 15 serfs, and 1 +swineherd (who renders 10 swine by the year), and 1 packhorse, and 32 +head of cattle, and 24 swine, and 300 sheep less 13, and 35 goats, and 50 +acres of wood, and 2 acres of meadow, 1 leuga in length and 1 furlong in +breadth; and it is worth by the year 4 pounds, and it was worth 20 +shillings when William received it." +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +The Danish raids also, though they were frequent up and down this coast, +seem to have passed by Lynton; the narrowness of the landing beach, the +steep rise of the cliffs immediately from the shore, the rocky bed of the +river and the thick woods which fence the valley, all made it difficult +of attack, while Porlock and Ilfracombe lay within a few miles, offering +smoother harbours and easier access. There are several notices in the +Saxon Chronicle of Danish raids on the coasts of the Severn Sea, in A.D. +845 and in A.D. 917, when the Lidwiccas, under Ohtor and Rhoald, landed +and devastated a great portion of this north-west country, but they +probably came to Watchet, near Minehead, and even then all that Lynton +saw of the fierce raid was the smoke of the beacon fires from Dunkery +Beacon to Martinhoe Beacon, near Heddon's Mouth. +</P> + +<P> +In the twelfth century the manors of Lynton and Countisbury were in the +possession of Henry de Tracy, Becket's murderer, and by him were given to +the Abbey of Ford, in whose right they remained until the dissolution of +the monasteries by Henry VIII. Ford Abbey was a foundation of Cistercian +monks, an order which was always engaged in matters of practical value, +and under their rule something was done to improve the breed of mountain +sheep round this district and produce wool of greater market value; they +also attempted some development of agriculture and the fishery of +Lynmouth. They had, indeed, extensive rights of fishery by land and +sea—a very valuable asset, it must be remembered, in the Middle Ages, +when the mass of the population lived almost exclusively on salt fish, +and meat was scarce, except on the tables of the noble. Their rights +extended over Lynmouth, Martinhoe, Countisbury, and the coast of Wales, +and the monopoly of deep-sea fishing along the Severn Sea. This went +beyond the old manorial claim, which was "from the shore so far seaward +as a horsed knight could, at low water-springs, reach with his spear." +Beyond was the King's, and was free and open to all his subjects, though +a claim for deep-sea rights was allowed if it could be proved to be of +very ancient usage, as in the case of Ford Abbey. Lynmouth was a noted +resort for herrings all through the Middle Ages, and curing-houses stood +on the beach for many years until 1607, when nearly all were swept away +by a great storm, and never after properly reconstructed. The herrings +also at some time in the seventeenth century left these coasts +completely—tradition says because of the avarice of a parson of Lynton, +a hard man and greedy, who cared rather to fleece his flock than feed +them, and who imposed such heavy tithes on his poor parishioners, that, +in spite of the prosperity of their fishing, they were unable to pay +them. So the herrings left the district, and the parson could whistle +for them, until he mended his ways and reduced his tithes, when they +magically returned. +</P> + +<P> +At the dissolution of the monasteries very little difference in the daily +routine of their lives can have been felt by the country people round +Lynton and Countisbury. John Chidley, who had been bailiff for Ford +Abbey, applied to the King for continuation in his office, which was +granted to him, and he administered the property for Henry VIII, Edward +VI, and, Elizabeth, as he had administered it for the Abbey of Ford. +</P> + +<P> +Nor did the Civil Wars touch it nearly. Barnstaple and Dunster were +taken and retaken by the Parliamentarian troops, and armies marched from +Dunster west to Bideford across Exmoor and the great commons, but no +armed troops came down into Lynton; perhaps hardly even a straggler found +his way there. In the tragic rebellion of 1685 a bloody little drama was +enacted here indeed, but that is connected with the history of the de +Wichehalses, the family of chief interest and importance who have lived +at Lynton. They did not come to Lynton before the early seventeenth +century; their home was a small hamlet called Wych, near Chudleigh in +Devonshire, though Blackmore invents for them a romantic Dutch pedigree, +and asserts that they fled to England to escape from Spanish persecution +in the Netherlands; this story, however, has been proved entirely without +foundation by the careful researches of Mr. Chanter. In the time of +Elizabeth, he says, these de Wichehalses had overflowed all over the +country; we find them at Exeter, Chudleigh, Ashcombe, and Powderham. In +1530 one, Nicholas de Wichehalse, settled at Barnstaple and started in +the woollen trade; he married into the Salisbury family, who were in the +same business; and when he died he decreed by will that his nephew John +should marry his stepdaughter, Katherine Salisbury. The next Nicholas de +Wichehalse married Lettice Deamond, the daughter of the Mayor of +Barnstaple, and it is an inventory of his shop, taken in 1607, that I +have quoted in a previous chapter. +</P> + +<P> +His son Hugh married in due course, and continued to live at his family +mansion in Crock Street, until, in 1627, the fear of the plague which +ravaged Barnstaple and Bideford (it was supposed to have been brought +into the towns by an infected mattress which had been thrown overboard by +a plague-stricken ship, and was fished out of the river just below +Barnstaple by four children who were fishing) drove the de Wichehalses +out of the city. +</P> + +<P> +Hugh de Wichehalse decided to send his family to the purer air of the old +Grange Farm of Lee, near Lynton. One can picture the removal: his wife, +his children, his servants, and a whole string of packhorses (carriages +were still rare as a means of transport), coming down Boutport Street, +and across Pilton Causeway, up the beautiful and fertile valley of the +Yeo, to Westland Pound on the edge of Blackmoor, and its inn, where in +all probability they slept. The next day they would be on the high +barren moors, where the air was too sweet and keen for infection, and so +would come across Parracombe Common, Martinhoe Common, Lynton Common, and +down the Valley of Rocks to Lee (what is now called Lee Abbey). +</P> + +<P> +The farm stood about a mile and a half or two miles from Lynton, and +after the busy life of the town their solitude must have seemed to them +excessive, for their near neighbours would live half a dozen miles away, +and were inaccessible in winter. There were the Berrys from Crosscombe, +a branch of the Berrynarbor family into which Hugh's sister had married; +the Knights at West Lyn; the Pophams, who came from Porlock. +</P> + +<P> +The family lived there for the next eighty years. Hugh was buried in the +parish church at Lynton, and his monument can be seen there; it is he to +whom Blackmore refers in "Lorna Doone" as Baron Hugh, who was somewhat +too much hand-in-glove with the Doones; but the "young Squire Marwood," +who rode too frequently past the Ridds' farm and kissed Annie Ridd, is a +character of fiction, for Hugh de Wichehalse's son was called John, and +not Marwood, there was never one of that name. +</P> + +<P> +John was a strong Parliamentarian, and married into the Venner family; +but very soon they were in opposite camps, and there was great distrust +and anger between them. Colonel Venner commanded a regiment in +Monmouth's haphazard and ill-fated army in 1685. Wade, a renegade lawyer +from Holland, with a captain's commission, served in his regiment, and +after the defeat of Monmouth at Sedgemoor, Wade and Ferguson (a notorious +factious Scotchman, and the father of all plots) escaped to Bridgewater +and from thence got passage down to Ilfracombe. There they hired a small +ship and worked their way up the coast, hoping to rescue other refugees; +they were sighted and chased by one of the King's frigates, and were +forced to run ashore, when Lynton became the scene of one of those grim +and terrible rebel hunts which made the West Country tragic and bloody +during that summer of 1685. Wade was discovered at Brendon by John de +Wichehalse; he made a run for it, and was shot by de Wichehalse's +servant, John Babb. The Babbs were said never to have prospered +afterwards; their crops failed, the fisheries failed, and they became +extinct in the second generation. The last of them, Ursula Babb, the +grand-daughter of John, was to be seen wandering up and down the little +beach of Lynmouth, a half-crazed old crone, cursed with the evil-eye, and +babbling disjointed and incoherent stories of the ruin of the de +Wichehalses. +</P> + +<P> +Partly because of discord between him and the Venner family, partly +because of the strong feeling which was aroused locally by the action of +de Wichehalse, who had the body of a rebel who was shot in Bonham Wood +quartered and hung on the paled gate opposite Lee, he left Lynton and +went to live in London. The simple Devonshire estates could not support +the expenses of living in London; bit after bit his property was +mortgaged and frittered away, and when he died he possessed East Leymouth +(now Lynmouth) only, which he left to his daughter Mary. She it was who +became the heroine of all the stories of the "last of the de +Wichehalses," which, indeed, she was. She met a sudden and unexplained +death off Duty Point, and the White Lady of Castle Rock—a phenomenon +caused by a small aperture, bearing a slight resemblance to a woman's +figure, among the dark masses of the rock—is popularly supposed to be +connected with her fate. Of her brothers, Charles, the younger, was +killed at the Battle of Almanza in 1707, when the English, under Lord +Galway, lost 18,000 men and all their transport, and the elder brother, +John, died at Port Mahon, in Minorca, in 1721, while on garrison duty, +and this branch of the family became extinct. +</P> + +<A NAME="img-104"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-104.jpg" ALT="Duty Point" BORDER="2" WIDTH="619" HEIGHT="444"> +<H3 CLASS="h3center" STYLE="width: 619px"> +Duty Point +</H3> +</CENTER> + +<P> +And this is positively all the history of Lynton, until, in the time of +the French Revolution, when the turbulent state of the Continent made it +inadvisable to spend a holiday abroad, its beauty was discovered by those +eager to find in England that enjoyment of the picturesque which before +they had looked for in Italy and Southern France. We use "picturesque" +now in a slightly derogatory sense, or we use it patronizingly, because +it is old-fashioned and belongs to the nineteenth century, and Ruskin and +Wordsworth, and even Horace Walpole and his "Gothic" ruin on Strawberry +Hill; and we are of the twentieth century, and have discovered the beauty +of docks and harbours and tall factory chimneys and railway stations, +under the guidance of Whistler and Brangwyn and such folk, and we do not +fret at laying a railway through Perthshire or the Lake District, because +railways are fast becoming almost as romantic and old-fashioned to us as +stage-coaches (in these days of aeroplanes and automobiles); but at least +let us remember that it is to the nineteenth century that we owe that +acute appreciation, not only of the visible beauty of the world, but of +the spirit that lies behind it, that personal and intimate character of +places which is one of our dear possessions. Mountains and woods, cliff +and cove, have become to us a truism of beauty, but let us at least be +grateful to the generation which first dared to see more in the boundless +Scotch hills and moors than "savage and disgusting country," or to +compare the pinnacles of the Alps to human handiwork—greatly to their +disadvantage. And the small absurdities, the "ruins" that they loved, +the "abbeys" they erected, were only part of that general half-conscious +striving to apprehend and express the spirit of romance with which we are +still moved in our own day, which Kipling expresses in his own fashion +and Conrad in his, down to the small-change of literature which struggles +for expression in our magazines and periodicals. +</P> + +<P> +So when Shelley and Coleridge and Wordsworth came to Lynton, and found it +beautiful, and nearly decided to live there and be the poets of Devon +instead of the poets of the Lake District, it was because they found in +it that quality of beauty which they needed; and when, a little later, +Lynton was "discovered" by one or more people of wealth—notably by Mr. +Coutts, the banker, who built houses there and hotels, and began to noise +its beauty up and down the London world—it was just the outermost ripple +of the vast disturbance of the French Revolution which touched the little +spot, part of the free new eager spirit which sent men questing for a +loveliness they could neither make nor control, and of which they must be +humble and passive spectators, and part also of vast causes and changes, +which drove Englishmen to seek their holidays within their own shores. +</P> + +<P> +Before closing this second chapter on Lynton, I cannot forbear to speak +yet further of the beautiful scenery in which it lies. There is +Summerhouse Hill, or Lyn Cleave, as it is more charmingly and +appropriately called, the great rocky height, a thousand feet above +Lynmouth, which looks down on the two villages and which divides the +valleys of the East and West Lyn. Lying on the short dry springy turf, +in the mellow sunlight of late afternoon, you can look along the velvety +wooded valley of the East Lyn, where the stream is hidden by the tufted +banks of the trees, and by shifting ever so slightly on your elbows as +you lie at ease you can look into the bare brown rocky valley of the West +Lyn, and see the gleam of the river foaming over its rocks a thousand +feet below. All round is the cawing of rooks, as they sail majestically +back to their nests, grave and cheerful with their abundance of food and +their security of tenure. England belongs to the rooks, says a friend of +mine. We English may live here, we may build houses and farms, we may +plough and sow and reap, we may make revolutions or wars, sending our +armies marching through the countryside in creeping dusty columns, but we +are only illusions on the page of history, shadows flitting across the +face of the land; the rooks are perpetual, ineradicable, and possessive. +They feed behind our plough; they flock in our green trees; they build in +our valleys and in the shelter of our houses; summer and winter they are +seen flying under our English skies; they mate and nest and bicker round +our cathedrals and our cottages; they are noisy and turbulent and +unrestrained before us, as if we were no more than the hedges we plant +and prune; they are irrepressible as street-arabs, and arrogant as +monarchs. If all human life were by some unimagined catastrophe swept +from the length and breadth of England, the cawing of the rooks would +sound as certainly, and they would fly forth to their morning meal and +back across the evening sky to their tall green elm-trees as if they had +never sailed over the heads of men who looked up and saw in them the +symbol of peace, security, and comfort, which they loved to call England. +</P> + +<P> +For a good walker the road that lies between Lynmouth and Porlock is an +adventure worth taking, though it gives a taste of the steep and +shadeless roads which lead up and down these moors, pitilessly +sun-scorched in summer, and pitilessly bleak and windswept in winter, +when the rain and sleet comes stinging and driving in your face, and yet +somehow, at all times of the year, worth adventuring for the splendid, +open, untamed beauty they show you. +</P> + +<P> +If you take carriage (in which case you will walk the greater part of the +way!), you will start from Lynmouth, and ascend the steep hill that leads +right up the cliff to Countisbury Foreland—I should have said the +steepest two miles of carriage road in England, had I not also climbed +Porlock Hill, twelve miles northward. The surface of the road is loose, +and scoured by winter rains, and on a windy day the dust comes swirling +down it like a miniature sandstorm. I have, indeed, seen even a car +obliged to draw up to let the blinding red swirl go by; and from Lynton, +on the opposite side of the valley, the whole headland has been blurred +and obliterated by the dust, as if it were a fog. +</P> + +<P> +If you are not driving, you may go up the East Lyn Valley, past the +Watersmeet, till you strike the path for Brendon, a more sheltered way on +a hot morning, but steep also, for the hills are not to be avoided, and +you have somehow to climb 1,300 feet from the sea to Countisbury. +Countisbury itself is a tiny, bare, white-washed hamlet, with a small +bare white inn with the sign of the Blue Ball; it stands on the borders +of Devon and Somerset, and hence some have supposed the name to mean the +"county's boundary"—but this, I think, is a case of false analogy, and +the Celtic origin of the "camp on the headland" is far more likely. +</P> + +<A NAME="img-110"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-110.jpg" ALT="The Moors near Brendon Two Gates" BORDER="2" WIDTH="617" HEIGHT="449"> +<H3 CLASS="h3center" STYLE="width: 617px"> +The Moors near Brendon Two Gates +</H3> +</CENTER> + +<P> +The Foreland is a great bold promontory looking towards the Welsh coast, +which hangs on the horizon like a low silver cloud above the faint haze +of the summer sea. Below lie Sillery Sands, and the caves of the beach; +beyond, the opening heights of Exmoor, in long flat curves, featureless, +spacious, and beautiful, purple and sombre under the wrack of +rain-clouds, grey and arid in the fierce blaze of the midsummer sun, most +lovely of all on crisp September mornings, when the heather is abloom in +miles on miles of changing purples and the air has a keen, clean edge, as +if it were blown off the top of the world. The air of Exmoor has always +this sharp sweetness, however much the sun may blaze, as John Ridd knew; +and looking over the wide-stretching countryside, one sees many a farm +that might have been his, a sturdy, whitewashed affair, flanked +generously with out-buildings, and standing high, but sheltered, in a +hollow of the ground, cut off from its neighbours by the rising hills, +and even more isolated in winter by the deep ruts of the roads, muddy and +impassable, that wind from valley to valley. +</P> + +<P> +A mile beyond County Gate is the village of Oare, where John Kidd and +Lorna were married; and as we follow the Porlock road across the moors we +see on our right the dip of the Doone Valley, where Lorna's bower was, +and a few scattered remains of stone huts show the habitations of the +outlaws. It is a scene of wildness and grandeur; on the left lies the +blue sea, on the right the dun-coloured moors. There are no trees, save +for a few writhen and stunted alders, covered with lichen till they are +the colour of stone, and look like petrified remains of an earlier age; +they are grown all to one side under the stress of the prevailing wind. +The only signs of life are the scattered sheep, their grey backs scarcely +visible among the heather and close furze, a great buzzard hawk poised +far up in the blue, and, when his shadow has passed, sailing slowly over +the shadeless ground, the sweet, monotonous song of mounting larks. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap06"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER VI +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +PORLOCK AND EXMOOR +</H3> + +<P> +The road now lies in Somerset; we pass Glenthorne, lying five hundred +feet below, among its beautiful green woods and stretches of vivid +green turf, and separated by some five miles of barren brown moors from +the village of Porlock. The road that leads from Exmoor down to +Porlock is incredibly steep, the steepest coach-road in England. It +twists dangerously in sharp right-angle turns, the surface is loose and +stony, worn by the dragging of brakes and the scouring of winter rains, +and on a summer afternoon it is so hot, so dusty and glaring, and so +steep, that it seems impossible for man or beast to climb. As soon as +you are at the top, however, the fresh air of Exmoor fills your lungs +and freshens your face, so let nobody be dissuaded from it. +</P> + +<P> +Porlock itself was a port in Saxon times and in the reign of William +the Conqueror (I have told elsewhere how not only the Danes, but Saxon +Earl Harold, drove his ships into the harbour on a fierce raiding +expedition), but it is now an inland village, and between it and the +sea lie two miles of flat land of the most wonderful luxuriance. <I>De +gustibus</I> indeed, and to me Porlock is one of the most beautiful spots +in all England. It lies in a green bay—what was a bay eight centuries +ago—between two towering headlands. On three sides of it rise the +heights of Exmoor, barren, beautiful, and windswept; before it stretch +the lands over which the Danes sailed, running out to a thin strip of +marshland, and then a silvery flat beach, and then the tremulous silver +curve of the sea, not like the line of wave that breaks at the foot of +cliffs, but a true marshland sea, seeming to come from nowhere, +infinitely smooth and faint and distant from the level shore to the dim +horizon. +</P> + +<P> +There are many kinds of beauty in the world: beauty of hot suns and +delicate mists, of sea and shore, mountain and lake and city; there is +the beauty of barren moors and of green orchards, and of flat fertile +marshlands where streams run amid a luxuriance of tangled growth, +kingcups and meadowsweet and loose-strife and forget-me-nots, and +feathery willows and rushes where the reed-warblers sing. And at +Porlock there is such a gathering up of these different beauties that +it is difficult to describe the pleasure that one has in it. I have +told you how it is fenced by Exmoor, and lies within sight of Dunkery +Beacon, the highest point of the moors; but it is impossible to convey +adequately the peculiar beauty of those great smooth dipping curves, +the satisfying breadth and harmony of their line, the way the sunlight +lies upon them, and the rich deep shadows that slide into their folds. +And below, round Porlock, lie the orchards. I came there once in the +spring, and as we turned the last angle of the stony road I saw before +me such a sweep of blossom, such a foam of cherry and pear, white above +the luxuriant grass, and of that delicate flushed rose of the +apple-blossom, so exquisite a range of green, the hazy green of willows +and the bright clear green of hawthorn, that it seemed impossible it +should lie just under those miles on miles of moor where nothing +bloomed but furze and heather. +</P> + +<P> +The green fields that stretched away to the sea were just such fields +as in the "Romaunt of the Rose" or the poems of the troubadours, fields +verdantly green, and starred with daisies and golden with +buttercups—the "enamelled meads" of Chaucer and the little illumined +pictures of the fourteenth-century manuscripts; and the hedges were +just such hedges, incredibly green, with here and there a break for the +misty silver of the blackthorn. Wherever flowers could bloom they +bloomed, in the gardens, in the hedges, by the roadside, in the +crannies of the walls. +</P> + +<P> +Porlock village itself is a quiet, charming spot which, in spite of the +temptation of visitors who come here in considerable numbers in the +autumn, when stag-hunting on Exmoor is in season, keeps most of its +old-world simplicity, and has not much "modernized" itself. It is +rambling, calm, and whitewashed; the bank itself is a long, low, cream +building with a thatched roof, and a lovely note of colour from a +climbing japonica. The Ship Inn also is a pleasant old building, with +a dark, cool coffee-room and heavy, timbered roof. "Southey's corner," +where he is said to have written his poem, "Porlock, thy verdant +vale …," on being detained at the Ship by the heavy moorland rain, +is by an old open fireplace, and has been cut off from a larger room by +thin partitioning walls. It is a pleasant homely place, with its sound +of horses from the stable-yard, and the clink of its old pewter pots +from the bar, with its low raftered ceiling and brick floor, and the +sunlight seen from its open doors. +</P> + +<P> +Porlock Church has a square tower, with a heavy, octagonal, truncated +spire, which gives the little church an over-weighted appearance, but +very distinctive in this country, of tall Perpendicular towers. It is +dedicated to St. Dubricius, who is a Celtic saint of the sixth century, +who crowned and anointed Arthur of the Round Table; in the twelfth +century he became a very famous saint once more, after having been +nearly forgotten for several hundred years. Many miracles were worked +at his tomb, and churches were dedicated to him. The present church at +Porlock was built about the thirteenth century by Sir Simon Fitz-Roges, +who was a crusader, but I am inclined to think that the dedication to +St. Dubric belonged to the early simple church (probably a thatched and +whitewashed barn) which was there at the time of the Conquest, and +which, like the neighbouring churches of St. Culbone and St. Brendon, +harks back to Celtic Christianity of pre-Saxon times. The church was +altered in the fifteenth century, and the Harington Chantry, which now +contains the tomb of Baron Harington and his wife, was added, and the +present spire, in place of the old one, which was blown down in a gale. +It is a little, quiet, grey English church, set peacefully in its green +churchyard, shaded by a huge ancient yew, perhaps as old as itself. In +the winter rain and wind beat round its solid grey walls, in spring the +daffodils bloom in the churchyard, and on summer days the bees are busy +among the clover and daisies over the graves. There are thousands of +such small, sober, beautiful churches in England; they are the monument +on which a fragment of the history of the race is inscribed; they are +the nucleus of the village life; the beginning and the end of its +activities have their sanction within its walls; they are rich with the +continued service of men's lives, generation from generation taking up +the duty and its privilege; they rise above the clustering roofs of the +village, tower or spire, as the visible landmark of faith—not of a +creed that can change and ebb and flow, but of a faith in the spiritual +core that lies at the heart of material life, like the village church +among the homes of its village. +</P> + +<P> +We who pass casually, and pause, and step in and look, with a curious +and antiquarian eye, for a bit of old brasswork or carved screen, miss +the intimate beauty of these churches as much, perhaps, as if we read +them in a catalogue: "St. Dubric; 12th cent.; fine marble monument of +15th cent.…, and so on." The plainest and simplest holds within +its whitewashed walls the beauty of continuous tradition; you must see +it in all its aspects of daylight and evening light, summer and winter, +the rainy, tumultuous November afternoons and the long, golden, mellow +evenings of June, to realize what it offers, of peace and order, +tenderness and calm. +</P> + +<P> +Inside Porlock Church, which is light and white and simple, there is a +beautiful canopied tomb of the fifteenth century, with the recumbent +figures of Baron Harington and his wife Elizabeth Courteny, carved in +alabaster. Whoever made these marble figures was an artist; not only +is the detail of the dress intricately and beautifully carved, the +foliated wreath of his helmet, the elaborate decoration of her girdle, +and the curved "horns" of her head-dress rolled either side of her +face, but the whole pose and outline of the figures is firm and +gracious. +</P> + +<P> +I find that this tomb is quite famous among virtuosi, though I was +unaware of it when I came upon the monument in the quiet of a workaday +afternoon; but its beauty at once claimed my eye, presenting something +so different from the average mediaeval tomb, of interest chiefly for +its age. These figures are slightly defaced, the sharp edges worn +smooth by time, and scores of initials have been scratched roughly on +the surface of his armour or her mantle; but there is a certainty of +line, a sharpness, and at the same time a suavity of angle, a way of +disposing the head and hands and body, all within the stiff convention +of rigid tomb carving, that to any lover of sculpture reveals the sure +hand of a master, whether he were a nameless stonemason, working in a +secluded village, or a renowned man, invited from far. +</P> + +<P> +Standing by this beautiful tomb I can see the sunlight through the open +door, with a black splash across the gold, of the great yews beyond; I +hear the crowing of cocks and the voice of children, the creak of a +passing cart and the song of birds, all the simple, jolly sounds of +that everyday life which is the plain fabric on which all history, of +nations and empires and monarchs, is (if you like) the embroidery. +</P> + +<P> +From Porlock to the little port of Porlock Weir is a walk of two miles +along a narrow lane between high green hedges. The road leads nowhere +else but there and back; it is a kind of enchanted road which goes to +an enchanted village, a village at the world's end, beyond the circle +of mere reality. Every cottage in Porlock Weir is just such a little +cottage as J. M. Barrie's fairies might build, low-browed under a steep +thatch, with great tall chimneys, in which are cut just such little +windows as would frame a fairy's head, looking out and laughing and +nodding at you; whitewashed, half-timbered cottages, grouped together +in a jumble of delicious curves and angles, with dusky, deep oak +doorways, and stone steps hollowed by the feet that have gone in and +out, and long leaded windows, softly yellow with lamplight in the +mellow twilight of summer evenings, and gardens—oh, gardens that are +small, and walled with stone, and running over with colour and bloom as +no other gardens in the world could ever be! Hydrangeas, geranium, +larkspur and evening primrose, columbine, forget-me-not, roses—and, +indeed, the roses have gone wild with freedom, and threaten to overflow +and drown the village, trailing over the wall, running up the tall +chimneys, thrusting in at the open windows—nor are there names for all +the flowers that bloom here, for all the mellow gold and crimson and +blue and yellow and purple that glow in the sunlight, and fade gently +into shadows of themselves as night falls. Beyond is the sea, all +round the flowering meadows of the marsh, behind the moors; to anyone +who has had the fortune to see Porlock Weir on such a day in May as +this I recall, when this England of ours seems, to our fancy, to gather +up all beauties of colour and sound and scent and sunlight of which the +long winter and the chill, reluctant spring have starved us, and offer +them all at once in immeasurable bounty, this village will seem to them +to have the loveliness of magic. +</P> + +<P> +The beauty of Exmoor is a stranger beauty and more remote than that of +these lovely villages. It is the beauty of space, I suppose, and the +great open arch of the sky; it is the clouds and cloud shadows, the +changing light from dawn to evening through the blazing colourless +hours of midsummer noon to the tender light of the falling day, when +the land lies in long, suave, misty curves; it is the swirl of mist +down its hillsides, and the solemn banking of great heavy rain-clouds, +purple and black, above it, that gives it so rich and varied a beauty: +for it is like a great open canvas, on which an artist's hand makes +wonderful pictures of a myriad changes of sun and shadow. Anyone who +has seen Exmoor, as Mr. Widgery has seen and loved and painted it, on a +still September night, under the mellow splendour of the harvest moon, +high above the infinite shadowy blue of the horizon and the misty moor, +has seen a rare loveliness he must travel far to match. +</P> + +<A NAME="img-122"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-122.jpg" ALT="Harvest Moon, Exmoor" BORDER="2" WIDTH="615" HEIGHT="438"> +<H3 CLASS="h3center" STYLE="width: 615px"> +Harvest Moon, Exmoor +</H3> +</CENTER> + +<P> +The "forest" of Exmoor is about thirty-five miles in extent from east +to west, and twenty from north to south, running from the valley of +Crowcombe, near the Quantocks, to Hangman Point, near Combe Martin. It +is a stretch of country which makes its appeal to the sportsman, the +antiquarian, the artist, and the mere idle, happy walker; it is a +little country within a country, having many peculiarities of scenery +and structure, plant life and animal life, history and custom, peculiar +to itself. +</P> + +<P> +And, firstly, though from Saxon times until 1818 it ranked as a "royal +forest," it is not a forest at all. Trees will hardly live on Exmoor, +not even the black fir, the hardiest tree of all; only here and there a +few twisted and stunted alders planted along the shelter of a wall, and +degenerated into "scrub." As soon as you descend from the heights, +indeed, the country becomes luxuriantly wooded, as at Glenthorne and +Lynton and Horner Woods; but the great expanse of Exmoor is bare brown +land, covered with short tussocky grass and grey furze. Why, then, was +it called a "forest" in Saxon times? Did "forest" mean also moorland, +wild and unarable land? This opinion has been held by many +authorities, but there is the contrary one put forward, that Exmoor was +at some time a forest, and that all the land from Crowcombe to Combe +Martin was clothed with oak and beech. We know, indeed, that in early +times, certainly, England was much more densely wooded than now; the +rocky foundation on which Exmoor lies is covered with a peaty deposit +which is formed of decayed vegetable substance—the myriad leaves, +perhaps, of many hundred autumns—and near the Chains, which are a +series of dangerous bogs near Dunkery Beacon, stumps and roots of +bog-oak have been pulled out of the ground. This last fact does not +seem to me in any way conclusive, for Exmoor may have had wooded +thickets, without being a forest covering half a county, like the New +Forest. +</P> + +<P> +And, if it were, what causes led to its deforestation? The climate of +Britain was not, we know, more sheltered and temperate in old days than +now, so it seems necessary to suppose human agency to account for so +great a change. There is one theory, ingenious but fantastic, which +asserts that the whole forest was felled to provide timber props for +the mine-workings of Devon and Cornwall. Whether this took place in +Celtic times, when the trade with Phoenicia was at its height, or +subsequently—in which case it is strange there is no historical record +of so remarkable a fact—or whether those prehistoric peoples who built +huge camps and erected mighty monoliths were yet capable of so +stupendous a feat as felling the timber of sixty thousand acres, and +carting it over roadless country, is at least open to question. There +is another theory, that the Romans in their struggle to subdue the +Britons, who took refuge in these wooded fastnesses, fired the forest, +and burned them out, as they are supposed to have done with Hatfield +Moor in Yorkshire, which, now a peaty moor, was 12,000 acres of forest +land until Ostorius, having slain many Britons, drove the remnant into +the forest and destroyed it. An ingenious gentleman, in support of +this theory, instances Cow Castle (or Cae Castle), near Simonsbath, +which is a large British camp in the centre of Exmoor, and juxtaposes +with it Showlsborough Castle, a few miles away, just beyond the limits +of Exmoor, which is held to be a Roman camp, and where certainly two +Roman swords have been found within recent years, advancing this as +proof that a serious campaign between Romans and Britons was fought +across Exmoor. +</P> + +<P> +All these are interesting speculations; one hesitates to dismiss a +theory because of its apparent unlikeliness, until it has been proved +wrong, for in this unrecorded past of ours so many things are possible; +nevertheless, it seems to me difficult to believe that the Romans would +have or could have burnt forty to sixty thousand acres of +woodland—above all, in a climate so humid and a country so well +watered as ours. +</P> + +<P> +Exmoor is not generally heather-covered, but its tors and hillsides are +clothed with a wiry colourless grass and the hardy, prickly furze. +Heather grows abundantly on its boundaries, and above all on the common +lands, such as Brendon Common, Lynton, and Parracombe Common, which +surround it, and which are distinguished from the moorland proper. +Native agriculturists say, I believe, that the heather grows to its +finest on land which has been turned up by man's labour—like nettles, +which grow so wildly in deserted gardens and ruined villages—and that +this common land on the edge of the moor bears evidence of having once +been cultivated. With the break-up of the feudal system, certainly, at +the beginning of the sixteenth century, much land in England went out +of cultivation with the abolition of forced labour, and became +pasturage or mere rough common. The people around here say that, if +you turn up a strip of land on Exmoor, where nothing grows but grass +and furze, and leave it, in a year or so the heather will come. But +that heather, unlike nettles, does not grow only where the land has +been turned by the plough is proved enough by the heather which grows +on steep hillsides, such as the Scotch mountains or Dunkery Beacon, +which can never have been brought under cultivation. +</P> + +<P> +To all who live in the West Country, who says Exmoor says "the red +deer." This is the last corner in England where the red deer, an +ancient and native inhabitant of these islands, lives in his natural +state, and where he can be hunted with the freedom, and yet with the +traditional pomps and usages, with which our Saxon and Norman nobles +hunted him. The hunting passion of the Norman Kings is familiar to us +in our history; how William the Conqueror "loved the tall red deer as +his father," and how he laid waste hamlets and villages in Hampshire, +and the little crops of the toiling villagers, to plant the New Forest +for his pleasure in the deer; and how his son William Rufus met his +death there, while hunting, by an untraced arrow piercing his eye, and +retribution for William's act was made plain to all men. The Saxon +Kings, doubtless, hunted with less pomp, but with an equal passion. +There was a Saxon palace at Porlock, and also at Dulverton, from which +they might hunt on Exmoor, and it may very well be that Alfred the +Great came to Porlock for rest and refreshment among the labours of his +life, his lawgiving and his translating of Latin books into the +Anglo-Saxon tongue for his people's good, and his bitter and incessant +struggle with the Danes. +</P> + +<P> +The laws by which the Kings protected their sport were among the most +cruel and oppressive ever made in England. They were not, so far as I +can find, imposed by the Saxon Kings upon their countrymen, but by the +conquering Norman and Plantagenets. Canute, the Danish King, is said +first to have made death or mutilation the penalties for poaching; but +throughout the Middle Ages the game laws were intricate, rigid, and of +incredible cruelty. To cut off a man's thumbs so that he could not +hold his tools, to lame him, to hang him, for snaring a hare or +shooting a deer in a land abounding with game, while he tilled another +man's ground and went hungry on his salt fish and coarse bread, while +all around him bred and ran the flesh food his stomach craved, and the +King who owned it lived far away, and neither hunted it nor ate it from +spring to winter—this seems one of the stupid and anomalous cruelties +of which the human race is so amazingly capable. It was a concession, +granted by Henry II, for men to be allowed to keep dogs at all, even +for the guarding of their homes and their small flocks; but even so the +animals had to be brought before some magistrate every three years, and +maimed, by cutting off the three claws of the fore-feet, to prevent +them from pursuing or seizing game. +</P> + +<P> +There is a description of stag-hunting in Chaucer's "Book of the +Duchess," which dates somewhere from the end of the fourteenth century, +which is substantially the same, I suppose, as a modern hunt on Exmoor; +a few of the terms are different. The stag is "embossed," meaning +"hidden in a thicket," and Chaucer says he is "rechased" when he means +he is headed back, while the note which the huntsman sounds to recall +the hounds when the stag is lost is a "forloyn." But stag-hunting +elsewhere than on Exmoor is virtually an archaic imitation of a sport. +The beast is carted to the meet, loosed, chased, and when brought to +bay is recaptured and carted back to captivity. Here it is a natural +affair, and rendered necessary by the depredations which the deer +commit on the farmers' crops; it also contains an element of danger to +the hunters, and calls for coolness, decision, and endurance: for the +pace is killing, the going rough, the hills tremendously steep, there +are rocky combes down which the rider has to plunge, streams to ford, +bogs which make the going unsafe, if not actually dangerous—and a +rider, unfamiliar with Exmoor, who finds himself caught in an October +mist had better jog quietly home before worse befall him—and, at the +last, the chance of losing the stag, or having him, as happens +occasionally, plunge desperately off the rocks into the sea. +</P> + +<P> +The red deer is the most beautiful of all wild creatures in England; +seen in his native setting on these high, windy moors, the brown grass +and patches of purple heather all round him, the clear brown and white +streams of the combes where he waters, the blue shadows of hill behind +hill, and the grey billows of mist and cloud the wind sends rolling +down the hillsides, he is a noble beast indeed. +</P> + +<P> +Wild-horses also run on Exmoor. Mr. Page, in his "Exploration of +Exmoor," advances the theory that they are not native ponies, like +those of the New Forest or parts of Scotland, but the descendants of +horses which the Phoenicians brought in their galleys when they traded +with Cornwall and Devon; for their bones are smaller and lighter than +those of our native ponies, and beautifully white and polished like +ivory, as are the bones of the Arab horses of the north coast of +Africa. This is an entertaining theory, with its romantic conjectures: +the picture of the Phoenician oared galleys pulling into Combe Martin +or Porlock Bay; the scenes on the beach, with the swarthy, beak-nosed +sailors, the Celts, eager for trade and curious to look at any +foreigners come from beyond the sea; the heaps of tin and silver, the +ivory and gold and Eastern gauds with which the Phoenicians bartered; +the plunging, high-spirited little horses, wild with release from the +galleys. But though the Phoenicians certainly came, it is very likely +the horses did not; for Mr. Snell, another authority on Exmoor, thinks +that the ponies are indigenous, like the red deer, and are at least as +old as the first human inhabitants of this north-west corner. +</P> + +<P> +They are small creatures, as active as cats, and at Bampton Fair, where +many hundreds are driven in for the last Thursday in October, and the +narrow streets are packed with them from end to end, there are scenes +of great liveliness and disorder. Dulverton, which is the centre of +Exmoor, used also to have a fair, which consisted mainly of Exmoor +ponies and sheep; but it has passed out of existence by reason of +railways and shops, and the greater facility for commercial exchange of +our era, and the charming cobbled, whitewashed town—which was quite an +important town, remember, when John Ridd's cousin Rachael lived +there—now dozes undisturbed among the brown hills. +</P> + +<P> +The sheep of Exmoor are of a horned variety; we all know what excellent +mutton they make from its praises in "Lorna Doone," and John Fry's +lyrical outburst over the saddle of mutton "six year old, and without a +tooth in mun head," and sure to eat as soft as cream. John Fry was +referring to the custom among the farmers of not killing their sheep +until the teeth begin to go. Their coats are exceedingly thick, and +their wool a very valuable asset to the whole county; it was more +particularly so in the Middle Ages, when cloth-making was the staple +industry of England. There is a woolpack in the coat-of-arms of +Minehead, and the most striking feature of the little mediaeval town of +Dunster is the yarn-market in the centre of the main street. +</P> + +<P> +Wolves were plentiful on Exmoor at that time, and doubtless did much +damage among the sheep; in hard winters, even, they would have come +down into the little villages of Simonsbath and Parracombe, but the +last of them was killed in the reign of Elizabeth. In her reign, also, +wild-pigs could be hunted here, while the existence of such names as +Crane Tor, Lynx Tor, Bear Down, is evidence of an even greater variety +of game in Saxon times than now. Yet there is abundance still, hares +and foxes, badger and otter; the otter, indeed, makes grievous +depredations among the salmon that come up the river to spawn, for, +like a dingo among sheep, he slays promiscuously what he does not eat. +It is, I suppose, a lingering tradition of our old stern game laws that +imposes a severe penalty for poaching when a man picks up a salmon +which an otter has killed and left. +</P> + +<P> +Birds abound on Exmoor; snipe and woodcock, partridge and black-game, +plover and wild-duck. Nothing could more exactly express the +loneliness and wildness of this great open country than, when you are +walking solitary, to hear the harsh, melancholy cry of the bittern from +the reedy, desolate bogs, or in the falling daylight of a cloudy +February afternoon to see the plover rise from the tussocks of brown +grass at your feet, and go flying and wailing above you, in that +broken-winged, broken-hearted way of theirs, or to watch the duck +flying home across the sunset, with their strange honk-honk! +</P> + +<P> +For all that I have said about the barrenness of these great moors, +Exmoor is the land of sweet waters. The Exe, the Barle, the Quarine, +rising near Dunkery Beacon, the Haddes from the Brendon Hills, the Lyn, +the Wear Water, the Badgeworthy (up which little John Ridd fished for +loach), the Parley Water, the Horner, which runs into Porlock Bay, the +East Water, all these beautiful clear, clean streams abound with fish, +and have the freshness and the sparkle of this sparkling upland air. +Wherever there is a fold in the ground there is running water—though +geographically one should put it in the opposite way, that wherever the +water runs there is a fold in the ground—and wherever it runs flowers +and ferns and trees grow in beautiful abundance. I have already +described the luxuriant green of the wooded gorges of the Lyn, the +variety of trees and the luxuriance of ferns and mosses; the Horner +Woods, near Porlock, have the same green loveliness, though a sharper +air blows through them, as they stand nearer the Exmoor heights and +less sheltered by steep rocks than those that overshadowed the Lyn, and +on a summer afternoon there is a sharp smell of resin from the +sun-warmed pines, and the keen air stirs even in the depths of the wood. +</P> + +<P> +And besides these rivers there are numberless little unnamed streams, +everywhere the tinkle and chatter of water, breaking over stones, +slipping through the peaty earth, falling in a thin spray down the face +of the cliffs, spreading out across the white rocks of an encircled +cove, incessant movement and change of colour and light, a ceaseless +ripple and gleam of reflected water across the lichened trunk of some +old tree, sweet and incessant sound. