Image unavailable: TORR STEPS, HAWKRIDGE (page 109).TORR STEPS, HAWKRIDGE (page 109.)
you can,” exclaimed one of them. No sooner said than done.
I now come to what may be either the basis or a variant of the main tradition, unless, as may well be the case, it is an entirely independent narrative—namely, a circumstantial relation quoted in theTreatise of the Soul of Man, which edifying composition was published in 1685. It is, word for word, as follows:—
“Much to the same purpose is that so famous and well-attested story of the apparition of Major George Sydenham to Captain William Dyke, both of Somersetshire, attested by the worthy and learned Dr Thomas Dyke, a near kinsman of the captain’s, and by Mr Douch, to whom both the major and captain were intimately known. The sum is this:—The major and captain had many disputes about the Being of a God and the immortailty of the Soul, on which points they could never be resolved, though they much sought and desired it, and therefore it was at last fully agreed betwixt them, that he who died first should on the third night after his funeral, come betwixt the hours of twelve and one, to the little house at Dulverton in Somersetshire; and the captain happened to lie that very night which was appointed in the same chamber and bed with Dr Dyke. He acquainted the doctor with the appointment, and his resolution to attend the place and hour that night, for which purpose he got the key of the garden. The doctor could by no means divert his purpose, but when the hour came he was upon the place, where he waited two hours and a half, neither seeing nor hearing anything more than usual.
“About six weeks after, the doctor and captain went to Eaton, and lay again at the same inn, but not the same chamber as before. The morning before they went thence the captain stayed longer than was usual in his chamber, and at length came into the doctor’s chamber, but in a visage and form much differing from himself, with his hair and eyes staring and his whole body shaking and trembling. Whereat the doctor, wondering, demanded, ‘What is the matter, cousin captain?’ The captain replies, ‘I have seen my major.’ At which the doctor seeming to smile, the captain said, ‘If ever I saw him in my life, I saw him but now,’ adding as followeth. ‘This morning (said he) after it was light, someone came to my bedside, and suddenly drawing back the curtains, calls, ‘Cap, cap,’ (which was the term of familiarity that the major used to call the captain by), to whom I replied, ‘What, my major.’ To which he returns, ‘I could not come at the time appointed, but I am come now to tell you that there is a God, and a very just and terrible one, and if you do not turn over a new leaf, you will find it so.’ This stuck close to him. Little meat would go down with him at dinner, though a handsome treat was provided. These words were sounding in his ears frequently during the remainder of his life, he was never shy or scrupulous to relate it to any that asked him concerning it, nor ever mentioned it but with horror and trepidation. They were both men of a brisk humour and jolly conversation, of very quick and keen parts, having been both University and Inns of Court gentlemen.”
The intimacy to which this narrative bears witness, though easily accounted for in officers of the same regiment, is further explained by the fact they were near neighbours at home. The Sydenhams, as has been shown, dwelt at Combe, and the Dykes, I may now add, at Pixton, the former residence of the Sydenhams, whilst the salutation “Cap, cap” indicates much friendliness. The Dyke dynasty came to an end when Sir Thomas Acland (seventh baronet) married Elizabeth Dyke, and joined her estates at Dulverton and elsewhere to his own vast patrimony. With them I am not concerned, more than to state that they were the grandparents of John Dyke Acland, who wedded in 1771 the Lady Christian Harriet Caroline Fox-Strangways, sister of Stephen, first Earl of Ilchester.
In the commonplace book of Thomas Sayer, parish clerk and schoolmaster of Dulverton, I find the following entries relating to the family:—
“JnoDyke Acland, Esq., married Jany7, 1771. The above JnoDyke Acland born Feb. 18, 1746, and died Nov. 15, 1778. The old Sir Thos. Dyke Acland, Father of above JnoDyke Acland, born Aug. 12, 1722, and died Feby20, 1785.”
The same manuscript includes particulars regarding Pixton House, which prove the existing structure, the “frozen music” of which is superbly classical, to be differently laid out from its predecessor, which we may conjecture to have been of some type of English domestic architecture, and, according to Saver’s measurements, contained some fine rooms. The old house waspulled down in February 1803, and the new, built by Hassell, of Exeter, was finished in November 1805. This work was carried out on the initiative of Lady Harriet Acland, after whom the private road through the serried woods of the sequestered Haddeo valley is named “Lady Harriet’s Drive”—doubtless, because she ordered its construction.
Two or three years ago Mr Broomfield, of Dulverton, showed me an old picture, dim, dirty, and discoloured, yet significant. Through the crust of time one could discern a man, a woman, and a boat; and the attitudes and certain of the details convinced me that the faded, and not very valuable, heirloom represented a scene in the life of the great lady of Pixton, to whichshemust have looked back with horror, and her posterity will ever refer with pride. I will try to interpret that picture, and conjure up the scene it so feebly portrays.
It was the year 1777, and Major Acland’s grenadiers, forming the advanced guard of General Fraser’s brigade, were advancing against the American insurgents. Lady Harriet had already endured cruel privations, and in the course of the previous year had nursed her husband through a dangerous bout of sickness, contracted in the campaign. Now it had begun again. Only a short time before, the tent they were sleeping in had caught fire, and most of their clothing had been burnt. It was winter, and bitter cold.
Now, however brave a woman may be, unless she is a professed Amazon, she is not expected to fight, and, as an action was about to take place,Acland requested his wife to remain with the baggage. In a small log-hut with three other ladies—the Baroness Ruysdael, Mrs Ramage, and Mrs Reynell—Lady Harriet spent hours of agonising suspense, the high notes of the incessant musketry fire mingling with the diapason of the artillery, to be varied erelong by the groans of the wounded borne into their place of shelter, and littering the ground around.
After a while the news reached Mrs Ramage that her husband had been killed. Then came another message that Lieutenant Reynell had been dangerously wounded; and finally, at the close of the day, Lady Harriet received the information that Major Acland, seriously hurt, was in the hands of the enemy.
With equal courage and affection, the devoted woman resolved to go in search of him, and that without delay. Accordingly, with Dr Brudenell, chaplain of the regiment, she entered a small boat and proceeded down the river to the enemy’s outposts. Here they were challenged by the sentry, and Brudenell, hoisting a white handkerchief on a stick, attempted to explain their errand. The sentinel, however, proved obdurate, not only refusing to carry any message to the officer in command, but warning them not to move, or he would fire on the boat. So all through that inclement night, insufficiently clad, without a particle of food, and in imminent danger of becoming a target for the foe, they sat and waited.
With the morning their situation improved. The general, on being made cognisant of the facts, received the lady with soldierly sympathy,and accorded her full permission to attend on her husband until his recovery.
Soon after they returned to England, and to Pixton, but Colonel Acland was born to ill-luck. He fought a duel on Bampton Down, November 11, 1778, with Captain Lloyd, an officer of his own regiment, whom he had offended by praising the humanity of the American people, and caught a chill. Four days later he was dead.
Lady Harriet had two children—Elizabeth Kitty and John Dyke. The latter, after succeeding to the baronetcy, died at the age of seventeen, whilst his sister married, in 1796, Lord Porchester (afterwards second Earl of Carnarvon), and died in 1816. Lady Harriet outlived both husband and children, dying in 1818.
The present possessor of Pixton is the Dowager Countess of Carnarvon; and her sons are the lineal descendants of the intrepid woman whose adventures I have described.
Pixton Park, with its beeches and herd of fallow deer, and Lady Harriet’s Drive, flanked on each side by gorgeous oak woods or oak coppice, vocal with streams, and centred by brown Haddon, are among the features which enable Dulverton to maintain its proud claim to extraordinary beauty of scenery. In this respect it has no superior in the West Country, and Tennyson, who visited the neighbourhood not long before his death, went away delighted with it. An account of this visit appears in the life of the poet by his son, the present Lord Tennyson; and, although rather inaccurate in some of thedetails, yet, as a piece of impressionism, deserves to be reproduced.
“In June, Colonel Crozier lent us his yacht, theAssegai, and we went to Exmouth, and thence by rail to Dulverton—a land of bubbling streams, my father called it.
“Lord Carnarvon had told him years ago that the streams here were the most delicious he knew.
“We drove up the Haddon valley, and to Barlynch Abbey on the Exe. The ragged robin and wild garlic were profuse. We returned by Pixton Park.