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap07"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER VII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +IN SOMERSET +</H3> + +<P> +"In Somerset," says Miss Celia Fiennes with considerable severity, +"they are likewise as careless when they make cider; they press all +sorts of Apples together, else they might have as good sider as in any +other parts, even as good as the Herriforshire." +</P> + +<P> +This young lady, with her keen criticisms, her spirit of intrepidity, +and her variable spelling, betook herself on a tour on horseback +through England in the reign of William and Mary, and kept a diary of +her travel, noting with equal solemnity the state of agriculture or the +quality of pastry which she encounters in her journey. She was the +daughter of Colonel Fiennes, a Parliamentary soldier, and being a +delicate girl, was recommended fresh air and exercise by her doctor. +"My journeys, as they were begun to regain my health by variety and +change of air and exercise, so whatever promoted, that was +pursued …," she says, rather elliptically, in her preface, and +admonishes Ladies and Gentlemen to follow her example, and profit by +the spectacle of their own country—advice which we of this generation +have taken <I>au sérieux</I>, and of which the present book and those akin +to it are sufficient witness! +</P> + +<P> +Her remarks on Somerset are not all strictures, for it is here, she +tells us, that she had the best tarts and "clouted cream" that she ever +had in her life; and this although Devon has given its name to this +excellent dainty, while Cornwall fiercely asserts that it is a Celtic +recipe, and stolen from them by the Saxons of Devon, after they were +driven over the Tamar. +</P> + +<P> +With Somerset, however, we are not dealing in the limits of this book, +neither with its characteristics of scenery or of speech—which, to the +observant eye and ear, make every county in England rich in +individuality and infinitely various, so that Hampshire can never be +confounded with Sussex, nor Somerset with Dorset—but only with that +small strip of it between Porlock and Dunster which lies on the borders +of Exmoor, and belongs to it geographically. After leaving Porlock, +however, the six miles of road that runs across the moor to Minehead is +on a lower level, and (as the aesthetic writers would say), in a lower +key than the magnificent barren stretch of uplands from Lynton to +Porlock. The way still lies across Exmoor, but the "forest" lands are +beginning to lose their wildness; they run down to about five hundred +feet above the sea, while the summit of Dunkery Beacon is fifteen +hundred, though rising but little above the moors that surround it; for +the road between Countisbury and Porlock is over twelve hundred feet +above the beach it overhangs. From Porlock the wooded valleys are more +frequent and more thickly wooded, and the villages lie nestled more +sleekly; the winds are less keen and strong, the sun itself seems more +tempered than when it blazes upon Heddon's Mouth; a more suave and +temperate beauty begins gradually to take the place of the wild open +spaces and grey cliffs. +</P> + +<P> +The villages indeed are beautiful: Selworthy, Luccombe, and Wootton +Courtney, each with its lovely grey church, embowered in trees, its +street of whitewashed houses, its angles of light and shadow, and +gardens filled with colour. Luccombe, which is said to contain the +same Anglo-Saxon word <I>locan</I>, to enclose, as Porlock, lies under one +of the spurs of Dunkery on a little stream which falls into the Horner +Water, and is, indeed, enclosed in a steep wooded combe. The church +stands behind a tall row of cypresses, which, though planted only +seventy years ago, have grown as tall as the church-tower, and bear +witness to the fertility of the soil and the mildness of the climate; +they give the churchyard a foreign and outlandish look, I think, and +harmonize less perfectly with the characteristically English +architecture of the church than their neighbour, the old yew. The +tower is battlemented, and has some individual gargoyle heads around +its gutter, and the barrel roof of the interior has richly carved +wooden bosses, with the remains of painting upon them. +</P> + +<P> +The church at Selworthy has also a carved and painted wooden roof, +though of finer workmanship than Luccombe; the church itself was +originally built of red stone, but the tower is the only part +remaining, and this has been covered with stucco. The window and +tracery of the south aisle is of the lightest and most delicate +Perpendicular, but the interior has been a good deal restored. The +church is beautifully situated. It lies high above Selworthy, and +before it stretch the long flat curves of Exmoor; below, Luccombe +Church tower can just be seen above its surrounding trees; to the +south-east, beyond the green luxuriance of Horner Woods, rises the +outline of Dunkery. From it a path leads down to Selworthy Green, +which is rather a famous beauty-spot, lying on the slope of a hill, +neatly surrounded by trees—and the woods here are very beautiful by +virtue of the great variety of the trees, beech, oak, chestnut and very +fine walnut, and of the fair growth and dignity of the individual +tree—amid a little circle of seven cottages which form Sir Thomas +Acland's almshouses. The cottages are old and whitewashed, and the +thatched roofs sink into beautiful curves and hollows where the shadows +lie smoothly; in the summer, when visitors from Minehead mostly see +them, the windows stand open to the warm air, and in the shade of the +porches, sweet-scented with climbing roses, they can be given tea by +the old pensioners. +</P> + +<P> +It is beautiful indeed, and yet to me it has lost something of the +appeal of those lovely and desolate little villages—of Brendon, or +Parracombe, or Oare—more bleak and windswept, more sun-scorched and +barren, thrusting each into some cleft or hollow of the high brown +lands, with the wide sky over each, and each its small square church to +witness to the fear of God. Some quality of freedom and individuality +which is their charm is not in Selworthy. +</P> + +<P> +This is a mere question of taste; we are all apt to look at a place +with the eye of extraneous opinion. The beauty of Selworthy is not, +indeed, except fancifully, affected by its being a landowner's village, +a swept-and-garnished village where the roofs are repaired by Sir +Thomas Acland's thatcher, for fear they should fall into the evil ways +of slate, and spoil the lovely contours of the village. A landlord has +as much right to preserve the beauty of his property as he has to the +upkeep of his fences, and we are indeed fortunate to live in an age +when the mellowed beauty of ancient buildings has become almost a +religion. But to me there is a smugness about such a village, which +has become the hobby, the by no means selfish or unenlightened hobby, +of a single man, which does much to temper my enjoyment. Selworthy, +with its thatch and cob, its neat old pensioners, its suavity, its +absence of what is unsightly, is an anomaly; it can only be preserved +against the growing pressure of the twentieth century by the artificial +barriers erected by wealth. Parracombe, smaller, lonelier, with its +white farms and outbuildings and cottages, is the natural outcome of a +small and scattered population, who are not rich enough to build newer +houses, and who live as their forefathers did because their isolation +on Exmoor, and the barren land on which they live, has not induced men +from other districts to come and "expand." +</P> + +<P> +The little village of Culbone, near Porlock—if one may call half a +dozen cottages a village—is not an anomaly; indeed, it is a kind of +geographical whim. The cleft in which it lies faces towards the north, +and it is so deep and so deeply wooded that for four of the winter +months there is no direct ray of sunlight in the gorge, only the sky or +the light high up on the summits to remind the score of folk who live +there that they are not shut in a green prison. Even at midsummer +their sunrise is several hours later than for the rest of the world. +Among the darkest part of the green thickets stands the church, which +is probably the smallest parish church in England, or shares that +distinction with the church of Lullington in Sussex or St. Lawrence's +in the Isle of Wight. One or two of the tiny churches in Cornwall are +smaller. There is St. Piran's, but that is now a ruin on a beach, with +only the low walls of the very early building remaining; and there is +the church of St. Enodoc, near Wadebridge, which the saint must have +forgotten and the world overlooked, for it got lost among the low +sandhills and the sand drifted over, and it is only fifty years since +it has been found again, a delight to the few who ever see it, with its +squat grey tower barely seen over a tall hedge of tamarisk, and before +it the short grass rich with thyme, giving place to the sand-hills +which run out to the long level stretch of the beach, and behind it the +sand-hills yielding to the clean dry grass of the downs. +</P> + +<P> +But these charming small buildings are mostly of very simple and +primitive construction, and St. Culbone has the construction of a +perfect parish church within the limits of its thirty-four feet from +east window to west door, with a nave, and a tiny chancel thirteen feet +long, and a small truncated spire, similar to that of Porlock Church. +Its patron saint is the Celtic St. Columban—Culbone is a simple +corruption of his name—who lived about the same time that St. +Dubricius crowned Arthur at Caerleon, about A.D. 517; of how this tiny +church came to be built (for the present fifteenth-century building +stands on the site of a pre-Saxon foundation, which was dedicated to +the Celtic saint), or what refuge or sanctuary it was, there is no +historical record; doubtless a remnant of the British, harassed by +Saxon raids on Porlock, hid themselves in this dark gorge, and there +built and dedicated a church to their own saint of the dove's name, in +the hope that he would save them from the claws of the invaders. +</P> + +<P> +Of Minehead as it is now, no greater contrast can be imagined with +Porlock and St. Culbone, except that of Ilfracombe, with the grand +desolation of Heddon's Mouth and the solitariness of Trentishoe or +Morthoe. For both Ilfracombe and Minehead have become so popular for +summer visiting that most of their original character is lost under a +flood of new houses, trim streets and shops, which have grown to meet +the requirements of a large but fluctuating population. Unduly to +deplore this is, I suppose, a form of intellectual snobbery. Both +Minehead and Ilfracombe are still undoubtedly beautiful in their +setting of sea and moorland, the one upon lofty cliffs, the other among +gently rounded and wooded hills; and it is fitting that more people +than the favoured and aristocratically-minded few, who elect to stay in +cottages and shun their fellow-men, should be given opportunity to +enjoy them. +</P> + +<P> +Minehead is a place with a history; its position on the Bristol Channel +made it a port of considerable value, and throughout the Middle Ages it +did a large trade with Ireland, and a foreign trade with France and +Spain, only second to that of Bristol from the West of England. In the +seventeenth century, like Bristol also, it had an extensive trade with +Virginia and the West Indies, and it exported annually forty thousand +barrels of herrings to the Mediterranean. But the herrings left these +coasts, as I have already had occasion to state in speaking of Lynton, +and an Act passed in the reign of Charles II, forbidding the import of +Irish cattle, though passed with the intention of protecting the +English farmers against Irish competition, had the usual result of such +short-sighted policy, and, while it crippled the Irish trade and ruined +the prosperity of such ports as Minehead, it ultimately benefited +nobody. Any ship smuggling cattle, that was captured, was sold, and a +part of the proceeds went to charity and a part to the Crown. The "Cow +Charity" is a fund which is still administered in Minehead. +</P> + +<P> +Minehead was a "manor" in Domesday Book, and was given along with +Dunster by the Conqueror to William de Mohun, who was one of the first +of his nobles to support his English expedition, and who brought to the +standard of Duke William fifty-seven knights in his retinue, with their +esquires and their men-at-arms. The name Minehead is a corruption of +the Norman lord's name with the Anglo-Saxon word <I>heved</I>, a head; it +used to be written "Manheved." +</P> + +<P> +The Mohuns held it until the time of Henry IV, when, there being only +daughters, it passed out of the direct line, and was sold by Lady Mohun +to the Luttrells, who have held it until the present time. It was +incorporated by Queen Elizabeth, and governed by a "port-reeve," and +later by two constables. The place was then of a size to consist of a +Lower, Middle and Upper Town; the Lower Town, now called Quay Town, is +the oldest remaining part. It lies under the high hill of Culver +Cliff, around the harbour, and has more of the look of a Devon or +Cornwall fishing village—the steep, narrow streets, the whitewashed +cottages with their large chimney-stacks and leaded windows—than the +aspect of modern Minehead would lead one to expect. It was here, +indeed, that the sea broke in the great gale of 1860, when the shipping +in the harbour tore from its moorings, and was driven literally upon +the houses of Quay Town, as the sea-wall gave way under the pounding of +the waves, and the <I>Royal Charter</I>, getting clear from Culver Cliff, +was driven on to the rocks off Anglesea, and lost with all hands. +</P> + +<P> +Thirty years later, in 1891, the Minehead shipping was again wrecked by +one of the fiercest storms that has ever been recorded over England. +It began on March 9, and raged for four days, chiefly over Somerset, +Devon, and Cornwall. Shipping was driven on to the rocks from Land's +End to Bristol; at Plymouth the solid iron seats on the Hoe were torn +up and hurled about by the force of the wind; the heavy snowdrifts +stopped all communication, even by train; some unfortunate people were +practically buried in their houses; and along with the tragedies and +devastation the strangest and most fantastic adventures happened, such +as an old woman, struggling back from market, having her basket of +provisions blown bodily out of her hand, and picking it up four days +later, with every article in it unharmed, not even a burst packet of +tea! Where the roads were not blocked with snowdrifts, they were +mostly impassable from fallen trees, for the force of the wind was +greater than anything which has been experienced in England, partaking +more of the character of a cyclone, with the wind varying from N.E. to +S.E. and with very rapid changes, but of greater duration than an +average cyclone, for it raged from the 9th to the 13th. +</P> + +<P> +Many fine and historic old trees were lost, and at Edgcumbe Park alone, +near Plymouth, it was estimated that at least two thousand were blown +down, and the damage was so extensive that it took two years to clear +the park; while at Cotehele, near the little town of Calstock, the +damage was beyond description. One hundred thousand feet of timber, it +was calculated, suffered in this one small district; and Cotehele +House, which before had lain behind a screen of trees, was afterwards +open to view from the town by this violent deforestation. Here is one +of the most interesting descriptions of the storm, written by Mr. +Coulter, the steward at Cotehele: +</P> + +<P> +"The wind, having blown a gale the whole day, continued to increase in +violence as evening approached, and from seven till nine p.m. +accomplished, if not all, the greater part of the devastation to house +and woods. The noise of the storm resembled the frantic yells and +fiendish laughter of millions of maniacs, broken, at frequent +intervals, by what sounded like deafening and rapid volleys of heavy +artillery, and, as these died away, louder and louder again rose the +appalling screams of the storm, with slight intervals of lull and +perfect calm, only to return with tenfold violence, which made the +whole house tremble and vibrate.… Several of the windows facing +east were swept in as easily as a spider's web; lead and glass +scattered all over the rooms, leaving only the shattered frames, +through which rushed the resistless wind and blinding snow.… +Through the joints of doors and windows, the cracks and crevices, +before unknown to the eye, the drifting snow penetrated and piled up in +ridges, so that rooms and passages had to be cleared like the pavement +in the streets.… On an examination of Cotehele Woods, the scene +presented gives one the idea of an earthquake rather than that of a +storm. The majority of the trees are from two to three hundred years +old, torn up by the roots, and tearing up like so much turf yards of +macadamized road and huge blocks of strong stone walls." +</P> + +<P> +The violent storm in the South of England in February, 1916, gives one +only a faint idea of this famous blizzard of 1891; for, great though +the damage was, it was more local, and the storm was of shorter +duration and did not interrupt the train and telegraph services over +many scores of miles, as the earlier storm did, travellers in the West +being out of touch with their friends for as much as four days or a +week, snow-bound in some small village until the railway line was +cleared and the postal service re-established. +</P> + +<A NAME="img-146"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-146.jpg" ALT="The Doone Valley in Winter" BORDER="2" WIDTH="616" HEIGHT="448"> +<H3 CLASS="h3center" STYLE="width: 616px"> +The Doone Valley in Winter +</H3> +</CENTER> + +<P> +The fury of such a storm across these always windy Exmoor heights can +hardly be imagined; only Conrad could convey in words some adequate +idea of the fury and the force, as he has done in "Typhoon." Anyone +who was in Exmoor during these three days would have been fortunate to +have reached shelter alive, and not to have been lost, as were so many +unfortunate sheep and ponies, in the deep snowdrifts. There is a scene +in "Lorna Doone," where John Ridd and his servant Fry go out on a bleak +stormy morning to rescue their sheep from the snow, which gives a vivid +picture of what must have been many times enacted in the Exmoor valleys +during those wild March days. Of the loveliness of the scene when the +snow had fallen, and after the fury of the wind had abated, when the +March sun shone on the smooth upland curves and beautiful rounded +hollows of the moors, stainlessly white and wonderful under the +clearing sky, Mr. Widgery's picture of Lorna's Bower under snow gives a +beautiful impression. +</P> + +<P> +Apart from its cattle industry and its herrings, Minehead was noted in +the seventeenth century for its alabaster mines, "harder than ye +Darbishire alabaster," says Thomas Gerard in his "Particular +Description of Somerset," written in 1633; "but for variety of mixture +and colours it surpasseth any, I dare say, of this kingdom." The mines +are said to have been discovered by a Dutchman, but I cannot find that +they were much worked, or were very abundant; for there is no record of +them a century and a half later. They were not like the Combe Martin +silver-mines, which were worked for centuries—some say in the time of +the Phoenicians, when the mines of Cornwall furnished tin for half the +bronze in Europe—which helped Henry V to pay for his wars in France, +and were reopened by Adrien Gilbert in Queen Elizabeth's time, and a +great cup and cover, fashioned from the silver, was presented by him to +the City of London, and may still be seen among the city plate. The +water got into the workings, and they were running poor after so many +centuries, and were finally abandoned in the seventeenth century; for +which Combe Martin is the more picturesque, according to our modern +standards, if less prosperous. +</P> + +<P> +There is another industry of Minehead, or, more properly, a curiosity; +for there are no traces of the most enterprising approaching the matter +from a commercial standpoint. "There is on the rocks at low-water a +species of limpet which contains a liquor very curious for marking fine +linen," says our seventeenth-century authority, and he gives directions +for breaking the mollusc "with one sharp blow," and taking out "by a +bodkin" the little white vein that lies transversely by the head—a +somewhat delicate operation. "The letters and figures made with this +liquor on linen," he continues, "will appear of a light green colour, +and, if placed in the sun, will change into the following colours: if +in winter about noon, if in summer an hour or two after sun-rising and +so much before setting, for in the heat of the day in summer it will +come on so fast that the succession of each colour will scarcely be +distinguished. +</P> + +<P> +"Next to the first light green it will appear of a deep green, and in a +few minutes change to a full sea-green; after which it will alter to a +blue, then to a purplish-red; after which, lying an hour or two (if the +sun shines) it will be of a deep purple-red, beyond which the sun does +no more. But this last beautiful colour, after washing in scalding +soap and water, will, on being laid out to dry, be a fair bright +crimson which will abide all future washing." +</P> + +<P> +Is this indeed the "murex," as Browning calls it, of the Tyrian purple, +which can be found on the Minehead rocks at low-tide by the +holiday-makers of our day?—that "purple dye" for which, the weary +Roman usurper said, +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"We'll stain the robe again from clasp to hem<BR> +With blood of friends and kinsmen . . .,"<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +and yet which is only +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Crushed from a shellfish, that the fisherman<BR> +Brings up in hundreds, yet rejects as food."<BR> +</P> + +<P> +In coming to Dunster we come to the last of the many beautiful places +that lie within the compass of this fifty miles of England, places with +so varied a loveliness that nowhere else, I think, can you match with +them. +</P> + +<P> +There is Barnstaple, suave and clean and sunny, with its well-kept +streets and smooth, broad river, and its air of all prosperity and +peace, the very type and pattern of a decent English country-town; and +almost within stone's throw of it the moors begin, lying widely under +the expanse of the sky, with the perpetual running of waters, and the +lonely farms, from which the smoke curls up, blue against the brown +hillside. There are the sombre and unpretending small villages, +Parracombe, Brendon, Bratton-Fleming, each with its history and its +little church, and the homesteads from which the young men have gone, +in their humble twos and threes, to take their part in this war of +millions. There is the grand solitude of Heddon's Mouth and the +raven-haunted cliffs to Lynton; there is Lynton itself, drowned in the +green woods that surge up the steep hillside; there is the West Lyn +Gorge, shadeless and sultry even on a spring day, and the East Lyn +Valley, where ferns and lilies of the valley grow, and every green +thing that loves moisture and shade; and the Watersmeet, where there is +a perpetual rushing of waters which drowns the song of the birds; there +is Porlock, between the moors and the marshes, and the drowned forest +of Porlock Bay; there is the green magnificence of Horner Woods or +Bossington, and the cloud-wreaths that gather and lift on the summit of +Dunkery; and here, easternmost of our journey, is Dunster, the castle +on its wooded hill rising above the long street of the village, and the +edge of Exmoor beyond, dipping now from its bleak heights in gentle +wooded undulations to the shores of the Bristol Channel. The Tower on +the Hill, that is the meaning of the word "Dunster," and the name +fittingly describes it; for it dominates many miles of beautiful and +fertile country, and stands feudally above the village, perceptible +from every angle of the street, at once a guardian and a menace. It +has stood so for a thousand years, for it was a stronghold of the Saxon +Kings before William the Conqueror gave it to William de Mohun, and he +built his gloomy Norman fortress, with its massive, windowless walls, +and squat strong towers, of which nothing now remains save a +bowling-green which marks the site of the old keep. +</P> + +<P> +The main part of the present building dates from "the spacious days of +great Elizabeth," when her nobles needed rather magnificent +country-houses than fortresses for defence; but the gatehouse, with its +four flanking towers, was built in the time of Henry V, and the oldest +part of the castle is the gateway by the side of the main entrance, +which was built by Reginald de Mohun in the time of Henry III, while +Henry Luttrell added the south front in the "antique taste" of a +hundred years ago. Yet, like so many cathedrals, and not a few of the +castles and great houses of England, like Hampton Court or Ely +Cathedral, the varying styles of architecture do not give an appearance +of patchiness or incongruity, but rather a feeling as of the vitality +of the old building, and the continuity of life within it, that century +after century adapts and adds to the uses of the present the habitation +of their ancestors. The sun and rain mellow all, and the ivy makes all +green; stone urn and Roman column grow old and gracious beside steep +Elizabethan gables and fantastic chimneys, and the grey pointed arches +of the fifteenth-century gateway are as good to ride under to the meet +on crisp September mornings as a Renaissance doorway or an +eighteenth-century portico. Much of the charm of these old buildings +cannot be reproduced by brush or camera; it lies in their intimate +association with the scene around them, sunshine and cloud, summer and +winter, their hills and their streams; it is the sense of age which +they convey, of long-continued tradition and a certain mellow security. +</P> + +<P> +It was in 1376 that the Luttrells bought the castle from the Mohuns; +and they hold it still; the old receipt for the purchase-money is still +preserved in the castle hall, with various ancient and yellowing +title-deeds, and a list of the "muniments" of the castle, made by +William Prynne, who was sent there as a prisoner by Cromwell in 1650, +after having suffered branding and the loss of his ears at Royalist +hands for his "seditious teachings," and who, firebrand and fanatic as +he was, beguiled his imprisonment with this curiously peaceable +occupation. +</P> + +<P> +The village is as beautiful as the castle; in the long, irregular +street every house is three to four hundred years old. The projecting +upper stories are supported on great timber balks, often with the ends +grotesquely carved. Under the projecting eaves the swallows build, and +twitter about the diamond-paned windows which reflect so richly the +sunset light. In the steep roofs there are dormer-windows, and the old +tiles have mellowed to a deep rose-red, stained yellow with lichen, and +sink into irregular planes and angles of beautiful, varied colour. +There are tall brick chimneys and steep gables, and all manner of odd +delicious scraps and jags of architecture, where one building has +crowded upon its neighbour in its growth, like trees in a forest. +There are old gardens also, long sunny walls with old fruit-trees that +look like hoary serpents writhing up them, until the spring comes and +the delicate, exquisite forms of plum or peach blossom break out of the +gnarled boughs; there are wallflowers and lavender and rosemary, for +the sweet scent and the "remembrance" of them, and tall hollyhocks to +nod over high brick walls; creepers, green or flowering, to grow over +the whitewashed spaces, and great trees for shade on summer afternoons. +</P> + +<P> +In the centre of the long main street is the yarn-market, a beautiful +wooden building of the seventeenth century, built by Sir George +Luttrell when Dunster was still a centre of the wool industry. It is +built with wide overhanging caves, pierced by eight little +dormer-windows, with a lantern at the apex of the roof, and is a unique +little building whose characteristic features have been sketched and +photographed many scores of times, and is comparable, perhaps, only +with the butter-market at Bingley in Yorkshire. Opposite is the +Luttrell Arms, a quiet, comfortable, harmonious stone building of the +eighteenth century, but with part of the older building still preserved +inside—a wall that overlooks a paved court, with windows set in frames +of beautiful carved oak, and a gabled roof, a moulded plaster +over-mantle also, and yet with that general air of disregard for these +treasures, amid a hurrying to and fro with plates and bottles, which, +to me, is one of the special charms of these long-established country +inns. +</P> + +<P> +To anyone who loves England, and that beauty which is so +characteristically English, where the life of the present day is +visibly linked with the life of the past through long centuries of +security, where age has ripened all, the great old trees, the colours +of old oak and weather-beaten tiles and warm brick, has gently +undulated straight lines, and softened all sharp angles, where the very +sunlight has the mellowness of old wine, to a mind perceptive of this +peculiar and intimate charm of England, Dunster makes a special call, +set amid the suave curves of its rich country, crowned by its ancient +castle, dignified by its old, beautiful church (grown, like the castle, +through Norman and Early English and Perpendicular styles of +architecture), yet intimate and familiar, and beautiful most of all +because of the use and wont of daily life within its walls. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap08"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER VIII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +LUNDY +</H3> + +<P> +It is curious in this twentieth century of ours, when every corner of +the habitable globe is docketed, measured, mapped, and surveyed, when a +railroad runs across "darkest Africa," and the great ice-wall of the +Antarctic cannot keep its inviolability from the feet of those resolute +and heroic explorers who go with camera, microscope, and theodolite, +against such forces of Nature as would daunt anything but the resolute +human heart—it is curious to come across small corners of the world +where the law of nations seemingly does not run, and the current of the +modern world sweeps by, leaving them in a backwater, strangely aloof +and undisturbed. +</P> + +<P> +Such is the island of Herm, in the Channel Isles; such are one or two +volcanic rocks in the Greek Archipelago, which you may purchase for a +song, and live on if you can, though their barren waterlessness under +the midsummer suns will compel you to put out to sea again for all the +dangers of swift currents and black crags; such, too, I imagine, are +some of those enchanted small islands in the South Seas of which Conrad +writes: "It was as if the earth had gone on spinning, and had left that +crumb of its surface alone in space"; such, too, is Lundy. +</P> + +<P> +But Lundy is only fourteen miles from the English coast, this populous +and organized England, and in the mouth of the Bristol Channel, in the +direct track of all the shipping of the West—sighted, it is estimated, +by at least a million vessels a year in their business up and down the +world—and yet, to within the last generation, it was almost as +inaccessible as in the days when the de Mariscos built their castle +there and defied the King and all his armies. +</P> + +<P> +Even now, though in the summer pleasure steamers run from Ilfracombe +and Minehead, and land their noisy crowds on the south-eastern corner +of the island, the narrow peninsula of Lametor, it is during barely +three months of the year; they have ceased before the coming of the +October gales, and the island goes back to its solitude, and the wild +clamour of its innumerable sea-birds, while its few inhabitants wait +their bi-weekly post, and the coming of the Trinity boat on the 1st and +15th of the month, for news of the outside world. +</P> + +<P> +For Lundy is a great rock, about three and a half miles long, and +averaging half a mile in depth, cutting the strong tidal stream which +runs round the south coast of Wales and up the Bristol Channel, with +steep cliffs and outlying crags and peaks of rock over which the surf +is flung ceaselessly, even on still summer days, and with a dangerous +tidal race at its northern end and the south-west and south-east +angles. It stands, too, in the highway of the winds as well as of the +waters, and is so scored and buffeted by gales that hardly any trees, +except the stunted dwarf-elder, can survive the winter fury on its open +slopes. When a westerly gale is blowing, many ships run in under its +lee-shore for shelter; but its only landing-place is at the south-east +angle by Rat Island, and that becomes dangerous in an easterly wind, so +that boats have to be beached on the south or west side, though with +difficulty and some danger. Add to this that the road from the +landing-stage is so narrow and steep that it could be held by two men, +and its suitability as a robber stronghold becomes clear. +</P> + +<P> +It is a land of romance, singular in every aspect: in the formation of +its rocks, in the birds that haunt its cliffs and the beasts that haunt +its caves, in its antiquities, and the whole course of its adventurous +history. It is a granite rock, with here and there patches of +clay-shale, notably at the south-eastern corner; but the granite is +differentiated from the granite of Devon, to which it is so proximate, +and of so marked a character that it can be traced in many buildings +along the northern coasts of Devon and Cornwall, principally in towers +and churches, proving that quarries must have been worked on Lundy at +some time during the Middle Ages, and before the fifteenth century; for +there is comparatively little building of churches after that date. A +company was formed in 1863 to work the Lundy granite-quarries, and it +was intended to use this stone in the building of the Thames +Embankment; but the difficulty of shipment from so inaccessible a spot +proving insuperable, the enterprise was abandoned. +</P> + +<P> +But apart from the height and boldness of these granite cliffs, rising +in places almost sheer to a height of more than seven hundred feet, +with outlying reefs and insular rocks bristling black and jagged +through the foaming waters, with gully, creek, and cave, worn by the +action of rain and sea, there is a further wildness given to the island +by a great series of clefts or fissures, running for a considerable +distance in a line irregularly parallel to the cliff, sometimes from +ten to twenty feet across, and as much as eighty feet deep, where they +can be measured; at other places too narrow for sounding, but seeming +to strike right down into the bowels of the earth. Locally this +phenomenon is called the "earthquake," and the popular tradition of the +island ascribes its appearance to the great earthquake at Lisbon in +1755; but it is certainly older than that date. However, the shock of +that great disturbance may have further rent the granite and displaced +the mighty boulders. It extends for about two miles from the southern +coast, running in a northerly direction, and where the slate formation +meets the granite it is fractured in the same sharp manner. Some +upheaval of the earth's crust in far-off prehistoric times must have +cracked the granite and made these mighty chasms; the wildness and +singularity of their appearance, and the confined locality in which +they occur—for there is no trace of such disturbance elsewhere in the +island—make one wonder if it were no imprisoned demon or angry god, +chained in the blackness under Lundy, who, stretching his mighty sinews +to be free, so contorted and rent the solid granite above him. The +absence of legend or ancient tradition (for the tradition of the Lisbon +earthquake is comparatively recent) about so arresting a spectacle I +ascribe to the condition of Lundy's history; there has been no +continued habitation of the simple people of the land to pass on, from +generation to generation, the ancient names and the ancient stories of +their dwelling-place, untouched by the changes of rule and ownership +which go over them. +</P> + +<P> +For this reason another strange phenomenon of Lundy, about which the +imagination of an earlier people must have lingered, passes barely +remarked. There is a great promontory on the coast, opposite the reef +called the Hen and Chickens, which is pierced by a sort of tunnel about +eight hundred feet in length and sixty feet in height, through which a +boat can sail on calm days at high-water; and in the centre of the +tunnel, bubbling up through the sea, rises a perpetual spring of fresh +water. This is called the Virgin's Well, and I can discover no story +or legend with which it is connected, though the name may possibly +contain some earlier myth, not based upon Christian worship. +</P> + +<A NAME="img-160"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-160.jpg" ALT="Lynton: The Devil's Cheesering" BORDER="2" WIDTH="621" HEIGHT="442"> +<H3 CLASS="h3center" STYLE="width: 621px"> +Lynton: The Devil's Cheesering +</H3> +</CENTER> + +<P> +The names of other remarkable features of the island, the great rocks +which are piled along its coasts, are all descriptive and not legendary +names—the Devil's Chimney, the Cheeses, the Templar's Rock, the +Gannett Rock, the Mousehole. These names will have been given in +comparatively recent times, at least since the Saxon invasion, for they +show a different mentality from the Celtic names which are found widely +in Cornwall, Devon, Wales, and Northumberland, and which have a poetic +and imaginative quality. Such is the difference between Heddon's +Mouth, "the Giant's Mouth," or Dunster, "the Tower on the Hill," and +such names as I have quoted above. The very name of Lundy itself, +which is "Lund-ei," the island of Lund, as Caldy is "Cald-ei," the +island of Cald, show a Teutonic origin, perhaps Scandinavian, but not +named so by the Celts of Britain or Ireland. +</P> + +<P> +But "there were great men before Agamemnon"; certainly there were great +men on this island before the adventurer Lund landed upon it and gave +it his name. +</P> + +<P> +In 1850, in digging foundations near a farmhouse in the southern part +of the island, a great grave, or series of graves, was discovered. +There were two stone coffins, made of hewn blocks of granite, just deep +enough to contain a body, and with the covers sloped and cut each from +a single block. One was ten feet in length, and contained the huge +skeleton of a man, over eight feet high; the other was eight feet long, +and contained a skeleton well over six feet, which "was imagined to be +that of a woman," but on what grounds I cannot discover, as it does not +seem to have been carefully examined, and is therefore probably mere +conjecture, based upon its juxtaposition to the larger coffin. In the +account of the excavation a "macabre" incident is recorded. One of the +workmen, seizing the shin-bone of the giant, placed it against his own +leg, and found that it reached halfway up his thigh; whereupon, taking +up the lower jawbone, he fitted it easily over his own lower jaw, +though he was a burly man and bearded. +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"To what base uses a man may return, Horatio! . . ."<BR> +<BR> +"Imperious Caesar, dead and turned to clay,<BR> +Might stop a hole to keep the wind away:<BR> +O that that earth, which kept the world in awe,<BR> +Should patch a wall to expel the winter's flaw."<BR> +</P> + +<P> +For that these were the bones of a man mighty in his day the +workmanship of his coffin goes to prove. For he lay with a stone rest +for his head and feet, made each of a cubic block of fine granite, and +a deep depression hollowed in his pillow to take his head, resting +sideways towards his shoulder. As these great blocks were cut and +squared and hollowed with stone tools, the labour which they betoken +may be imagined; and none, I suppose, but an imperious Caesar could +have exacted it. The skeleton was covered and surrounded by a mass of +limpet-shells. There were seven other skeletons buried in a line with +these two, but without coffins, and they were not of the race of +giants; and then, at a little distance, there was a great pit, filled +with the bones of men, women, and children, as if a slaughtered +multitude had been flung into a common grave. In this pit were found +some beads, light blue in colour, some sherds of red glazed pottery, +and a few fragments of bronze. Over all was scattered a vast heap of +limpet-shells. +</P> + +<P> +Here is one of the fascinating problems of archaeology, which comes +with the touch of romance to the dry study of minutiae: When were these +burials made? Are they of two different dates? The giant of the stone +coffin perhaps belonged to the far-off Stone Age, already grown dim and +legendary to these later peoples, who knew of the working of metal and +the making of glass. And were they sacrificed to him, as a dark hero +or demi-god of the past, to propitiate him against plague or conquest? +And what is the magical significance of the limpet-shells, which cover +them and him alike? These questions, and many others, will, I am +convinced, be answered by the patient research of archaeology within +comparatively few years. The suggestion that this interment is Danish, +and is the remnant of the force defeated by Alfred the Great outside +Kenwith Castle, is, I think, untenable; the bones of women and children +being found with those of men alone disproves it, apart from the +inaccessibility of Lundy and the very great antiquity of the stone +coffins. +</P> + +<P> +But whoever they may be who left their bones here, it is certain the +story of their lying there is a tragedy, of bloody sacrifice or more +bloody massacre, like all the histories of wild animals and of +primitive peoples. +</P> + +<P> +Not far from the Giant's Grave, as this site is locally called, is +another relic of hoary antiquity, in the shape of a tumulus, which, +when opened, laid bare a kistvaen, or sepulchral chamber, formed of a +great block of granite, weighing nearly five tons, resting on two +upright granite slabs, and enclosing a space about six feet square. +This method of burial is well known throughout the old world; such +burial chambers have been found in Greece, and in considerable numbers +in Ireland, where they are primitive Celtic. In the Lundy kistvaen no +skeleton was found, nor anything, indeed, save a small fragment of +pottery, though "there was a rank odour in the cavity, very different +from that of newly turned earth." +</P> + +<P> +There is a logan-stone on the eastern side of the island, which, within +the memory of Mr. Heaven, the last owner of the island, was a true +logan-stone, and could be rocked with the hands, but has now slipped +from its socket. But the whole question of these logan-stones is +controversial, some claiming them as relics of antiquity of whose use +and meaning we are ignorant, and others as the chance product of the +natural forces of rain and weather. +</P> + +<P> +The same also may be said of the "rock-basins," of which a very perfect +example may be found in the Punchbowl Valley, being a granite basin of +four feet in diameter, with a uniform thickness of six inches, with +both the concave and convex surfaces segments of a perfect sphere. +Later opinion inclines to a human, and not a chance, origin for these +interesting phenomena. +</P> + +<P> +But, leaving the dim and still conjectural paths of archaeology, let us +turn to the history of Lundy. Here again we are confronted with facts +which a conscientious historian would hesitate to assert, save as +legend. For this singular land, where the King's writ does not run, +which is not assimilated even yet to municipal government, was for +centuries, even down to the eighteenth century, a robber stronghold, +from which, as from those castles on the Rhine, and still earlier and +more powerful castles of the Aegean lords, built athwart the peninsulas +of the trade-routes, the garrison swooped maraudering upon the peaceful +occupations of unprotected folk. +</P> + +<P> +Lundy is supposed, not upon very certain authority, to have been called +"Herculea" in Roman times; and there is no record, nor even tradition, +of how it came by its present name, only a vague conjecture of a +Scandinavian origin, of which I have already spoken. But there are +evidences of a much earlier occupation than the Roman—indeed, so far +as I know, there have been no Roman remains found yet upon the +island—and it is no unlikely supposition that the great skeleton of +the Giant's Grave was some such feared and piratical chieftain as the +first recorded lord of the island, the fierce de Marisco. These +Mariscos were a branch of the great family of Montmorency, and they +were ever a thorn in the side of their liege-lord, whether in England, +Ireland, or Lundy. They must have owned Lundy since the days of the +Norman Conquest, if they had not seized it before; for the great castle +Marisco, built upon the extreme verge of the cliffs, commanding the bay +and the landing-place, and overlooking in a wide sweep all the southern +coast of the island, was already built in the eleventh century. From +this impregnable fortress, with its massive walls nine feet in +thickness, its squat, strong Norman turrets, its encircling fosse, and +the perpendicular cliffs by which its seaward wall was made unscalable, +Sir Jordan de Marisco used to sally with his retainers, making war on +all alike, levying toll—<I>blackmail</I>, if ever there was, in the true +meaning of the word—disobeying the laws of the land, and outraging the +dictates of common humanity. So that, though he had married a +Plantagenet, a blood relation of the King's, Henry II declared his +estate of Lundy forfeited, and granted it to the Knights-Templars. +Whether peace was made between Sir Jordan and Henry, or whether Henry +was not strong enough to enforce his edict (though he was a powerful +and determined monarch), I do not know; but in 1199, in the reign of +King John, Sir Jordan's son William following in his father's evil +ways, the grant of Lundy was confirmed to the Templars. +</P> + +<P> +But this fortress was a hard nut to crack. The only approach is from +the south-eastern corner, by a steep and narrow path commanded by the +castle, and held by Marisco's men, and it was no light undertaking for +the invaders to beach their boats and effect a landing against wind, +weather, and attack. So that, although a tax was levied upon Devon and +Cornwall to support an undertaking for the siege of Lundy, it does not +appear to have been taken; for it was granted to Henry de Tracy (of the +famous family of Tracy, cursed since the murder of Becket), and a few +years later to one Robert Walerand. Then for some years de Marisco +seems to have found even its mighty walls and granite cliffs too +insecure, for he is found fighting among the French, and in 1217 was +taken prisoner in a sea-fight, when Eustace the Monk, the pilot of the +French fleet, was slain. Yet a few months later, in November of the +same year, he was reinstated in possession of Lundy, and his wife, his +sons and daughters, who had been seized by Henry III as hostages, were +restored to him. Now favoured, now disgraced, but turbulent to the +last, he died in possession of Lundy, but in the very year of his death +having paid ransom to Henry of 300 marks. +</P> + +<P> +His grandson, also William de Marisco, filled up the tale of violence +and ill-doing, and forfeited at length the family inheritance, by his +share in the attempted murder of the King at Woodstock. This is +Westcote's account of the plot, given in his "View of Devonshire":… +"Only Matthew Paris speaketh of one William de Marisco who, +conspiring the death of Henry III, persuaded a Knight sometime of his +Court to murder him, and with that intent got at night by a window into +the King's bedchamber; but He, in whose protection the lives of princes +are, disappointed him, for the King lay elsewhere. He seeking from +chamber to chamber with a naked weapon in his hand, Mrs. Byset, one of +the Queen's women, sitting late up at her devotions, shrieking at the +fearful sight of him, awakened the King's guard, who presently took +him." +</P> + +<P> +The unhappy and probably demented youth was put to death, and de +Marisco fled to his island, which he further fortified, and there, +attaching to himself a band of outlaws and malefactors, lived by +piracy. Retribution came in its due course, for, having made himself +detested by all decent men, many knights and nobles joined against him, +and contrived to take him by strategem. He was brought to London, +tried, and condemned to death with sixteen accomplices, dragged from +Westminster to the Tower, and there hanged. "When he had there +breathed out his wretched soul," he was drawn and quartered—a literal +account of which, as given in Matthew Paris, I forbear to set down—and +the quarters of his body sent to the four principal cities of England. +His father, Geoffrey, fled to France, and the island came under the +government of Henry de Tracy for the Crown. +</P> + +<P> +Yet in the reign of Edward I, one of the Irish branch of the Marisco +family was reinstated in possession for a few years, though Edward II +gave it to his favourite and his worst enemy, Hugh Spencer. It was +there also, be it remembered, that he purposed taking refuge from his +Barons, but was driven to Wales by contrary winds. In the time of +Edward III the island came to the Luttrells, the great family that +owned Dunster, Minehead, and many manors on the North Somerset coast; +in the time of Westcote, in the reign of James I, it was in the +possession of the Grenvilles. +</P> + +<P> +It is difficult, and perhaps tedious, to attempt to follow in detail +the many families who had, or laid claim to, possession of Lundy +throughout the course of history; it is clear that it was a stronghold +of importance, from the frequent references to it in our records. It +was claimed and loaned and bought and held in fee from the eleventh to +the nineteenth century. It was the scene of a wild and fantastic +adventure in the reign of Charles I, when three Turkish pirate-ships +swooped upon it, and made slave-raids into Devon and Cornwall, taking +sixty men out of a church one Sunday morning, and carrying them away +prisoner. "Egypt was never more infested with caterpillars," wrote the +captain of a ship of war in 1630, "than the Channel with Biscayers." +</P> + +<P> +The Turks sailed south with their human booty, but the Channel and the +Devon coast became the prey of an English buccaneer, the famous Admiral +Nutt, who was more boldly and splendidly piratical even than the +buccaneers of "Treasure Isle," and who faced the King's navy and got +clear to his stronghold of Lundy, though they dropped thirty great shot +among his fleet, of which Nutt received ten through his own ship. What +became of the Admiral I do not know; he was not captured and hanged, +and so may have sailed away to the Barbadoes or the Mediterranean, and +there have met his death and scuttled his ship in a last fight against +odds, or perhaps been marooned by a mutinous crew, or set adrift in an +open boat to die of hunger and thirst, or been stabbed in a drunken +scuffle over a bottle of rum. +</P> + +<P> +He passes away from the history of Lundy, but now a French man-o'-war +and now a Spanish made raids up the Bristol Channel and upon Lundy, +until Thomas Bushel held it for Charles I and established some measure +of order. It was claimed from Bushel by Lord Say and Sele as his +"inheritance," and he wrote to the King for permission to deliver it +up, but proposing: +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +". . . If your Majesty shall require my longer stay here, be confident, +sir, I shall sacrifice both life and fortune before the loyalty of +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +"Your obedient humble servant,<BR> +"THOMAS BUSHEL."