“The Exe is ‘arrowy’ just before its confluence with the Barle, running, as my father remarked, ‘too vehemently to break upon the jutting rocks.’ We sat next on a wooden bridge over the Exe, and he said to me, ‘That is an old simile, but a good one: Time is like a river, ever past and ever future.’
“In the afternoon, we drove through the Barle valley to Hawkridge, then to the Torr Steps, high up among the hills, with an ancient bridge across the river, flat stones laid on piers. Some tawny cows were cooling themselves in mid-stream; a green meadow on one side, on the other a wooded slope. ‘If it were only to see this,’ he said, ‘the journey is worth while.’
“We climbed Haddon Down [Draydon Knap?], and then to Higher Combe—a valley down which there was a most luxuriant view, the Dartmoor range as background, almost Italian in colouring.”
Lord Tennyson adds, that, at Dulverton, hisfather began the Hymn to the Sun in a new metre, for his “Akbar.”
A most exquisite view is to be obtained from Baron’s Down, situated on the lofty height of Bury Hill. Formerly the seat of the Stucley Lucases (who were as great in stag-hunting, or nearly so, as Tennyson was in poetry), it afterwards served as the country-house of Dr Warre, Headmaster of Eton, who resigned his tenancy, much to the regret of his neighbours and friends, as recently as last year.
Of Dulverton town, as distinct from its environs, it is impossible to say much. It is, however, one of the chief centres of Exmoor stag-hunting and fishing, and the hotels, which thrive on these attractions, provide adequate accommodation. Owing to the constant stream of fashionable visitors from all parts of the world, Dulverton, though in point of size a mere village, wears, during the season, a quite cosmopolitan aspect; and, as if to emphasise its superiority to other rustic communities, the enterprising inhabitants have lately caused to be installed a system of electric lighting by means of high poles with wire attachments.
Here, it will be remembered, dwelt Master Reuben Huckaback, John Ridd’s maternal uncle, who, when bound on the back of the frightened mountain pony, described himself as “an honest hosier and draper, serge and long-cloth warehouseman, at the sign of the Gartered Kitten, in the loyal town of Dulverton.” Huckaback, I am disposed to think, was Blackmore’s creation, the name in itself being suspicious. What is Huckaback? Nuttall defines it as “a kind of linenwith raised figures on it, used for tablecloths and towels”—the sort of thing that a shopkeeper in Uncle Ben’s line would be likely to sell. Blackmore, no doubt, somewhat exaggerates the commercial advantages of Dulverton, but in the good old days, tradesmen managed to subsist very comfortably, and even to retire on a competence. The premises now occupied by Mr Bayley were probably those Mr Blackmore had in his eye, though their spick-and-span appearance does not suggest anything venerable. The proprietor, however, has good warrant for ascribing a decent antiquity to the house, whose traditional sign is the Vine, not the Gartered Kitten. That it may have been partially remodelled or reconstructed since the seventeenth century, is readily granted, as being in the nature of things, but, having been the head shop at Dulverton time out of mind, it is, at all events, in the apostolic succession.
Some Dulverton streets bear interesting names. Thus we have Rosemary Lane and Lady Street. The latter was formerly much narrower at its entrance into Fore Street, and an old inhabitant once told me that he believed that anciently it had been built over, and that the front of the superincumbent structure was adorned with an image of the Virgin Mary.
The widening process involved the demolition of two ancient cottages, which had formed the Nightingale Inn; and amongst the débris was discovered an old coin, on seeing which a local connoisseur forthwith pronounced it Spanish, adding that it had been probably left by the Dons when they invaded England in 1600. Acompanion denied that England was ever invaded by the Spaniards, but the other would not be contradicted. “He knowed they did, and it weren’t likely they could pass Dulverton without stopping for a drink.” In point of fact, the coin was a poor specimen of a sixpenny bit, struck in 1566.
Itis now time to quit Dulverton, and one has to face the somewhat complex question in which direction one’s steps should next be turned. There are three main routes—by the railway to Barnstaple; by the “turnpike” to Dunster and Minehead; and by one of several roads to Simonsbath, the heart of the moor. All these ways lead to interesting places—places much too interesting to be passed by; and it is at one’s choice which to seek out first. That is assuming that one intends to establish Dulverton as one’s base, making longer or shorter excursions to the spots hereafter to be named. To recommend such a course, however, would be obviously impolite to other towns equally avid of patronage. They must all be visited in turn—so much is certain.