<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Bushel received the following letter from Charles, which I transcribe +because of the light which it throws on the King's character, a letter +written in answer to a faithful and disinterested servant in a mood of +petulant self-pity. "…Now, since the place is inconsiderable in +itself, and yet may be of great advantages to you in respect of your +mines, we do hereby give you leave to use your discretion in it, with +this caution, that you do take example from ourselves, and be not +over-credulous of vain promises, which hath made us great only in our +sufferings and will not discharge our debts." This letter, more than +any single document I know, shows the hopeless weakness of the Stuart +character, and the unhappiness of serving the Stuart cause; this letter +might have been written by Mary, Queen of Scots, or by James II, or by +the Old Pretender, or by the Young Pretender; in all alike we find what +this letter shows, a certain gracious melancholy, a lack of moral +courage, a great self-pity, and a great selfishness. +</P> + +<P> +Thomas Bushel gave up the island into the hands of Colonel Fiennes, a +Parliamentarian soldier, and the father of the intrepid young lady, +Celia Fiennes, who, a few years later, travelled through the length and +breadth of England on horseback, and wrote an account of her +journeyings. Lord Say and Sele, who claimed the island, was her +grandfather on the mother's side. +</P> + +<P> +After the Restoration, and under the corrupt administration of Charles, +the Dutch ravaged the shipping of the Channel, as the French did in the +reign of William and Mary and Queen Anne, and as pirates did at all +times, whenever a body of desperate men could establish themselves on +Lundy, and from there make raids on the coastal traffic. The last and +worst pirate of all, the most inhuman, as the meanest, a trafficker in +human misery for the sake of gold, false even to the partners in his +base contract, was Benson, a rich man by inheritance, and belonging to +one of the oldest Bideford families, the leading citizen of Bideford +and Appledore, and a member of Parliament for Barnstaple. +</P> + +<P> +In 1747 he entered into a contract with the Government for the +exportation of convicts, and gave bond to the Sheriff to transport them +to Virginia or Maryland, which was the horrible method of treating +criminals then in common use. But in 1748 he leased Lundy Island from +Lord Gower, and, transporting the convicts there, began building walls +and cultivating the island with this slave-labour. The great wall, +called the Quarter Wall, on Lundy was built by these unhappy convicts. +After a few years, however, Benson was discovered in smuggling, and a +large quantity of tobacco and other goods was found in caves and +chambers cut out of the rock. For this he was fined 5,000 pounds; but +when his importation of convicts was discovered, and he was taxed with +it, he excused himself by declaring that to send them to Lundy was the +same as sending them to America, so long as they were transported +anywhere out of England. The termination of his villainous career in +England was owing to a conspiracy to defraud an insurance company, a +vulgar and inglorious crime without the element of danger and adventure +which in some slight degree may be said to have invested the exploits +of the other pirates who have infested Lundy. +</P> + +<P> +Benson, having laded a vessel called the <I>Nightingale</I> with a valuable +cargo of pewter, linen, and salt, insured her heavily before she +sailed, ostensibly, for Maryland. But he had arranged with her master, +Lancey, to put back at night and land the cargo at Lundy, and then to +burn and scuttle the <I>Nightingale</I>. This was accordingly done, and the +crew took to the boats and were picked up by a homeward-bound ship; +but, as usual in these circumstances, one of the crew, animated by some +personal pique, "blew the gaff," in the parlance of roguery. Lancey +was taken, tried, and hanged, and Benson escaped to Portugal. +</P> + +<P> +Little more remains to be said of the history of Lundy. In 1834 it was +purchased by Mr. Heaven, and remained the property of his family for +over sixty years, till 1906, when it once again came on the market, and +was bid for by Germans, but was withdrawn from sale, and remains in +English possession. +</P> + +<P> +But I cannot close this short account of the island without a brief +reference to the wild life which abounds on the pinnacles of its +inaccessible rocks, on the fern-covered, steep slopes, and in its +numberless sea-washed caves, which are haunted by seals, or were until +within the last few years; for the brutality and selfish carelessness +of chance visitors allowed to land by the courtesy of the owner have +driven away much of the timid wild life which had taken refuge against +the advancing tide of civilization. Seals used to be observed in fair +numbers, particularly at the southern end in a great cave called Seal +Cave, and walruses were occasional visitors. But lobsters and crabs +are still caught in very great numbers, and, together with the +innumerable conies which breed on the island, form the staple industry +of the island. +</P> + +<P> +Lundy is also the last stronghold of the original old English "black +rat," which has been invaded and destroyed throughout England and +Scotland by the common Scandinavian brown rat; Rat Island, at the +south-eastern corner by the landing-stage, commemorates in its name +this last fortress of a dying race. +</P> + +<P> +But it is for its birds that Lundy is perhaps most notable. To those +who first approach its mighty cliffs it might appear to be the haunt of +all the birds in creation. There are gulls of many varieties, falcons, +kestrels, ravens, crows, cormorants, kittiwakes, puffins; there is the +razor-billed auk, and that now extinct bird, the Great Auk, was seen on +the island no later than the last century. +</P> + +<P> +But, indeed, it was no surprise to me to hear of this extinct species +lingering on Lundy; the strangeness and wildness of the place might +lead one to expect it to be the haunt of the Dodo, or that monstrous +and fabulous bird of the "Arabian Nights," the Giant Roc. +</P> + +<P> +The hoopoe, the pretty little Southern bird which haunts the gardens of +Greece, sings its "tio, tio, tio, tio, tix" of Aristophanes' comedy on +this wind-swept Northern isle; the rose-coloured starling, that rare +and beautiful bird of a warmer clime, has been seen here in the spring; +the eagle and the golden eagle hover above its crags; the sparrow-hawk +and the great gyrfalcon prey upon the small birds and little rodents; +even the wild and shy osprey was known to build its eyrie upon Lundy to +within the last half-century. +</P> + +<P> +Many of these birds are visitors only, and do not breed here; for in +the spring and the autumn, when the great tides of migration set north +and south, Lundy lies in the track of their going, and here the birds +alight, in their hundreds of thousands, to rest the wings tired with +the going and coming from Africa or Asia across the miles of water. +</P> + +<P> +But whether in winter or summer, spring or autumn, any bold walker who +ventures round the cliffs and coves of Lundy will find himself +surrounded with such a crowd of screaming sea-fowl, diving, swooping, +poising, or darting, in such myriads as if the foot of man had never +yet scared them from their breeding-places, as the sea-fowl swooped and +screamed from their inviolate heights when the first Norsemen ran their +beaked ship on to the desert beaches of Iceland. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap09"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER IX +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE LAST STRONGHOLDS OF TRADITION +</H3> + +<P> +Schools, newspapers, and railways have gone far in the past hundred +years to destroy the wealth of oral tradition which once satisfied the +imagination and taxed the memories of the country-dwelling population +of England. And do not let us too greatly deplore this; let us +recognize that it is better for the general welfare of the world that a +man who dwells three hundred miles from London should have some +interest, however slight, in international politics, and some +knowledge, however fragmentary, of natural forces, rather than a +slipshod belief in ghosts, witches, and the omnipotence of "squire." +It is not from such minds that empire is made or deserved, and if with +the increase of cheap schooling, cheap printing, and cheap travelling +much that is beautiful in language or in legend is swept aside and +forgotten, we who have, by the fortune of training, been allowed to see +the beauty of the old things must recognize that what the generation +gains is more for its happiness than what it discards, as a new brass +Birmingham bedstead is cleaner, healthier, and more desirable for a +small crowded cottage than a worm-eaten old wooden four-poster. +</P> + +<P> +This reminder I make to myself more than to any "gentle reader"; for I +have a passionate attachment to antiquity and a curiosity in legend +which leads me into remote paths of speculation and fancy. Some of the +most interesting survivals of ancient tradition are those customs, far +more common all over England than is supposed, which contain some very +ancient religious rite, long ago forgotten by the people, who practise +as a superstition, or sometimes as a pastime, what was once an act of +worship. The Christian Church, indeed, embodies many of these +survivals of paganism, not in its dogma or liturgy, but in its customs. +Such, for instance, is the giving of eggs at Easter, the eating of hot +cross buns on Good Friday, the games of All Hallowe'en, the harvest +festival. +</P> + +<P> +Such customs as "touching with a dead hand" as a cure for sickness, +covering the mirrors in a house where one has just died, watching at +the church door on Midsummer Night to see the souls of all the +worshippers pass in, and those who will not live out the year remain +behind and do not pass out—these are part of the common stock of +beliefs, not confined to Devonshire or Scotland, nor directly traceable +to Celt or Saxon or Latin, but surviving from the remote past of the +human race, when the slowly emerging mind was struggling with its +apprehensions of life and death. But there are other customs, +surviving in the wilder and less accessible parts of our country, in +Scotland, Northumberland, Devon, and Cornwall, which seem to throw a +flash of light on the history of vanished peoples, by their +resemblance—though worn and rubbed by time, like a defaced coin—to +certain rites, well known to us in history, as practised by the Romans, +or the Druid peoples, or the worshippers of Baal. +</P> + +<P> +Of such kind is a ceremony, until a few years ago very common in +Devonshire, where the first armful of corn that is cut is bound into a +little sheaf, called "the nek," and set aside from the rest of the +field. At the end of the first day's reaping the oldest man present +takes the little sheaf and holds it aloft, crying, "We ha' un!" (We +have it!) The cry is repeated three times, and the rest of the +reapers, standing round the old man with their reaping-hooks in their +hands, bow down at each cry. The spokesman then cries out three times, +"Thee Nek!" or, as it is stated by some witnesses of the scene, +"Arnack, Arnack, Arnack!" and the little sheaf is carried off the field +and hung up in the church. I do not know the meaning of the cries, but +the whole ceremony is undoubtedly a dedication of the corn to the +Corn-Spirit, and the little sheaf which is carried home and hung up is +a rough image of the Corn-Maiden, like those plaited straw figures of +Demeter and Persephone the Greek husbandmen used to make, and which the +peasants of Sicily make still. Whether the observance of this rite in +Devonshire is of Roman date, or whether it goes farther back, to a +remoter tradition of preclassical times, it is difficult to say. +</P> + +<P> +So it is, also, of the Devonshire custom of making an offering of wine +and honey to bees on the day of their owner's death, and of reversing +their hives until the corpse has been carried out of the house. The +Greeks poured honey, but not wine, in their rites for the dead, and in +all the ceremonies which had to do with the worship of the earth +deities—the ancient autochthonic gods, older than the Olympians. But +wine was strictly an offering to the gods of the heavens, not to the +gods of the underworld, or of death. +</P> + +<P> +There is another custom, still very common in North Devon and Somerset, +for the young men of the countryside to climb the nearest hill-top to +see the sunrise over the ridge of the Quantocks or the distant Mendips +on Easter morning. They account for their action by saying it is "for +luck"; but this custom, if connected popularly with Christian worship, +has at its roots an older, sterner, and perhaps bloody origin. For, +searching back into the mists of antiquity, we find that those early +and mysterious peoples whose priests we call the "Druids," to whom the +mistletoe was sacred (and with which we decorate our houses at +Christmas, the festival of "peace and good-will"), offered human +sacrifices to their dark gods on high mountains and at the hour of +sunrise. +</P> + +<P> +Whether the Britons whom Caesar describes as sacrificing human beings +in vast wicker cages were the Druidical peoples who built Stonehenge +and the great stone circles of Dartmoor and Cumberland, or whether with +them the mode of worship was already traditional, preserved by a +priestly oligarchy from a yet remoter age, and connected by I know not +what strange links with the fierce Eastern worship of Baal or Melkarth, +it is impossible to say with certainty at present, though the names by +which the Cumberland men still call the peaks and valleys round the +small Druid circle near Keswick contain the elements of those foreign +Phoenician words. +</P> + +<P> +But at least we may assume that the accurate astronomical arrangements +of these Druid stones connected human sacrifice with the movements of +the sun, and the tradition which sends the young men of the countryside +up Dunkery Beacon on Easter morn is certainly older than the first +Roman galley that beached in our bays. +</P> + +<P> +Dunkery Beacon is the highest peak in the West of England; it rises +above Exmoor black and bold above bog and heather, commanding a view +from the Malvern Hills of Worcestershire on the north to the high lands +of Plymouth on the south-west, two hundred miles distant the one from +the other. The great sweep of the Bristol Channel shines below it on +the west, and beyond that lie the blue hills of Monmouthshire and +Pembrokeshire; eastward the counties of Somerset, Devon, and Dorset lie +under the eyes, and on a clear day it has been computed that no fewer +than fifteen counties can be seen from this one eminence. +</P> + +<A NAME="img-184"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-184.jpg" ALT="Dunkery Beacon, from Horner Woods" BORDER="2" WIDTH="620" HEIGHT="443"> +<H3 CLASS="h3center" STYLE="width: 620px"> +Dunkery Beacon, from Horner Woods +</H3> +</CENTER> + +<P> +So notable a height might well have been chosen by those Druid peoples +as a fitting stage for the celebration of their worship, and the +tradition which holds it "lucky" to climb the Beacon on a spring +morning is just such a memory and faint superstition as lingers from an +old and forgotten faith. The country-folk round Keswick used to drive +their cattle up to the Druid circle on the hill-top near on the first +of May, light a fire within the circle, and drive their cattle through +the smoke "for luck," unconscious that they were remembering the +worship of the god Moloch, to whom beasts and human beings were +sacrificed at his Asiatic shrines by passing them through the fire. +</P> + +<P> +On Dunkery Beacon, so far as I can ascertain, there are no remains of a +Druid circle, but only two stone platforms arranged for beacon fires. +As a beacon it has been used for many hundred years. In the time of +Alfred the Great it flamed a warning of the coming of the Danes; it was +doubtless lighted at the coming of William the Conqueror into the West; +when the Armada went beating up the Channel; time and again when the +rumour ran that Napoleon had started for these shores; the country-folk +lighted it several times as a warning that the Doones were out on one +of their raids, till one night they climbed the beacon and threw the +watchman on the fire, after which it was left black and silent for all +the evil that the Doones did, until in due course retribution overtook +them and their stronghold was seized. So that I conjecture that the +circle of stones (if there were one) was pulled down to build the +beacon fires. +</P> + +<P> +But the "Hunting of the Earl of Rone" which takes place at Combe Martin +on Ascension Day is probably the most interesting of all ancient +survivals in North Devon. It is a curious ceremony, partaking +something of the nature of a Guy Fawkes mummery, something, I consider, +of a much older and traditional character. +</P> + +<P> +The "Earl of Rone," actually, was the son of the Earl of Tyrone, the +"Red Hand of Erin," who, in the reign of James I, fled from Ireland and +landed at Combe Martin, wandered about the countryside with a band of +companions, and was finally pursued and captured in Lady Wood, outside +the village. In the Ascensiontide sports the Earl wears a grotesque +costume: a mask, and a smock padded with straw, and round his neck a +chain of biscuits. He has with him a hobby-horse and buffoon covered +with fantastic trappings, and carrying a small article called a +"mapper" (which is conjectured to be a misreading for "snapper"), and +representing the teeth and jaws of a horse. The Earl has also a +donkey, decorated with flowers and with a necklace of biscuit, and the +hunters wear a sort of fantastic grenadier costume. For a week before +Ascension Day this strange cortege goes in procession round the +neighbourhood. The ceremony on Ascension Day is as follows: The Earl +of Rone hides in Lady Wood, and is there pursued by the soldiers, fired +upon, and captured. He is then placed on the donkey, with his face +towards the tail, and led into the village, accompanied by the fool +with his hobby-horse. They make several halts, at each of which the +Earl is again fired upon and falls wounded from his donkey, mourned by +the fool, but amid the general rejoicing of the spectators. Finally he +is replaced by the fool, and the affair becomes a mere matter of +buffoonery without special significance. Contributions are levied from +the public, and enforced by the "mapper," by which they are seized and +held until they have paid. The fool also has a besom, which he dips in +the gutter, and with which he sprinkles the recalcitrant. +</P> + +<P> +But among much that is mere horseplay, and common to all popular +celebrations which have no religious significance to keep in check a +natural holiday exuberance, we can discover two distinct traditions. +The one is the actual Guy Fawkes celebration of the capture of the +rebel and outlaw Shane O'Neill; the other is much older, going back +into the remote past of unwritten history, and connected with those +strange religious ceremonies which a study of comparative religions has +shown us to be a natural development of the mind of primitive peoples, +struggling out of the darkness of mere barbarism. Over and over again +we find, among the customs of savage tribes, or behind the elaborate +ceremonial of such civilized nations as the Greeks and Romans, or +lingering in strange and now meaningless ceremonies such as the one I +have just described, this primitive idea of the individual who is +harmful to the community. From being baleful he became sacred. They +cast him out of their city, as the Jews did their scapegoat, to wander +in desert places, and as the Greeks did in a city festival which was +older than the Homeric gods among them, and which symbolized, in +classical times, the days when they had literally stoned a man and a +woman from their midst, bound, and with chaplets of flowers on their +heads and necklaces of black figs around their necks. It is recorded, +among the South Sea Islands, that a traveller once witnessed such a +sacrifice as this memorized in the classic Greek festival. Then, by a +queer but common inversion of idea, this baleful but sacred individual +is fetched back into the community, as the outcast, hidden in Lady +Wood, was brought back into Combe Martin, being beaten and reviled, and +yet keeping his sacred character as a being set apart from the rest of +men. His mask and traditional dress, his necklace of biscuit, and the +decking of the donkey with flowers and bread, all point to the +sacrificial character of this ceremony, though long ago forgotten and +become the opportunity for frolic and holiday-making. +</P> + +<P> +The custom of "beating the bounds," which was familiar enough in many +country districts in the last century, is also a remains of primitive +tribal rites; it is a summer festival, falling usually at +Ascensiontide, and is held with greater or less ceremony. Now, indeed, +it has become just a holiday affair for children, who dress up and +parade the town or village with a hobby-horse and a few vague +ceremonies, now become shadowy and meaningless, as in the beating of +the bounds which takes place in the older part of the town of Minehead. +</P> + +<P> +There are many scores of superstitious practices, as distinguished from +these remains of actual ritual of which I have spoken, still in use +among country-folk. In Devonshire they still take a sick child, very +early in the morning, and hold it over a stream which is running east, +with a long thread tied to its finger, so that as the water carries the +thread eastwards away from the child the sickness will also be carried +away. This, which seems to us so incomprehensible a belief, is one of +that very large class of primitive practices which imitate a certain +desired condition, as in the rain-making of certain tribes of red +Indians, when, having danced ceremonially round a large tub of water, +one of the number takes a mouthful and spirts it into the air in +imitation of rain. This is what they call a "charm"; there are charms +for the stanching of blood, for making the cows yield well, for the +cure of toothache, for averting evil from a young child; when a +Devonshire woman is asked to a christening, she still takes with her a +saffron cake, and gives it to the first stranger that she meets on her +way to church. But when the cattle are diseased, they have, or had as +late as 1883, when the ceremony was witnessed and recorded, a rite +which is more than a charm; for a sheep or calf is taken from the herd +and sacrificed, and either burned, or buried in a corner of the field +belonging to the farmer whose cattle are diseased. +</P> + +<P> +But there is another practice in Devon and Cornwall which we may +proclaim a superstition, but to which the tragedies of these wild +coasts give but too grim an earnestness to those who practise it. When +a ship is long overdue, and a woman can bear the suspense no longer, +she goes down to the seashore and calls her husband by name. Over and +over again she calls him, her neighbours standing by, until over the +waters the voice of her drowned husband comes in answer. Then she +turns and goes to her desolate cottage, with hope put out of her heart. +How often these cries of sorrow and bereavement have gone out from +these rocky coasts, calling the drowned men by their simple, homely +names of field and cottage use from under the grey waters, how often +the waiting women have been comforted or strengthened by a despairing +certainty, we cannot know or realize who do not live and die by the sea. +</P> + +<P> +Apart from those customs and practices, which contain the germ of some +very ancient ritual or primitive belief, there is another class of +tradition which is purely fantastic, such as ghosts, witches who change +into rabbits and cats, fairies, dragons, and strange portents. Of such +kind is the story of the Ghost of Porlock Weir, a buccaneer named +Lucott, and no unlikely personage to haunt any of these seaside +hamlets. He was a malicious and obstinate ghost who appeared boldly a +week after his funeral—when the inhabitants might reasonably have +supposed they had at last got rid of the bad old man—and though he was +exorcised by no less than eleven clergymen he refused to be laid. At +last the Vicar of Porlock tamed him with a consecrated wafer, compelled +him to ride with him to Watchet, and there imprisoned him in a small +box, which was straight-way thrown into the sea, and he was seen no +more. +</P> + +<P> +There are elements in this story like that of Anstey's novel, where a +genie is imprisoned in a brass pot, which is fished up out of the sea +and opened, with startling results to a quiet modern community; and it +is to be hoped that nobody will bring Lucott ashore again, along with a +catch of fish. +</P> + +<P> +There is another strange tale, also, concerning one John Strange of +Porlock, who, on August 23 of 1499, was hewing wood, and upon sitting +down to his midday meal on a log at the edge of the clearing, and +cutting a piece of bread, observed blood to flow from the incision. He +went to his neighbours about it, and with them to his parish priest, +and the matter became one of importance, for I find that a Commission +was appointed and recorded in the Register of Wells, to inquire into +this strange occurrence. Witnesses were called and examined, oaths +taken, the learned Commission sat upon it as solemnly as if it had been +a case of heresy. John Strange, summoned from his little cottage at +Porlock, was, we can well imagine, a half-unwilling hero. Nobody seems +to have arrived at any conclusion, and nobody seems to have suggested +that perhaps John Strange had cut his finger! +</P> + +<P> +There is an even stranger and more splendidly fantastic story in +Westcote's "View of Devon," of fiery dragons seen flying about certain +barrows or tumuli near Challacombe, and alighting on them, and how a +certain labouring man, having bought a small plot of waste land near +by, began depleting Broaken Bunow to build himself a house with the +material. And how, digging into the hillock, he came upon "a little +place, as it had been a large oven, fairly, strongly and closely walled +up," and breaking into this he discovered an earthen pot, which, hoping +it might contain some treasure, he stretched out his hand to seize, +when, as he put his hand upon it he heard a noise as of a great +trampling of horses coming towards him. So he rose and looked about +him, but, seeing nothing, knelt again to secure the pot, when the same +thing happened again, and so a third time also. Nevertheless he drew +out the pot and took it home, and found it to contain no treasure, but +only a few ashes and little bones. And a very little time after he +lost his senses both of sight and hearing, and died within three months. +</P> + +<P> +There is another barrow also, near the same place, where I am inclined +to believe that a "mystical sciencer" worked a trick on two worthy +fellows, whom he promised to enrich with silver and gold if they would +dig into the hillock for him and find therein a great brass pan which +contained the treasure. This they did, and came to the brass pan +covered with a large stone, which the strongest of them tried to lift, +and was taken with such a faintness "that he could neither work nor +stand," and therefore called to the other to take his place. This the +man did, and was also taken with faintness; and when they both +recovered, which was in a very short space of time, the "mystical +sciencer" told them that the birds were flown and the nest only left. +And sure enough they found this true: the empty brass pan, with the +bottom bright and clean, as if a treasure had lain there, and all the +rest of it cankered with rust. Whether this sciencer was some obscure +Roger Bacon, and had discovered the use of a volatile anaesthetic +centuries ago, or whether he was enjoying a solitary practical joke at +the expense of two simpletons, is impossible to say. "It is at your +choice to believe either or neither," as Westcote says of the two +foregoing stories. "I have offered them to the shrine of your +judgment, and what truth soever there is in them, they are not unfit +tales for winter nights, when you roast crabs by the fire, whereof this +parish yields none, the climate is too cold, only the fine dainty +fruits of whortles and blackberries." +</P> + +<P> +One of the pleasantest of tales for winter nights is given by Westcote +himself in his introductory chapters, where he speaks of the air of +Devon as "very healthy, temperate, sweet, and pure," and giving long +life to the inhabitants, more particularly in the good old times, when +men were content to live temperately and frugally, and did not weaken +themselves with delicacies, but subsisted on the bare sustenance +afforded by the earth. Indeed, in the most ancient times they lived on +bark and roots, and on a certain "confection," of which if they took a +small quantity no larger than a bean they neither hungered nor thirsted +for a long while afterwards—so, at least, Diodorus Siculus and Dio +Nicaeus have affirmed, and we can therefore only suppose, in the face +of such authority, that the recipe is long since lost, and that the +habits of Devonshire men have certainly changed since the days when +they lived a hundred and twenty years. +</P> + +<P> +But that must have been before the Phoenicians came to Britain, for +they are certainly reputed to have brought the secret of clotted (or +clouted) cream with them, and to have landed in Cornwall and Devon with +their scald-pans with them, so that the degeneration of the Damnonii in +the matter of delicacies is of very ancient date. +</P> + +<P> +I cannot pass from an account of the wonders of Devon without repeating +Miss Celia Fiennes's description of a "ffowle" (as she calls it) which +lives on the island of Lundy, and which was formerly the property of +her grandfather, Lord Saye and Sele, and "yt lives partly in the water +and partly out, and soe may be called an amphibious Creature." She +does not claim to have seen it herself, for all her wanderings up and +down England a-horseback—which was, by the way, sufficient of an +adventure for a young lady in the seventeenth century—but she is none +the less detailed in her description. This queer bird has one foot +like a turkey, and one like a goose, and its habit of laying its eggs +is "in a place the sun shines on, and sets it soe exactly upright on +the small end, and there it remains until taken up, and all the art and +skill of persons cannot set it up soe again to abide." +</P> + +<P> +She does not give the name of this strange "ffowle," but Lundy is no +unfitting habitat for an amphibious creature which is at least as rare +as the Dodo. +</P> + +<P> +Stories of Henry de Tracy, who murdered Thomas à Becket, are numerous +up and down the coast; for the Tracys owned a considerable amount of +property here—Lynton, Crinton, Countisbury, and Parracombe—and, in +spite of historical evidence of the family's continued prosperity, +tradition asserts that the curse brought down by sacrilege was +fulfilled, and that Henry de Tracy wanders up and down these desolate +coves, condemned to weave ropes of sand that can never draw his +wretched soul out of torment till the last trump shall sound. He has +become, indeed, a figure of legend, merged with such strange persons as +the Wandering Jew and all those restless and unreleased spirits who, +like Sisyphus of Greek legend or Tregeagle of Cornish, for ever toil at +a for ever unaccomplished task. +</P> + +<P> +The legends which have sprung up round the name of Coppinger have been +of quick growth, for "Cruel Coppinger" was a Danish sea-captain who was +wrecked off Hartland at the end of the eighteenth century. He came +naked ashore, the only survivor from the ship, having swum through the +stormy waves. He staggered up the beach, seized the red cloak from an +old woman's shoulders, wrapped himself in it, and leapt on the horse of +a young girl who stood by, urged the horse into a gallop, and +disappeared from the beach. That was a sufficiently striking entrance +to the stage of Devon, and he filled his part adequately. The young +girl with whom he had ridden off was Dinah Hamlyn; he was taken by her +to her father's farm, where he was fed and clothed. He married Dinah, +and after her father's death, within a year, he ill-treated shamefully +her and her mother, though it was to them that he practically owed his +life, ship-wrecked strangers in the eighteenth century being apt to +disappear among an inhospitable people. Coppinger lived by smuggling +and wrecking; he was brave, violent, and of great physical strength, +and he terrorized the population of these little villages by acts of +savagery and cruelty. A ganger who had had the boldness to interfere +with him he seized, and beheaded on the gunnel of his own boat, and +even for this no one dared to bring him to justice. He played violent +practical jokes, by inviting to dinner with him unfortunate people who +dared not refuse, and serving them up cats or offal for their meal. +</P> + +<P> +He was in every way a scoundrel and a blackguard, and became such a +pest that at last he earned retribution; and after many local attempts +to convict him of smuggling or wrecking, the revenue officers came out +from Bude to the Bristol Channel to hunt him down. He was seen last on +the Gull Rock, off Hartland Point, signalling one evening to a ship +which lay in the offing. He was taken off by a boat, but almost +immediately a storm came up, the ship was blotted out from the sight of +those watching from the cliffs, and when the squall passed she had +totally disappeared. No one ever knew whether she had foundered with +all hands, or had run out of sight behind Lundy, or whether she had +become, by reason of the wicked wretch aboard her, a second <I>Flying +Dutchman</I>, shaping an endless course through stormy seas. +</P> + +<P> +There is a verse of rough doggerel which the children in these parts +still repeat, and which embodies the story of this tyrant: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Will you hear of cruel Coppinger?<BR> +He came from a foreign land;<BR> +He was brought to us by the salt water,<BR> +He was carried away by the wind."<BR> +</P> + +<P> +Probably Coppinger's wild and picturesque rush from the beach, like a +Centaur in a scarlet cloak, was an actual measure of prudence; for in +those cruel times of wreckers and smugglers the survivors who landed +from a wreck were often murdered by the people they were thrown +amongst, because "dead men tell no tales," and the unfortunate seamen +might otherwise give evidence of false lights which had seemed to +promise safety and refuge, and had drawn them on to the rocks. Such +was the case of a French ship which was drawn ashore at Hele by +wreckers, and the only survivor was taken to Champernownesheyes (the +old gabled farmhouse which was formerly the home of the well-known +Devonshire family of Champernowne), and there murdered. There is a +curious ghost-story told in connection with this: The farm in due time +passed into other hands, and all memory of the wreck or the +disappearance of the one unfortunate survivor was lost. But one +evening, while the farmer who was then living at Champernownesheyes was +smoking his pipe in the garden, he fell to idly counting the windows, +and, having done this several times, he discovered that there was one +window unaccounted for. He called his wife, and then the servants, +and, having made sure of this, they located the position of the strange +window, and, going upstairs, they broke down the wall which they judged +to be opposite, and found, indeed, that the window lighted a small +room, furnished in sixteenth-century style, and containing a bed, hung +with mouldering tapestry, on which lay a skeleton—the bones of the +shipwrecked survivor who had been murdered. As they broke into the +room, and went to fling open the long-closed window, they heard a great +rushing noise, and cries and groans, and they declared that the garden +was filled with evil spirits, rustling and whispering, mopping and +mowing, for upwards of an hour afterwards. +</P> + +<P> +There are, of course, many more tales, legends, and traditions, than I +have been able to deal with in the space of one chapter; every village +has them, every cove and creek, dark wooded hollow, or twisted and +fantastic rock, and to collect and collate, to sift and inquire into +all the wealth of folk-lore that our country still holds would be an +attractive but a life-long work. All I have attempted to give in these +few pages is some general idea of the intimate life of these +country-folk, what beliefs and customs, inherited often from the days +before Christianity, what charms and legends and lore, go to the +fashioning of their minds, just as I have tried to give a general idea +of the beauty and wildness, the peculiar and intimate quality, of the +country in which they live. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR><BR> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Lynton and Lynmouth, by +John Presland and F. J. 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J. Widgery + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Lynton and Lynmouth + A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland + +Author: John Presland + F. J. Widgery + +Release Date: September 25, 2007 [EBook #22765] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LYNTON AND LYNMOUTH *** + + + + +Produced by Al Haines + + + + + + + + + + +[Frontispiece: Lee Bay] + + + + + + +LYNTON AND LYNMOUTH + +A PAGEANT OF CLIFF & MOORLAND + + +BY + +JOHN PRESLAND + + + + +ILLUSTRATED BY + +F. J. WIDGERY + + + + +LONDON + +CHATTO & WINDUS + +MCMXVII + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER + + I. DEVONSHIRE + II. SOME LITERARY ASSOCIATIONS + III. BARNSTAPLE + IV. LYNTON + V. LYNTON (_continued_), COUNTISBERRY, AND NORTHWARD + VI. PORLOCK AND EXMOOR + VII. IN SOMERSET + VIII. LUNDY + IX. THE LAST STRONGHOLDS OF TRADITION + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + +LEE BAY . . . . . . . . . . . . _frontispiece_ + +BOSSINGTON HILL + +DUNKERY BEACON + +THE DOONE VALLEY + +WOODY BAY AND DUTY POINT, WEST LYNTON + +THE SHEPHERD'S COTTAGE: DOONE VALLEY + +LYNMOUTH BAY AND FORELAND + +THE VALLEY OF ROCKS + +HEDDON'S MOUTH, NEAR LYNTON + +CASTLE ROCK, LYNTON + +DUTY POINT + +THE MOORS NEAR BRENDON TWO GATES + +HARVEST MOON, EXMOOR + +THE DOONE VALLEY IN WINTER + +LYNTON: THE DEVIL'S CHEESERING + +DUNKERY BEACON FROM HORNER WOODS + + + + +LYNTON AND LYNMOUTH + + +CHAPTER I + +DEVONSHIRE + +The original Celtic name for Devonshire, the name used by the Britons +whom Caesar found here when he landed, was probably "Dyfnaint," for a +Latinized form of it, "Dumnonia" or "Damnonia," was used by Diodorus +Siculus when writing of the province of Devon and Cornwall in the third +century A.D. So that the name by which the men of Devon call their +country is the name by which those ancient men called it who erected +the stone menhirs on Dartmoor, and built the great earth-camp of +Clovelly Dykes, or the smaller bold stronghold of Countisbury. At +least, conjecturally this is so, and it is pleasant to believe it, for +it links the Devon of our own day, the Devon of rich valleys and windy +moors, the land of streams and orchards, of bleak, magnificent cliff +and rock-guarded bay, of shaded combe and suave, fair villages, in an +unbroken tradition of name and habitation with the men of that silent +and vanished race. + +Up and down the length of England, from the Land's End to the +Northumbrian dales, lie the traces of these far-off peoples whose very +names are faint guesses preserved only in the traditions of local +speech. Strangely and suddenly we come upon the evidence of their life +and death: here a circle of stones on a barren moor or bleak hilltop, +there a handful of potsherds or a flint arrowhead; sometimes, indeed, +though rarely, the bones of their very bodies, laid aside in +earth-barrows or stone coffins for this unknown length of years. And +there the most unreflective among us feels a sudden awe and wonder at +the momentary vision of the profound antiquity of this land in which we +live, and for a few moments all desires and aims seem futile in face of +this immemorial past. + +Only for a few moments, though, and then we step from the "Druid +Circle," or turn away from the barrow, and the current of our everyday +life takes us up once more. + +Myself, I agree with Westcote. Westcote is a charming old gentleman of +King James the First's time, who wrote a book called "A View of +Devonshire in 1630." In Chapter I he discusses the ancient name of +Devonshire much as I have done, but because in the seventeenth century +you must have a Latin or a Greek at your elbow to give you +respectability as a writer, he brings forward a formidable array of +authorities--Ptolemaeus, Solinus Pylyhistor, and Diodorus Siculus. +But, having had them make their bow before the reader, he remarks that +all these gentlemen lived "far remoted" from Devonshire, and were +therefore liable to error in the transmission of names; "for, in my +opinion," says he, "those that declare the first names of strange +countries far remoted are as the poor which wear their garments all +bepatched and pieced, whereof the pieces that are added are much more +in quantity of cloth than the garment before, when it was first made." + +As an example of this error he instances the name of Peru. "When the +Spaniards had conquered Mexico, and were purposing to proceed farther, +their commander, in his manner, demanded of one of the natives he met +withal what the country was named, who answered, 'Peru,' by which name +it is known unto this day, which in his language was, 'I know not what +you say.'" + +Even more fantastic is the etymological origin of Andaluzia, for the +poor countryman of this story, when addressed by the conquering Moor, +merely remarked surlily to his ass, "gee-up Luzia!" or, in his own +tongue, "Ando Luzia!" which was taken by the Moor in remarkable good +faith, and has ever after been the name of that province. + +Westcote himself inclines to the origin De (or Di) Avon, "the country +of waters," "diu" being the Celtic for God, and "avon" the word for +river (which it certainly is), and the whole name agreeing with the +character of the country, which is a land of many waters, both great +rivers and small streams. But he goes on to observe tolerantly that +each man may think as he chooses, even to deriving the word Devonshire +from Dane-shire, the shire of the Danes, though it is known to have had +its name before ever the first Dane landed in England, and there seems +to be little likelihood, therefore, but only "a sympathie in letters." +He concludes his discussion by the couplet: + + "To no man am I so much thrall + To swear he speaketh truth in all." + +And with this tolerant and unpedantic frame of mind I am in hearty +accord. + +But if Caesar and the Romans, who for several centuries had a station +at Exeter, their great "camp on the Exe," called the wide province of +Devon and Cornwall "Damnonia," what did the Phoenicians call it when +they traded Cornish tin along the Mediterranean, and even, it is said, +into remote Africa, and ran their galleys into the little bay of Combe +Martin, to lade with the silver and lead which can still be mined +there, and which they may have carried to the old buried palaces of +Knossos, to be fashioned into amulets and trinkets by those Cretans who +built the dancing-floor of Ariadne and the maze of the Minotaur? That +is a question that we cannot answer; all the busy speech of all those +peoples is silent; only the old mine-workings remain, and the sacked +and buried palaces of Crete, and a Phoenician ingot-mould fished up in +Plymouth Harbour, and fitting, so 'tis said, an ingot which has been +found in Central Africa. + +With the coming of the Romans comes, as always, a little light, for +they were a shrewd and mighty people, who liked their house set in +order, and tabulated and recorded and organized, and have left traces +of their orderliness on the face of the land, and the speech of the +people, and the laws of the nations in three continents. They subdued +Damnonia, and held it from their armed camp at Exeter, where Roman +coins, pottery, brick, and inscriptions are found abundantly. Perhaps +also they held and transformed several of the great earth-camps for +their own uses, such as the Clovelly Dykes or the escarpments at +Ilfracombe, built by the Britons or some earlier people. But the +Romans do not appear to have settled in Devonshire as they did in East +Anglia and the Midlands; I believe there are few traces of their +dwellings, villas, roads, or baths, beyond Exeter in the West. + +When their rule weakened and declined in the fifth century, certainly +Damnonia would be one of the first provinces over which their +jurisdiction waned, because of its inaccessibility, its deep wooded +valleys, the wastes of Exmoor and Dartmoor, and the danger of its +coasts; and we may well suppose that the old Celtic traditions and +customs continued here but little modified by the Roman occupation. + +Then at some time in the fifth and sixth centuries the Saxons came, but +they seem to have come to Devonshire more peaceably than in their +fierce raids on the south and east coasts; they came as Christians to +the Christian British, and though they conquered them, they did not +drive them out, nor compel them into mountain fastnesses, as the +earlier Saxon conquerors drove the British into Wales. So that in +Devon, though to a lesser degree than in Cornwall, and still less than +in Wales, there is a larger admixture of original Celtic blood than in +Kent, Sussex, Essex, and the counties of the Saxon heptarchy. But, +according to Westcote--who is, for all his discursiveness, no bad +authority--the Britons and the Saxons came to loggerheads; for the +government being Saxon, and the laws and the language, the poor Britons +could neither hear nor make themselves understood, and so took arms +against the settlers, and were by them driven "beyond the river now +called Taw-meer" (_i.e._, Tamar), and so out of Devon into Cornwall. +This was done by King Athelstan, after he had beaten the Welsh at +Hereford and subdued the Picts and Scots. + +From this time forth, says Westcote, the Britons began to be called +"Corn-Welshmen or Cornishmen," and he gives an elaborate etymology of +the name, but adds that he need speak no further of Cornwall, "being +eased of that labour by the industrious labours of the right worthy and +worshipful gentleman Richard Carew, who . . . hath very eloquently +described it." + +The Saxons, as we know, led a struggling and turbulent existence for +five or six centuries in contest with the Danes. Probably the full +total of the misery inflicted on this country by the Danish raids can +never be reckoned, but that they crippled and exhausted Saxon England +by their frequency and the great duration of time over which they +extended is apparent by the advance made in civilization in the short +period between the breaking of their power and the coming of the +Normans. Devonshire was not spared by them, and the cliffs of +Teignmouth are said to be blood-red since a great slaughter of the +Danes in 970. Certainly the Saxon Chronicle records contests bloody +and pitiless enough, and tradition lingers still in many places where +history has no record. In Devon, for instance, wherever the +dwarf-elder grows folk say that Danish blood has been spilt, and that a +group of these trees marks the site of an old battlefield; indeed, the +dwarf-elder is still called "Danes-elder" in the West Country. + +Between Bideford and Appledore, on this northern coast of Devon, stands +Kenwith Castle--long called Hennaborough or Henry Hill--under whose +walls the great Alfred and his son met the Danes under Hubba, and +defeated them with great slaughter about the year 877. The English +captured the famous standard of the Danes, the Raven, which was +"wrought in needlework by the daughters of Lothbroc," and which had +magical properties--clapping its wings when defeat was at hand. The +remnant of the Danish force, carrying their wounded leader with them, +retreated to their ships, and Hubba died there on the beach, and was +buried by his followers before they fled aboard, under a great rock +called Hubba's Stone, and now in corrupt form Hubblestone, a name which +still clings near the spot, though probably the rock of Hubba is now +swept by the sea. But under this rock he lies, with his weapons and +trophies about him and his crown of gold on his head, until the last +trump shall rouse him. + +[Illustration: Bossington Hill from Porlock Hill] + +The grave of Hubba lies under the sea, like King Arthur's lost country +of Lyonesse, where the fisher-folk say they can hear the bells ring +from the drowned churches as they sail over them on still summer +mornings; but near Porlock the sea has yielded the strip of land it has +stolen from Bideford, and the Danish long-ships rode what are now the +green fields around Porlock. + +That it was so the very name Porlock