As a start must be made, and a selection may not be avoided, I will fall back on the line I always followed as a boy, and once more breast Mount Sydenham, with its chaplet of firs. Whenthe panting and perspiring traveller reaches a turn of the road he may hap to espy a hollow in a field on the left. That is Granny’s Pit, where an old woman with dishevelled tresses has been viewed, bewailing her daughter. A few more paces bring us to the grove of firs, whence the sinuous Barle may be surveyed far below in all his sylvan glory. This may be Blackmore’s “corner of trees,” if Ridd followed this route, and not Hollam Lane, which runs parallel with it. Stepping back into the lane, one soon finds oneself on Court Down, which, though not of any great extent, is a genuine bit of moorland “debated” by green fern, and purple heather, and golden gorse, embosomed in which there may stand at gaze fleecy, white-faced sheep of the horned variety peculiar to Exmoor.
Nature’s “much-admired confusion,” however, is exhibited on a much grander scale in the undulating sweep of Winsford Hill, which, from Mountsey Hill Gate to Comer’s Gate, boasts four miles of continuous brake. This free and joyous expanse is the native heath of Sir Thomas Acland’s wild Exmoor ponies, which, in their shaggy deshabille may at times be seen grazing on the rough sward, or scampering playfully over moss and ling. They suffer none to approach.
At Spire Cross is a confluence of roads, that to the left being one way to Torr Steps, an old Keltic bridge formed of large, loose slabs laid athwart low piers, which bears a family likeness to Post Bridge on Dartmoor, but the latter is grooved for chariots. It is well to point out that this charming vestige of prehistoric civilisation—a gem in a lovely setting—is by no means isolated. The remains of several British castles are to be found in the neighbourhood, Mountsey Castle being quite near; and up on the hill, not far from Spire Cross, but in the opposite direction, is a menhir. The stone carries an inscription, which, though extremely rude and partially obliterated, is yet distinctly legible; and the monument is supposed to mark the burial-place of a Romanised British chieftain—the “grandson of Caractacus,” which is the English rendering of “Carataci Nepos.” Dr Murray recently took a “squeeze” of the face of the stone, from which a cast was made, now at Oxford; and both he and Professor Rhys, who accompanied him, were convinced of the genuineness of the scrawl. The actual lettering appears to be: CVRAACI EPVC. Moreover, beside the road to Comer’s Gate are three immense cairns, known as the Wambarrows. This is the highest point of Winsford Hill—1405 feet above the level of the sea.
Around all these spots cluster superstitions weird or bizarre. The menhir is an index of buried treasure. The Wambarrows are the haunt of a mysterious black dog. Round Mountsey Castle a spectral chariot races at midnight, to disappear into a cairn in a field at the foot of the hill. As for Torr Steps, the legend is that they were placed there by the devil, who menaced with dire penalties the first mortal that should presume to use them. The sable monarch took his seat on one bank of the stream, while the other was occupied by a parson, eager to try conclusions with him. The holy man was astute,and, as a preliminary measure, dispatched a cat across the bridge. On touching the opposite side she was ruthlessly rent in pieces, whereupon, the charm having been shattered, the parson boldly strode over the causeway and engaged the devil in a conflict of words, each abusing the other in good set terms. In the end the enemy of mankind retired vanquished, resigning the bridge to all and sundry. Close above these steps was one of the two homes of Mother Melldrum (seeLorna Doone, chapter xvii., where Blackmore alludes to the legend of their origin).
It appears that the Oxfordcognoscentiwent down into the stream in a vain search for more inscribed stones. This reminds me of a curious story of the Barle, the willows on whose banks, by the way, overhang its amber bed so as to form almost an arch. On a hill to the right, looking downstream, stands Hawkridge Church, and what is termed, in contradistinction to the parish, Hawkridge town. Well, once upon a time a villager was asked to take the place of the bass-singer in the choir for one Sunday only, and consented. A day or two later he was discovered by the incumbent, a well-known hunting parson, wading up and down the little river apparently without aim or object. The cleric drew rein, and, much amazed, inquired the meaning of this extraordinary procedure. “Plaze your honour,” was the reply, “I be trying to get a bit of a hooze on me.”