shows, for Port-locan means an +enclosed place for ships, under which name it is mentioned twice in the +Saxon Chronicle. So the sea has retreated a mile and a half since the +Danish raid of A.D. 918, when they entered the Severn, harried Wales, +and landed at Porlock, only to be beaten back to their ships again by +the Saxons. + +Harold, the great English Harold who was slain at the Battle of +Hastings, made a raid from Ireland in 1052. He ran into Porlock with +nine ships, landed and went several miles inland, killing and looting, +and returned in safety. But this filibustering expedition, so greatly +to his discredit, and so unworthy to find a place among all his other +acts, was almost certainly done in anger and dictated by personal +revenge. For Porlock, which was plainly an important harbour and one +of the seats of the Saxon Kings--at least, it is mentioned as having a +"King's house" there--was the property of Algar, the son of Leofric, +Earl of Mercia. But Harold was the son of Godwin, Earl of Kent, and +Kent and Mercia were old and bitter enemies, and it was due to the +intrigues of Mercia that Earl Godwin was banished, and Harold went with +him to Ireland. Then, fourteen years later, William came to an England +weakened by internal strife, and Harold was slain at Hastings and the +Saxon lords dispossessed of their lands and goods, which were given to +the foreigner. Here the Domesday Book, with its plain bare statements, +gives us a grim record of the Conquest. All, or almost all, the Saxon +names of the overlords disappear, and the Norman take their place, +continuing down to our own day. This same Porlock was taken from +Algar, son of Leofric, and given to Baldwin Redvers. Countisbury was +taken from Ailmer, and held by William himself. Lynton was taken from +Ailward Touchstone--it is interesting to find the name of Shakespeare's +fool in Domesday Book--and held by William. Combe Martin (then called +"Comba") was taken from Aluric and held by Jubel. Bideford and +Clovelly were taken from Brihtric and given to Queen Matilda. + +There is a curious and romantic story about this Brihtric, son of +Aelfgar. He was one of the most powerful of the Saxon Thanes, and +seems to have owned lands not only in Devon, but in Dorset, Somerset, +and even in Gloucester, though the latter entries in Domesday may refer +to another Brihtric, who was not the son of Aelfgar. When he was a +young man, and before the marriage of Matilda to William of Normandy, +Brihtric was sent by King Edward on a diplomatic mission to the Count +of Flanders, Matilda's father, and there he met Matilda, who fell in +love with him and offered herself in marriage. He refused her, and she +married William; but later, when the cycle of events put her old lover +in the power of her husband, she sued for and obtained the grant of +many of his lands. Brihtric himself was seized at his house at Hanley, +in Worcestershire, on the very day that Wulfstan had hallowed his +chapel, and sent to Winchester, where he died in prison. + +This story, which would have made a stirring theme for Sir Walter +Scott, is found in the chronicles of Tewkesbury, in the Anglo-Norman +chronicles, and in Wace, the old rhyming historian of the twelfth +century. Here are a few lines of the old French version: + + "Laquele jadsi, quant fu pucele, + Ama un conte dangleterre, + Brictrich Mau le oi nomer + Apres le rois ki fu riche ber; + A lui la pucele enuera messager + Pur sa amour a lui procurer; + Meis Brictrich Maude refusa, + Dune ele m'lt se coruca, + Hastivement mer passa + E a Willam bastard se maria. + +which we may put into English so: + + "Who formerly, as a maiden, + Loved an English count, + Brihtric Maude heard him named; + And who, save the King, than he was richer? + To him the maiden sent a messenger + To obtain his love; + But Brihtric refused Matilda, + Whereat she waxed very angry, + Hastily passed over the sea + And married William the bastard." + + +But if this is one of the stories which is preserved to us, with its +fierce love, and its fierce hate, and its unsparing revenge, and all +the human hopes and acts and motives of which it gives but a bare +hint--the pride of Brihtric perhaps, or perhaps his love for another +woman, for an alliance with the Count of Flanders might satisfy an +ambitious man--how many tragic dramas, how many stories of cruelty and +oppression and exile and mourning, lie behind the bare short records of +the Domesday Book? All these sunny towns of North Devon and +Somerset--Lynton, Crinton, Porlock, Countisbury, Paracombe, +Challacombe, and north to Dunster, and south to Barnstaple and +Bideford--all these wooded or wind-swept spots, which look as if they +could have had no history, save of market-days and fairs, had their +individual drama in that fierce annexation. + +Sometimes, perhaps, they suffered hardly at all. Their Saxon lord +lived elsewhere; he was slain or banished, and they came imperceptibly +under the Norman rule. But more often, I imagine, particularly on the +smaller estates, the lord dwelt in patriarchal intercourse with his +tenants, with that freedom of speech and right of judgment, which, in +"Ivanhoe," Scott draws in the household and retinue of Cedric; and the +eviction was bitter, and the rule of the new lord oppressive and +hateful. + +Domesday Book was compiled in 1086, twenty years after the landing of +William, so that a new generation was already growing up, and the old +scars were beginning to heal. Here is a translation of the entry on +Lynton: + +"William has a manor called Lintona, which Ailward Touchstone held on +the day on which King Edward was alive and dead, and with this manor +was added formerly another called Incrintona, which Algar held. These +are held by William for one manor, and they rendered geld for one hide. +. . . Lintona is worth four pounds and Incrintona three pounds. When +William received them Lintona was worth 20 shillings and Incrintona 15. +. . ." + +It is interesting to note how all property throughout England had +advanced in value since "the day that King Edward was alive and dead"; +in the old English, "on pam timan pe Eadward cing was cucu and +dead"--_i.e._, on the fifth of January 1066--which is a clear +intimation that the firm rule of the Conqueror had increased the +material prosperity of the country in one generation. + +After the Conquest there was peace in Devonshire for many years, though +Exeter was besieged by Stephen for three months in 1137, when he and +Matilda, the mother of Henry II, rent England with a war of succession; +but the young Henry came to the throne in 1152, and ruled wisely and +strongly for thirty-five years. Under him Devon prospered, as did all +England, and the cloth-making industry, which in Westcote's time, in +the seventeenth century, was so notable a part of the wealth of Devon, +probably had its first considerable beginnings in this reign. + +But Henry II is remembered less for his wise laws and far-sighted +government than for the murder of Thomas a Becket, which clouded his +latter years and brought his enemies--his wife and his son among +them--swarming about his ears. This northern coast of Devon is linked +with that dark crypt in Canterbury where Becket fell in the sacerdotal +robes of High Mass; for it was a Tracy who was one of the four knights +who spurred from London to rid Henry "of this turbulent priest," and +the Tracys owned Lynton, Countisbury, and Morthoe. It is to Morthoe +that Tracy is supposed to have come after the murder, with the curse +upon him which descended to his family--that, wherever they went, + + "the Tracys + Have always the wind and the rain in their faces"-- + +and to have lived out the bitter end of his life with the horror of +sacrilege in his heart. There is a monument in the church of Morthoe +of William de Tracy, but it is of early fourteenth-century date, and +belongs to a descendant of King Henry's knight, who was rector of the +parish. A later Tracy was Baron of Barnstaple, and was appointed +Governor of the island of Lundy in the reign of Henry III. + +Nearly a century later Edward II, flying from the armies of his Queen +and the turbulent barons, took ship for Lundy, but was driven back to +Wales by contrary winds. And of this event a poem was made in the +reign of James I, which is quoted by Westcote as written by a "modern +poet," though he does not give us the name. The verse still retains a +smack of the Elizabethan diction--not the Shakespeare magic, indeed, +but the euphuistic, antithetical, fantastic balance of phrases: + + "To Lundy which in Sabrin's mouth doth stand, + Carried with hope (still hoping to find ease), + Imagining it were his native land, + England itself; Severn, the narrow seas; + With this conceit, poor soul, himself doth please. + And sith his rule is over-ruled by men, + On birds and beasts he'll king it once again." + + +Devon took its unhappy share in the Wars of the Roses, and Perkin +Warbeck besieged Exeter in 1497, but unsuccessfully, like most other +exploits of that unlucky adventurer. Fifty years later the West rose +in arms against Henry VIII, in support of the "old religion," and to +protest against the dissolution of the monasteries; but the rising was +put down, and Henry took and subdued Exeter, and carried through his +bold and often ruthless policy. + +But it is in the reign of Elizabeth that Devon takes on the special +glamour with which it is still associated in most minds. For it was +the sixteenth century which gave to England such men as Richard and +John Hawkins, Adrien and Humphrey Gilbert, John Davies--that sailor +friend of Adrien Gilbert's who, inspired by him, made the first dark +voyage into the Polar regions, and traded with the Esquimaux, as told +in Hakluyt's "Voyages"--and Sir Richard Grenville, with his "men of +Bideford in Devon," with whom he fought the _Revenge_ single-handed +against the fifty and three Spanish galleons in that last, greatest +fight of all; and Sir Walter Raleigh, a philosopher among courtiers, a +poet among princes, statesman, dreamer, adventurer, who planned nobly +and executed daringly, and failed more greatly than other men succeed. +Millais has drawn him for us, in his boyhood, sitting on the beach at +Budleigh Salterton, with the wind blowing his hair round his sensitive, +eager face, hugging his knees as he listens to the stories of the +sailor with the bright parrot-feathers in his hat, one of the men, +perhaps, who sailed with Frobisher or terrible John Hawkins, round the +world to the far-off coasts of adventure, the lands of gold and spices. +It is to Raleigh, and to his half-brother, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, that +we owe the first colony of America, "Virginia," called so by Raleigh +from the Virgin Queen, in the compliment of his day--to them is due the +praise of having seen that "colonization, trade, and the enlargement of +Empire, were all more important for the welfare of England than the +acquisition of gold," and this in an age which was dazzled by the +facilities of wealth lying ready to the greedy hand in that "New World." + +And this mind, so daring, so original, so diverse, which could turn a +sonnet or design a battleship (for the _Ark Raleigh_, built after his +plans, was admittedly the best ship of our fleet that met the Armada), +which had experienced the favour and disfavour of princes in the +fullest degree, which had known triumph and discouragement beyond the +ordinary measure of humanity, turned in the last dark years of +imprisonment to a steady contemplation of human activity, and, largely +conceiving here, as in all else, planned a "History of the World." Let +his own noble words be his epitaph: + +"O eloquent, just, and mighty Death! whom none could advise, thou hast +persuaded; what none have dared, thou hast done; and whom all the world +have flattered, thou only hast cast out of the world and despised; thou +hast drawn together all the far-stretched greatness, all the pride, +cruelty and ambition of man, and covered it all over with these two +narrow words, 'Hic jacet.'" + +And then there was Drake--Drake, whose name perhaps overshadows all +other names in Devon; Drake, who + + "was playing a rubber of bowls + When the great Armada came;" + +but, being told of the sighting of the fleet, remarked that "they must +wait their turn, good souls," and continued his game; Drake, who, the +year before the sailing of the Armada, "singed the King of Spain's +beard" most mightily, going up and down the coasts of Spain and +Portugal, plundering and burning the ships in their very harbours; who +sailed round the world, with the sun for "fellow traveller," as an +epitaph under his portrait in the Guildhall says of him; who, on the +first independent expedition which he led to America, received a +dangerous wound in his attack on Nombre de Dios, but concealed it from +his men, and led them to the public treasury, telling them "that he had +brought them to the mouth of the treasury of the world," and then +fainted over the great bars of silver and gold, and when they took him +up he was losing "so much blood as filled his very footsteps in the +sand;" Drake, who has become a legend and a myth in Devon, so that the +country-people say that he brought water from Dartmoor to Plymouth, by +compelling a stream to follow his horse's heels all the way into the +town; who, like King Arthur and Barbarossa, is not dead, but will +return again to his country if his people in their need strike on his +drum and call him. + +But beyond and behind all these great names, which ring in our ears +like martial music, are the nameless crowd of Devon men who sailed with +them, and fought with them, and worked with them, and loved them. Men +from Bideford and Appledore and Barnstaple, from Teignmouth and +Budleigh and Dartmouth, from every little harbour along the bold north +coast, from every creek and bay of the south, from the sheltered +villages among their trees, from the wind-swept, hilly little towns, +from the busy quayside or the lonely farm, came the men whose courage +and whose will, whose love of profit and greater love of adventure, +gave a lustre to England in the "golden days of Elizabeth." + +Those days passed, and were followed presently by the unhappy years of +the great Civil Wars. It was perhaps not unfitting that a +Grenville--Sir Bevil Grenville--led an army against the Parliamentarian +troops in the Battle of Lansdown Hill, though it was an army of +Cornishmen he led, and not of Devonshire men, for the Grenvilles were +then living at their Cornish home of Stowe. Sir Bevil was killed in +battle, but Anthony Payne, his servant, a great giant of a man, and a +true friend to his master, set Sir Bevil's young son upon his father's +horse, and bade him lead his father's men to victory, as, had he lived, +his father would have done. Afterwards Anthony Payne brought Sir +Bevil's body back to Stowe, and he wrote to Lady Grenville a letter +which deserves to be recorded for its true and simple dignity: + + +"HONOURED MADAM,-- + +"Ill news flieth apace: the heavy tidings hath no doubt already +travelled to Stowe that we have lost our blessed master by the enemies' +advantage. You must not, dear lady, grieve too much for your noble +spouse. You know, as we all believe, that his soul was in heaven +before his bones were cold. He fell, as he did often tell us he wished +to die, for the good Stewart cause, for his country and his King. He +delivered to me his last commands, and with such tender words for you +and for his children as are not to be set down with my poor pen, but +must come to your ears upon my best heart's breath. . . . I am coming +down with the mournfullest burden that ever a poor servant did bear, to +bring the great heart that is cold to Kilkhampton vault. Oh, my lady, +how shall I ever brook your weeping face? . . ." + + +This perhaps, is Cornish history and not Devonshire, except that the +name of Grenville is so inseparably linked in our minds with Devon. + +During the Royalist wars from 1642-1650 Exeter was twice besieged by +the Parliamentarians; Ilfracombe twice changed hands, in 1644 being +taken by Doddington for the Royalists, and two years later falling to +Fairfax after his capture of Barnstaple; Tiverton also was besieged by +the Royalists, though it seems to have held within itself the two +irreconcilable factions. But it was not in Devon that the fiercest +battles of that time were fought, nor the greatest and bitterest +disunion prevailed. Of the subsequent history of Devon I shall say +little. The unhappy expedition of the Duke of Monmouth landed at Lyme +Regis, just on the borders of Dorset and Devon, and he himself was +joyfully received in Exeter; but it was in Somerset that the battle of +Sedgemoor was lost, and Somerset that suffered chiefly from the Bloody +Assizes. + +Let us rather turn to the Devon of to-day, realizing with thankfulness +that the traditions of Drake and Frobisher, of Grenville and Hawkins, +still hold; that the heirs of the men who put out in their frail ships +for the New World, now buffet round our wild coasts in minesweeper or +trawler, destroyer or old cargo tubs, on a far more grim adventure. +Without the hope of gain, without the spur of glory, from every port +and harbour, from every creek and bay and inlet of our coasts comes the +patient, silent, heroic service of the men of the sea. + +And on many a hasty grave, in the shot-riddled mud of Flanders, or on +the barren beaches of Gallipoli or the ruined lands of Babylon, might +that poem of Sir Henry Newbolt's which he calls "April on Waggon Hill" +be set up as a fitting epitaph: + + "Lad, and can you rest now, + There beneath your hill? + Your hands are on your breast now, + But is your heart so still? + 'Twas the right death to die, lad, + A gift without regret, + But unless truth's a lie, lad, + You dream of Devon yet. + + "Ay, ay, the year's awaking, + The fire's among the ling, + The beechen hedge is breaking, + The curlew's on the wing; + Primroses are out, lad, + On the high banks of Lee, + And the sun stirs the trout, lad, + From Brendon to the sea. + + "I know what's in your heart, lad-- + The mare he used to hunt, + And her blue market-cart, lad, + With posies tied in front. + We miss them from the moor road, + They're getting old to roam, + The road they're on's a sure road + And nearer, lad, to home. + + "Your name, the name they cherish? + 'Twill fade, lad, 'tis true: + But stone and all may perish + With little loss to you. + While fame's fame you're Devon, lad, + The Glory of the West; + Till the roll's called in heaven, lad, + You may well take your rest." + + + + +CHAPTER II + +SOME LITERARY ASSOCIATIONS + +From Barnstaple to Dunster, and from Tiverton to Lynton, this beautiful +piece of country is peculiarly rich in literary associations. Nor is +this to be wondered at when we consider the variety and the loveliness +of the scenery, the great open, heathery wastes of Exmoor, the +wind-swept cliffs and highlands, the fair and luxuriant valleys where +the pure bright waters of these hill-fed streams flow through a green +tunnel of overarching trees, making a fertile paradise of flower and +fern in their course. And the magnificent bold rocks and forelands of +the coast, the streams broken into feathery spray falling down the +precipitous face of the cliffs, creek and gully and cave, the +wave-washed golden sands of the bays, or the line of foam fretting ever +at the foot of these granite crags. And beyond is the sea; from every +hilltop the eye turns to it, in the sheltered orchards the air is salt +with it, the thunder of its great breakers on the coast can be heard +far inland, an undercurrent beneath the singing of birds and the hum of +bees; it is never far from the eyes or from the mind, blue as faery +under a June sun, when the wheeling gulls are dazzling white flashes +above it, broken into greys and greens and purples by the sudden hail +of quick spring squalls, a heaving grey waste of waters under steady +rain, or a wild and elemental force, terrible and splendid, under the +fury of a gale. + +It is a land for poets and dreamers, a land to touch the fancy and stir +the imagination of men, a land of beauty and of adventure. + +It will not, therefore, be without interest to pick up thread after +thread by which the ports and hamlets, woods and waterfalls, are woven +into the history of our literature. + +[Illustration: Dunkerry Beacon] + +We find a trace, firstly, of the chief of poets and greatest name of +all--Shakespeare--in the municipal records of Barnstaple, where under +the date 1605 an entry records: "Geven to the Kynges players being in +the town this year xs." That is all, and Shakespeare is not named; but +we know that he was associated with the Kynges Players for many years, +and Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps, who is a well-known authority on this +subject, asserts that at this date Shakespeare was still one of the +company. It is a shadowy trace enough, but in view of the bare +outlines of the life and death of this man, whose name is almost +universal and whose history is almost completely obscure, we seize on +any tiny fact that may help to bring before us so wonderful a +personality. That Shakespeare was in Barnstaple, went up and down +Boutport Street, the old street that half encircles the town, running +"about the port," that he acted here, lodged here, if only for a week +or two, talked in the tavern and walked in the old town, with that +observant inner eye which noted the veriest detail of life, the swing +of a flower, the swallow under the eaves, the idiosyncrasy of dress or +gesture in the passers-by, and at the same time comprehended and +recorded the springs of action, the fumbling thoughts, the consciences, +the strivings, and the pretences, of the world of men and women that +moved around him--that Shakespeare was, once in his short and wonderful +life, actually in Barnstaple gives even to the most unreflective an +interest and a romance to this town. + +It was near Barnstaple, also, and during Shakespeare's lifetime, that +Thomas Westcote, gentleman, was born at Westcote, in the parish of +Marwood, in 1567. He wrote, towards the end of his life, a description +of the country called "A View of Devon," and a genealogy of the +principal families. It was not published until 1845, but is well +worthy of being preserved, not only for its antiquarian interest, as +being the earliest account of Devonshire, its agriculture and its +industries, but also for the pleasure of its quaint turns of phrase, +the ponderous classic authorities which he marshals to support a simple +fact--and there are indeed some strange wild-fowl among his +authorities--and above all for a gentle and unobtrusive humour which +seasons all the narrative. Westcote gives a list of the fish afforded +by the Devon seas (a very imperfect list by modern computation), and +adds: + +"It might be much more enlarged, but your server shall stand no longer +at the dresser, lest the first dish be stale ere the last come to the +table. Yet, notwithstanding, I will here confess that had you supped +with Aulus Gellius, the Roman Emperor, you might say my bill came much +too short; yea! by 1800; for as Suetonius, in lib. 9, and Josephus, +lib. 5, alledge, he was served at one meal with 2,000; (if you please +to believe there are so many species of fish;) but he had indeed a +large country to make his provision in, the whole then known +world. . . . But for the other supper of 7,000 divers kinds of fowls, +I will not undertake to name them here, nor in Africa, and Asia, with +all the assistance that Gesnerus can afford me." + +This is a style without hurry, indeed, in a peaceable rambling world, +and one can imagine Westcote, with his pointed beard and his tall hat +of the fashion of James I., taking a little walk in the afternoon sun +after having spent the morning with his quill-pen and his calf-bound, +close-printed classics--Suetonius, and Gesnerus, and Diodorus Siculus. +His book is interspersed with little rhymes, couplets or longer verses, +in the style of the "Arabian Nights" stories, and which George Meredith +in the "Shaving of Shagpat" has used with such quaint effect; on every +subject and for every statement Westcote has an authority and an +aphorism, whether it is of "Day labourers in Tin-works, and Hirelings +in Husbandry," of fishermen or merchantmen, of trade or +agriculture--"for, as Horace speaketh," says he, + + "Who much do crave, of much have need; + But well is he whom God indeed, + Though with a sparing hand, doth feed." + +Or again, speaking of "the commodities this country yields": + + "England hath store of bridges, hills, and wool, + Of churches, wells, and women beautiful." + + +He is no mere antiquarian, however, and quotes Chaucer and Robert of +Gloucester as well as Theocritus and Horace; he is seriously perturbed +at the decline of agriculture in Devonshire; in spite of the fertility +of the soil, he says, it yields insufficience of bread, beer, and +victual, to feed itself, for which the country has to have recourse to +Wales or Ireland, so much so that in 1610 there was 60,000 pounds of +corn brought into one harbour alone. The reason for this is the +increase in trades, so that . . . "the meanest sort of people will now +rather place their children to some of these mechanical trades than to +husbandry"; in spite, also, of the almost sacred character of +husbandry, which was clearly recognized in "elder times," so that even +the rudest and most savage peoples respected ploughmen and tillers of +the soil in time of war. He then quotes some melancholy verses of +Virgil, and gives the whole chapter a twist of humour by ending up +with--"But not a word of this in any case, especially that I told you +so; and we will proceed to the next and speak of mines." + +I will also "proceed to the next," and speak of Bishop Jewel, a +fellow-countryman of Westcote's, and one about whom he speaks in the +highest praise: "a perfect rich gem and true jewel indeed . . . so that +if anywhere the observation of Chrysostom be true, that there lies a +great hidden treasure in names, surely it may rightly be said to be +here: grace in John, and eminent perfection in jewel." + +John Jewel was born at Berrynarbor, near Ilfracombe, in 1522; he went +to Merton College, Oxford, where he had for tutor John Parkhurst, under +whom he early acquired a bent towards Protestantism. After the +accession of Mary he allowed himself, in a moment of weakness, to sign +an adherence to the Romish faith, but his recantation weighed upon his +conscience, he fled to the Continent, and there publicly withdrew it. +In the reign of Elizabeth he returned to England, and was one of the +Protestant doctors chosen to dispute before her at Westminster with a +like number of Catholic divines. He became Bishop of Salisbury in +1560, and held that office till his death in 1571. His chief work was +an "Apology for the Anglican Church"; and his chief opponent was Thomas +Harding, who was born at Comb Martin, the next parish, and who, like +Jewel, went to the grammar-school at Barnstaple in his early boyhood, +so that they were near neighbours and dear enemies. "As I cannot well +take a hair from your lying beard, so I wish I could pluck malice from +your blasphemous heart," says Harding to Jewel, in that savage personal +invective that religious controversialists have permitted themselves in +all ages. Jewel does not seem ever to have answered in this unworthy +strain, and the singular purity of his life, the sincerity of his +opinions, and a certain lovable quality to which all his contemporaries +bear witness, gave even his political adversaries a personal attachment +to him. "I should love thee, Jewel, wert thou not a Zwinglian," cries +one. "In thy faith thou art a heretic, but sure in the life thou art +an angel"--surely the most splendid tribute that a man can have, when +we consider the bitterness and animosity bred by a difference of +religious belief. To all who loved him--and it seems to have been his +whole generation--his name gave the opportunity of affectionate puns, +quips, and little epigrams; to Queen Elizabeth he was "my Jewel," and +the epitaph Westcote makes upon him is that of St. Gregory upon St. +Basil: "His words were thunder, and his life lightning," and his memory +"a fragrant sweet-smelling odour, blown abroad . . . throughout the +whole kingdom." + +We may find a lingering trace at Barnstaple, also, before going farther +north, of another eager spirit and earnest reformer, Shelley, whose +gift of poetry we accept, and whose quick courage we profit by, in a +world of thought where we breathe a little freer because of his efforts +and ideals, while we still despise or half shamefacedly apologize for +the strivings and struggles of his life. He prevailed upon Syle, a +printer of Barnstaple, to publish his "Letter to Lord Ellenborough," +which was in effect a violent and heated attack upon this Judge for the +sentence he had passed on the publisher of Tom Paine's "Age of Reason," +which was considered by Lord Ellenborough and that generation as a +dangerous and revolutionary document, subversive of the political +morals of the world. Those were the days of the French Revolution, and +it seemed to many, as honest as Shelley, that the whole social fabric +was threatening to crumble before the rising flood of anarchy, +bloodshed, and disorder. Syle was prevailed upon to withdraw the +greater number of copies--it speaks much for his courage and +convictions that he ever published it--and Shelley found it advisable +to leave Devon. + +For Shelley had been living at Lynton during the early days of his +ill-fated first marriage with the Harriet; the cottage where they lived +can still be seen, though much altered and modernized since the unhappy +young man and woman tried to work out together a means of right living +and mutual happiness, and made so tragic a failure of it. + +It was to Lynton, too, that Wordsworth, his sister Dorothy, and +Coleridge, came on a visit, and were so ravished by the beauty of the +place that they were nearly decided to settle here, and might have +founded a school of Devon poets instead of Lake poets. It was at +Lynton, also, that "The Ancient Mariner" was planned, to pay for the +expenses of the holiday, and was begun by Wordsworth and Coleridge +together, though there is actually very little of Wordsworth's work in +it, and the spirit of it, the air of mystery and the sense of brooding +elemental forces with which its simplest lines are somehow invested, +belongs to Coleridge alone, and to that strange genius of his, which +only twice or thrice in his life--in "Christabel," "The Ancient +Mariner," and "Kubla Khan"--produced poetry of inimitable, strange +beauty and wonder. + +If Lynton is beautiful now, with its new houses and hotels, and that +air of snugness that prosperity gives to places and persons, the poetic +appeal of its loveliness to Wordsworth and Coleridge can be well +imagined when only the low-browed, thatched little cottages clung to +the steep cliff-paths and clustered round the small harbour, and from +the surrounding heights and hills one looked down upon nothing but +green valleys, and from the valleys one looked up to the bare cliffs +and crags. + +Southey also was drawn to this corner of England by the fame of its +beauty; on one occasion, when walking across Exmoor, he was driven to +take refuge at Porlock from the heavy rain, and visitors to the Ship +Inn are still shown the corner by the wide old fireplace where the +poet, presumably, dried his knees and wrote the ode which begins with +the following inadequate description: + + "Porlock, thy verdant vale, so fair to sight, + Thy lofty hills, with fern and furze so brown, + Thy waters that so musical roll down + Thy woody glens, the traveller with delight + Recalls to memory, and the channel grey + Circling it, surging in thy level bay." + + +Then, George Eliot and Lewes discovered this north-west coast, and came +to Ilfracombe, with which they were delighted; and the unconventional +lady, with her broad-brimmed straw hat tied under her chin (in the days +when people wore bonnets), was soon a familiar enough figure, to be +seen scrambling over the rocks of the bay which is haunted by the +spirit of Tracy, or looking for seaweed and anemones in the clear +rock-pools at low-tide. Ilfracombe then, in the middle of the last +century, kept much of its original character as a seaport of +importance, which in its day had sent representatives to a shipping +council in the fourteenth century, had contributed six ships towards +the Siege of Calais--at a time when Liverpool was only of sufficient +size to send one--and had had enough strategical value to be the scene +of a projected French invasion under Napoleon. Already Ilfracombe was +beginning to be, however, what it now is pre-eminently, a "holiday +resort." It was patronized by royalty, and, following royalty, by "the +aristocracy and military," who came to enjoy the "overwhelming charms" +Nature poured forth here "with a tremendous and prolific grandeur which +we shall not pretend to describe," as Mr. Cornish mellifluously +exclaims in his "Rise and Progress of the Towns in North Devon." In +the seventies the present German Emperor, then Prince William of +Prussia, was sent here with his tutors; and there is a story, preserved +with great pride, of a fight on the beach between him and a +bathing-machine boy, at whose father's property the Prince was throwing +stones. An account of this historic battle is preserved in a doggerel +ballad, printed and sold locally, and composed Heaven knows where, +which is called "Tapping the War-Lord's Claret: Why Kaiser Bill hates +England." + + "When Kaiser Will'um was a y'uth + He com'd t' Combe one day, + And at the big hotel out there + He stopped on holiday. . . ." + + +He went bathing in Rapparee Cove, and when his tutors were out of sight +began blazing at the numbers on the boxes, though warned by "young +Alfie Price" not to; and after a wordy altercation the Kaiser knocked +down Alfie, who got up and went for him "just like a Devon bull." + + "He knacked the Kaiser on the nose, + And tapped the ry'al blid. . . ." + + +The tutors came up and intervened, and Alf was given thirty shillings +to keep the matter quiet; but Kaiser Bill swore implacable hate of the +English, because of the affront, built his Dreadnoughts and drilled his +army to avenge the insult of Rapparee Cove upon the English nation. + +Local publications are always, I think, of some interest, even when +they are as rough and simple a doggerel as the above; and there are two +magazines, printed and published at Barnstaple in the early years of +the nineteenth century, and which may be seen in the Athenaeum Library +of the town. They are the _Lundy Review_ and _The Cave_, and they +contain stories, poetry, puns, epigrams, acrostics, all with the mild, +faint flavour of a curate's tea-party in a cathedral town, and yet +invested with a kind of charm by the old-fashioned type, the yellowing +paper, and a small, dim picture--like the images of ourselves and our +furniture which we see in those old, round, diminishing mirrors--of the +life of a century ago. There is poetry of the Lake School fashion, +exhortations to Bideford and Woody Bay, to Lynton or "The Beauties of +Devon"; there is more poetry of the Byronic fashion, fierce and satiric +invective (yet never, be it understood, transgressing the bounds of +decency or good manners!) against the lady of the poet's affection; +there are stories, in which love and virtue triumph over temptation and +evil-doing; there is, of course, at least one story of a blind girl, +and one of a consumptive; there is much harmless punning, and in the +acrostics which the ladies of 1820 so much loved are fantastically +woven the names of the handsome young women of Barnstaple whose only +other record is now upon a tombstone. + +There is a strong tone of "patriotism," if by that we mean a dignified +contempt for foreign manners and customs, foreign thought and foreign +speech. I call to mind one article, where the writer is +good-humouredly but supremely contemptuous of the French, because of +their manner of pronouncing classical names. What can you expect of a +nation, says he, for whom Titus Livy is no better than a +"tom-tit-liv-ing" in a hedge, and Marcus Aurelius, the Emperor +philosopher, becomes "Mark O'Rail," a mere beggerly, abusive Irishman? + +This insularity of ours, which appears in a comic aspect in this +article in _The Cave_, continued throughout the nineteenth century, and +withstood the shock of the Crimea and the Indian Mutiny without +apparently being in any way shaken; it is breaking now, indeed, under +the humiliations of the South African War, when we were made to feel +our isolation in Europe, and under the stress of this greatest war of +all, when at last we feel and say that we are proud to stand with the +nations of the Continent in a common cause. + +But, in the nineteenth century, not only was our insular prejudice +extreme, but there was a pride in our very prejudice, which made it +seem hopelessly fixed and stultified. There is a trail of it through +all but the greatest writings of that time, Tennyson was not without +it, Charles Kingsley, Froude. . . . To the novel it became actually a +stock-in-trade, and as such it was used by Henry Kingsley in his novel +of "Ravenshoe." He was a younger brother of Charles, and his life was +as restless and adventurous as a novel. He was, besides being an +author, an explorer to the Australian goldfields--from which he came +back rich in observation of men and manners, but without having made a +pecuniary fortune--the editor of a paper, the _Edinburgh Daily Review_, +and a correspondent in the Franco-Prussian War. He was a prolific and +too hasty writer, but his novel of "Ravenshoe," whose scene is +principally laid on the northern strip of Somerset coast, bordering the +Bristol Channel, and which was his own favourite among his works, is +considered by many critics to reach a high level, and to stand +comparison with the work of his more famous brother. In the _Academy_ +of 1901 the following tribute to the book appeared under the initials +C.K.B.: "I first read 'Ravenshoe' at that period when absolute romance +and absolute fact have to live together; and very turbulent partners +they make. The appeal of the book was instant and permanent. Even +now, after a dozen years I cannot read the story unmoved. . . . Each +point holds me of old, by sheer force of its human presentation, its +resourceful dialogue, its unwearied vitality." + +I first read "Ravenshoe" in this year of 1917, and to me the world +seems to have travelled so far since its publication in 1862, that its +aims, its ideals, and its point of view, are hardly credible. Through +it all runs that facile spirit of optimism which seems to me to have +distinguished much of the thought of the mid-Victorian era, that air of +"All is for the best in this best of all possible worlds," that insular +pride of which I have been speaking, but which to us now appears the +narrowest and worst form of parochialism, a certainty that English +beef, English beer, English morals, and English standards, were the +ultimate excellence towards which a world of misguided foreigners might +ultimately aspire, that self-satisfaction, different from pride, that +glorying in prejudice, and wilful blindness to all features of national +life which do not bear out the theory of an earthly paradise. "Tell me +one thing, Lord Saltire; you have travelled in many countries. Is +there any land, east or west, that can give us what this dear old +England does--settled order, in which each man knows his place and his +duties? It is so easy to be good in England." + +"Well, no. It is the first country in the world. A few bad harvests +would make a hell of it, though." + +This was written at a time, remember, when the invention of machinery, +the rapid growth of industrialism, and the increasing mobility of the +population of the world, had broken down the old order of things, had +created large fortunes and reduced thousands to destitution; when men +poured into cities and lived crowded and unhealthy in slums, when the +opening phase of the grim battle between employer and employed was +fought, when trade-unionism was wrested from an unwilling Government, +when housing regulations, health regulations, and poor-laws, were +incapable of dealing with the wars of misery, poverty, and sickness, +they were designed to meet, when little by little vested interests and +class prejudices were brought before the judgment of reason and found +wanting--it was in such a period of our national history that Harry +Kingsley could write of "settled order, in which each one knows his +place and his duties." + +This attitude of mind is characteristic of a whole school of +mid-Victorian novelists, and George Meredith--whose earliest novel, +"Richard Feverel," was published about this date--broke many a lance +against it, and scolded us and laughed at us, and upset our dignified +conception of ourselves, and sometimes, in his irritable affection for +his countrymen, took a bludgeon to us, and broke our heads. + +I find it also in another and much greater novel, to attack which in a +book dealing with this corner of Devon and Somerset is indeed a sort of +_lese-majeste_--for, to most people, who says "Exmoor" says "Lorna +Doone." + +Yet rereading the book in these present days--and even amid the scenes +whose beauty and whose character Blackmore has so firmly reproduced--I +find the parochialism, the self-satisfaction, and the prejudice, which +lumps the whole un-English world, with its revolutions, and ideals, and +racial problems, under one heading, as "dam-furriners." John Ridd is +English, therefore he despises what is not English; he is rather +stupid, therefore he despises intellect. "She was born next day with +more mind than body--the worst thing that can befall a man," he says of +his sister Eliza. He is a man, so, at the last stage of +self-satisfaction, he despises what is not man--woman. "Now I spoke +gently to Lorna, seeing how much she had been tried; and I praised her +for her courage, in not having run away, when she was so unable; and my +darling was pleased with this. . . . But you may take this as a +general rule, that a woman likes praise from the man she loves, and +cannot stop always to balance it." "But he led me aside in the course +of the evening, and told me all about it; saying that I knew, as well +as he did, that it was not women's business. . . . Herein I quite +agreed with him, because I always think that women, of whatever mind, +are best when least they meddle with things that appertain to men." As +the matter under discussion was a question of their all having their +throats cut by the Doones, and the farm being burnt over their heads, +it seems to us to have been, at least in some slight degree, the +women's business. + +The hero of "Ravenshoe," Charles, is of the same type, though not drawn +with the firmness of touch with which Blackmore depicts John Ridd, and +which makes him indeed a living personality to us, even if one to +quarrel with. + +Charles Ravenshoe is of the type which for many years we have striven +to present to the contemplation of the outside world as the perfect +Englishman. He is a bluff, hearty fellow, without serious vices, +without, also, serious virtues; he has, of course, a perfect +self-satisfaction, and a deep and unconscious selfishness, tempered by +an easy good-nature and a superficial benevolence, of wishing to get on +well with everybody, and to see everybody round him comfortable. He is +without ideals or spiritual aims, and has a contemptuous tolerance for +them, as in the case of his brother Cuthbert, who is deeply religious +and desirous of entering a monastery, and yet is held by the +temptations of the world, so that his mind is a continual striving and +renunciation. Charles's relationship with the lady of his choice may +be gauged by the following: "How is Adelaide?" asks his adopted sister. +"Adelaide is all that the fondest lover could desire," he answers. Did +the Englishmen of the nineteenth century really talk like that about +their dearest and most intimate affairs? + +And yet here is John Ridd, the accepted lover of Lorna, an honest, +clumsy, self-satisfied couple of yards of a man, for whom she has to be +properly grateful in a world of villains, and yet, for my part, I can +never look upon her marriage with him as other than a _mesalliance_. + +Of course, it must be understood, even by those who most violently +disagree with me, that these strictures are passed, not upon +Blackmore's novel, but upon the spirit of the age which made John Ridd +the hero of such a novel, the spirit which in the dress of "John Bull" +has insistently presented our less attractive qualities to the outside +world as the true Englishman, and which has been, by the outside world, +adopted and disliked; while such admirable traits as sincerity, +disinterestedness, and self-criticism, have been neglected by us and +ignored by them. + +For the novel itself it is difficult to have anything but praise. The +admirable sense of locality, and the art with which Blackmore has so +identified his persons of fiction with actual places till we no longer +disassociate them, but in the church of Oare, or the Doone Valley, or +Porlock, or Badgeworthy Water, think and speak of Lorna and John Kidd +as if they had had an actual existence; the firm and lively drawing of +the lesser characters, the charming pastoral scenes of the life on the +Ridds' farm, the really magnificent descriptions of the scenery of +Exmoor, and a particular gift of narrative, all place this novel of +Blackmore's on a high level in the literature of the nineteenth +century. His other novel, of which the scene is laid on this coast, is +"The Maid of Sker," less well known and of less artistic weight, but of +interest to anyone visiting the country between Barnstaple and Lynton, +and containing a particularly vivid account of old Barnstaple Fair. + +[Illustration: The Doone Valley] + +I have spoken of Henry Kingsley's novel "Ravenshoe," and it is +impossible to write of the literary associations of this district +without mention of his elder and more famous brother; for though +"Westward Ho!" deals with Bideford and its adjacent villages of +Appledore and Northam--it was at the latter village that Amyas Leigh +lived with his mother---and this book elects to deal only with the +country from Barnstaple northwards and westwards, yet Charles Kingsley +is the presiding local deity and guardian spirit, who has loved and +lived in and written in praise of the many beautiful spots, cliff and +cove, or valley and orchard, from the boundaries of Cornwall to +Somerset. + +The family of Kingsley, also, is intimately connected with many of the +families of these villages. The Rev. J. R. Chanter, Vicar of +Parracombe, married a Miss Kingsley. He himself is the author of a +short monograph on Lundy, a book which is now very scarce, but which +can be seen at the London Library, at the Bideford Public Library, and +at the Athenaeum at Barnstaple. The Kingsleys and the Chanters are +closely connected through two generations, and the strain of authorship +seems to persist in them, one member after another displaying an +exceptional talent. Miss Vallings, the young author of a quickly +celebrated novel, "Bindweed," is a granddaughter of Mr. Chanter, and a +grandniece of Kingsley's; and the bold and original writer "Lucas +Mallet" is Canon Kingsley's daughter, and a niece of Henry Kingsley. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +BARNSTAPLE + +Barnstaple is a pleasant English country town, with that air of +cleanliness and quiet prosperity, of excellent sanitation and odd +historic corners, side by side with big new modern buildings and +exquisite green gardens where the old gnarled apple-trees are afroth with +blossom in the spring, which is the peculiar flavour of an English +country town. The incongruity is the charm; you step from a modern +drapery store, with a respectable display of plate-glass, on to the clean +narrow pavement, and find yourself looking down a small dark passage +opposite, into a sunny paved court, where the houses are cream-washed, +and the roofs are atilt in odd delicious angles, and the casement windows +have still the old diamond panes of Elizabeth's day, and the sun lies +slanting across the pots of wallflower, and the small boys play marbles +as they played marbles there when the Armada sailed. Barnstaple is a +thriving little modern town, but it has many such charming scenes to the +visitor with an observant eye--a narrow cobbled street, with an irregular +sag of gabled houses either side, the cream and rose-coloured walls +mellow and sunny in the late afternoon, or a cluster of really beautiful +half-timbered houses of the sixteenth century, with carved oak doorposts +and beam-ends, such as those which are known as Church Row, and stand +back from the road, between Boutport Street, and the High Street, by St. +Peter's Church and St. Anne's Chapel. St. Peter's Church, which stands +between these two main streets in the very centre of the town, is of the +fourteenth century, and has a fine leaded spire, considered to be one of +the finest in Europe, which the nineteenth century was anxious to +abolish, and replace by a western tower of the more ordinary type. +Fortunately Sir Gilbert Scott was called in to restore the church, and +refused to have a hand in destroying the spire, so the old parish church +stands as it was built, but with its spire drawn curiously out of the +perpendicular by the action of the sun's rays on the lead. + +Within a few yards of St. Peter's stands the grammar-school, where Bishop +Jewel and his neighbour and enemy, Thomas Harding, went to school in the +early sixteenth century, and the poet Gay in the beginning of the +eighteenth. It was originally a chapel of St. Anne, and became a +grammar-school on the suppression of the chantries by Henry VIII. The +upper part of the building dates from 1450, but the crypt is much older, +and it is conjectured to be a Saxon foundation. The beauty of these +buildings--the church, the grammar-school, and the old houses--consists +so greatly in their surroundings, in the green of the grass and the +unfolding chestnut-trees against the old grey stone, the twinkle of +blossom by the angle of a house, and the soft sky of Devon above, that it +is difficult to reproduce; it is a beauty of atmosphere rather than of +outline, of sentiment and association. + +I like, too, this lack of the "picturesque cult" which one finds in these +English towns; the beautiful is allowed always to be the useful, and the +family washing hangs on a line outside many a Tudor house as easily as in +a London slum. In Boutport Street--that old street that runs more than +halfway round Barnstaple, "about the port"--stands the Golden Lion Hotel, +which was formerly the town house of the Earl of Bath, and was enriched +in the seventeenth century by most beautiful moulded plaster ceilings and +fireplaces, made by Italian craftsman who were brought over from Italy. +The front of the building has been altogether modernized, but much of the +beautiful decorated interior work remains, to enrich the rooms where the +many unseeing visitors take their meals. The Trevelyan Hotel, in the +High Street, which presents to the street a most unpretentious exterior, +and where, indeed, the principal rooms are the Victorian of Dickens, with +ugly curtains and carpets, wall-papers and furniture, Victorian pictures, +and Victorian bronzes on the coffee-room mantlepiece, has treasures +hidden away up its dark staircases and in its cheaper and more modest +bedrooms--defaced and disregarded, alas!--an Italian ceiling of fine +scroll-work cut in half by a partition boarding, and a fine mantlepiece, +with figures in relief, being built half over, and gas-jets thrust +through the moulding. They showed me a great open hearth, with decorated +mantle, which must have been that of the dining-room; at present the room +is used for lumber. Half of it has been pulled down to build a +staircase, and the low casement windows are blocked by a lean-to +coalshed, making the room so dark that I could barely see the plaster +modelling of the wall. + +This, I confess, is a vandalism, but I still consider it as the necessary +penalty we pay for not putting all the treasures of our past into +museums, labelling them neatly--and never looking at them. + +The Penrose Almshouses in Litchdon Street, a beautiful small quadrangle, +with a low colonnade surmounted by an ornamented lead gutter and steep +dormer windows in a red-tiled roof, are still kept to their old uses. +They stand the wear and tear of time as well as its mellowing, and, like +language, if they are here and there vulgarized by the usage of every +day, without it they would be a dead language. + +Queen Anne's Walk, overlooking the river, and close to the town station, +is a small colonnade of the Renaissance style, which is most familiar to +us in the architecture of Bath; it has an outlandish look, with its +classical lines seen against the background of the smooth river and green +Devonshire country, and has not the homely charm of Elizabethan or Stuart +building. + +It has, however, its peculiar beauty; it is suggestive of red-heeled +shoes and powder, and an artificial world of beaux and belles. It must +have been a pleasant enough place to walk in, until the railway came +between it and the river, and its earlier name of the Merchants' Walk (or +the Exchange) gives more of its character than its present name. + +One must beware, however, in the present popular quest for the "antique," +of overlooking the beauty of modern things; the market, for instance, +which is a vast rectangular building standing on the High Street, has a +strange and individual charm when you come into it out of the glare of +the white street. The windows are fitted with light green glass, which +gives a sort of ghostly twilight to its bare spaciousness, with heavy +masses of gloom among the pillars of the flanking colonnade. It has no +pretence to artistic ornament of any kind; it was built for a specific +purpose, which it answers admirably, and when it is crowded with stalls +on market-days, and noisy with buyers and sellers, it is a scene of +bustle and movement which would arouse the enthusiasm of a traveller if +he came upon it in some distant city of the East, though the difference +of language and costume is all there is between the two. But when it is +empty, with its bare walls and bare floor and high dark roof, sun and +shadow make from it a beauty which it is worth a moment's pause and +stepping aside to see. + +The Athenaeum, also, which stands in the open space at the head of the +Long Bridge, which is a noble structure of the thirteenth century, is a +modern building, endowed by the late Mr. Rock, and possessing one of the +best libraries in Devonshire. It is a plain, unpretentious building; on +the ground-floor a geological museum, very useful for a student--for it +contains a complete collection of Devonian rocks and fossils--and the +library upstairs. Sitting there on a summer afternoon, and seeing +through the open windows the smooth sunlit curve of the river below, and +the gentle slope of wooded hills beyond, the Athenaeum has a charm--that +charm of weather and daily custom--which architectural description fails +to convey for any building, whether it is the Parthenon or a farm-house. +Without it, places lack their intimate personality, as photographs lack +the personality of men and women. My memory of the Athenaeum Library is +of the familiar, slightly musty smell of books, of the faint creaking of +the librarian's boots, and the hum of bees and the whirr of a mowing +machine, of the smell of an early summer afternoon, the white glare of +the North Walk stretching beside the river, and the reflection of +anchored boats, very perfect on the still water. + +Barnstaple is a very ancient borough; it is spoken of in the Devonshire +Domesday as one of the four "burghs" of Devon, and as early as the reign +of Henry I, before the election of Mayors had become part of English +municipal life, it was entitled to elect a chief magistrate for its own +government. It was a fortified place under the Saxon Kings, and a large +grass-grown mound in the centre of the town (near the town station) marks +the site of Athelstan's castle. Athelstan is supposed to have come to +Barnstaple in the early tenth century, when he was engaged in driving the +British out of Devonshire, beyond the River Tamar, which marks the +boundary between Devon and Cornwall for the greater part; and this was +only done by him, Westcote affirms, after he had exhausted every means of +gentleness and clemency. The Taw, the Torridge, the Tamar, and the Tavy, +all comprise some form of the same syllable, "Taw"; and "Tamar" is a +corruption of "Taw-meer," which Westcote takes to mean the +river-boundary, "Taw" occurring in the names of the four principal rivers +"of these parts." + +There was a Saxon church at Barnstaple, probably on the site of the +present parish church of St. Peter's, and the tithes were given to the +Abbey of Malmesbury. The original ecclesiastic seal bore the seated +figure of King Athelstan. After the Conquest the barony of Barnstaple +(which comprised the church) was given to Judhael of Totnes; from him it +passed to the famous family of Tracy, from them to the Martins (whose +name remains in the little village of Martinshoe, near Lynton), and from +them, again, to the Audleys. + +It was a Lord Audley who distinguished himself so greatly in the Battle +of Poitiers, and, as his family were then in possession of Barnstaple, it +appears that the town changed hands frequently in the first three hundred +years after the Conquest. The story told of Lord Audley is that he had +made a vow that he would strike the first stroke in a battle for Edward +III or for his son, and that at Poitiers he fought with such desperate +courage in the forefront of the battle that he was carried off the field +severely wounded. After the battle the Black Prince inquired after him, +and was told that he lay wounded in a litter. "Go and know if he may be +brought hither, or else I will go and see him where he is," said the +Prince; so Audley had his litter taken up by eight of his servants, who +carried him to the Prince's tent. The Prince took him in his arms, and +kissed him, and praised him for the best and most valiant Knight of all +that had fought that day, nor, though the wounded Knight disclaimed it, +would he admit of any refusal, but gave him a yearly grant of 500 marks +out of his own inheritance. Lord Audley, being carried back to his own +tent, summoned his four esquires and divided the gift among them. The +Black Prince, presently hearing of this, had Sir James once more brought +before him, and asked if he did not consider the gift worthy of his +acceptance, or for what other reason he had so disposed of it. + +"Sire," said the Knight, "these four esquires have a long time well and +truly served me in many great dangers, and at this present especially, in +such wise that, if they had never done anything else, I was bound unto +them, and ere this time they had never anything of me in reward; and, +Sire, you know I was but one man alone, but by the courage, aid, and +comfort of them I took on me to accomplish my vow; and certainly I had +been dead in the battle had they not holpen me and endured the brunt of +the day. Wherefore, whenas nature and duty did oblige me to consider the +love they bear me, I should have showed myself too much ungrateful if I +had not rewarded them . . . but whereas I have done this without your +licence, I humbly crave pardon. . . ." + +The Black Prince once more embraced him, praised him for his generosity +as much as for his valour, and granted him a further 600 marks in place +of what he had given away. + +I have transcribed this episode because it seems to me a pretty tale of +chivalry, of valour and courtesy, of generosity and noble, if fantastic, +ideals. + +Under King Athelstan's rule Barnstaple was governed by two Bailiffs, "one +for the King to collect his duties, the other for the town to receive +their customs." Under Henry I it was granted a charter, which was +confirmed by John and enlarged by Elizabeth. + +The earliest industries of the town seem to have been pottery and +weaving; the pottery has always been of the cheaper, coarser kind, and +although some attempt was made at the close of the last century, when the +industry was revived, to bring it to a higher artistic level of colour +and glaze, it still, to my mind, continues mediocre, and has neither the +highly finished beauty of such work as the Ruskin pottery, nor the +genuinely simple lines or colouring of "peasant pottery," such as that +from Quimperle in Brittany. The Barum ware has a sort of bourgeois +mediocrity between these two different types, and there is room for a +bold innovator to reform the present models and methods. It is a pity, +perhaps, that he has not yet arisen, for a local industry of this kind +adds greatly to the vitality of a town. + +Of the weaving industry, what Westcote calls "lanificium," "the skill and +knowledge of making cloth, under which genus are contained the species of +spinning, knitting, weaving, tucking, pressing, dying, carding, combing +and such-like," we have records from the twelfth century; though until +the reign of Edward IV only friezes and plain coarse cloth were made. In +Edward's reign an Italian, "Anthony Bonvise," is reputed to have taught +Barnstaple the making of fine "kersies," and spinning with a distaff; +doubtless this was looked upon by the older generation of conservatives +as a deterioration to luxury and soft living; they would hark back to the +standards of a simpler age, when a King's breeches cost him no more than +three shillings, and "friezes" would be good enough for the noblest. For +Robert of Gloucester, in his Chronicle, tells us of King William Rufus: + + "As his chamberlain him brought, as he rose a day, + A morrow for to wear, a pair hose of say, + He asked what they costned; three shillings said the other. + 'Fie, a devil,' quoth the King, 'who say so vile deed? + King to wear any cloth, but it costned more: + Buy a pair of a mark, or thou shalt be acorye sore.' + A worse pair of ynou the other sith him brought, + And said they were for a mark, and unnethe so he bought. + 'Yea, bel ami,' quoth the King, 'they be well bought; + In this way serve me, or thou ne shalt serve me not.'" + + +It was King Stephen, I believe, + + "who was a luckless clown; + His breeches cost him half a crown;" + +but King Stephen had to contend with rebellion and civil war the whole of +his unhappy reign, so doubtless popular sentiment would assign him a +smaller share of the world's goods than King William Rufus. + +In Westcote's time, in the early seventeenth century, the wool that was +worked here in Devon was brought from all over England--Dorset, +Gloucester, Wales, London, and also Ireland; and clothmaking had become +so large an industry that agriculture had suffered considerably. "And +every rumour of war or contagious sickness . . . makes a multitude of the +poorer sort chargeable to their neighbours, who are bound to maintain +them . . . the meanest sort of people also will now rather place their +children to some of these mechanical trades than to husbandry, whereby +husbandry-labourers are more scarce, and hirelings more dear than in +former times." + +[Illustration: Woody Bay and Duty Point, West Lynton] + +This little passage in Westcote is, I think, of great interest, as +showing the difficulties which had already arisen in the time of James I, +with the extension of industry, which must always flourish at the expense +of agriculture, and which seems to tend, nevertheless, both to personal +and to national prosperity. + +It is a problem for which we have not yet found a solution, and at the +present time it comes before us with especial vividness and force. +Westcote gives a list of the various fabrics that are made in Devon; some +of them seem to be materials no longer in use, from the unfamiliarity of +the names. Exeter manufactured serges, both fine and coarse; Crediton +(the famous locality of the burning of Crediton Barns, in the Middle +Ages) made kersies; and Totnes a stuff called "narrow pin-whites," which +is, I believe, a coarse, loosely woven white material; Barnstaple and +Torrington were noted for "bays," single and double (perhaps of the same +texture as our modern baize), and for "frizados"; and Pilton, adjacent to +Barnstaple, was notorious rather than celebrated for the making of cotton +linings, so cheap and coarse a stuff that a popular "vae" or "woe" was +locally pronounced against them. "Woe unto you, Piltonians, that make +cloth without wool!" + +It was in the woollen trade that the family of De Wichehalse, afterwards +so intimately connected with Lynton, made the fortune that enabled them +to become one of the leading houses of Barnstaple, and to acquire the +beautiful estate near Lynton, which is now known as Lee Abbey. It may, +perhaps, be of interest to the "curious-minded" to give an inventory of +his shop, taken in 1607 at the death of Nicholas de Wichehalse, who had +married Lettice, the daughter of the Mayor of Barnstaple. + +The following are the chief items of the inventory, collected from +manuscript records by Mr. Chanter for the Devonshire Association: + + 182 yds. of coloured bays at . . . . . . 1s. 4d. a yd. + 49 " kersey at . . . . . . . . . . . 2s. 4d. " + broadcloth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8s. 0d. " + 147 yds. of coarse grey ffrize at . . . 11d. " + buffyns in remnants (whatever + they may be!) . . . . . . . . . . L1 9s. 4d. + Also lace, silk, black velvet, broad taffeta, leaven taffeta + . . . and 5 small boxes of marmalade. + + +Mr. Chanter conjectures that this last item is marmalade, and can read it +as nothing else, though he was not aware that it was a preserve of Queen +Elizabeth's time, nor why, even if it were, it should be in De +Wichehalse's shop. + +It was the prosperity of the De Wichehalses, the Salisburys, the +Deamonds, and other enterprising merchants, which beautified the town +with public buildings, almshouses, and their private residences--for the +enrichment of which, as I have already stated, Italian workmen were +brought over--and the seventeenth century was the time of the town's +greatest importance and prosperity, when Barnstaple traded with Virginia +and the West Indies, the Spaniards in South America and on the Continent. +The Customs receipts show a very great import of tobacco, and there was a +considerable manufacture of pipes, as a branch of local pottery. "The +Exchange," or "the Merchants' Walk," as Queen Anne's Walk was then +called, before it was rebuilt, must have witnessed the inception of many +a venture, been paced by many an anxious foot when the weather was bad +and the returning ship was long overdue, and seen many a bargain struck +by richly dressed merchants, with pointed beards lying over their ruffs, +gravely smoking their pipe of "Virginny" over the deal. + +That picturesqueness of dress and custom has passed away, but Barnstaple +is still a prosperous and pleasant city, lying on the sleek curve of the +River Taw, and surrounded by low smooth hills. Seen from the opposite +side of the river on a spring afternoon, from the steep road that leads +to Bishop's Tawton over Codden Hill, it has a fair aspect. The tall +modern Gothic tower of Holy Trinity stands out commandingly above the +clustered roofs by the river, and beyond the town, which is small enough, +seen from this height, to come within a single glance, lie the green and +fertile fields, and gentle, wooded hills. The road to Bishop's +Tawton--which was formerly an episcopal seat of the Bishops of Exeter--is +a typical Devonshire road, steep and stony, with high green banks and +hedges, which, on such an afternoon in spring, are starred with primroses +and clumps of dog-violets, celandines and wild-anemones, and wonderfully +green. It climbs from the London and South-Western Station, after +crossing the great thirteenth-century bridge from the Square, and within +a few minutes all signs of a town have dropped away, and we are in the +country of fields and farms. In less than a mile, indeed, we come upon +an old fortified farm; the massive whitewashed wall, three feet thick, +rises steeply from the hilly road. At one corner a giant yew has thrust +out part of the wall with its knotted roots, which are so huge that some +recent owner of the farm has cut a little summer house out of them, with +a thatched roof. The dwelling part of the farm faces this way, and, +being built on the hillside above the road, I catch only a glimpse of +steep gables and tall brick chimneys; but I looked in the open gateway of +the cobbled yard, and saw the great thatched barns, and the massive white +walls which surrounded them. The rear of the farm presented an almost +blank surface, save for one small door, which was open, a sudden black +oblong of shadow in the mellow whiteness. A cat sat cleaning itself in +the mild sunshine; otherwise there was no life nor movement. It looked +an enchanted place. + +Farther on I came to a fork of the road, where a little stream ran +swiftly past the thatched and whitewashed cottages, their tiny gardens +profusely bright with flowers--hyacinths, daffodils, forget-me-nots, and +the deep red of climbing japonica. In one of them an old woman in a pink +sunbonnet was leaning on a stick gossiping with a neighbour, while two or +three sunburned children with yellow hair were dabbling in a brook. It +was idyllically and typically English, that ideal England of artists +which is dreamed of and loved by the sons and daughters of the Colonies, +who, thinking of "home" which they have never seen, think of such a scene +of verdant and homely peace. + +Just beyond was a great barrow, a steep green mound perhaps twenty feet +high, with a little cottage beside it, and the small garden encroaching +on its green sides. I asked a child what she knew about it, wondering if +some local legend still lingered round the spot; but she told me "they +had dug a pond, beyond there, and this was the earth they had thrown up." +I did not explain to her the unlikeliness of such a heavy undertaking, +with a clear stream running by, but went on, wondering what British +chieftain or maraudering Dane lay buried under that great mound, awaiting +the last trump. + +Bishop's Tawton is said to have been the seat of the Saxon Bishops of +Devon, established here in the tenth century; a farm now occupies the +site of the old episcopal palace, but the church is Perpendicular, and +the only Saxon remains I could discover was the base of a stone Saxon +cross in the churchyard. On the opposite bank of the river is Tawstock +church, standing in the grounds of Sir Bourchier Wrey, and close to his +house. The church is built on rising ground, and set round by trees in +which rooks have built; clamorous and noisy, they fly round and round the +old grey tower morning and evening. When the October gales are tossing +the trees, and the rain-clouds are gathering on the hills their cawing +has a sound of ill-omen, which makes them seem the unresting and +malignant spirits of those fierce lords of the Dark Ages, evil-doers and +unrepentant. + +From Barnstaple to Lynton there are several methods of travel. Either +one may take train to Ilfracombe, and there take coach, following the +coast-road through Watermouth, Lydford, Combe Martin, Trentishoe, and the +Hunter's Inn, twenty miles of the most magnificent coast scenery in +England; or, if one has the courage to take pack on back, one may walk +it, past Watermouth Castle, and the tiny land-locked harbour beneath, +which was said by Kingsley to be the safest harbour on this coast, smooth +and sheltered always, however high the seas are running outside; past the +tiny village of Lydford, which bears the same name and reminds one of the +seventeenth-century poem of "Lydford Law," though the poem was written of +the town on the Lyd, near Tavistock. But here are a couple of verses: + + "Oft have I heard of Lydford law, + How in the morn they hang and draw, + And sit in judgment after. + At first I wondered at it much, + But since I find the matter such + As it deserves no laughter. + + "They have a castle on a hill; + I took it for some old wind-mill + The vanes blown off by weather. + To lie therein one night 'tis guessed + 'Twere better to be stoned or pressed + Or hanged, ere you come thither." + + +"Lydford law" and "Jedburgh justice" seem equally to have been synonyms +for arbitrary and summary punishment. + +But, leaving this digression, we proceed on our way, past Berrynarbor and +the old farm of Bowden, where Bishop Jewel was born, and the beautiful +church where he was baptized, with its great Perpendicular tower, built +of red and grey sandstone, rising above the wooded combe, and its old +lich-gate, set in the thickness of the churchyard wall, and almost hidden +by the luxuriant summer foliage; past Combe Martin, famous for its +ancient silver-mines rather than its beauty, yet with a very beautiful +church, with a Perpendicular tower even higher than that of Berrynarbor, +soaring above the sheltering elms, and throwing its long shadow across +the stream which curves round the church-yard among the old yew-bushes--a +church worth stepping aside to see, with a fine carved oak screen in the +interior, of the fifteenth century, the doors of the screen made in such +a way that they will not entirely close, in order to show plainly forth +to all sinners that the gates of heaven are always open; past Martinhoe +village, which was the scene of one of the most cruel and cold-blooded of +all the Doone murders, when they carried off the wife of Christopher +Badcock, a small tenant farmer, and, in rage at finding nothing in the +poor home but a little bacon and cheese, murdered her baby in a fit of +senseless brutality, reciting over it this couplet: + + "If any man asketh who killed thee, + Say 'twas the Doones of Bagworthy." + +And so we come to Heddon's Mouth, and of the seven miles from there to +Lynton I shall speak in the next chapter. + +[Illustration: The Shepherd's Cottage, Doone Valley] + +But the twenty miles of hilly road may prove too much even for good +walkers, and as the coach service between Ilfracombe and Lynton is +suspended at present, owing to the war, it is best to take the little +narrow-gauge railway that runs from Barnstaple to Lynton. There might be +many more unfavourable ways, too, of seeing this stretch of country. The +narrow line twists and winds across the hills, seeming to hang, +sometimes, on a tiny viaduct, while many feet below a mountain stream +pours down its rocky bed, and, owing to the narrowness of the gauge and +the steepness of the gradients, the train progresses hardly quicker than +a horse-drawn carriage, and one has leisure and opportunity to observe +all that one is passing. + +From Barnstaple to Chelfham the railway runs along the valley of the Yeo, +through the woodyards and past the whitewashed cottages of the town, and +then alongside of the river itself. This valley is most beautiful. I +came through it on a hot afternoon in spring. Just beside me ran the +clear brown water, breaking into swirls and eddies over the white stones; +on my right hand the hills rose, steeply wooded, with the lovely and +various colours of many trees, the rich brown of the yet unopened +beech-buds, the black buds of the ash, the twisted grey of alders, the +green of hawthorn, and yet more vivid green of early larches, the +delicate silver of palm, the bare branches of oak; on my left hand lay +the rich green pasture of the valley, and beyond the bare hills, brown in +the afternoon sunshine. Ten minutes away from Barnstaple Station, and I +saw a hawk hovering above the hillside, so quickly do the signs of +habitation drop away among these hills and valleys. + +We leave the valley of the Yeo, and climb the steep gradients to Bratton +Fleming and Blackmoor Gate, across the wind-swept open moors, bare and +brown in the afternoon sunshine. Fold behind fold lies the countryside +in great brown curves, here a cluster of trees in a sheltered valley, +there a lonely farm; sometimes a group of whitewashed buildings under +thatched roofs, more often a bleak granite building, built to withstand +the buffeting of winter storms, grey amid its setting of bare grey +ash-trees or twisted grey alders, with the brown hills behind and the +brilliant blue of the sky overhead. The air here is keen and brilliant; +there is an edge to all outlines, and a keenness to all colours, which +the softer and more humid air of sheltered country does not give. The +yellow of the primroses which cluster thickly in hollow and on bank has a +brilliance and delicacy which I have never seen in valley primroses, and +I cannot describe the exquisite clear rose of apple-blossom, above the +gnarled and twisted grey trunk, seen against this background of sombre +brown and dun, and the penetrating blue of moorland sky. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +LYNTON + +And so, round a spur of the hills, and high above the wooded gorges of +the West Lyn, we come to Lynton. + +It lies upon the north-western slope of a hill, deep among trees; the +few houses and hotels--which is all that it consists of--seem to have +their roots stuck deep into the ground, while their tall chimneys soar +above the tree-tops. If you are freakish-minded, indeed, you may pitch +cherry-stones down your neighbour's chimneys, for the houses stand one +atop of each other, clustering along the North Walk, which is cut round +the side of the cliff; some built high above the road, with steep green +banks of laurel and glossy dark myrtle; some built below it, so that as +you walk the chimney-pots and tall pointed gables lie within touching +distance of your hand. It is curiously unfamiliar to see houses from +such an angle, a perspective of the roofs, with the windows and doors +become unimportant; it is an aeroplane view of the world, or perhaps, +more properly, a bird's view, for you may pause and poise to look down +on Lynton and Lynmouth as no aeroplane at present can. + +[Illustration: Lynmouth Bay and Foreland] + +The stony white road from the station and from Lynmouth struggles up +the hill to a small open space--what in any Italian hill-town would be +called a piazza, though it is only a few score feet in extent--opposite +the church and the Valley of Rocks Hotel. This, I believe, is the only +level spot in the village, save a club tennis-ground, which has been +levelled out of the hillside, for the few shops or houses run +precipitately down the little side-streets, or up towards the top of +Hollerday Hill. It is also the original site of the old village of +Lynton, when it had no fame as a holiday resort, and barely a history, +being left alone on its lofty cliff, as of no special value to anyone; +for, although the present parish church is partly Perpendicular and +partly of a later date, while the chancel is modern, it stands upon the +foundations of a small earlier church, which, surrounded by a few poor +cottages, with walls of cob and roof of thatch, a rough ladder leading +to a sort of loft, which was the sleeping apartment of all the family, +and a little patch of herb garden in front of each, comprised the +village of Lynton when we find it first, in the thirteenth century, +mentioned as a parish in the "valor" of Pope Nicholas. + +Below it, then as now, lay the small fishing village of Lynmouth--or +Leymouth, as it was formerly called--a similar group of rude small +cottages, clustered in isolation, with the sea before and the great +moors behind, the people subsisting chiefly on coarse bread, salted +meat, and fish--often stale fish, for fish was the one thing of value +that Lynmouth yielded, and that would go to some representative of Ford +Abbey, under whose rule Lynton and Lynmouth came. Yet it should surely +have been easy, with a little help and instruction, to have grown many +varieties of vegetable food, for flowers grow in abundance, and +evergreens grow to a great size and beauty, while the variety of trees +is remarkable--larch, chestnut, sycamore, oak, ash and birch, elm and +beech, showing the fertility of the soil and the temperateness of the +climate, in spite of the seaward position of the village. + +But it is not the history of Lynton, nor its old associations, which +calls us to it, but its beauty entirely. Stand upon one of the +terraces of Lynton on a still summer evening, looking east to +Countisbury Foreland, and see the water of the bay still and gleaming +in the evening light, the great headlands ruddy and golden above it. +The steep sides of the gorge of the East Lyn are warm and sunlit, they +glow richly with purple and russet; over the rocks of the valley a +faint flicker of grey mist begins to hang above the stream. From the +trees around and below comes a great cawing of rooks, drowning the rush +of the water below; they settle into their nests in the great green +elms, then suddenly there is a caw, a scurry, a rush, and they fly up +as if shot out of the tree-tops. There is a flapping of wings, and +much angry sound; they circle once or twice, and then sink back to +their homes again. It is a beautiful sight to watch a rook volplaning +down to a tree as you can watch them from the terraces at Lynton; +moving on a level with your eye, you can see the detail of each +movement of their wings, see them let themselves drop through the air, +yet with muscles taut and legs and claws stretched ready for a foothold +on the particular slender branch which is home. + +As you watch, amused and interested, as this protracted nightly +programme is enacted--and never yet, throughout England, have any rooks +gone to bed quietly--the colour fades from the headland and the sea, +the mist has gained on the valley, drawing its grey wisps and streamers +higher and higher up the sides of the gorge; the tide has gone out, +very smooth and still, leaving a broad flat stretch of wet shore in the +little bay, which shines with the last of the daylight like a clear +mirror; the lights of the houses in Lynmouth begin to show through the +trees, pale yellow in the twilight, patches of soft colour, rather than +light; and the rushing of the river sounds very loud because of the +silence of the birds. Inland the hills lie, fold behind fold, in +gentle, misty curves; it is that exquisite hour which only northern +summers give, when the slowly-fading twilight and the slowly +brightening moon hold earth and sky in a faint pellucid light. + +Or take a walk, on a bright May morning, from Lynton to Heddon's Mouth, +along the cliffs, and see open before you, step by step, seven miles of +the loveliest coast scenery, perhaps, in England. + +First there is a wooded strip of road, called the North Walk, which +runs round the side of Hollerday Hill. The shadows are dewy in the +early morning, and birds are singing from the green mass of the trees +on either hand; there is a faint smell of wood-fires from the houses +below, acrid and very pleasant; the chestnut leaves are just opening, +and the sycamores have still the early flush of red on their tiny +leaves; it is very cool and fresh under the trees. Then the wood stops +abruptly, and the road runs out on the bare hillside and winds round +the great headland to the Valley of Rocks. Behind, the wall of cliff +rises steeply, great boulders and outcrop of rock, fantastic in the +sunlight; below it falls sheer to the sea, where the misty blue turns +green at the base of the cliff. Looking down the sheer slope, which is +dull brown with last year's heather, and grey with the wiry grey grass +that grows on moors and mountains, I could see the grey backs of the +gulls, flying far below me. It was a very still morning, but I saw a +fishing-smack, which had been lying motionless, catch a sudden rise of +wind and come about, leaving a white circle of foam in her wake. From +the height where I walked she looked infinitely little, like a ship in +a fairy-tale, no bigger than a walnut shell; I could see the clear +small reflection of her tiny hull in the smooth water, her sails +rosy-tinted in the morning sunlight, very beautiful and magical. There +was no fleck of cloud in all the wide blue of the sky, but the horizon +was hidden by a faint haze, sunlit but impenetrable, and from somewhere +in the mist came the reiterated wails of a siren, from some ship +groping its way up the Bristol Channel. + +I rounded a corner from shadow into sun, and below me lay a tiny creek, +a churn of foam round its rocks, the blue water running green and sandy +in the shallows, and a flock of wheeling gulls to possess it; before me +rose the great crag of the Castle Rock, each plane and angle of its +twisted slate pile cut sharply in light and shadow, and against this +sullen grey background a newly flowered gorse bush blazed in the +sunlight. + +[Illustration: The Valley of Rocks] + +The Castle Rock stands at the mouth of the Valley of Rocks, about which +so much has been written, which has been compared to an amphitheatre of +giants, or the scene of some titanic conflict, where the huge granite +crags and boulders have been torn up and tossed about by supernatural +and terrific forces. In honesty I must admit that this seems to me an +exaggeration. Any walker who goes with this in his mind must, I think, +be disappointed; the place is wild enough, and barren enough, a bleak, +bare, waterless brown dip in the high lands, without tree or stream to +soften it, except in a stone fold, a winter shelter for sheep, where a +few twisted and stunted alders exist stubbornly; but the outcrops of +rock from the brown grass are not specially remarkable to anyone +familiar with cliff scenery, and there are many gorges within twenty +miles of Lynton which are, to my mind, wilder and grander. There are +hut-circles of the neolithic age in the valley, though many of them +have been destroyed by the people who live round, to build the walls of +their own cottages; but the often-repeated fantasy of this valley as +the haunt of Druid rites seems to me, not only unsupported by evidence, +but without justification, in the formation of the valley or the +wildness of the rocks. + +Brown under the sunlight, shadeless and glaring, when a blustering +north-easter is blowing down it, the Valley of Rocks is a bitter and +inhospitable spot; I have been glad to go into the sheep-fold and +crouch under the lee of the stone wall for a moment's respite from the +wind and the stinging particles of sharp dust that it flung in my face +as I battled up the road. Once, in such a wind, I climbed the Castle +Rock, and squeezed myself between two great boulders looking seaward +over the choppy water--it was a land wind, which does not send the +waves rolling in great breakers, very splendid to see, but worries it +and dirties it, leaving broken cross waves of muddy grey water--and I +startled a pair of ravens who had built a nest on a sharp ledge of +rock, just beyond where I sat, and had not heard me coming, because of +the noise of the wind. They startled me also, as one of them flapped +out, close to my face, and flew screaming away, as I pulled myself up +into shelter, but the other stood on its jut of rock, almost within +arm's length, and looked at me. I saw its ugly long head as it turned, +its great beak and its neck of a bird of prey, and then it flew off; +and though I sat very still for a long time, hoping they might return, +they only flew round me and past me, showing me the great black sweep +of their wings as they went. But as I sat there, on that wild crag and +that wild morning, I noticed a tuft of dog-violets, growing out of a +fissure in the grey rock, and shaken and pounded by the bitter wind. +How wonderful is the tenacity of nature. A few grains of dust blown +into a crack of barren rock, a few seeds wind-carried also, and then +germination in the rain and sun, and when the spring comes, this little +clump of flowers in its due season, part of the intricate and mighty +forces of renewal throughout the fertile world. + +When I was walking from Lynton to Heddon's Mouth, however, I crossed +the mouth of the Valley of Rocks, just behind the Castle Crag, and kept +the road to Lee Bay. Here it runs a few hundred yards inland, through +the grounds of Lee Abbey, a green and fertile fold of ground between a +sea-headland, and gently wooded ground that rises inland. The abbey, +which is beautifully situated, with a hump of cliff sheltering it +seaward, and a great smooth slope of green sward running down to a tiny +bay, and set among a fine group of sheltering pine-cedars, was built +about 1850, and somewhat too much "after the Gothic style." Parts of +the house are of pleasant red brick, overgrown with glossy ivy, but a +portion of the building--dining-room or library, I do not know +which--is like an east window of the Perpendicular period, fitted with +sun-blinds! There was never an Abbey here, either, and the name is as +new as the Gothic, but there is history here, and tradition as well, +for the house stands on the site of the old Grange Farm of Lee, which +was a large, rambling, plain building, with gabled ends and thick +walls, thatched roof and tall chimneys, to which Hugh de Wichehalse +sent his family when the plague ravaged Barnstaple in 1627. + +After that the de Wichehalses were for nearly a century the chief +family of Lynton, and the last of them, Mary, to whom her father left +this estate, is said to have returned here, after the ruin of her +family and her betrayal by a faithless lover, and to have lived here +with a faithful servant until she was drowned off Duty Point, either by +an accident, or, as tradition asserts, by throwing herself down from +the cliff, which is the southern point of the little bay. Her body was +never found, and the mixture of fact and legend which has gathered +round her forms the basis of the tragic tale of Jennifred de Wichehalse +which is given by the Reverend Mundy. + +After leaving the grounds of Lee Abbey the road climbs steeply up the +opposite headland. Up this hot and stony road I went, leaving Lee Bay +below me, the tiniest of bays, a little blue rockgirt pool, guarded +with great shags of rock, into which runs a rivulet, down the greenest +and shadiest of gorges, where the trees meet overhead, and the clear +water runs between narrow banks of primroses, and the bright grass and +flowers follow the stream right down to the wave-smoothed stones of the +beach. + +The sun beat on me as I climbed the hill, and the dust rose as I walked +from the loose, stony road. I came gladly into the shelter of trees, +ash and oak chiefly, not yet out in leaf on this exposed slope, though +the celandines and wild anemone were in flower, and the ground and the +banks were green with new growth, ground-ivy and columbine, with its +heart-shaped glossy leaves, wild parsley, and the beautiful serrated +little leaves of the wild strawberry. On the left-hand side of the +road, on the higher slopes, the trees had all been cut (one of the sad +exigencies, I fear, of war), and they were burning the ground as I came +past; the smell of burning wood followed me, and the thin wreaths of +blue smoke, curling up the hillside, looked faint but ominous in the +morning sunshine like a warning beacon, indeed, of the approach of some +raider. + +As I paused for breath, and stood looking down at the exquisite blue +glimmer of the sea through the grey stems of the ash and the delicate +thin tassels of the larches, a drama of hunting passed before me. +There was a thin squeak of terror and a scurry of wings, and some +swallows fled past with a hawk in pursuit. He was almost upon the +hindermost, when he crossed the path of a rook, who rose at him, cawing +angrily, and was immediately joined by two or three others, who rose +from the trees. The hawk turned with incredible swiftness; I saw the +great white bars of his underwings as he "banked" steeply, and went +off. The swallows had escaped and the rooks sank back into the green +tree-tops. All this happened within a yard or two of me; I saw it in +detail, terror in the movements of the swallows, and the eager stretch +of the hawk's head and the gleam of his eyes. + +This is to me one of the charms of walking along these lonely high +cliffs: you must go quietly, and if not alone, then with a companion +who will stop often and stand quietly, and you will see birds from +beautiful and unfamiliar angles; below you, showing the broad stretch +of their wings and the markings of their backs, or on the level of your +eye, so that you can see the distinctive shape of their head and beak, +their flight and their movements. To see two buzzard hawks above a +blue sea, circling below you, and then rising higher and higher in a +great sweeping spiral, their wings taut till they have the upward curve +of a bow, and motionless as they ascend, save for an occasional broad +beat as they come, perhaps, to what airmen call a "pocket" in the air, +and so up until they are two specks against the dazzling brightness of +the sky, and you can no longer look at them--this is to me pleasure and +occupation enough for a long summer's morning. Or to watch the gulls, +hanging motionless head on to a brisk wind, or swooping and diving for +fish, black and white and grey changing swiftly across them as they +turn different angles of back and breast and wing to the sun; or to sit +on a high moorland as the evening falls, and hear the melancholy call +of the plover across the brown heather, and watch their strange, broken +flight as they fly low, and waver, and seem to fall as if you had +winged them--sitting there quietly with your hands before you and +intending no harm to any bird on God's earth--and then with a sudden +turn, which shows you all the white underpart of their wings, rising +again and flying strongly, their broad black wings dark against the +evening sky. All this may be had by anyone who will walk solitarily +and with seeing eyes. + +How beautiful are birds in flight!