In other words, he was attempting to catch a cold, so that he might become hoarse, this being, as he thought, the best means of qualifyinghimself for the successful discharge of his duty.
“Where the swift Exe, by Somerset’s fair hills,In curving eddies, borders pastures deep,Near fern-fringed slope of lawn, where babbling rillsSing sweetest music, mid thick foliage peepFive bridges, and thatched roofs. The grey Church TowerO’er all looks down on groves of oak and pine:Red deer, red Devons, ponies of the moor,Delight the traveller in this home of mine.”
“Where the swift Exe, by Somerset’s fair hills,In curving eddies, borders pastures deep,Near fern-fringed slope of lawn, where babbling rillsSing sweetest music, mid thick foliage peepFive bridges, and thatched roofs. The grey Church TowerO’er all looks down on groves of oak and pine:Red deer, red Devons, ponies of the moor,Delight the traveller in this home of mine.”
“Where the swift Exe, by Somerset’s fair hills,In curving eddies, borders pastures deep,Near fern-fringed slope of lawn, where babbling rillsSing sweetest music, mid thick foliage peepFive bridges, and thatched roofs. The grey Church TowerO’er all looks down on groves of oak and pine:Red deer, red Devons, ponies of the moor,Delight the traveller in this home of mine.”
This acrostic, in praise of a charming village, is the composition of the Rev. Prebendary W. P. Anderson, vicar of Winsford, who has resided there ever since 1857, and the lines show that his experience of the place has been like the place itself—happy. Far otherwise was it with one of his predecessors. In the church porch may be seen a list of the parish clergymen, not so dry as such lists are wont to be, from which it appears that early in the fourteenth century Winsford had a blind vicar—one Willelmus. Being unable to perform all the duties of his office, he was allowed two coadjutors, of whom it is recorded, to their eternal infamy, that they were deprived “for starving the Blind Vicar.” This conduct, inhuman at the best, was the more scandalous in that the Priory of Barlynch, to which the advowson belonged, had, in 1280, endowed the vicarage with the whole tithe of wool, lambs, chicken, calves, pigs, sucklings, cheese, butter, flax, honey, and all other small tithes and oblations and dues pertaining to the altar offerings. And yet he starved—the Blind Vicar!
Barlynch Priory, a community of AustinFriars stood, where its remains yet stand, some two or three miles down the Exe. Shaded by what the old charter calls “the mountain of the high wood of Berlic,” its situation was in the highest degree romantic; and if the prior had a lust for venery, his taste might easily be gratified, for in the adjacent woods or “copes,” the deer would have found abundant shelter, and thither they doubtless resorted to pass the long summer day under the dense foliage.
Returning to Winsford, Mr Anderson’s lines omit one trait which to many will seem the chief glory of the village—namely, the old inn. The “Royal Oak” is a hostelry such as one does not see every day. Its thatched roofs, and low ceilings, and projecting windows, and general crinkle-crankle are eloquent of the olden time, and the sign, as was the case with all ancient signs, hangs from its own post—a reminder of Boscobel. Hence, by a beautiful rustic lane the traveller wends his way to Exford, and on the outskirts of the village encounters the church.
On a pedestal in the churchyard stands the mutilated shaft of a venerable preaching cross, and hard by the gate one observes an “upping-stock,” or “upstock,” for the convenience of women in mounting their horses after divine service.
Before Exmoor was disafforested and, yet later, made a parish of itself, it is probable that Exford was the ecclesiastical capital of the district—at any rate, of the southern portion of the moor. The parish stands on the very verge of the old forest, and during the reign of King John was actually brought within its limits. Lanes inthe neighbourhood were, in more scrupulous times, the forest-bounds, and along these tracks, still passable, were certain marks mentioned in the Perambulations, almost all of which can be identified. One such track, partly diverted from its old course—which, however, may be easily traced—led from what is now a cottage, but was once a small farmhouse, straight to the church. This cottage bears the name of Prescott, and still contains a round-headed stone doorway, and a little square window let into the side of the big fireplace. The late vicar, the Rev. E. G. Peirson, suggests that this may have been the original priest’s cot or parsonage house. “I like to think,” he says, “that my predecessors, before they came into permanent residence here, used to stop at that house when they came over the moor, and clean themselves before going into the church.” He adds, however, that in that case the cottage or its name must date a long way back, as there would seem to have been clergy resident at Exford early in the twelfth century.