--the dart of a kingfisher, the sweep +of a hawk, the dip and turn of a swallow, the tremulous beat of a +rising lark, even the scurry of a park sparrow for the little bit of +bread you throw him, all different and all beautiful; and what tiny, +ineffectual, maimed creatures they are when they are dead, and their +wings folded! What pitiful little structures of flesh and bones and +tiny heart and brain to be so bright and swift in the wide air! + +The road rounds a headland and dips again to Woody Bay. The sweep of +the cliffs here is bold and beautiful, the bay is quite a wide sweeping +curve for this land of creek and gorge, and the slopes of the cliffs +are heavily wooded (which has probably led to the present corruption of +the name from the earlier form of Wooda Bay); but there has been an +outbreak of new houses and a new sanded road, which alarmed me, being +in the mind for birds and solitude, and I kept the high white road +which goes round the summit of the cliffs. Woody Bay is beginning to +be popular in the summer months among those less conventional folk who +like to live off the beaten track during their holidays, and are not +frightened by long distances or difficulties of access, but it is still +quite a tiny place and has not yet suffered that exploitation of the +picturesque which has overtaken Ilfracombe and Torquay, and many +beautiful spots in Devon. Seen from the high road that runs round the +cup of the hills its sprinkle of new little pink houses below look like +toys, and their dainty chalet-villa architecture fits the illusion; so +also does its smoothed green terrace of fields, which seem no bigger +than the nursery tablecloth, with Noah's ark animals, cows and horses, +feeding on them. + +The road crosses the stream which runs into the bay, and I rested here, +sitting on the parapet of the bridge, before I took to the unshaded, +stony white upper road. There was a pleasant sound of falling water, +and the stream ran below me, between banks that were very green with +moss and beautifully shaded by sycamores. + +From Woody Bay the scene grows wilder and grander. Seaward tower the +rocky cliffs, falling sheer to their base, jagged slate rocks which are +the home of gulls and ravens, with precipitous slopes of short and +slippery grass, where the mountain sheep feed; inland the brown moor +stretches, bare and open to the sky, with a cluster of little cottages +and a grey church hidden and sheltered in a dip of the ground. + +From Woody Bay the road strikes inland to Martinhoe, which takes its +name from the same overlords of the district whose appellation is found +in Combe Martin (which in Domesday is written simply as Comba or Combe) +and across the moors to Parracombe, which has been the home of the +yeoman family of Blackmore since 1683. The little grey twelfth-century +tower which William de Tracy is said to have built, as he built many +churches in expiation of the murder of Thomas a Becket, stands just +above the railway line from Lynton to Barnstaple, but the church used +by the small population of the village--and this and Trentishoe only +number together three hundred souls--stands lower down the combe. As +one passes these villages, isolated on the wide moors and guarded each +by its lonely small church, rising squarely and almost without ornament +against the background of the hills, one thinks often of those +beautiful lines of Kipling's in the poem he calls "Sussex": + + "Here through the strong unhampered days + The twinkling silence thrills; + Or little, lost, Down churches praise + The Lord who made the hills." + + +I crossed a wild and desolate gorge, barren, rocky and windswept; the +tinkle of clear water ran down over the grey boulders out of sight and +dropped down the face of the cliff into the sea; brown and grey lay the +hillsides and rocks under the glaring noonday sun; there was no living +soul in sight, no movement, save far below the flight of a pair of +ravens or the white flick of a gull's wings out to sea. Gorge beyond +gorge lay the land, still and colourless in the circle of a sea and sky +widely and splendidly blue. I felt that I walked on a younger earth, +just emerged from its fierce chaos of whirling molten matter, and as +yet unsoftened by luxuriant vegetable growth, an earth of stark rocks +and hot mud, teeming with potential life, of dry thin air and blazing +sunshine, very harsh and desolate and beautiful. + +[Illustration: Heddon's Mouth, near Lynton] + +Then a great cleft runs inland, fenced by a bold headland on either +hand, and I have rounded Highveer Point and am looking down Heddon's +Mouth. Heddon is the corruption of the Celtic word "etin," which means +a giant, and the Celtic spirit which so named this wild valley had +indeed a sense of the poetry and grandeur of places. Sheer either side +rise the slate hills, bare, waterless, and treeless. The southern hill +is one steep slope of scree; the northern hill, Highveer Point, on +which I stand, is covered with dead gorse and heather, which they have +been burning in the spring, and the sharp smell lingers still. A +thousand feet below runs the river, shut narrowly between these great +cliffs, with hardly foothold for a sparse sprinkle of trees between +these dark walls, and for the ribbon of white road that runs from the +sea to Hunter's Inn, a mile inland. There two streams meet, and the +place is as green as a little paradise, and bright with running waters, +but it lies round the bend of the hill on which I stand, and what I see +before me is this shadowless great gorge, without tree or shrub or +flower, the magnificent shoulders of cliff lifted against the hot and +cloudless sky; inland the heat shimmering on the rounded surface of +hill behind hill, and out to sea a little froth of white where the blue +water breaks into foam on the point of some just submerged jag of rock. +A vast silence holds the place, save for the deep undertone of the +rushing water far below, so deep and so distant that it is rather like +a dull vibration in my brain than a sound in my ears. The heavy +buzzing of a fly and the rattle of the wind in the brim of my straw hat +do not break this impression of great silence; they seem to lie on it +rather, like feathers on the surface of a deep pool. The shadow of a +hawk goes slowly past me on the dusty white road and across the bare +hillside, on an outcrop of rock, bleak and grey in this brilliant +light, a butterfly, a red admiral, stands motionless, his wonderful +wings of crimson and iridescent blue stretched wide, and shining in the +sunlight with incredible colour. + +There are scenes of a different beauty at Lynton from that of these few +miles of cliff--and to me lacking something of the spaciousness and +splendour of Heddon's Mouth--but beautiful none the less. Go into +Lynmouth, down the steep and stony road--a true Devonshire road, still +the same as Celia Fiennes described them in her tour through England in +1695: "Ye lanes are full of stones and dirt for ye most part, because +they are so close ye sun and wind cannot come at them"--among the +steep, tree-embowered, whitewashed houses, which with the sun blazing +on their flat white walls suggest rather a little village of the +Pyrenees or Northern Italy than Devonshire cottages, that and the +luxuriance of the trees through which the East Lyn and the West Lyn +foam down to the little beach, and the prodigal flowering of bushes and +shrubs. Follow the East Lyn up to Watersmeet, which is about two miles +from Lynmouth through one of the most beautiful wooded gorges in +England. Past the hotels you go, and a little straggle of small modern +houses, past the untidy little patch which would be the suburb of a +larger community, with upturned boats and washing drying in the sun, +and within five minutes a turn of the road hides Lynmouth and the sea +from your backward look, and you stand in the heart of a valley and +beyond signs of habitation. The southern slope is beautifully wooded, +showing every range and variety of green, from the light vivid green of +larches to the dull brownish tone of the oaks. The northern slope +rises brown and rocky, the edges clear-cut against the brilliant sky; +there is a great sound of birds, and always the noise of water running +over stones. + +As you ascend the river the gorge becomes narrow and more thickly +wooded; the path winding along it is hot and close and still; the water +is clear brown in its depths, and green in the shallows and where it +slides over a mossy stone; it bubbles into foam in its tiny waterfalls +and cataracts and miniature whirlpools; it is deliciously sweet and +cool. The green moss grows to the very edge of its white stones, and +ferns and hart's-tongues and lilies-of-the-valley clothe the sides of +the hill; there are celandines and primroses and wild strawberry in +flower, and the lovely white cup of the ivy-leafed bell-flower. +Nowhere, perhaps, save in the west of England (I do not speak only of +Devon, for I know of little valleys in Cornwall which are as fertile as +the Garden of Eden, held in the rocky jaws of some bleak cliff), but in +what we call "the West," is there such peculiar beauty of contrast, +bold outlines of cliff and cove, great stretches of moor lying open to +the sky, and wooded combe and valley or small green sheltered hollow of +such blossoming fertility. + +The Watersmeet, the point where the Hoaroak Water joins the East Lyn, +breaking down over a thunderous small white waterfall, and a beautiful +spot enough, is vulgarized by notices embodying the commercial rivalry +of two different tea-houses. By one you are invited to walk on the +right bank of the river, as being the only public footpath (given in +the official guide of the Lynton Urban District Council); by the other +you are invited to a "unique view" of the Watersmeet, and assured you +will be solicited for patronage in no way. + +On the loneliest, loveliest day in early summer this smacks of tourist +parties, and I made haste to leave the river path and the sheltering +trees and climb the road to Brendon, a road as steep and hot, as stony +and glaring, as I have ever climbed. Up and up I went for half an +hour, seeing nothing but the banks and hedges on either hand; every +turn in the road I thought was the last span that would bring me out on +the hill-tops, and every turn of the road showed me another. But at +last I stood above Brendon, and before me spread the moors, brown and +purple in the sunlight, and the little old grey church of Brendon just +below me, in a slight dip of the high ground. + +[Illustration: Castle Rock, Lynton] + +The woods of the Lyn Valley climbed to my feet, and I sat down in the +shade of the outermost fringe of trees to eat my lunch, and dream and +muse, and doze away the first hot hours of the afternoon. I sat +looking down over the valley; below me and to right and left the green +spikes of the larches were aflutter in the wind; before me rose a great +bare shoulder of hill, outlined sharply against the blue. Overhead the +sun was blazing, but in the wood the sunlight hung mistily among the +trunks and branches of oak and birch; it looked as if the wood were +filled with tremulous sunlit water, rather than with air and sun. The +air from off the moors was keen and very sweet. I lay on the dry, +clean turf and moss, looking up at the cloudless sky; a solitary +swallow hawking far up seemed no bigger than a fly, and a brilliant +green fly on a leaf above me, buzzing turbulently, seemed portentously +big and important. I lost my sense of space and time and of the world +in relation to men, set, as it were, as the background to men, and I +slipped into a world which belongs to the birds and the mice and the +moles, and the fish in the clear stream below; I watched the +chaffinches and thrushes, and a little grey ash-tree near me which was +full of linnets, delicious, sleek, grey, sweet-piping, busy little +birds, sliding and skimming in and out of the tree, a little home of +song and love-making, of intimate and familiar life. I heard a cuckoo +calling from the thick woods of the valley below, like the note of a +bell, very far away. I noticed the unopened buds of the ash shining +like silver against the flawless blue sky; it seemed to me I had lain +there a hundred years looking at them, and hearing the thin song of the +linnets, in a world entranced from movement or the passing of time. +And then I fell asleep. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +LYNTON (_continued_), COUNTISBURY, AND NORTHWARD + +The word "Lynton," Mr. Chanter tells us in his interesting monograph on +the village, means the town on the lyn, and "lyn" is the Celtic word, not +for river, but for pool, and occurs in this meaning all over England, in +Northumberland, Yorkshire, Kent, Herefordshire. It is strange, perhaps, +that this rushing mountain stream should have been named from its very +rarely occurring pools, but the authority is indubitable. + +The Celtic folk who named it, the "early Britons," as our childish +history books used to call them, were not, of course, the first +inhabitants of this wild and wooded spot; there are neolithic +remains--hut circles and burial-places--fairly thickly scattered along +this coast, and a certain number of flint implements have been found. +The hut circles in the Valley of Rocks, of which traces still remain, +though many of them have been destroyed quite recently, within the last +two hundred years or so, belong to this period, and it is probable that +the earth-camps of Lynton and Countisbury, of Parracombe, Martinhoe, and +Ilfracombe, were built by the immense labour of this vanished people. +Remains of the early Bronze period show that there was a moderate +population in this district before the Roman Conquest. Of Roman remains +there are none, save a few coins of doubtful authenticity found at +Countisbury, which are supposed to have been scattered and buried by a +resident clergyman at the close of the last century, with the avowed +intention of "fogging" later antiquarians--surely the strangest +"fourberie" ever indulged in by a reverend gentleman. All other evidence +points to the fact that the Romans never occupied North Devon, though +they may have held in temporary garrison one or other of the existing +camps of the district. + +These camps open up most interesting avenues of speculation; many of them +were undoubtedly built as defences, some few--such as the small earthwork +on the din's edge at Martinhoe--as beacons or signalling stations, and +some are conjectured to have been built for burial purposes, not the mere +barrows for single internment, but in connection with sepulchral +ceremonies and rites of the worship of the dead. Such, perhaps, is the +small camp at Parracombe, which is built with a strong double fosse, but +the inner fosse deeper than the outer, which does not seem to have been +the case with camps built only for defence. There are two other camps at +Parracombe, one on the common and one on a high hill; near Lynton there +are two simple earth enclosures, called popularly Roborough Castle and +Stock Castle, and seven miles south of Lynton there is a square enclosure +called High Bray Castle, which commands a view of the fortified camps of +the district from Barnstaple to Braunton and Martinhoe. Tradition has it +that Alfred held this camp against the Danes, not that he built it, for +even in his day its foundation had become legendary and was ascribed to +"men of old time." + +The Saxons do not seem to have built earth-camps, but stone +fortifications on hills, like Athelstan's castle at Barnstaple, or +Kenwith Castle, though they used the barrow-camps at their need. The +Romans, we know, were mighty engineers, and their roads and buildings +bear witness to the endurance of their handiwork, but many of these camps +are indisputably not Roman, and their names bear witness to their Celtic +origin. Such is the camp at Countisbury, which name is almost certainly +the same as Canterbury--"Kant-ys-bury," the "camp on the headland," and +which is one of the most perfect in Devonshire. It stands on a hill a +thousand feet above the sea, commanding a view of the coast from Porlock +to Heddon's Mouth, with the line of the Welsh coast opposite; it consists +of a triple rampart and fosse, rising boldly one within the other, with a +gate cut in the northern face of the rampart, and with a small mound +exactly in the centre of the inner camp. How did these peoples of the +Celtic speech build a work of such engineering magnitude, without the +tools and appliances of the Roman civilization, with implements of flint, +or at best of bronze, a work of such strategical foresight, of such +nicety of proportion, and of such enduring strength, that now after the +lapse of probably twenty-five centuries its bold proportions can be +traced by the most casual glance of the passer-by of the road that runs +past, now that the sheep clamber and feed in its deep fosses, and daisies +sprinkle the grass of its ramparts? + +The Saxons seem to have come more or less peaceably to the Britons of +North Devon, who had taken little impress, probably, of the alien Roman +civilization, except Christianity, for many of the churches round still +carry the name of a Celtic saint, showing that the Saxons did not come +devastating villages and destroying the little churches (in which case, +of course, the churches would carry the name of a Saxon saint of their +later Christianity), but settled with the inhabitants, intermarried, and +probably adopted their worship. There is the church of St. Culbone, St. +Brendon--that tiny village of Brendon, near Lynton, which must have been +a village, with a rude little church of its own, before Hengist and Horsa +landed--of St. Dubricius at Porlock, of St. Brannock at Braunton, near +Barnstaple. + +St. Brannock ought to have been an Irish saint; the legends of him have a +levity, and a fantastic and humorous twist, that we do not find in the +stories of the Teutonic saints. He was the son of the King of Calabria, +and came to North Devon somewhere about A.D. 300. He searched the hearts +of the inhabitants by various miracles, among them by having a cow +killed, cut in pieces, and boiled in a cauldron, and then, calling the +cow by name, out it walked, alive and whole, and never a penn'orth the +worse. The story of this is carved on one of the bench-ends of the pews +in the present fourteenth-century church of St. Brannock, and there is a +large carved boss of the roof representing a sow and her litter, because +St. Brannock is said to have been commanded in a dream to build a church +on the spot where he should first meet a sow. He pressed the deer into +the service of God, and yoked them, making them draw timber from the +woods to build the church. This is how the rhyme goes--a fairly modern +version of a much older doggerel: + + "He had nor horse, nor ox, nor ass, but the deer so little + and limber; + They ran in the forest to please themselves, why shouldn't + they draw his timber?" + + +There is also another rhyme which seems to show that a bond of affection +sprang up between him and the cow which had had to serve his miracle: + + "St. Brannock fed on venison when he sat down to table; + Behind him stood his favourite cow, and his + valet-de-chambre Abel!" + +I do not know why his servant should have been called Abel. + +The Norman Conquest also came peaceably to this beautiful and remote +place; the census of the population of Lynton and Countisbury given in +Domesday, which was compiled in 1086, twenty years after the Conquest, +gives the numbers for the two villages as 425. In 1801 the population +numbered no more than 601, these numbers being as many as the district +could support until the modern distribution of supplies; and the +comparatively small increase in seven hundred years shows that in William +the Conqueror's reign sobriety of government and security of the life of +the individual gave these localities freedom to develop to the limit of +their capacity. Countisbury had been held by Ailmar "on the day on which +King Edward was alive and dead," and it "rendered geld for half a hide." +A "hide" was the unit of assessment on which the Danegeld was paid in +Saxon times-- + + 1 virgate = 1/4 of a hide. + 1 ferling = 1/4 of a virgate (also identified with sixteen acres). + 1 ploughland = as much land as 8 oxen could cultivate. + (In Devonshire 1 ploughland was equivalent to 4 ferlings.) + + +The "manor" consisted of the "demesne," which was the lord's home-farm, +attached to his dwelling, and the villagers' land, which was held by the +villeins for their own use, on the condition of the cultivation of their +lord's ground. Hence it will be seen that the condition of the peasantry +in the eleventh century, while actually serfdom, with enforced labour, +and no right of moving from the dominion of the lord under which they +were born, was virtually better than the conditions of the agricultural +population at the beginning of the nineteenth century (and some would +say, even, at the present day) in that they practically owned +smallholdings and were in a position where industry and enterprise could +be better rewarded than many a labourer of our own time could expect, +whose prospects--so long as he remained an agricultural labourer, and in +England--were inalterably bounded by eighteen shillings a week. + +The manor of Countisbury rendered geld for half a hide, of which the lord +held one virgate and four ploughs, and the villeins held one virgate and +six ploughs. Here is a list of the possessions of the overlord in 1086: + + +"There William has 12 villeins, and 6 bordars, and 15 serfs, and 1 +swineherd (who renders 10 swine by the year), and 1 packhorse, and 32 +head of cattle, and 24 swine, and 300 sheep less 13, and 35 goats, and 50 +acres of wood, and 2 acres of meadow, 1 leuga in length and 1 furlong in +breadth; and it is worth by the year 4 pounds, and it was worth 20 +shillings when William received it." + + +The Danish raids also, though they were frequent up and down this coast, +seem to have passed by Lynton; the narrowness of the landing beach, the +steep rise of the cliffs immediately from the shore, the rocky bed of the +river and the thick woods which fence the valley, all made it difficult +of attack, while Porlock and Ilfracombe lay within a few miles, offering +smoother harbours and easier access. There are several notices in the +Saxon Chronicle of Danish raids on the coasts of the Severn Sea, in A.D. +845 and in A.D. 917, when the Lidwiccas, under Ohtor and Rhoald, landed +and devastated a great portion of this north-west country, but they +probably came to Watchet, near Minehead, and even then all that Lynton +saw of the fierce raid was the smoke of the beacon fires from Dunkery +Beacon to Martinhoe Beacon, near Heddon's Mouth. + +In the twelfth century the manors of Lynton and Countisbury were in the +possession of Henry de Tracy, Becket's murderer, and by him were given to +the Abbey of Ford, in whose right they remained until the dissolution of +the monasteries by Henry VIII. Ford Abbey was a foundation of Cistercian +monks, an order which was always engaged in matters of practical value, +and under their rule something was done to improve the breed of mountain +sheep round this district and produce wool of greater market value; they +also attempted some development of agriculture and the fishery of +Lynmouth. They had, indeed, extensive rights of fishery by land and +sea--a very valuable asset, it must be remembered, in the Middle Ages, +when the mass of the population lived almost exclusively on salt fish, +and meat was scarce, except on the tables of the noble. Their rights +extended over Lynmouth, Martinhoe, Countisbury, and the coast of Wales, +and the monopoly of deep-sea fishing along the Severn Sea. This went +beyond the old manorial claim, which was "from the shore so far seaward +as a horsed knight could, at low water-springs, reach with his spear." +Beyond was the King's, and was free and open to all his subjects, though +a claim for deep-sea rights was allowed if it could be proved to be of +very ancient usage, as in the case of Ford Abbey. Lynmouth was a noted +resort for herrings all through the Middle Ages, and curing-houses stood +on the beach for many years until 1607, when nearly all were swept away +by a great storm, and never after properly reconstructed. The herrings +also at some time in the seventeenth century left these coasts +completely--tradition says because of the avarice of a parson of Lynton, +a hard man and greedy, who cared rather to fleece his flock than feed +them, and who imposed such heavy tithes on his poor parishioners, that, +in spite of the prosperity of their fishing, they were unable to pay +them. So the herrings left the district, and the parson could whistle +for them, until he mended his ways and reduced his tithes, when they +magically returned. + +At the dissolution of the monasteries very little difference in the daily +routine of their lives can have been felt by the country people round +Lynton and Countisbury. John Chidley, who had been bailiff for Ford +Abbey, applied to the King for continuation in his office, which was +granted to him, and he administered the property for Henry VIII, Edward +VI, and, Elizabeth, as he had administered it for the Abbey of Ford. + +Nor did the Civil Wars touch it nearly. Barnstaple and Dunster were +taken and retaken by the Parliamentarian troops, and armies marched from +Dunster west to Bideford across Exmoor and the great commons, but no +armed troops came down into Lynton; perhaps hardly even a straggler found +his way there. In the tragic rebellion of 1685 a bloody little drama was +enacted here indeed, but that is connected with the history of the de +Wichehalses, the family of chief interest and importance who have lived +at Lynton. They did not come to Lynton before the early seventeenth +century; their home was a small hamlet called Wych, near Chudleigh in +Devonshire, though Blackmore invents for them a romantic Dutch pedigree, +and asserts that they fled to England to escape from Spanish persecution +in the Netherlands; this story, however, has been proved entirely without +foundation by the careful researches of Mr. Chanter. In the time of +Elizabeth, he says, these de Wichehalses had overflowed all over the +country; we find them at Exeter, Chudleigh, Ashcombe, and Powderham. In +1530 one, Nicholas de Wichehalse, settled at Barnstaple and started in +the woollen trade; he married into the Salisbury family, who were in the +same business; and when he died he decreed by will that his nephew John +should marry his stepdaughter, Katherine Salisbury. The next Nicholas de +Wichehalse married Lettice Deamond, the daughter of the Mayor of +Barnstaple, and it is an inventory of his shop, taken in 1607, that I +have quoted in a previous chapter. + +His son Hugh married in due course, and continued to live at his family +mansion in Crock Street, until, in 1627, the fear of the plague which +ravaged Barnstaple and Bideford (it was supposed to have been brought +into the towns by an infected mattress which had been thrown overboard by +a plague-stricken ship, and was fished out of the river just below +Barnstaple by four children who were fishing) drove the de Wichehalses +out of the city. + +Hugh de Wichehalse decided to send his family to the purer air of the old +Grange Farm of Lee, near Lynton. One can picture the removal: his wife, +his children, his servants, and a whole string of packhorses (carriages +were still rare as a means of transport), coming down Boutport Street, +and across Pilton Causeway, up the beautiful and fertile valley of the +Yeo, to Westland Pound on the edge of Blackmoor, and its inn, where in +all probability they slept. The next day they would be on the high +barren moors, where the air was too sweet and keen for infection, and so +would come across Parracombe Common, Martinhoe Common, Lynton Common, and +down the Valley of Rocks to Lee (what is now called Lee Abbey). + +The farm stood about a mile and a half or two miles from Lynton, and +after the busy life of the town their solitude must have seemed to them +excessive, for their near neighbours would live half a dozen miles away, +and were inaccessible in winter. There were the Berrys from Crosscombe, +a branch of the Berrynarbor family into which Hugh's sister had married; +the Knights at West Lyn; the Pophams, who came from Porlock. + +The family lived there for the next eighty years. Hugh was buried in the +parish church at Lynton, and his monument can be seen there; it is he to +whom Blackmore refers in "Lorna Doone" as Baron Hugh, who was somewhat +too much hand-in-glove with the Doones; but the "young Squire Marwood," +who rode too frequently past the Ridds' farm and kissed Annie Ridd, is a +character of fiction, for Hugh de Wichehalse's son was called John, and +not Marwood, there was never one of that name. + +John was a strong Parliamentarian, and married into the Venner family; +but very soon they were in opposite camps, and there was great distrust +and anger between them. Colonel Venner commanded a regiment in +Monmouth's haphazard and ill-fated army in 1685. Wade, a renegade lawyer +from Holland, with a captain's commission, served in his regiment, and +after the defeat of Monmouth at Sedgemoor, Wade and Ferguson (a notorious +factious Scotchman, and the father of all plots) escaped to Bridgewater +and from thence got passage down to Ilfracombe. There they hired a small +ship and worked their way up the coast, hoping to rescue other refugees; +they were sighted and chased by one of the King's frigates, and were +forced to run ashore, when Lynton became the scene of one of those grim +and terrible rebel hunts which made the West Country tragic and bloody +during that summer of 1685. Wade was discovered at Brendon by John de +Wichehalse; he made a run for it, and was shot by de Wichehalse's +servant, John Babb. The Babbs were said never to have prospered +afterwards; their crops failed, the fisheries failed, and they became +extinct in the second generation. The last of them, Ursula Babb, the +grand-daughter of John, was to be seen wandering up and down the little +beach of Lynmouth, a half-crazed old crone, cursed with the evil-eye, and +babbling disjointed and incoherent stories of the ruin of the de +Wichehalses. + +Partly because of discord between him and the Venner family, partly +because of the strong feeling which was aroused locally by the action of +de Wichehalse, who had the body of a rebel who was shot in Bonham Wood +quartered and hung on the paled gate opposite Lee, he left Lynton and +went to live in London. The simple Devonshire estates could not support +the expenses of living in London; bit after bit his property was +mortgaged and frittered away, and when he died he possessed East Leymouth +(now Lynmouth) only, which he left to his daughter Mary. She it was who +became the heroine of all the stories of the "last of the de +Wichehalses," which, indeed, she was. She met a sudden and unexplained +death off Duty Point, and the White Lady of Castle Rock--a phenomenon +caused by a small aperture, bearing a slight resemblance to a woman's +figure, among the dark masses of the rock--is popularly supposed to be +connected with her fate. Of her brothers, Charles, the younger, was +killed at the Battle of Almanza in 1707, when the English, under Lord +Galway, lost 18,000 men and all their transport, and the elder brother, +John, died at Port Mahon, in Minorca, in 1721, while on garrison duty, +and this branch of the family became extinct. + +[Illustration: Duty Point] + +And this is positively all the history of Lynton, until, in the time of +the French Revolution, when the turbulent state of the Continent made it +inadvisable to spend a holiday abroad, its beauty was discovered by those +eager to find in England that enjoyment of the picturesque which before +they had looked for in Italy and Southern France. We use "picturesque" +now in a slightly derogatory sense, or we use it patronizingly, because +it is old-fashioned and belongs to the nineteenth century, and Ruskin and +Wordsworth, and even Horace Walpole and his "Gothic" ruin on Strawberry +Hill; and we are of the twentieth century, and have discovered the beauty +of docks and harbours and tall factory chimneys and railway stations, +under the guidance of Whistler and Brangwyn and such folk, and we do not +fret at laying a railway through Perthshire or the Lake District, because +railways are fast becoming almost as romantic and old-fashioned to us as +stage-coaches (in these days of aeroplanes and automobiles); but at least +let us remember that it is to the nineteenth century that we owe that +acute appreciation, not only of the visible beauty of the world, but of +the spirit that lies behind it, that personal and intimate character of +places which is one of our dear possessions. Mountains and woods, cliff +and cove, have become to us a truism of beauty, but let us at least be +grateful to the generation which first dared to see more in the boundless +Scotch hills and moors than "savage and disgusting country," or to +compare the pinnacles of the Alps to human handiwork--greatly to their +disadvantage. And the small absurdities, the "ruins" that they loved, +the "abbeys" they erected, were only part of that general half-conscious +striving to apprehend and express the spirit of romance with which we are +still moved in our own day, which Kipling expresses in his own fashion +and Conrad in his, down to the small-change of literature which struggles +for expression in our magazines and periodicals. + +So when Shelley and Coleridge and Wordsworth came to Lynton, and found it +beautiful, and nearly decided to live there and be the poets of Devon +instead of the poets of the Lake District, it was because they found in +it that quality of beauty which they needed; and when, a little later, +Lynton was "discovered" by one or more people of wealth--notably by Mr. +Coutts, the banker, who built houses there and hotels, and began to noise +its beauty up and down the London world--it was just the outermost ripple +of the vast disturbance of the French Revolution which touched the little +spot, part of the free new eager spirit which sent men questing for a +loveliness they could neither make nor control, and of which they must be +humble and passive spectators, and part also of vast causes and changes, +which drove Englishmen to seek their holidays within their own shores. + +Before closing this second chapter on Lynton, I cannot forbear to speak +yet further of the beautiful scenery in which it lies. There is +Summerhouse Hill, or Lyn Cleave, as it is more charmingly and +appropriately called, the great rocky height, a thousand feet above +Lynmouth, which looks down on the two villages and which divides the +valleys of the East and West Lyn. Lying on the short dry springy turf, +in the mellow sunlight of late afternoon, you can look along the velvety +wooded valley of the East Lyn, where the stream is hidden by the tufted +banks of the trees, and by shifting ever so slightly on your elbows as +you lie at ease you can look into the bare brown rocky valley of the West +Lyn, and see the gleam of the river foaming over its rocks a thousand +feet below. All round is the cawing of rooks, as they sail majestically +back to their nests, grave and cheerful with their abundance of food and +their security of tenure. England belongs to the rooks, says a friend of +mine. We English may live here, we may build houses and farms, we may +plough and sow and reap, we may make revolutions or wars, sending our +armies marching through the countryside in creeping dusty columns, but we +are only illusions on the page of history, shadows flitting across the +face of the land; the rooks are perpetual, ineradicable, and possessive. +They feed behind our plough; they flock in our green trees; they build in +our valleys and in the shelter of our houses; summer and winter they are +seen flying under our English skies; they mate and nest and bicker round +our cathedrals and our cottages; they are noisy and turbulent and +unrestrained before us, as if we were no more than the hedges we plant +and prune; they are irrepressible as street-arabs, and arrogant as +monarchs. If all human life were by some unimagined catastrophe swept +from the length and breadth of England, the cawing of the rooks would +sound as certainly, and they would fly forth to their morning meal and +back across the evening sky to their tall green elm-trees as if they had +never sailed over the heads of men who looked up and saw in them the +symbol of peace, security, and comfort, which they loved to call England. + +For a good walker the road that lies between Lynmouth and Porlock is an +adventure worth taking, though it gives a taste of the steep and +shadeless roads which lead up and down these moors, pitilessly +sun-scorched in summer, and pitilessly bleak and windswept in winter, +when the rain and sleet comes stinging and driving in your face, and yet +somehow, at all times of the year, worth adventuring for the splendid, +open, untamed beauty they show you. + +If you take carriage (in which case you will walk the greater part of the +way!), you will start from Lynmouth, and ascend the steep hill that leads +right up the cliff to Countisbury Foreland--I should have said the +steepest two miles of carriage road in England, had I not also climbed +Porlock Hill, twelve miles northward. The surface of the road is loose, +and scoured by winter rains, and on a windy day the dust comes swirling +down it like a miniature sandstorm. I have, indeed, seen even a car +obliged to draw up to let the blinding red swirl go by; and from Lynton, +on the opposite side of the valley, the whole headland has been blurred +and obliterated by the dust, as if it were a fog. + +If you are not driving, you may go up the East Lyn Valley, past the +Watersmeet, till you strike the path for Brendon, a more sheltered way on +a hot morning, but steep also, for the hills are not to be avoided, and +you have somehow to climb 1,300 feet from the sea to Countisbury. +Countisbury itself is a tiny, bare, white-washed hamlet, with a small +bare white inn with the sign of the Blue Ball; it stands on the borders +of Devon and Somerset, and hence some have supposed the name to mean the +"county's boundary"--but this, I think, is a case of false analogy, and +the Celtic origin of the "camp on the headland" is far more likely. + +[Illustration: The Moors near Brendon Two Gates] + +The Foreland is a great bold promontory looking towards the Welsh coast, +which hangs on the horizon like a low silver cloud above the faint haze +of the summer sea. Below lie Sillery Sands, and the caves of the beach; +beyond, the opening heights of Exmoor, in long flat curves, featureless, +spacious, and beautiful, purple and sombre under the wrack of +rain-clouds, grey and arid in the fierce blaze of the midsummer sun, most +lovely of all on crisp September mornings, when the heather is abloom in +miles on miles of changing purples and the air has a keen, clean edge, as +if it were blown off the top of the world. The air of Exmoor has always +this sharp sweetness, however much the sun may blaze, as John Ridd knew; +and looking over the wide-stretching countryside, one sees many a farm +that might have been his, a sturdy, whitewashed affair, flanked +generously with out-buildings, and standing high, but sheltered, in a +hollow of the ground, cut off from its neighbours by the rising hills, +and even more isolated in winter by the deep ruts of the roads, muddy and +impassable, that wind from valley to valley. + +A mile beyond County Gate is the village of Oare, where John Kidd and +Lorna were married; and as we follow the Porlock road across the moors we +see on our right the dip of the Doone Valley, where Lorna's bower was, +and a few scattered remains of stone huts show the habitations of the +outlaws. It is a scene of wildness and grandeur; on the left lies the +blue sea, on the right the dun-coloured moors. There are no trees, save +for a few writhen and stunted alders, covered with lichen till they are +the colour of stone, and look like petrified remains of an earlier age; +they are grown all to one side under the stress of the prevailing wind. +The only signs of life are the scattered sheep, their grey backs scarcely +visible among the heather and close furze, a great buzzard hawk poised +far up in the blue, and, when his shadow has passed, sailing slowly over +the shadeless ground, the sweet, monotonous song of mounting larks. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +PORLOCK AND EXMOOR + +The road now lies in Somerset; we pass Glenthorne, lying five hundred +feet below, among its beautiful green woods and stretches of vivid +green turf, and separated by some five miles of barren brown moors from +the village of Porlock. The road that leads from Exmoor down to +Porlock is incredibly steep, the steepest coach-road in England. It +twists dangerously in sharp right-angle turns, the surface is loose and +stony, worn by the dragging of brakes and the scouring of winter rains, +and on a summer afternoon it is so hot, so dusty and glaring, and so +steep, that it seems impossible for man or beast to climb. As soon as +you are at the top, however, the fresh air of Exmoor fills your lungs +and freshens your face, so let nobody be dissuaded from it. + +Porlock itself was a port in Saxon times and in the reign of William +the Conqueror (I have told elsewhere how not only the Danes, but Saxon +Earl Harold, drove his ships into the harbour on a fierce raiding +expedition), but it is now an inland village, and between it and the +sea lie two miles of flat land of the most wonderful luxuriance. _De +gustibus_ indeed, and to me Porlock is one of the most beautiful spots +in all England. It lies in a green bay--what was a bay eight centuries +ago--between two towering headlands. On three sides of it rise the +heights of Exmoor, barren, beautiful, and windswept; before it stretch +the lands over which the Danes sailed, running out to a thin strip of +marshland, and then a silvery flat beach, and then the tremulous silver +curve of the sea, not like the line of wave that breaks at the foot of +cliffs, but a true marshland sea, seeming to come from nowhere, +infinitely smooth and faint and distant from the level shore to the dim +horizon. + +There are many kinds of beauty in the world: beauty of hot suns and +delicate mists, of sea and shore, mountain and lake and city; there is +the beauty of barren moors and of green orchards, and of flat fertile +marshlands where streams run amid a luxuriance of tangled growth, +kingcups and meadowsweet and loose-strife and forget-me-nots, and +feathery willows and rushes where the reed-warblers sing. And at +Porlock there is such a gathering up of these different beauties that +it is difficult to describe the pleasure that one has in it. I have +told you how it is fenced by Exmoor, and lies within sight of Dunkery +Beacon, the highest point of the moors; but it is impossible to convey +adequately the peculiar beauty of those great smooth dipping curves, +the satisfying breadth and harmony of their line, the way the sunlight +lies upon them, and the rich deep shadows that slide into their folds. +And below, round Porlock, lie the orchards. I came there once in the +spring, and as we turned the last angle of the stony road I saw before +me such a sweep of blossom, such a foam of cherry and pear, white above +the luxuriant grass, and of that delicate flushed rose of the +apple-blossom, so exquisite a range of green, the hazy green of willows +and the bright clear green of hawthorn, that it seemed impossible it +should lie just under those miles on miles of moor where nothing +bloomed but furze and heather. + +The green fields that stretched away to the sea were just such fields +as in the "Romaunt of the Rose" or the poems of the troubadours, fields +verdantly green, and starred with daisies and golden with +buttercups--the "enamelled meads" of Chaucer and the little illumined +pictures of the fourteenth-century manuscripts; and the hedges were +just such hedges, incredibly green, with here and there a break for the +misty silver of the blackthorn. Wherever flowers could bloom they +bloomed, in the gardens, in the hedges, by the roadside, in the +crannies of the walls. + +Porlock village itself is a quiet, charming spot which, in spite of the +temptation of visitors who come here in considerable numbers in the +autumn, when stag-hunting on Exmoor is in season, keeps most of its +old-world simplicity, and has not much "modernized" itself. It is +rambling, calm, and whitewashed; the bank itself is a long, low, cream +building with a thatched roof, and a lovely note of colour from a +climbing japonica. The Ship Inn also is a pleasant old building, with +a dark, cool coffee-room and heavy, timbered roof. "Southey's corner," +where he is said to have written his poem, "Porlock, thy verdant +vale . . .," on being detained at the Ship by the heavy moorland rain, +is by an old open fireplace, and has been cut off from a larger room by +thin partitioning walls. It is a pleasant homely place, with its sound +of horses from the stable-yard, and the clink of its old pewter pots +from the bar, with its low raftered ceiling and brick floor, and the +sunlight seen from its open doors. + +Porlock Church has a square tower, with a heavy, octagonal, truncated +spire, which gives the little church an over-weighted appearance, but +very distinctive in this country, of tall Perpendicular towers. It is +dedicated to St. Dubricius, who is a Celtic saint of the sixth century, +who crowned and anointed Arthur of the Round Table; in the twelfth +century he became a very famous saint once more, after having been +nearly forgotten for several hundred years. Many miracles were worked +at his tomb, and churches were dedicated to him. The present church at +Porlock was built about the thirteenth century by Sir Simon Fitz-Roges, +who was a crusader, but I am inclined to think that the dedication to +St. Dubric belonged to the early simple church (probably a thatched and +whitewashed barn) which was there at the time of the Conquest, and +which, like the neighbouring churches of St. Culbone and St. Brendon, +harks back to Celtic Christianity of pre-Saxon times. The church was +altered in the fifteenth century, and the Harington Chantry, which now +contains the tomb of Baron Harington and his wife, was added, and the +present spire, in place of the old one, which was blown down in a gale. +It is a little, quiet, grey English church, set peacefully in its green +churchyard, shaded by a huge ancient yew, perhaps as old as itself. In +the winter rain and wind beat round its solid grey walls, in spring the +daffodils bloom in the churchyard, and on summer days the bees are busy +among the clover and daisies over the graves. There are thousands of +such small, sober, beautiful churches in England; they are the monument +on which a fragment of the history of the race is inscribed; they are +the nucleus of the village life; the beginning and the end of its +activities have their sanction within its walls; they are rich with the +continued service of men's lives, generation from generation taking up +the duty and its privilege; they rise above the clustering roofs of the +village, tower or spire, as the visible landmark of faith--not of a +creed that can change and ebb and flow, but of a faith in the spiritual +core that lies at the heart of material life, like the village church +among the homes of its village. + +We who pass casually, and pause, and step in and look, with a curious +and antiquarian eye, for a bit of old brasswork or carved screen, miss +the intimate beauty of these churches as much, perhaps, as if we read +them in a catalogue: "St. Dubric; 12th cent.; fine marble monument of +15th cent. . . ., and so on." The plainest and simplest holds within +its whitewashed walls the beauty of continuous tradition; you must see +it in all its aspects of daylight and evening light, summer and winter, +the rainy, tumultuous November afternoons and the long, golden, mellow +evenings of June, to realize what it offers, of peace and order, +tenderness and calm. + +Inside Porlock Church, which is light and white and simple, there is a +beautiful canopied tomb of the fifteenth century, with the recumbent +figures of Baron Harington and his wife Elizabeth Courteny, carved in +alabaster. Whoever made these marble figures was an artist; not only +is the detail of the dress intricately and beautifully carved, the +foliated wreath of his helmet, the elaborate decoration of her girdle, +and the curved "horns" of her head-dress rolled either side of her +face, but the whole pose and outline of the figures is firm and +gracious. + +I find that this tomb is quite famous among virtuosi, though I was +unaware of it when I came upon the monument in the quiet of a workaday +afternoon; but its beauty at once claimed my eye, presenting something +so different from the average mediaeval tomb, of interest chiefly for +its age. These figures are slightly defaced, the sharp edges worn +smooth by time, and scores of initials have been scratched roughly on +the surface of his armour or her mantle; but there is a certainty of +line, a sharpness, and at the same time a suavity of angle, a way of +disposing the head and hands and body, all within the stiff convention +of rigid tomb carving, that to any lover of sculpture reveals the sure +hand of a master, whether he were a nameless stonemason, working in a +secluded village, or a renowned man, invited from far. + +Standing by this beautiful tomb I can see the sunlight through the open +door, with a black splash across the gold, of the great yews beyond; I +hear the crowing of cocks and the voice of children, the creak of a +passing cart and the song of birds, all the simple, jolly sounds of +that everyday life which is the plain fabric on which all history, of +nations and empires and monarchs, is (if you like) the embroidery. + +From Porlock to the little port of Porlock Weir is a walk of two miles +along a narrow lane between high green hedges. The road leads nowhere +else but there and back; it is a kind of enchanted road which goes to +an enchanted village, a village at the world's end, beyond the circle +of mere reality. Every cottage in Porlock Weir is just such a little +cottage as J. M. Barrie's fairies might build, low-browed under a steep +thatch, with great tall chimneys, in which are cut just such little +windows as would frame a fairy's head, looking out and laughing and +nodding at you; whitewashed, half-timbered cottages, grouped together +in a jumble of delicious curves and angles, with dusky, deep oak +doorways, and stone steps hollowed by the feet that have gone in and +out, and long leaded windows, softly yellow with lamplight in the +mellow twilight of summer evenings, and gardens--oh, gardens that are +small, and walled with stone, and running over with colour and bloom as +no other gardens in the world could ever be! Hydrangeas, geranium, +larkspur and evening primrose, columbine, forget-me-not, roses--and, +indeed, the roses have gone wild with freedom, and threaten to overflow +and drown the village, trailing over the wall, running up the tall +chimneys, thrusting in at the open windows--nor are there names for all +the flowers that bloom here, for all the mellow gold and crimson and +blue and yellow and purple that glow in the sunlight, and fade gently +into shadows of themselves as night falls. Beyond is the sea, all +round the flowering meadows of the marsh, behind the moors; to anyone +who has had the fortune to see Porlock Weir on such a day in May as +this I recall, when this England of ours seems, to our fancy, to gather +up all beauties of colour and sound and scent and sunlight of which the +long winter and the chill, reluctant spring have starved us, and offer +them all at once in immeasurable bounty, this village will seem to them +to have the loveliness of magic. + +The beauty of Exmoor is a stranger beauty and more remote than that of +these lovely villages. It is the beauty of space, I suppose, and the +great open arch of the sky; it is the clouds and cloud shadows, the +changing light from dawn to evening through the blazing colourless +hours of midsummer noon to the tender light of the falling day, when +the land lies in long, suave, misty curves; it is the swirl of mist +down its hillsides, and the solemn banking of great heavy rain-clouds, +purple and black, above it, that gives it so rich and varied a beauty: +for it is like a great open canvas, on which an artist's hand makes +wonderful pictures of a myriad changes of sun and shadow. Anyone who +has seen Exmoor, as Mr. Widgery has seen and loved and painted it, on a +still September night, under the mellow splendour of the harvest moon, +high above the infinite shadowy blue of the horizon and the misty moor, +has seen a rare loveliness he must travel far to match. + +[Illustration: Harvest Moon, Exmoor] + +The "forest" of Exmoor is about thirty-five miles in extent from east +to west, and twenty from north to south, running from the valley of +Crowcombe, near the Quantocks, to Hangman Point, near Combe Martin. It +is a stretch of country which makes its appeal to the sportsman, the +antiquarian, the artist, and the mere idle, happy walker; it is a +little country within a country, having many peculiarities of scenery +and structure, plant life and animal life, history and custom, peculiar +to itself. + +And, firstly, though from Saxon times until 1818 it ranked as a "royal +forest," it is not a forest at all. Trees will hardly live on Exmoor, +not even the black fir, the hardiest tree of all; only here and there a +few twisted and stunted alders planted along the shelter of a wall, and +degenerated into "scrub." As soon as you descend from the heights, +indeed, the country becomes luxuriantly wooded, as at Glenthorne and +Lynton and Horner Woods; but the great expanse of Exmoor is bare brown +land, covered with short tussocky grass and grey furze. Why, then, was +it called a "forest" in Saxon times? Did "forest" mean also moorland, +wild and unarable land? This opinion has been held by many +authorities, but there is the contrary one put forward, that Exmoor was +at some time a forest, and that all the land from Crowcombe to Combe +Martin was clothed with oak and beech. We know, indeed, that in early +times, certainly, England was much more densely wooded than now; the +rocky foundation on which Exmoor lies is covered with a peaty deposit +which is formed of decayed vegetable substance--the myriad leaves, +perhaps, of many hundred autumns--and near the Chains, which are a +series of dangerous bogs near Dunkery Beacon, stumps and roots of +bog-oak have been pulled out of the ground. This last fact does not +seem to me in any way conclusive, for Exmoor may have had wooded +thickets, without being a forest covering half a county, like the New +Forest. + +And, if it were, what causes led to its deforestation? The climate of +Britain was not, we know, more sheltered and temperate in old days than +now, so it seems necessary to suppose human agency to account for so +great a change. There is one theory, ingenious but fantastic, which +asserts that the whole forest was felled to provide timber props for +the mine-workings of Devon and Cornwall. Whether this took place in +Celtic times, when the trade with Phoenicia was at its height, or +subsequently--in which case it is strange there is no historical record +of so remarkable a fact--or whether those prehistoric peoples who built +huge camps and erected mighty monoliths were yet capable of so +stupendous a feat as felling the timber of sixty thousand acres, and +carting it over roadless country, is at least open to question. There +is another theory, that the Romans in their struggle to subdue the +Britons, who took refuge in these wooded fastnesses, fired the forest, +and burned them out, as they are supposed to have done with Hatfield +Moor in Yorkshire, which, now a peaty moor, was 12,000 acres of forest +land until Ostorius, having slain many Britons, drove the remnant into +the forest and destroyed it. An ingenious gentleman, in support of +this theory, instances Cow Castle (or Cae Castle), near Simonsbath, +which is a large British camp in the centre of Exmoor, and juxtaposes +with it Showlsborough Castle, a few miles away, just beyond the limits +of Exmoor, which is held to be a Roman camp, and where certainly two +Roman swords have been found within recent years, advancing this as +proof that a serious campaign between Romans and Britons was fought +across Exmoor. + +All these are interesting speculations; one hesitates to dismiss a +theory because of its apparent unlikeliness, until it has been proved +wrong, for in this unrecorded past of ours so many things are possible; +nevertheless, it seems to me difficult to believe that the Romans would +have or could have burnt forty to sixty thousand acres of +woodland--above all, in a climate so humid and a country so well +watered as ours. + +Exmoor is not generally heather-covered, but its tors and hillsides are +clothed with a wiry colourless grass and the hardy, prickly furze. +Heather grows abundantly on its boundaries, and above all on the common +lands, such as Brendon Common, Lynton, and Parracombe Common, which +surround it, and which are distinguished from the moorland proper. +Native agriculturists say, I believe, that the heather grows to its +finest on land which has been turned up by man's labour--like nettles, +which grow so wildly in deserted gardens and ruined villages--and that +this common land on the edge of the moor bears evidence of having once +been cultivated. With the break-up of the feudal system, certainly, at +the beginning of the sixteenth century, much land in England went out +of cultivation with the abolition of forced labour, and became +pasturage or mere rough common. The people around here say that, if +you turn up a strip of land on Exmoor, where nothing grows but grass +and furze, and leave it, in a year or so the heather will come. But +that heather, unlike nettles, does not grow only where the land has +been turned by the plough is proved enough by the heather which grows +on steep hillsides, such as the Scotch mountains or Dunkery Beacon, +which can never have been brought under cultivation. + +To all who live in the West Country, who says Exmoor says "the red +deer." This is the last corner in England where the red deer, an +ancient and native inhabitant of these islands, lives in his natural +state, and where he can be hunted with the freedom, and yet with the +traditional pomps and usages, with which our Saxon and Norman nobles +hunted him. The hunting passion of the Norman Kings is familiar to us +in our history; how William the Conqueror "loved the tall red deer as +his father," and how he laid waste hamlets and villages in Hampshire, +and the little crops of the toiling villagers, to plant the New Forest +for his pleasure in the deer; and how his son William Rufus met his +death there, while hunting, by an untraced arrow piercing his eye, and +retribution for William's act was made plain to all men. The Saxon +Kings, doubtless, hunted with less pomp, but with an equal passion. +There was a Saxon palace at Porlock, and also at Dulverton, from which +they might hunt on Exmoor, and it may very well be that Alfred the +Great came to Porlock for rest and refreshment among the labours of his +life, his lawgiving and his translating of Latin books into the +Anglo-Saxon tongue for his people's good, and his bitter and incessant +struggle with the Danes. + +The laws by which the Kings protected their sport were among the most +cruel and oppressive ever made in England. They were not, so far as I +can find, imposed by the Saxon Kings upon their countrymen, but by the +conquering Norman and Plantagenets. Canute, the Danish King, is said +first to have made death or mutilation the penalties for poaching; but +throughout the Middle Ages the game laws were intricate, rigid, and of +incredible cruelty. To cut off a man's thumbs so that he could not +hold his tools, to lame him, to hang him, for snaring a hare or +shooting a deer in a land abounding with game, while he tilled another +man's ground and went hungry on his salt fish and coarse bread, while +all around him bred and ran the flesh food his stomach craved, and the +King who owned it lived far away, and neither hunted it nor ate it from +spring to winter--this seems one of the stupid and anomalous cruelties +of which the human race is so amazingly capable. It was a concession, +granted by Henry II, for men to be allowed to keep dogs at all, even +for the guarding of their homes and their small flocks; but even so the +animals had to be brought before some magistrate every three years, and +maimed, by cutting off the three claws of the fore-feet, to prevent +them from pursuing or seizing game. + +There is a description of stag-hunting in Chaucer's "Book of the +Duchess," which dates somewhere from the end of the fourteenth century, +which is substantially the same, I suppose, as a modern hunt on Exmoor; +a few of the terms are different. The stag is "embossed," meaning +"hidden in a thicket," and Chaucer says he is "rechased" when he means +he is headed back, while the note which the huntsman sounds to recall +the hounds when the stag is lost is a "forloyn." But stag-hunting +elsewhere than on Exmoor is virtually an archaic imitation of a sport. +The beast is carted to the meet, loosed, chased, and when brought to +bay is recaptured and carted back to captivity. Here it is a natural +affair, and rendered necessary by the depredations which the deer +commit on the farmers' crops; it also contains an element of danger to +the hunters, and calls for coolness, decision, and endurance: for the +pace is killing, the going rough, the hills tremendously steep, there +are rocky combes down which the rider has to plunge, streams to ford, +bogs which make the going unsafe, if not actually dangerous--and a +rider, unfamiliar with Exmoor, who finds himself caught in an October +mist had better jog quietly home before worse befall him--and, at the +last, the chance of losing the stag, or having him, as happens +occasionally, plunge desperately off the rocks into the sea. + +The red deer is the most beautiful of all wild creatures in England; +seen in his native setting on these high, windy moors, the brown grass +and patches of purple heather all round him, the clear brown and white +streams of the combes where he waters, the blue shadows of hill behind +hill, and the grey billows of mist and cloud the wind sends rolling +down the hillsides, he is a noble beast indeed. + +Wild-horses also run on Exmoor. Mr. Page, in his "Exploration of +Exmoor," advances the theory that they are not native ponies, like +those of the New Forest or parts of Scotland, but the descendants of +horses which the Phoenicians brought in their galleys when they traded +with Cornwall and Devon; for their bones are smaller and lighter than +those of our native ponies, and beautifully white and polished like +ivory, as are the bones of the Arab horses of the north coast of +Africa. This is an entertaining theory, with its romantic conjectures: +the picture of the Phoenician oared galleys pulling into Combe Martin +or Porlock Bay; the scenes on the beach, with the swarthy, beak-nosed +sailors, the Celts, eager for trade and curious to look at any +foreigners come from beyond the sea; the heaps of tin and silver, the +ivory and gold and Eastern gauds with which the Phoenicians bartered; +the plunging, high-spirited little horses, wild with release from the +galleys. But though the Phoenicians certainly came, it is very likely +the horses did not; for Mr. Snell, another authority on Exmoor, thinks +that the ponies are indigenous, like the red deer, and are at least as +old as the first human inhabitants of this north-west corner. + +They are small creatures, as active as cats, and at Bampton Fair, where +many hundreds are driven in for the last Thursday in October, and the +narrow streets are packed with them from end to end, there are scenes +of great liveliness and disorder. Dulverton, which is the centre of +Exmoor, used also to have a fair, which consisted mainly of Exmoor +ponies and sheep; but it has passed out of existence by reason of +railways and shops, and the greater facility for commercial exchange of +our era, and the charming cobbled, whitewashed town--which was quite an +important town, remember, when John Ridd's cousin Rachael lived +there--now dozes undisturbed among the brown hills. + +The sheep of Exmoor are of a horned variety; we all know what excellent +mutton they make from its praises in "Lorna Doone," and John Fry's +lyrical outburst over the saddle of mutton "six year old, and without a +tooth in mun head," and sure to eat as soft as cream. John Fry was +referring to the custom among the farmers of not killing their sheep +until the teeth begin to go. Their coats are exceedingly thick, and +their wool a very valuable asset to the whole county; it was more +particularly so in the Middle Ages, when cloth-making was the staple +industry of England. There is a woolpack in the coat-of-arms of +Minehead, and the most striking feature of the little mediaeval town of +Dunster is the yarn-market in the centre of the main street. + +Wolves were plentiful on Exmoor at that time, and doubtless did much +damage among the sheep; in hard winters, even, they would have come +down into the little villages of Simonsbath and Parracombe, but the +last of them was killed in the reign of Elizabeth. In her reign, also, +wild-pigs could be hunted here, while the existence of such names as +Crane Tor, Lynx Tor, Bear Down, is evidence of an even greater variety +of game in Saxon times than now. Yet there is abundance still, hares +and foxes, badger and otter; the otter, indeed, makes grievous +depredations among the salmon that come up the river to spawn, for, +like a dingo among sheep, he slays promiscuously what he does not eat. +It is, I suppose, a lingering tradition of our old stern game laws that +imposes a severe penalty for poaching when a man picks up a salmon +which an otter has killed and left. + +Birds abound on Exmoor; snipe and woodcock, partridge and black-game, +plover and wild-duck. Nothing could more exactly express the +loneliness and wildness of this great open country than, when you are +walking solitary, to hear the harsh, melancholy cry of the bittern from +the reedy, desolate bogs, or in the falling daylight of a cloudy +February afternoon to see the plover rise from the tussocks of brown +grass at your feet, and go flying and wailing above you, in that +broken-winged, broken-hearted way of theirs, or to watch the duck +flying home across the sunset, with their strange honk-honk! + +For all that I have said about the barrenness of these great moors, +Exmoor is the land of sweet waters. The Exe, the Barle, the Quarine, +rising near Dunkery Beacon, the Haddes from the Brendon Hills, the Lyn, +the Wear Water, the Badgeworthy (up which little John Ridd fished for +loach), the Parley Water, the Horner, which runs into Porlock Bay, the +East Water, all these beautiful clear, clean streams abound with fish, +and have the freshness and the sparkle of this sparkling upland air. +Wherever there is a fold in the ground there is running water--though +geographically one should put it in the opposite way, that wherever the +water runs there is a fold in the ground--and wherever it runs flowers +and ferns and trees grow in beautiful abundance. I have already +described the luxuriant green of the wooded gorges of the Lyn, the +variety of trees and the luxuriance of ferns and mosses; the Horner +Woods, near Porlock, have the same green loveliness, though a sharper +air blows through them, as they stand nearer the Exmoor heights and +less sheltered by steep rocks than those that overshadowed the Lyn, and +on a summer afternoon there is a sharp smell of resin from the +sun-warmed pines, and the keen air stirs even in the depths of the wood. + +And besides these rivers there are numberless little unnamed streams, +everywhere the tinkle and chatter of water, breaking over stones, +slipping through the peaty earth, falling in a thin spray down the face +of the cliffs, spreading out across the white rocks of an encircled +cove, incessant movement and change of colour and light, a ceaseless +ripple and gleam of reflected water across the lichened trunk of some +old tree, sweet and incessant sound. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +IN SOMERSET + +"In Somerset," says Miss Celia Fiennes with considerable severity, +"they are likewise as careless when they make cider; they press all +sorts of Apples together, else they might have as good sider as in any +other parts, even as good as the Herriforshire." + +This young lady, with her keen criticisms, her spirit of intrepidity, +and her variable spelling, betook herself on a tour on horseback +through England in the reign of William and Mary, and kept a diary of +her travel, noting with equal solemnity the state of agriculture or the +quality of pastry which she encounters in her journey. She was the +daughter of Colonel Fiennes, a Parliamentary soldier, and being a +delicate girl, was recommended fresh air and exercise by her doctor. +"My journeys, as they were begun to regain my health by variety and +change of air and exercise, so whatever promoted, that was +pursued . . .," she says, rather elliptically, in her preface, and +admonishes Ladies and Gentlemen to follow her example, and profit by +the spectacle of their own country--advice which we of this generation +have taken _au serieux_, and of which the present book and those akin +to it are sufficient witness! + +Her remarks on Somerset are not all strictures, for it is here, she +tells us, that she had the best tarts and "clouted cream" that she ever +had in her life; and this although Devon has given its name to this +excellent dainty, while Cornwall fiercely asserts that it is a Celtic +recipe, and stolen from them by the Saxons of Devon, after they were +driven over the Tamar. + +With Somerset, however, we are not dealing in the limits of this book, +neither with its characteristics of scenery or of speech--which, to the +observant eye and ear, make every county in England rich in +individuality and infinitely various, so that Hampshire can never be +confounded with Sussex, nor Somerset with Dorset--but only with that +small strip of it between Porlock and Dunster which lies on the borders +of Exmoor, and belongs to it geographically. After leaving Porlock, +however, the six miles of road that runs across the moor to Minehead is +on a lower level, and (as the aesthetic writers would say), in a lower +key than the magnificent barren stretch of uplands from Lynton to +Porlock. The way still lies across Exmoor, but the "forest" lands are +beginning to lose their wildness; they run down to about five hundred +feet above the sea, while the summit of Dunkery Beacon is fifteen +hundred, though rising but little above the moors that surround it; for +the road between Countisbury and Porlock is over twelve hundred feet +above the beach it overhangs. From Porlock the wooded valleys are more +frequent and more thickly wooded, and the villages lie nestled more +sleekly; the winds are less keen and strong, the sun itself seems more +tempered than when it blazes upon Heddon's Mouth; a more suave and +temperate beauty begins gradually to take the place of the wild open +spaces and grey cliffs. + +The villages indeed are beautiful: Selworthy, Luccombe, and Wootton +Courtney, each with its lovely grey church, embowered in trees, its +street of whitewashed houses, its angles of light and shadow, and +gardens filled with colour. Luccombe, which is said to contain the +same Anglo-Saxon word _locan_, to enclose, as Porlock, lies under one +of the spurs of Dunkery on a little stream which falls into the Horner +Water, and is, indeed, enclosed in a steep wooded combe. The church +stands behind a tall row of cypresses, which, though planted only +seventy years ago, have grown as tall as the church-tower, and bear +witness to the fertility of the soil and the mildness of the climate; +they give the churchyard a foreign and outlandish look, I think, and +harmonize less perfectly with the characteristically English +architecture of the church than their neighbour, the old yew. The +tower is battlemented, and has some individual gargoyle heads around +its gutter, and the barrel roof of the interior has richly carved +wooden bosses, with the remains of painting upon them. + +The church at Selworthy has also a carved and painted wooden roof, +though of finer workmanship than Luccombe; the church itself was +originally built of red stone, but the tower is the only part +remaining, and this has been covered with stucco. The window and +tracery of the south aisle is of the lightest and most delicate +Perpendicular, but the interior has been a good deal restored. The +church is beautifully situated. It lies high above Selworthy, and +before it stretch the long flat curves of Exmoor; below, Luccombe +Church tower can just be seen above its surrounding trees; to the +south-east, beyond the green luxuriance of Horner Woods, rises the +outline of Dunkery. From it a path leads down to Selworthy Green, +which is rather a famous beauty-spot, lying on the slope of a hill, +neatly surrounded by trees--and the woods here are very beautiful by +virtue of the great variety of the trees, beech, oak, chestnut and very +fine walnut, and of the fair growth and dignity of the individual +tree--amid a little circle of seven cottages which form Sir Thomas +Acland's almshouses. The cottages are old and whitewashed, and the +thatched roofs sink into beautiful curves and hollows where the shadows +lie smoothly; in the summer, when visitors from Minehead mostly see +them, the windows stand open to the warm air, and in the shade of the +porches, sweet-scented with climbing roses, they can be given tea by +the old pensioners. + +It is beautiful indeed, and yet to me it has lost something of the +appeal of those lovely and desolate little villages--of Brendon, or +Parracombe, or Oare--more bleak and windswept, more sun-scorched and +barren, thrusting each into some cleft or hollow of the high brown +lands, with the wide sky over each, and each its small square church to +witness to the fear of God. Some quality of freedom and individuality +which is their charm is not in Selworthy. + +This is a mere question of taste; we are all apt to look at a place +with the eye of extraneous opinion. The beauty of Selworthy is not, +indeed, except fancifully, affected by its being a landowner's village, +a swept-and-garnished village where the roofs are repaired by Sir +Thomas Acland's thatcher, for fear they should fall into the evil ways +of slate, and spoil the lovely contours of the village. A landlord has +as much right to preserve the beauty of his property as he has to the +upkeep of his fences, and we are indeed fortunate to live in an age +when the mellowed beauty of ancient buildings has become almost a +religion. But to me there is a smugness about such a village, which +has become the hobby, the by no means selfish or unenlightened hobby, +of a single man, which does much to temper my enjoyment. Selworthy, +with its thatch and cob, its neat old pensioners, its suavity, its +absence of what is unsightly, is an anomaly; it can only be preserved +against the growing pressure of the twentieth century by the artificial +barriers erected by wealth. Parracombe, smaller, lonelier, with its +white farms and outbuildings and cottages, is the natural outcome of a +small and scattered population, who are not rich enough to build newer +houses, and who live as their forefathers did because their isolation +on Exmoor, and the barren land on which they live, has not induced men +from other districts to come and "expand." + +The little village of Culbone, near Porlock--if one may call half a +dozen cottages a village--is not an anomaly; indeed, it is a kind of +geographical whim. The cleft in which it lies faces towards the north, +and it is so deep and so deeply wooded that for four of the winter +months there is no direct ray of sunlight in the gorge, only the sky or +the light high up on the summits to remind the score of folk who live +there that they are not shut in a green prison. Even at midsummer +their sunrise is several hours later than for the rest of the world. +Among the darkest part of the green thickets stands the church, which +is probably the smallest parish church in England, or shares that +distinction with the church of Lullington in Sussex or St. Lawrence's +in the Isle of Wight. One or two of the tiny churches in Cornwall are +smaller. There is St. Piran's, but that is now a ruin on a beach, with +only the low walls of the very early building remaining; and there is +the church of St. Enodoc, near Wadebridge, which the saint must have +forgotten and the world overlooked, for it got lost among the low +sandhills and the sand drifted over, and it is only fifty years since +it has been found again, a delight to the few who ever see it, with its +squat grey tower barely seen over a tall hedge of tamarisk, and before +it the short grass rich with thyme, giving place to the sand-hills +which run out to the long level stretch of the beach, and behind it the +sand-hills yielding to the clean dry grass of the downs. + +But these charming small buildings are mostly of very simple and +primitive construction, and St. Culbone has the construction of a +perfect parish church within the limits of its thirty-four feet from +east window to west door, with a nave, and a tiny chancel thirteen feet +long, and a small truncated spire, similar to that of Porlock Church. +Its patron saint is the Celtic St. Columban--Culbone is a simple +corruption of his name--who lived about the same time that St. +Dubricius crowned Arthur at Caerleon, about A.D. 517; of how this tiny +church came to be built (for the present fifteenth-century building +stands on the site of a pre-Saxon foundation, which was dedicated to +the Celtic saint), or what refuge or sanctuary it was, there is no +historical record; doubtless a remnant of the British, harassed by +Saxon raids on Porlock, hid themselves in this dark gorge, and there +built and dedicated a church to their own saint of the dove's name, in +the hope that he would save them from the claws of the invaders. + +Of Minehead as it is now, no greater contrast can be imagined with +Porlock and St. Culbone, except that of Ilfracombe, with the grand +desolation of Heddon's Mouth and the solitariness of Trentishoe or +Morthoe. For both Ilfracombe and Minehead have become so popular for +summer visiting that most of their original character is lost under a +flood of new houses, trim streets and shops, which have grown to meet +the requirements of a large but fluctuating population. Unduly to +deplore this is, I suppose, a form of intellectual snobbery. Both +Minehead and Ilfracombe are still undoubtedly beautiful in their +setting of sea and moorland, the one upon lofty cliffs, the other among +gently rounded and wooded hills; and it is fitting that more people +than the favoured and aristocratically-minded few, who elect to stay in +cottages and shun their fellow-men, should be given opportunity to +enjoy them. + +Minehead is a place with a history; its position on the Bristol Channel +made it a port of considerable value, and throughout the Middle Ages it +did a large trade with Ireland, and a foreign trade with France and +Spain, only second to that of Bristol from the West of England. In the +seventeenth century, like Bristol also, it had an extensive trade with +Virginia and the West Indies, and it exported annually forty thousand +barrels of herrings to the Mediterranean. But the herrings left these +coasts, as I have already had occasion to state in speaking of Lynton, +and an Act passed in the reign of Charles II, forbidding the import of +Irish cattle, though passed with the intention of protecting the +English farmers against Irish competition, had the usual result of such +short-sighted policy, and, while it crippled the Irish trade and ruined +the prosperity of such ports as Minehead, it ultimately benefited +nobody. Any ship smuggling cattle, that was captured, was sold, and a +part of the proceeds went to charity and a part to the Crown. The "Cow +Charity" is a fund which is still administered in Minehead. + +Minehead was a "manor" in Domesday Book, and was given along with +Dunster by the Conqueror to William de Mohun, who was one of the first +of his nobles to support his English expedition, and who brought to the +standard of Duke William fifty-seven knights in his retinue, with their +esquires and their men-at-arms. The name Minehead is a corruption of +the Norman lord's name with the Anglo-Saxon word _heved_, a head; it +used to be written "Manheved." + +The Mohuns held it until the time of Henry IV, when, there being only +daughters, it passed out of the direct line, and was sold by Lady Mohun +to the Luttrells, who have held it until the present time. It was +incorporated by Queen Elizabeth, and governed by a "port-reeve," and +later by two constables. The place was then of a size to consist of a +Lower, Middle and Upper Town; the Lower Town, now called Quay Town, is +the oldest remaining part. It lies under the high hill of Culver +Cliff, around the harbour, and has more of the look of a Devon or +Cornwall fishing village--the steep, narrow streets, the whitewashed +cottages with their large chimney-stacks and leaded windows--than the +aspect of modern Minehead would lead one to expect. It was here, +indeed, that the sea broke in the great gale of 1860, when the shipping +in the harbour tore from its moorings, and was driven literally upon +the houses of Quay Town, as the sea-wall gave way under the pounding of +the waves, and the _Royal Charter_, getting clear from Culver Cliff, +was driven on to the rocks off Anglesea, and lost with all hands. + +Thirty years later, in 1891, the Minehead shipping was again wrecked by +one of the fiercest storms that has ever been recorded over England. +It began on March 9, and raged for four days, chiefly over Somerset, +Devon, and Cornwall. Shipping was driven on to the rocks from Land's +End to Bristol; at Plymouth the solid iron seats on the Hoe were torn +up and hurled about by the force of the wind; the heavy snowdrifts +stopped all communication, even by train; some unfortunate people were +practically buried in their houses; and along with the tragedies and +devastation the strangest and most fantastic adventures happened, such +as an old woman, struggling back from market, having her basket of +provisions blown bodily out of her hand, and picking it up four days +later, with every article in it unharmed, not even a burst packet of +tea! Where the roads were not blocked with snowdrifts, they were +mostly impassable from fallen trees, for the force of the wind was +greater than anything which has been experienced in England, partaking +more of the character of a cyclone, with the wind varying from N.E. to +S.E. and with very rapid changes, but of greater duration than an +average cyclone, for it raged from the 9th to the 13th. + +Many fine and historic old trees were lost, and at Edgcumbe Park alone, +near Plymouth, it was estimated that at least two thousand were blown +down, and the damage was so extensive that it took two years to clear +the park; while at Cotehele, near the little town of Calstock, the +damage was beyond description. One hundred thousand feet of timber, it +was calculated, suffered in this one small district; and Cotehele +House, which before had lain behind a screen of trees, was afterwards +open to view from the town by this violent deforestation. Here is one +of the most interesting descriptions of the storm, written by Mr. +Coulter, the steward at Cotehele: + +"The wind, having blown a gale the whole day, continued to increase in +violence as evening approached, and from seven till nine p.m. +accomplished, if not all, the greater part of the devastation to house +and woods. The noise of the storm resembled the frantic yells and +fiendish laughter of millions of maniacs, broken, at frequent +intervals, by what sounded like deafening and rapid volleys of heavy +artillery, and, as these died away, louder and louder again rose the +appalling screams of the storm, with slight intervals of lull and +perfect calm, only to return with tenfold violence, which made the +whole house tremble and vibrate. . . . Several of the windows facing +east were swept in as easily as a spider's web; lead and glass +scattered all over the rooms, leaving only the shattered frames, +through which rushed the resistless wind and blinding snow. . . . +Through the joints of doors and windows, the cracks and crevices, +before unknown to the eye, the drifting snow penetrated and piled up in +ridges, so that rooms and passages had to be cleared like the pavement +in the streets. . . . On an examination of Cotehele Woods, the scene +presented gives one the idea of an earthquake rather than that of a +storm. The majority of the trees are from two to three hundred years +old, torn up by the roots, and tearing up like so much turf yards of +macadamized road and huge blocks of strong stone walls." + +The violent storm in the South of England in February, 1916, gives one +only a faint idea of this famous blizzard of 1891; for, great though +the damage was, it was more local, and the storm was of shorter +duration and did not interrupt the train and telegraph services over +many scores of miles, as the earlier storm did, travellers in the West +being out of touch with their friends for as much as four days or a +week, snow-bound in some small village until the railway line was +cleared and the postal service re-established. + +[Illustration: The Doone Valley in Winter] + +The fury of such a storm across these always windy Exmoor heights can +hardly be imagined; only Conrad could convey in words some adequate +idea of the fury and the force, as he has done in "Typhoon." Anyone +who was in Exmoor during these three days would have been fortunate to +have reached shelter alive, and not to have been lost, as were so many +unfortunate sheep and ponies, in the deep snowdrifts. There is a scene +in "Lorna Doone," where John Ridd and his servant Fry go out on a bleak +stormy morning to rescue their sheep from the snow, which gives a vivid +picture of what must have been many times enacted in the Exmoor valleys +during those wild March days. Of the loveliness of the scene when the +snow had fallen, and after the fury of the wind had abated, when the +March sun shone on the smooth upland curves and beautiful rounded +hollows of the moors, stainlessly white and wonderful under the +clearing sky, Mr. Widgery's picture of Lorna's Bower under snow gives a +beautiful impression. + +Apart from its cattle industry and its herrings, Minehead was noted in +the seventeenth century for its alabaster mines, "harder than ye +Darbishire alabaster," says Thomas Gerard in his "Particular +Description of Somerset," written in 1633; "but for variety of mixture +and colours it surpasseth any, I dare say, of this kingdom." The mines +are said to have been discovered by a Dutchman, but I cannot find that +they were much worked, or were very abundant; for there is no record of +them a century and a half later. They were not like the Combe Martin +silver-mines, which were worked for centuries--some say in the time of +the Phoenicians, when the mines of Cornwall furnished tin for half the +bronze in Europe--which helped Henry V to pay for his wars in France, +and were reopened by Adrien Gilbert in Queen Elizabeth's time, and a +great cup and cover, fashioned from the silver, was presented by him to +the City of London, and may still be seen among the city plate. The +water got into the workings, and they were running poor after so many +centuries, and were finally abandoned in the seventeenth century; for +which Combe Martin is the more picturesque, according to our modern +standards, if less prosperous. + +There is another industry of Minehead, or, more properly, a curiosity; +for there are no traces of the most enterprising approaching the matter +from a commercial standpoint. "There is on the rocks at low-water a +species of limpet which contains a liquor very curious for marking fine +linen," says our seventeenth-century authority, and he gives directions +for breaking the mollusc "with one sharp blow," and taking out "by a +bodkin" the little white vein that lies transversely by the head--a +somewhat delicate operation. "The letters and figures made with this +liquor on linen," he continues, "will appear of a light green colour, +and, if placed in the sun, will change into the following colours: if +in winter about noon, if in summer an hour or two after sun-rising and +so much before setting, for in the heat of the day in summer it will +come on so fast that the succession of each colour will scarcely be +distinguished. + +"Next to the first light green it will appear of a deep green, and in a +few minutes change to a full sea-green; after which it will alter to a +blue, then to a purplish-red; after which, lying an hour or two (if the +sun shines) it will be of a deep purple-red, beyond which the sun does +no more. But this last beautiful colour, after washing in scalding +soap and water, will, on being laid out to dry, be a fair bright +crimson which will abide all future washing." + +Is this indeed the "murex," as Browning calls it, of the Tyrian purple, +which can be found on the Minehead rocks at low-tide by the +holiday-makers of our day?--that "purple dye" for which, the weary +Roman usurper said, + + "We'll stain the robe again from clasp to hem + With blood of friends and kinsmen . . .," + +and yet which is only + + "Crushed from a shellfish, that the fisherman + Brings up in hundreds, yet rejects as food." + + +In coming to Dunster we come to the last of the many beautiful places +that lie within the compass of this fifty miles of England, places with +so varied a loveliness that nowhere else, I think, can you match with +them. + +There is Barnstaple, suave and clean and sunny, with its well-kept +streets and smooth, broad river, and its air of all prosperity and +peace, the very type and pattern of a decent English country-town; and +almost within stone's throw of it the moors begin, lying widely under +the expanse of the sky, with the perpetual running of waters, and the +lonely farms, from which the smoke curls up, blue against the brown +hillside. There are the sombre and unpretending small villages, +Parracombe, Brendon, Bratton-Fleming, each with its history and its +little church, and the homesteads from which the young men have gone, +in their humble twos and threes, to take their part in this war of +millions. There is the grand solitude of Heddon's Mouth and the +raven-haunted cliffs to Lynton; there is Lynton itself, drowned in the +green woods that surge up the steep hillside; there is the West Lyn +Gorge, shadeless and sultry even on a spring day, and the East Lyn +Valley, where ferns and lilies of the valley grow, and every green +thing that loves moisture and shade; and the Watersmeet, where there is +a perpetual rushing of waters which drowns the song of the birds; there +is Porlock, between the moors and the marshes, and the drowned forest +of Porlock Bay; there is the green magnificence of Horner Woods or +Bossington, and the cloud-wreaths that gather and lift on the summit of +Dunkery; and here, easternmost of our journey, is Dunster, the castle +on its wooded hill rising above the long street of the village, and the +edge of Exmoor beyond, dipping now from its bleak heights in gentle +wooded undulations to the shores of the Bristol Channel. The Tower on +the Hill, that is the meaning of the word "Dunster," and the name +fittingly describes it; for it dominates many miles of beautiful and +fertile country, and stands feudally above the village, perceptible +from every angle of the street, at once a guardian and a menace. It +has stood so for a thousand years, for it was a stronghold of the Saxon +Kings before William the Conqueror gave it to William de Mohun, and he +built his gloomy Norman fortress, with its massive, windowless walls, +and squat strong towers, of which nothing now remains save a +bowling-green which marks the site of the old keep. + +The main part of the present building dates from "the spacious days of +great Elizabeth," when her nobles needed rather magnificent +country-houses than fortresses for defence; but the gatehouse, with its +four flanking towers, was built in the time of Henry V, and the oldest +part of the castle is the gateway by the side of the main entrance, +which was built by Reginald de Mohun in the time of Henry III, while +Henry Luttrell added the south front in the "antique taste" of a +hundred years ago. Yet, like so many cathedrals, and not a few of the +castles and great houses of England, like Hampton Court or Ely +Cathedral, the varying styles of architecture do not give an appearance +of patchiness or incongruity, but rather a feeling as of the vitality +of the old building, and the continuity of life within it, that century +after century adapts and adds to the uses of the present the habitation +of their ancestors. The sun and rain mellow all, and the ivy makes all +green; stone urn and Roman column grow old and gracious beside steep +Elizabethan gables and fantastic chimneys, and the grey pointed arches +of the fifteenth-century gateway are as good to ride under to the meet +on crisp September mornings as a Renaissance doorway or an +eighteenth-century portico. Much of the charm of these old buildings +cannot be reproduced by brush or camera; it lies in their intimate +association with the scene around them, sunshine and cloud, summer and +winter, their hills and their streams; it is the sense of age which +they convey, of long-continued tradition and a certain mellow security. + +It was in 1376 that the Luttrells bought the castle from the Mohuns; +and they hold it still; the old receipt for the purchase-money is still +preserved in the castle hall, with various ancient and yellowing +title-deeds, and a list of the "muniments" of the castle, made by +William Prynne, who was sent there as a prisoner by Cromwell in 1650, +after having suffered branding and the loss of his ears at Royalist +hands for his "seditious teachings," and who, firebrand and fanatic as +he was, beguiled his imprisonment with this curiously peaceable +occupation. + +The village is as beautiful as the castle; in the long, irregular +street every house is three to four hundred years old. The projecting +upper stories are supported on great timber balks, often with the ends +grotesquely carved. Under the projecting eaves the swallows build, and +twitter about the diamond-paned windows which reflect so richly the +sunset light. In the steep roofs there are dormer-windows, and the old +tiles have mellowed to a deep rose-red, stained yellow with lichen, and +sink into irregular planes and angles of beautiful, varied colour. +There are tall brick chimneys and steep gables, and all manner of odd +delicious scraps and jags of architecture, where one building has +crowded upon its neighbour in its growth, like trees in a forest. +There are old gardens also, long sunny walls with old fruit-trees that +look like hoary serpents writhing up them, until the spring comes and +the delicate, exquisite forms of plum or peach blossom break out of the +gnarled boughs; there are wallflowers and lavender and rosemary, for +the sweet scent and the "remembrance" of them, and tall hollyhocks to +nod over high brick walls; creepers, green or flowering, to grow over +the whitewashed spaces, and great trees for shade on summer afternoons. + +In the centre of the long main street is the yarn-market, a beautiful +wooden building of the seventeenth century, built by Sir George +Luttrell when Dunster was still a centre of the wool industry. It is +built with wide overhanging caves, pierced by eight little +dormer-windows, with a lantern at the apex of the roof, and is a unique +little building whose characteristic features have been sketched and +photographed many scores of times, and is comparable, perhaps, only +with the butter-market at Bingley in Yorkshire. Opposite is the +Luttrell Arms, a quiet, comfortable, harmonious stone building of the +eighteenth century, but with part of the older building still preserved +inside--a wall that overlooks a paved court, with windows set in frames +of beautiful carved oak, and a gabled roof, a moulded plaster +over-mantle also, and yet with that general air of disregard for these +treasures, amid a hurrying to and fro with plates and bottles, which, +to me, is one of the special charms of these long-established country +inns. + +To anyone who loves England, and that beauty which is so +characteristically English, where the life of the present day is +visibly linked with the life of the past through long centuries of +security, where age has ripened all, the great old trees, the colours +of old oak and weather-beaten tiles and warm brick, has gently +undulated straight lines, and softened all sharp angles, where the very +sunlight has the mellowness of old wine, to a mind perceptive of this +peculiar and intimate charm of England, Dunster makes a special call, +set amid the suave curves of its rich country, crowned by its ancient +castle, dignified by its old, beautiful church (grown, like the castle, +through Norman and Early English and Perpendicular styles of +architecture), yet intimate and familiar, and beautiful most of all +because of the use and wont of daily life within its walls. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +LUNDY + +It is curious in this twentieth century of ours, when every corner of +the habitable globe is docketed, measured, mapped, and surveyed, when a +railroad runs across "darkest Africa," and the great ice-wall of the +Antarctic cannot keep its inviolability from the feet of those resolute +and heroic explorers who go with camera, microscope, and theodolite, +against such forces of Nature as would daunt anything but the resolute +human heart--it is curious to come across small corners of the world +where the law of nations seemingly does not run, and the current of the +modern world sweeps by, leaving them in a backwater, strangely aloof +and undisturbed. + +Such is the island of Herm, in the Channel Isles; such are one or two +volcanic rocks in the Greek Archipelago, which you may purchase for a +song, and live on if you can, though their barren waterlessness under +the midsummer suns will compel you to put out to sea again for all the +dangers of swift currents and black crags; such, too, I imagine, are +some of those enchanted small islands in the South Seas of which Conrad +writes: "It was as if the earth had gone on spinning, and had left that +crumb of its surface alone in space"; such, too, is Lundy. + +But Lundy is only fourteen miles from the English coast, this populous +and organized England, and in the mouth of the Bristol Channel, in the +direct track of all the shipping of the West--sighted, it is estimated, +by at least a million vessels a year in their business up and down the +world--and yet, to within the last generation, it was almost as +inaccessible as in the days when the de Mariscos built their castle +there and defied the King and all his armies. + +Even now, though in the summer pleasure steamers run from Ilfracombe +and Minehead, and land their noisy crowds on the south-eastern corner +of the island, the narrow peninsula of Lametor, it is during barely +three months of the year; they have ceased before the coming of the +October gales, and the island goes back to its solitude, and the wild +clamour of its innumerable sea-birds, while its few inhabitants wait +their bi-weekly post, and the coming of the Trinity boat on the 1st and +15th of the month, for news of the outside world. + +For Lundy is a great rock, about three and a half miles long, and +averaging half a mile in depth, cutting the strong tidal stream which +runs round the south coast of Wales and up the Bristol Channel, with +steep cliffs and outlying crags and peaks of rock over which the surf +is flung ceaselessly, even on still summer days, and with a dangerous +tidal race at its northern end and the south-west and south-east +angles. It stands, too, in the highway of the winds as well as of the +waters, and is so scored and buffeted by gales that hardly any trees, +except the stunted dwarf-elder, can survive the winter fury on its open +slopes. When a westerly gale is blowing, many ships run in under its +lee-shore for shelter; but its only landing-place is at the south-east +angle by Rat Island, and that becomes dangerous in an easterly wind, so +that boats have to be beached on the south or west side, though with +difficulty and some danger. Add to this that the road from the +landing-stage is so narrow and steep that it could be held by two men, +and its suitability as a robber stronghold becomes clear. + +It is a land of romance, singular in every aspect: in the formation of +its rocks, in the birds that haunt its cliffs and the beasts that haunt +its caves, in its antiquities, and the whole course of its adventurous +history. It is a granite rock, with here and there patches of +clay-shale, notably at the south-eastern corner; but the granite is +differentiated from the granite of Devon, to which it is so proximate, +and of so marked a character that it can be traced in many buildings +along the northern coasts of Devon and Cornwall, principally in towers +and churches, proving that quarries must have been worked on Lundy at +some time during the Middle Ages, and before the fifteenth century; for +there is comparatively little building of churches after that date. A +company was formed in 1863 to work the Lundy granite-quarries, and it +was intended to use this stone in the building of the Thames +Embankment; but the difficulty of shipment from so inaccessible a spot +proving insuperable, the enterprise was abandoned. + +But apart from the height and boldness of these granite cliffs, rising +in places almost sheer to a height of more than seven hundred feet, +with outlying reefs and insular rocks bristling black and jagged +through the foaming waters, with gully, creek, and cave, worn by the +action of rain and sea, there is a further wildness given to the island +by a great series of clefts or fissures, running for a considerable +distance in a line irregularly parallel to the cliff, sometimes from +ten to twenty feet across, and as much as eighty feet deep, where they +can be measured; at other places too narrow for sounding, but seeming +to strike right down into the bowels of the earth. Locally this +phenomenon is called the "earthquake," and the popular tradition of the +island ascribes its appearance to the great earthquake at Lisbon in +1755; but it is certainly older than that date. However, the shock of +that great disturbance may have further rent the granite and displaced +the mighty boulders. It extends for about two miles from the southern +coast, running in a northerly direction, and where the slate formation +meets the granite it is fractured in the same sharp manner. Some +upheaval of the earth's crust in far-off prehistoric times must have +cracked the granite and made these mighty chasms; the wildness and +singularity of their appearance, and the confined locality in which +they occur--for there is no trace of such disturbance elsewhere in the +island--make one wonder if it were no imprisoned demon or angry god, +chained in the blackness under Lundy, who, stretching his mighty sinews +to be free, so contorted and rent the solid granite above him. The +absence of legend or ancient tradition (for the tradition of the Lisbon +earthquake is comparatively recent) about so arresting a spectacle I +ascribe to the condition of Lundy's history; there has been no +continued habitation of the simple people of the land to pass on, from +generation to generation, the ancient names and the ancient stories of +their dwelling-place, untouched by the changes of rule and ownership +which go over them. + +For this reason another strange phenomenon of Lundy, about which the +imagination of an earlier people must have lingered, passes barely +remarked. There is a great promontory on the coast, opposite the reef +called the Hen and Chickens, which is pierced by a sort of tunnel about +eight hundred feet in length and sixty feet in height, through which a +boat can sail on calm days at high-water; and in the centre of the +tunnel, bubbling up through the sea, rises a perpetual spring of fresh +water. This is called the Virgin's Well, and I can discover no story +or legend with which it is connected, though the name may possibly +contain some earlier myth, not based upon Christian worship. + +[Illustration: Lynton: The Devil's Cheesering] + +The names of other remarkable features of the island, the great rocks +which are piled along its coasts, are all descriptive and not legendary +names--the Devil's Chimney, the Cheeses, the Templar's Rock, the +Gannett Rock, the Mousehole. These names will have been given in +comparatively recent times, at least since the Saxon invasion, for they +show a different mentality from the Celtic names which are found widely +in Cornwall, Devon, Wales, and Northumberland, and which have a poetic +and imaginative quality. Such is the difference between Heddon's +Mouth, "the Giant's Mouth," or Dunster, "the Tower on the Hill," and +such names as I have quoted above. The very name of Lundy itself, +which is "Lund-ei," the island of Lund, as Caldy is "Cald-ei," the +island of Cald, show a Teutonic origin, perhaps Scandinavian, but not +named so by the Celts of Britain or Ireland. + +But "there were great men before Agamemnon"; certainly there were great +men on this island before the adventurer Lund landed upon it and gave +it his name. + +In 1850, in digging foundations near a farmhouse in the southern part +of the island, a great grave, or series of graves, was discovered. +There were two stone coffins, made of hewn blocks of granite, just deep +enough to contain a body, and with the covers sloped and cut each from +a single block. One was ten feet in length, and contained the huge +skeleton of a man, over eight feet high; the other was eight feet long, +and contained a skeleton well over six feet, which "was imagined to be +that of a woman," but on what grounds I cannot discover, as it does not +seem to have been carefully examined, and is therefore probably mere +conjecture, based upon its juxtaposition to the larger coffin. In the +account of the excavation a "macabre" incident is recorded. One of the +workmen, seizing the shin-bone of the giant, placed it against his own +leg, and found that it reached halfway up his thigh; whereupon, taking +up the lower jawbone, he fitted it easily over his own lower jaw, +though he was a burly man and bearded. + + "To what base uses a man may return, Horatio! . . ." + + "Imperious Caesar, dead and turned to clay, + Might stop a hole to keep the wind away: + O that that earth, which kept the world in awe, + Should patch a wall to expel the winter's flaw." + + +For that these were the bones of a man mighty in his day the +workmanship of his coffin goes to prove. For he lay with a stone rest +for his head and feet, made each of a cubic block of fine granite, and +a deep depression hollowed in his pillow to take his head, resting +sideways towards his shoulder. As these great blocks were cut and +squared and hollowed with stone tools, the labour which they betoken +may be imagined; and none, I suppose, but an imperious Caesar could +have exacted it. The skeleton was covered and surrounded by a mass of +limpet-shells. There were seven other skeletons buried in a line with +these two, but without coffins, and they were not of the race of +giants; and then, at a little distance, there was a great pit, filled +with the bones of men, women, and children, as if a slaughtered +multitude had been flung into a common grave. In this pit were found +some beads, light blue in colour, some sherds of red glazed pottery, +and a few fragments of bronze. Over all was scattered a vast heap of +limpet-shells. + +Here is one of the fascinating problems of archaeology, which comes +with the touch of romance to the dry study of minutiae: When were these +burials made? Are they of two different dates? The giant of the stone +coffin perhaps belonged to the far-off Stone Age, already grown dim and +legendary to these later peoples, who knew of the working of metal and +the making of glass. And were they sacrificed to him, as a dark hero +or demi-god of the past, to propitiate him against plague or conquest? +And what is the magical significance of the limpet-shells, which cover +them and him alike? These questions, and many others, will, I am +convinced, be answered by the patient research of archaeology within +comparatively few years. The suggestion that this interment is Danish, +and is the remnant of the force defeated by Alfred the Great outside +Kenwith Castle, is, I think, untenable; the bones of women and children +being found with those of men alone disproves it, apart from the +inaccessibility of Lundy and the very great antiquity of the stone +coffins. + +But whoever they may be who left their bones here, it is certain the +story of their lying there is a tragedy, of bloody sacrifice or more +bloody massacre, like all the histories of wild animals and of +primitive peoples. + +Not far from the Giant's Grave, as this site is locally called, is +another relic of hoary antiquity, in the shape of a tumulus, which, +when opened, laid bare a kistvaen, or sepulchral chamber, formed of a +great block of granite, weighing nearly five tons, resting on two +upright granite slabs, and enclosing a space about six feet square. +This method of burial is well known throughout the old world; such +burial chambers have been found in Greece, and in considerable numbers +in Ireland, where they are primitive Celtic. In the Lundy kistvaen no +skeleton was found, nor anything, indeed, save a small fragment of +pottery, though "there was a rank odour in the cavity, very different +from that of newly turned earth." + +There is a logan-stone on the eastern side of the island, which, within +the memory of Mr. Heaven, the last owner of the island, was a true +logan-stone, and could be rocked with the hands, but has now slipped +from its socket. But the whole question of these logan-stones is +controversial, some claiming them as relics of antiquity of whose use +and meaning we are ignorant, and others as the chance product of the +natural forces of rain and weather. + +The same also may be said of the "rock-basins," of which a very perfect +example may be found in the Punchbowl Valley, being a granite basin of +four feet in diameter, with a uniform thickness of six inches, with +both the concave and convex surfaces segments of a perfect sphere. +Later opinion inclines to a human, and not a chance, origin for these +interesting phenomena. + +But, leaving the dim and still conjectural paths of archaeology, let us +turn to the history of Lundy. Here again we are confronted with facts +which a conscientious historian would hesitate to assert, save as +legend. For this singular land, where the King's writ does not run, +which is not assimilated even yet to municipal government, was for +centuries, even down to the eighteenth century, a robber stronghold, +from which, as from those castles on the Rhine, and still earlier and +more powerful castles of the Aegean lords, built athwart the peninsulas +of the trade-routes, the garrison swooped maraudering upon the peaceful +occupations of unprotected folk. + +Lundy is supposed, not upon very certain authority, to have been called +"Herculea" in Roman times; and there is no record, nor even tradition, +of how it came by its present name, only a vague conjecture of a +Scandinavian origin, of which I have already spoken. But there are +evidences of a much earlier occupation than the Roman--indeed, so far +as I know, there have been no Roman remains found yet upon the +island--and it is no unlikely supposition that the great skeleton of +the Giant's Grave was some such feared and piratical chieftain as the +first recorded lord of the island, the fierce de Marisco. These +Mariscos were a branch of the great family of Montmorency, and they +were ever a thorn in the side of their liege-lord, whether in England, +Ireland, or Lundy. They must have owned Lundy since the days of the +Norman Conquest, if they had not seized it before; for the great castle +Marisco, built upon the extreme verge of the cliffs, commanding the bay +and the landing-place, and overlooking in a wide sweep all the southern +coast of the island, was already built in the eleventh century. From +this impregnable fortress, with its massive walls nine feet in +thickness, its squat, strong Norman turrets, its encircling fosse, and +the perpendicular cliffs by which its seaward wall was made unscalable, +Sir Jordan de Marisco used to sally with his retainers, making war on +all alike, levying toll--_blackmail_, if ever there was, in the true +meaning of the word--disobeying the laws of the land, and outraging the +dictates of common humanity. So that, though he had married a +Plantagenet, a blood relation of the King's, Henry II declared his +estate of Lundy forfeited, and granted it to the Knights-Templars. +Whether peace was made between Sir Jordan and Henry, or whether Henry +was not strong enough to enforce his edict (though he was a powerful +and determined monarch), I do not know; but in 1199, in the reign of +King John, Sir Jordan's son William following in his father's evil +ways, the grant of Lundy was confirmed to the Templars. + +But this fortress was a hard nut to crack. The only approach is from +the south-eastern corner, by a steep and narrow path commanded by the +castle, and held by Marisco's men, and it was no light undertaking for +the invaders to beach their boats and effect a landing against wind, +weather, and attack. So that, although a tax was levied upon Devon and +Cornwall to support an undertaking for the siege of Lundy, it does not +appear to have been taken; for it was granted to Henry de Tracy (of the +famous family of Tracy, cursed since the murder of Becket), and a few +years later to one Robert Walerand. Then for some years de Marisco +seems to have found even its mighty walls and granite cliffs too +insecure, for he is found fighting among the French, and in 1217 was +taken prisoner in a sea-fight, when Eustace the Monk, the pilot of the +French fleet, was slain. Yet a few months later, in November of the +same year, he was reinstated in possession of Lundy, and his wife, his +sons and daughters, who had been seized by Henry III as hostages, were +restored to him. Now favoured, now disgraced, but turbulent to the +last, he died in possession of Lundy, but in the very year of his death +having paid ransom to Henry of 300 marks. + +His grandson, also William de Marisco, filled up the tale of violence +and ill-doing, and forfeited at length the family inheritance, by his +share in the attempted murder of the King at Woodstock. This is +Westcote's account of the plot, given in his "View of +Devonshire": . . . "Only Matthew Paris speaketh of one William de +Marisco who, conspiring the death of Henry III, persuaded a Knight +sometime of his Court to murder him, and with that intent got at night +by a window into the King's bedchamber; but He, in whose protection the +lives of princes are, disappointed him, for the King lay elsewhere. He +seeking from chamber to chamber with a naked weapon in his hand, Mrs. +Byset, one of the Queen's women, sitting late up at her devotions, +shrieking at the fearful sight of him, awakened the King's guard, who +presently took him." + +The unhappy and probably demented youth was put to death, and de +Marisco fled to his island, which he further fortified, and there, +attaching to himself a band of outlaws and malefactors, lived by +piracy. Retribution came in its due course, for, having made himself +detested by all decent men, many knights and nobles joined against him, +and contrived to take him by strategem. He was brought to London, +tried, and condemned to death with sixteen accomplices, dragged from +Westminster to the Tower, and there hanged. "When he had there +breathed out his wretched soul," he was drawn and quartered--a literal +account of which, as given in Matthew Paris, I forbear to set down--and +the quarters of his body sent to the four principal cities of England. +His father, Geoffrey, fled to France, and the island came under the +government of Henry de Tracy for the Crown. + +Yet in the reign of Edward I, one of the Irish branch of the Marisco +family was reinstated in possession for a few years, though Edward II +gave it to his favourite and his worst enemy, Hugh Spencer. It was +there also, be it remembered, that he purposed taking refuge from his +Barons, but was driven to Wales by contrary winds. In the time of +Edward III the island came to the Luttrells, the great family that +owned Dunster, Minehead, and many manors on the North Somerset coast; +in the time of Westcote, in the reign of James I, it was in the +possession of the Grenvilles. + +It is difficult, and perhaps tedious, to attempt to follow in detail +the many families who had, or laid claim to, possession of Lundy +throughout the course of history; it is clear that it was a stronghold +of importance, from the frequent references to it in our records. It +was claimed and loaned and bought and held in fee from the eleventh to +the nineteenth century. It was the scene of a wild and fantastic +adventure in the reign of Charles I, when three Turkish pirate-ships +swooped upon it, and made slave-raids into Devon and Cornwall, taking +sixty men out of a church one Sunday morning, and carrying them away +prisoner. "Egypt was never more infested with caterpillars," wrote the +captain of a ship of war in 1630, "than the Channel with Biscayers." + +The Turks sailed south with their human booty, but the Channel and the +Devon coast became the prey of an English buccaneer, the famous Admiral +Nutt, who was more boldly and splendidly piratical even than the +buccaneers of "Treasure Isle," and who faced the King's navy and got +clear to his stronghold of Lundy, though they dropped thirty great shot +among his fleet, of which Nutt received ten through his own ship. What +became of the Admiral I do not know; he was not captured and hanged, +and so may have sailed away to the Barbadoes or the Mediterranean, and +there have met his death and scuttled his ship in a last fight against +odds, or perhaps been marooned by a mutinous crew, or set adrift in an +open boat to die of hunger and thirst, or been stabbed in a drunken +scuffle over a bottle of rum. + +He passes away from the history of Lundy, but now a French man-o'-war +and now a Spanish made raids up the Bristol Channel and upon Lundy, +until Thomas Bushel held it for Charles I and established some measure +of order. It was claimed from Bushel by Lord Say and Sele as his +"inheritance," and he wrote to the King for permission to deliver it +up, but proposing: + + +". . . If your Majesty shall require my longer stay here, be confident, +sir, I shall sacrifice both life and fortune before the loyalty of + +"Your obedient humble servant, + "THOMAS BUSHEL." + + +Bushel received the following letter from Charles, which I transcribe +because of the light which it throws on the King's character, a letter +written in answer to a faithful and disinterested servant in a mood of +petulant self-pity. ". . . Now, since the place is inconsiderable in +itself, and yet may be of great advantages to you in respect of your +mines, we do hereby give you leave to use your discretion in it, with +this caution, that you do take example from ourselves, and be not +over-credulous of vain promises, which hath made us great only in our +sufferings and will not discharge our debts." This letter, more than +any single document I know, shows the hopeless weakness of the Stuart +character, and the unhappiness of serving the Stuart cause; this letter +might have been written by Mary, Queen of Scots, or by James II, or by +the Old Pretender, or by the Young Pretender; in all alike we find what +this letter shows, a certain gracious melancholy, a lack of moral +courage, a great self-pity, and a great selfishness. + +Thomas Bushel gave up the island into the hands of Colonel Fiennes, a +Parliamentarian soldier, and the father of the intrepid young lady, +Celia Fiennes, who, a few years later, travelled through the length and +breadth of England on horseback, and wrote an account of her +journeyings. Lord Say and Sele, who claimed the island, was her +grandfather on the mother's side. + +After the Restoration, and under the corrupt administration of Charles, +the Dutch ravaged the shipping of the Channel, as the French did in the +reign of William and Mary and Queen Anne, and as pirates did at all +times, whenever a body of desperate men could establish themselves on +Lundy, and from there make raids on the coastal traffic. The last and +worst pirate of all, the most inhuman, as the meanest, a trafficker in +human misery for the sake of gold, false even to the partners in his +base contract, was Benson, a rich man by inheritance, and belonging to +one of the oldest Bideford families, the leading citizen of Bideford +and Appledore, and a member of Parliament for Barnstaple. + +In 1747 he entered into a contract with the Government for the +exportation of convicts, and gave bond to the Sheriff to transport them +to Virginia or Maryland, which was the horrible method of treating +criminals then in common use. But in 1748 he leased Lundy Island from +Lord Gower, and, transporting the convicts there, began building walls +and cultivating the island with this slave-labour. The great wall, +called the Quarter Wall, on Lundy was built by these unhappy convicts. +After a few years, however, Benson was discovered in smuggling, and a +large quantity of tobacco and other goods was found in caves and +chambers cut out of the rock. For this he was fined 5,000 pounds; but +when his importation of convicts was discovered, and he was taxed with +it, he excused himself by declaring that to send them to Lundy was the +same as sending them to America, so long as they were transported +anywhere out of England. The termination of his villainous career in +England was owing to a conspiracy to defraud an insurance company, a +vulgar and inglorious crime without the element of danger and adventure +which in some slight degree may be said to have invested the exploits +of the other pirates who have infested Lundy. + +Benson, having laded a vessel called the _Nightingale_ with a valuable +cargo of pewter, linen, and salt, insured her heavily before she +sailed, ostensibly, for Maryland. But he had arranged with her master, +Lancey, to put back at night and land the cargo at Lundy, and then to +burn and scuttle the _Nightingale_. This was accordingly done, and the +crew took to the boats and were picked up by a homeward-bound ship; +but, as usual in these circumstances, one of the crew, animated by some +personal pique, "blew the gaff," in the parlance of roguery. Lancey +was taken, tried, and hanged, and Benson escaped to Portugal. + +Little more remains to be said of the history of Lundy. In 1834 it was +purchased by Mr. Heaven, and remained the property of his family for +over sixty years, till 1906, when it once again came on the market, and +was bid for by Germans, but was withdrawn from sale, and remains in +English possession. + +But I cannot close this short account of the island without a brief +reference to the wild life which abounds on the pinnacles of its +inaccessible rocks, on the fern-covered, steep slopes, and in its +numberless sea-washed caves, which are haunted by seals, or were until +within the last few years; for the brutality and selfish carelessness +of chance visitors allowed to land by the courtesy of the owner have +driven away much of the timid wild life which had taken refuge against +the advancing tide of civilization. Seals used to be observed in fair +numbers, particularly at the southern end in a great cave called Seal +Cave, and walruses were occasional visitors. But lobsters and crabs +are still caught in very great numbers, and, together with the +innumerable conies which breed on the island, form the staple industry +of the island. + +Lundy is also the last stronghold of the original old English "black +rat," which has been invaded and destroyed throughout England and +Scotland by the common Scandinavian brown rat; Rat Island, at the +south-eastern corner by the landing-stage, commemorates in its name +this last fortress of a dying race. + +But it is for its birds that Lundy is perhaps most notable. To those +who first approach its mighty cliffs it might appear to be the haunt of +all the birds in creation. There are gulls of many varieties, falcons, +kestrels, ravens, crows, cormorants, kittiwakes, puffins; there is the +razor-billed auk, and that now extinct bird, the Great Auk, was seen on +the island no later than the last century. + +But, indeed, it was no surprise to me to hear of this extinct species +lingering on Lundy; the strangeness and wildness of the place might +lead one to expect it to be the haunt of the Dodo, or that monstrous +and fabulous bird of the "Arabian Nights," the Giant Roc. + +The hoopoe, the pretty little Southern bird which haunts the gardens of +Greece, sings its "tio, tio, tio, tio, tix" of Aristophanes' comedy on +this wind-swept Northern isle; the rose-coloured starling, that rare +and beautiful bird of a warmer clime, has been seen here in the spring; +the eagle and the golden eagle hover above its crags; the sparrow-hawk +and the great gyrfalcon prey upon the small birds and little rodents; +even the wild and shy osprey was known to build its eyrie upon Lundy to +within the last half-century. + +Many of these birds are visitors only, and do not breed here; for in +the spring and the autumn, when the great tides of migration set north +and south, Lundy lies in the track of their going, and here the birds +alight, in their hundreds of thousands, to rest the wings tired with +the going and coming from Africa or Asia across the miles of water. + +But whether in winter or summer, spring or autumn, any bold walker who +ventures round the cliffs and coves of Lundy will find himself +surrounded with such a crowd of screaming sea-fowl, diving, swooping, +poising, or darting, in such myriads as if the foot of man had never +yet scared them from their breeding-places, as the sea-fowl swooped and +screamed from their inviolate heights when the first Norsemen ran their +beaked ship on to the desert beaches of Iceland. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE LAST STRONGHOLDS OF TRADITION + +Schools, newspapers, and railways have gone far in the past hundred +years to destroy the wealth of oral tradition which once satisfied the +imagination and taxed the memories of the country-dwelling population +of England. And do not let us too greatly deplore this; let us +recognize that it is better for the general welfare of the world that a +man who dwells three hundred miles from London should have some +interest, however slight, in international politics, and some +knowledge, however fragmentary, of natural forces, rather than a +slipshod belief in ghosts, witches, and the omnipotence of "squire." +It is not from such minds that empire is made or deserved, and if with +the increase of cheap schooling, cheap printing, and cheap travelling +much that is beautiful in language or in legend is swept aside and +forgotten, we who have, by the fortune of training, been allowed to see +the beauty of the old things must recognize that what the generation +gains is more for its happiness than what it discards, as a new brass +Birmingham bedstead is cleaner, healthier, and more desirable for a +small crowded cottage than a worm-eaten old wooden four-poster. + +This reminder I make to myself more than to any "gentle reader"; for I +have a passionate attachment to antiquity and a curiosity in legend +which leads me into remote paths of speculation and fancy. Some of the +most interesting survivals of ancient tradition are those customs, far +more common all over England than is supposed, which contain some very +ancient religious rite, long ago forgotten by the people, who practise +as a superstition, or sometimes as a pastime, what was once an act of +worship. The Christian Church, indeed, embodies many of these +survivals of paganism, not in its dogma or liturgy, but in its customs. +Such, for instance, is the giving of eggs at Easter, the eating of hot +cross buns on Good Friday, the games of All Hallowe'en, the harvest +festival. + +Such customs as "touching with a dead hand" as a cure for sickness, +covering the mirrors in a house where one has just died, watching at +the church door on Midsummer Night to see the souls of all the +worshippers pass in, and those who will not live out the year remain +behind and do not pass out--these are part of the common stock of +beliefs, not confined to Devonshire or Scotland, nor directly traceable +to Celt or Saxon or Latin, but surviving from the remote past of the +human race, when the slowly emerging mind was struggling with its +apprehensions of life and death. But there are other customs, +surviving in the wilder and less accessible parts of our country, in +Scotland, Northumberland, Devon, and Cornwall, which seem to throw a +flash of light on the history of vanished peoples, by their +resemblance--though worn and rubbed by time, like a defaced coin--to +certain rites, well known to us in history, as practised by the Romans, +or the Druid peoples, or the worshippers of Baal. + +Of such kind is a ceremony, until a few years ago very common in +Devonshire, where the first armful of corn that is cut is bound into a +little sheaf, called "the nek," and set aside from the rest of the +field. At the end of the first day's reaping the oldest man present +takes the little sheaf and holds it aloft, crying, "We ha' un!" (We +have it!) The cry is repeated three times, and the rest of the +reapers, standing round the old man with their reaping-hooks in their +hands, bow down at each cry. The spokesman then cries out three times, +"Thee Nek!" or, as it is stated by some witnesses of the scene, +"Arnack, Arnack, Arnack!" and the little sheaf is carried off the field +and hung up in the church. I do not know the meaning of the cries, but +the whole ceremony is undoubtedly a dedication of the corn to the +Corn-Spirit, and the little sheaf which is carried home and hung up is +a rough image of the Corn-Maiden, like those plaited straw figures of +Demeter and Persephone the Greek husbandmen used to make, and which the +peasants of Sicily make still. Whether the observance of this rite in +Devonshire is of Roman date, or whether it goes farther back, to a +remoter tradition of preclassical times, it is difficult to say. + +So it is, also, of the Devonshire custom of making an offering of wine +and honey to bees on the day of their owner's death, and of reversing +their hives until the corpse has been carried out of the house. The +Greeks poured honey, but not wine, in their rites for the dead, and in +all the ceremonies which had to do with the worship of the earth +deities--the ancient autochthonic gods, older than the Olympians. But +wine was strictly an offering to the gods of the heavens, not to the +gods of the underworld, or of death. + +There is another custom, still very common in North Devon and Somerset, +for the young men of the countryside to climb the nearest hill-top to +see the sunrise over the ridge of the Quantocks or the distant Mendips +on Easter morning. They account for their action by saying it is "for +luck"; but this custom, if connected popularly with Christian worship, +has at its roots an older, sterner, and perhaps bloody origin. For, +searching back into the mists of antiquity, we find that those early +and mysterious peoples whose priests we call the "Druids," to whom the +mistletoe was sacred (and with which we decorate our houses at +Christmas, the festival of "peace and good-will"), offered human +sacrifices to their dark gods on high mountains and at the hour of +sunrise. + +Whether the Britons whom Caesar describes as sacrificing human beings +in vast wicker cages were the Druidical peoples who built Stonehenge +and the great stone circles of Dartmoor and Cumberland, or whether with +them the mode of worship was already traditional, preserved by a +priestly oligarchy from a yet remoter age, and connected by I know not +what strange links with the fierce Eastern worship of Baal or Melkarth, +it is impossible to say with certainty at present, though the names by +which the Cumberland men still call the peaks and valleys round the +small Druid circle near Keswick contain the elements of those foreign +Phoenician words. + +But at least we may assume that the accurate astronomical arrangements +of these Druid stones connected human sacrifice with the movements of +the sun, and the tradition which sends the young men of the countryside +up Dunkery Beacon on Easter morn is certainly older than the first +Roman galley that beached in our bays. + +Dunkery Beacon is the highest peak in the West of England; it rises +above Exmoor black and bold above bog and heather, commanding a view +from the Malvern Hills of Worcestershire on the north to the high lands +of Plymouth on the south-west, two hundred miles distant the one from +the other. The great sweep of the Bristol Channel shines below it on +the west, and beyond that lie the blue hills of Monmouthshire and +Pembrokeshire; eastward the counties of Somerset, Devon, and Dorset lie +under the eyes, and on a clear day it has been computed that no fewer +than fifteen counties can be seen from this one eminence. + +[Illustration: Dunkery Beacon, from Horner Woods] + +So notable a height might well have been chosen by those Druid peoples +as a fitting stage for the celebration of their worship, and the +tradition which holds it "lucky" to climb the Beacon on a spring +morning is just such a memory and faint superstition as lingers from an +old and forgotten faith. The country-folk round Keswick used to drive +their cattle up to the Druid circle on the hill-top near on the first +of May, light a fire within the circle, and drive their cattle through +the smoke "for luck," unconscious that they were remembering the +worship of the god Moloch, to whom beasts and human beings were +sacrificed at his Asiatic shrines by passing them through the fire. + +On Dunkery Beacon, so far as I can ascertain, there are no remains of a +Druid circle, but only two stone platforms arranged for beacon fires. +As a beacon it has been used for many hundred years. In the time of +Alfred the Great it flamed a warning of the coming of the Danes; it was +doubtless lighted at the coming of William the Conqueror into the West; +when the Armada went beating up the Channel; time and again when the +rumour ran that Napoleon had started for these shores; the country-folk +lighted it several times as a warning that the Doones were out on one +of their raids, till one night they climbed the beacon and threw the +watchman on the fire, after which it was left black and silent for all +the evil that the Doones did, until in due course retribution overtook +them and their stronghold was seized. So that I conjecture that the +circle of stones (if there were one) was pulled down to build the +beacon fires. + +But the "Hunting of the Earl of Rone" which takes place at Combe Martin +on Ascension Day is probably the most interesting of all ancient +survivals in North Devon. It is a curious ceremony, partaking +something of the nature of a Guy Fawkes mummery, something, I consider, +of a much older and traditional character. + +The "Earl of Rone," actually, was the son of the Earl of Tyrone, the +"Red Hand of Erin," who, in the reign of James I, fled from Ireland and +landed at Combe Martin, wandered about the countryside with a band of +companions, and was finally pursued and captured in Lady Wood, outside +the village. In the Ascensiontide sports the Earl wears a grotesque +costume: a mask, and a smock padded with straw, and round his neck a +chain of biscuits. He has with him a hobby-horse and buffoon covered +with fantastic trappings, and carrying a small article called a +"mapper" (which is conjectured to be a misreading for "snapper"), and +representing the teeth and jaws of a horse. The Earl has also a +donkey, decorated with flowers and with a necklace of biscuit, and the +hunters wear a sort of fantastic grenadier costume. For a week before +Ascension Day this strange cortege goes in procession round the +neighbourhood. The ceremony on Ascension Day is as follows: The Earl +of Rone hides in Lady Wood, and is there pursued by the soldiers, fired +upon, and captured. He is then placed on the donkey, with his face +towards the tail, and led into the village, accompanied by the fool +with his hobby-horse. They make several halts, at each of which the +Earl is again fired upon and falls wounded from his donkey, mourned by +the fool, but amid the general rejoicing of the spectators. Finally he +is replaced by the fool, and the affair becomes a mere matter of +buffoonery without special significance. Contributions are levied from +the public, and enforced by the "mapper," by which they are seized and +held until they have paid. The fool also has a besom, which he dips in +the gutter, and with which he sprinkles the recalcitrant. + +But among much that is mere horseplay, and common to all popular +celebrations which have no religious significance to keep in check a +natural holiday exuberance, we can discover two distinct traditions. +The one is the actual Guy Fawkes celebration of the capture of the +rebel and outlaw Shane O'Neill; the other is much older, going back +into the remote past of unwritten history, and connected with those +strange religious ceremonies which a study of comparative religions has +shown us to be a natural development of the mind of primitive peoples, +struggling out of the darkness of mere barbarism. Over and over again +we find, among the customs of savage tribes, or behind the elaborate +ceremonial of such civilized nations as the Greeks and Romans, or +lingering in strange and now meaningless ceremonies such as the one I +have just described, this primitive idea of the individual who is +harmful to the community. From being baleful he became sacred. They +cast him out of their city, as the Jews did their scapegoat, to wander +in desert places, and as the Greeks did in a city festival which was +older than the Homeric gods among them, and which symbolized, in +classical times, the days when they had literally stoned a man and a +woman from their midst, bound, and with chaplets of flowers on their +heads and necklaces of black figs around their necks. It is recorded, +among the South Sea Islands, that a traveller once witnessed such a +sacrifice as this memorized in the classic Greek festival. Then, by a +queer but common inversion of idea, this baleful but sacred individual +is fetched back into the community, as the outcast, hidden in Lady +Wood, was brought back into Combe Martin, being beaten and reviled, and +yet keeping his sacred character as a being set apart from the rest of +men. His mask and traditional dress, his necklace of biscuit, and the +decking of the donkey with flowers and bread, all point to the +sacrificial character of this ceremony, though long ago forgotten and +become the opportunity for frolic and holiday-making. + +The custom of "beating the bounds," which was familiar enough in many +country districts in the last century, is also a remains of primitive +tribal rites; it is a summer festival, falling usually at +Ascensiontide, and is held with greater or less ceremony. Now, indeed, +it has become just a holiday affair for children, who dress up and +parade the town or village with a hobby-horse and a few vague +ceremonies, now become shadowy and meaningless, as in the beating of +the bounds which takes place in the older part of the town of Minehead. + +There are many scores of superstitious practices, as distinguished from +these remains of actual ritual of which I have spoken, still in use +among country-folk. In Devonshire they still take a sick child, very +early in the morning, and hold it over a stream which is running east, +with a long thread tied to its finger, so that as the water carries the +thread eastwards away from the child the sickness will also be carried +away. This, which seems to us so incomprehensible a belief, is one of +that very large class of primitive practices which imitate a certain +desired condition, as in the rain-making of certain tribes of red +Indians, when, having danced ceremonially round a large tub of water, +one of the number takes a mouthful and spirts it into the air in +imitation of rain. This is what they call a "charm"; there are charms +for the stanching of blood, for making the cows yield well, for the +cure of toothache, for averting evil from a young child; when a +Devonshire woman is asked to a christening, she still takes with her a +saffron cake, and gives it to the first stranger that she meets on her +way to church. But when the cattle are diseased, they have, or had as +late as 1883, when the ceremony was witnessed and recorded, a rite +which is more than a charm; for a sheep or calf is taken from the herd +and sacrificed, and either burned, or buried in a corner of the field +belonging to the farmer whose cattle are diseased. + +But there is another practice in Devon and Cornwall which we may +proclaim a superstition, but to which the tragedies of these wild +coasts give but too grim an earnestness to those who practise it. When +a ship is long overdue, and a woman can bear the suspense no longer, +she goes down to the seashore and calls her husband by name. Over and +over again she calls him, her neighbours standing by, until over the +waters the voice of her drowned husband comes in answer. Then she +turns and goes to her desolate cottage, with hope put out of her heart. +How often these cries of sorrow and bereavement have gone out from +these rocky coasts, calling the drowned men by their simple, homely +names of field and cottage use from under the grey waters, how often +the waiting women have been comforted or strengthened by a despairing +certainty, we cannot know or realize who do not live and die by the sea. + +Apart from those customs and practices, which contain the germ of some +very ancient ritual or primitive belief, there is another class of +tradition which is purely fantastic, such as ghosts, witches who change +into rabbits and cats, fairies, dragons, and strange portents. Of such +kind is the story of the Ghost of Porlock Weir, a buccaneer named +Lucott, and no unlikely personage to haunt any of these seaside +hamlets. He was a malicious and obstinate ghost who appeared boldly a +week after his funeral--when the inhabitants might reasonably have +supposed they had at last got rid of the bad old man--and though he was +exorcised by no less than eleven clergymen he refused to be laid. At +last the Vicar of Porlock tamed him with a consecrated wafer, compelled +him to ride with him to Watchet, and there imprisoned him in a small +box, which was straight-way thrown into the sea, and he was seen no +more. + +There are elements in this story like that of Anstey's novel, where a +genie is imprisoned in a brass pot, which is fished up out of the sea +and opened, with startling results to a quiet modern community; and it +is to be hoped that nobody will bring Lucott ashore again, along with a +catch of fish. + +There is another strange tale, also, concerning one John Strange of +Porlock, who, on August 23 of 1499, was hewing wood, and upon sitting +down to his midday meal on a log at the edge of the clearing, and +cutting a piece of bread, observed blood to flow from the incision. He +went to his neighbours about it, and with them to his parish priest, +and the matter became one of importance, for I find that a Commission +was appointed and recorded in the Register of Wells, to inquire into +this strange occurrence. Witnesses were called and examined, oaths +taken, the learned Commission sat upon it as solemnly as if it had been +a case of heresy. John Strange, summoned from his little cottage at +Porlock, was, we can well imagine, a half-unwilling hero. Nobody seems +to have arrived at any conclusion, and nobody seems to have suggested +that perhaps John Strange had cut his finger! + +There is an even stranger and more splendidly fantastic story in +Westcote's "View of Devon," of fiery dragons seen flying about certain +barrows or tumuli near Challacombe, and alighting on them, and how a +certain labouring man, having bought a small plot of waste land near +by, began depleting Broaken Bunow to build himself a house with the +material. And how, digging into the hillock, he came upon "a little +place, as it had been a large oven, fairly, strongly and closely walled +up," and breaking into this he discovered an earthen pot, which, hoping +it might contain some treasure, he stretched out his hand to seize, +when, as he put his hand upon it he heard a noise as of a great +trampling of horses coming towards him. So he rose and looked about +him, but, seeing nothing, knelt again to secure the pot, when the same +thing happened again, and so a third time also. Nevertheless he drew +out the pot and took it home, and found it to contain no treasure, but +only a few ashes and little bones. And a very little time after he +lost his senses both of sight and hearing, and died within three months. + +There is another barrow also, near the same place, where I am inclined +to believe that a "mystical sciencer" worked a trick on two worthy +fellows, whom he promised to enrich with silver and gold if they would +dig into the hillock for him and find therein a great brass pan which +contained the treasure. This they did, and came to the brass pan +covered with a large stone, which the strongest of them tried to lift, +and was taken with such a faintness "that he could neither work nor +stand," and therefore called to the other to take his place. This the +man did, and was also taken with faintness; and when they both +recovered, which was in a very short space of time, the "mystical +sciencer" told them that the birds were flown and the nest only left. +And sure enough they found this true: the empty brass pan, with the +bottom bright and clean, as if a treasure had lain there, and all the +rest of it cankered with rust. Whether this sciencer was some obscure +Roger Bacon, and had discovered the use of a volatile anaesthetic +centuries ago, or whether he was enjoying a solitary practical joke at +the expense of two simpletons, is impossible to say. "It is at your +choice to believe either or neither," as Westcote says of the two +foregoing stories. "I have offered them to the shrine of your +judgment, and what truth soever there is in them, they are not unfit +tales for winter nights, when you roast crabs by the fire, whereof this +parish yields none, the climate is too cold, only the fine dainty +fruits of whortles and blackberries." + +One of the pleasantest of tales for winter nights is given by Westcote +himself in his introductory chapters, where he speaks of the air of +Devon as "very healthy, temperate, sweet, and pure," and giving long +life to the inhabitants, more particularly in the good old times, when +men were content to live temperately and frugally, and did not weaken +themselves with delicacies, but subsisted on the bare sustenance +afforded by the earth. Indeed, in the most ancient times they lived on +bark and roots, and on a certain "confection," of which if they took a +small quantity no larger than a bean they neither hungered nor thirsted +for a long while afterwards--so, at least, Diodorus Siculus and Dio +Nicaeus have affirmed, and we can therefore only suppose, in the face +of such authority, that the recipe is long since lost, and that the +habits of Devonshire men have certainly changed since the days when +they lived a hundred and twenty years. + +But that must have been before the Phoenicians came to Britain, for +they are certainly reputed to have brought the secret of clotted (or +clouted) cream with them, and to have landed in Cornwall and Devon with +their scald-pans with them, so that the degeneration of the Damnonii in +the matter of delicacies is of very ancient date. + +I cannot pass from an account of the wonders of Devon without repeating +Miss Celia Fiennes's description of a "ffowle" (as she calls it) which +lives on the island of Lundy, and which was formerly the property of +her grandfather, Lord Saye and Sele, and "yt lives partly in the water +and partly out, and soe may be called an amphibious Creature." She +does not claim to have seen it herself, for all her wanderings up and +down England a-horseback--which was, by the way, sufficient of an +adventure for a young lady in the seventeenth century--but she is none +the less detailed in her description. This queer bird has one foot +like a turkey, and one like a goose, and its habit of laying its eggs +is "in a place the sun shines on, and sets it soe exactly upright on +the small end, and there it remains until taken up, and all the art and +skill of persons cannot set it up soe again to abide." + +She does not give the name of this strange "ffowle," but Lundy is no +unfitting habitat for an amphibious creature which is at least as rare +as the Dodo. + +Stories of Henry de Tracy, who murdered Thomas a Becket, are numerous +up and down the coast; for the Tracys owned a considerable amount of +property here--Lynton, Crinton, Countisbury, and Parracombe--and, in +spite of historical evidence of the family's continued prosperity, +tradition asserts that the curse brought down by sacrilege was +fulfilled, and that Henry de Tracy wanders up and down these desolate +coves, condemned to weave ropes of sand that can never draw his +wretched soul out of torment till the last trump shall sound. He has +become, indeed, a figure of legend, merged with such strange persons as +the Wandering Jew and all those restless and unreleased spirits who, +like Sisyphus of Greek legend or Tregeagle of Cornish, for ever toil at +a for ever unaccomplished task. + +The legends which have sprung up round the name of Coppinger have been +of quick growth, for "Cruel Coppinger" was a Danish sea-captain who was +wrecked off Hartland at the end of the eighteenth century. He came +naked ashore, the only survivor from the ship, having swum through the +stormy waves. He staggered up the beach, seized the red cloak from an +old woman's shoulders, wrapped himself in it, and leapt on the horse of +a young girl who stood by, urged the horse into a gallop, and +disappeared from the beach. That was a sufficiently striking entrance +to the stage of Devon, and he filled his part adequately. The young +girl with whom he had ridden off was Dinah Hamlyn; he was taken by her +to her father's farm, where he was fed and clothed. He married Dinah, +and after her father's death, within a year, he ill-treated shamefully +her and her mother, though it was to them that he practically owed his +life, ship-wrecked strangers in the eighteenth century being apt to +disappear among an inhospitable people. Coppinger lived by smuggling +and wrecking; he was brave, violent, and of great physical strength, +and he terrorized the population of these little villages by acts of +savagery and cruelty. A ganger who had had the boldness to interfere +with him he seized, and beheaded on the gunnel of his own boat, and +even for this no one dared to bring him to justice. He played violent +practical jokes, by inviting to dinner with him unfortunate people who +dared not refuse, and serving them up cats or offal for their meal. + +He was in every way a scoundrel and a blackguard, and became such a +pest that at last he earned retribution; and after many local attempts +to convict him of smuggling or wrecking, the revenue officers came out +from Bude to the Bristol Channel to hunt him down. He was seen last on +the Gull Rock, off Hartland Point, signalling one evening to a ship +which lay in the offing. He was taken off by a boat, but almost +immediately a storm came up, the ship was blotted out from the sight of +those watching from the cliffs, and when the squall passed she had +totally disappeared. No one ever knew whether she had foundered with +all hands, or had run out of sight behind Lundy, or whether she had +become, by reason of the wicked wretch aboard her, a second _Flying +Dutchman_, shaping an endless course through stormy seas. + +There is a verse of rough doggerel which the children in these parts +still repeat, and which embodies the story of this tyrant: + + "Will you hear of cruel Coppinger? + He came from a foreign land; + He was brought to us by the salt water, + He was carried away by the wind." + + +Probably Coppinger's wild and picturesque rush from the beach, like a +Centaur in a scarlet cloak, was an actual measure of prudence; for in +those cruel times of wreckers and smugglers the survivors who landed +from a wreck were often murdered by the people they were thrown +amongst, because "dead men tell no tales," and the unfortunate seamen +might otherwise give evidence of false lights which had seemed to +promise safety and refuge, and had drawn them on to the rocks. Such +was the case of a French ship which was drawn ashore at Hele by +wreckers, and the only survivor was taken to Champernownesheyes (the +old gabled farmhouse which was formerly the home of the well-known +Devonshire family of Champernowne), and there murdered. There is a +curious ghost-story told in connection with this: The farm in due time +passed into other hands, and all memory of the wreck or the +disappearance of the one unfortunate survivor was lost. But one +evening, while the farmer who was then living at Champernownesheyes was +smoking his pipe in the garden, he fell to idly counting the windows, +and, having done this several times, he discovered that there was one +window unaccounted for. He called his wife, and then the servants, +and, having made sure of this, they located the position of the strange +window, and, going upstairs, they broke down the wall which they judged +to be opposite, and found, indeed, that the window lighted a small +room, furnished in sixteenth-century style, and containing a bed, hung +with mouldering tapestry, on which lay a skeleton--the bones of the +shipwrecked survivor who had been murdered. As they broke into the +room, and went to fling open the long-closed window, they heard a great +rushing noise, and cries and groans, and they declared that the garden +was filled with evil spirits, rustling and whispering, mopping and +mowing, for upwards of an hour afterwards. + +There are, of course, many more tales, legends, and traditions, than I +have been able to deal with in the space of one chapter; every village +has them, every cove and creek, dark wooded hollow, or twisted and +fantastic rock, and to collect and collate, to sift and inquire into +all the wealth of folk-lore that our country still holds would be an +attractive but a life-long work. All I have attempted to give in these +few pages is some general idea of the intimate life of these +country-folk, what beliefs and customs, inherited often from the days +before Christianity, what charms and legends and lore, go to the +fashioning of their minds, just as I have tried to give a general idea +of the beauty and wildness, the peculiar and intimate quality, of the +country in which they live. + + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Lynton and Lynmouth, by +John Presland and F. J. 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