Mr Peirson’s theory is pretty, but a simpler explanation is that the cottage belonged to the glebe. It is curious that just at the point where the old lane used to strike the churchyard, a few projecting stones still form a rough stile over the wall.
Probably it will affect most people with a feeling of surprise that there should be any connection between a place so far inland as Exford and smuggling, yet the same is true. In an orchard above West Mill was formerly an old malt-house, where malt was made and whisky distilled. But the most interesting spot to excisemen lay rather to the north, at Pitsworthy Cottage. Here was an old stone building used as a turf-house; but the room where the turf was stowed had a party-wall concealing another chamber, to which access could be obtained only by a secret entrance under the office of the thatch. Ordinarily this was blocked by a large stone fitted with a swivel. Long after, pieces of hoops and decayed staves were discovered in this hiding-place. Wooden hoops are seen even now round brandy casks, but these were smaller and adapted to the kegs which the smugglers, landing under Culbone, transported to Hawkcombe Head, and Black Mire, and White Cross, and right down to Pitsworthy. There was no road across the moors in those days—I am thinking of the “forties”—and a man called Hookway is remembered as travelling from Culbone with pack-horses.
More of smuggling anon. Meanwhile, I am disposed to record, for the first time, the nefarious doings of Jan Glass and Betty, his wife. Sheep-stealing was a fashionable pursuit on Exmoor; and at Brendon Forge (seeLorna Doone, chapter lxii.) the conversation was divided between the hay-crop and “a great sheep-stealer”—apparently not the same individual whose hanging set up strife between the manors of East Lyn, West Lyn, and Woolhanger on account of his small clothes, since he is described as “a man of no great eminence” (Lorna Doone, chapter lv.). Be that as it may, Jan was a daring sheep-stealer, and yet, in his way, a public benefactor. Often, during a hard winter, he would bring into Exford stolen mutton, which he retailed at twopence a pound, and at such times the inhabitants werefairly kept alive by him. Hismodus operandiwas to go and gather the sheep—his own and others—on Kitnor Heath and Old Moor into Larcombe Pound at the entrance to his farm, where there was a convenient avenue or grove of beech-trees. Having brought them so far, he would kill the strange sheep, and turn out his own again over the allotments.
Jan played this trick so often that old Farmer Brewer determined to take him, if possible, in the act. With this object in view he “redded” his sheep, and as he could stand in his farm and observe the manœuvres, saw Glass driving among the sheep some red ones. With all speed Brewer made his way across, but by the time he reached Larcombe, Glass had killed and skinned the sheep that were not his own.
In the meantime Betty had not been idle. She had dipped the skins in hot water, so that the wool had come off as easily as from a lamb’s tail, and had given the skins to the dogs.
What had become of the wool? Farmer Brewer, anxious to ascertain, glanced around and spied a large pot. Lifting the cover, he found the fleeces, and, turning to the disconcerted woman, exclaimed:
“Aw, fy, Betty! Here’s the wool!”
This led to Glass’s conviction, and he was sentenced to seven years’ transportation. He had certainly had a wonderful career. He did not confine his attention to sheep, but was quite as notorious for stealing colts. Not being able to keep her from her foal, he had been known to kill the mare and throw the carcass into the pond. His thefts of sheep from “Squire” Knight aloneused to average fifty or sixty a year. He would gallop into a flock, pick up one of the sheep, as a hawk or a raven would pick up a small bird, and carry it home on the top of his saddle. It may seem strange that he was permitted to indulge in these malpractices so long, but he lived in a very out-of-the-way place. There were no police in those days, sheep were gathered only once or twice in the year, and the animal he appropriated might possibly be crippled or diseased. Anyhow, until Farmer Brewer interfered, nobody took any notice.
Glass lived to return after being transported, and eventually found himself on a bed of sickness, when he was visited by an old farmer, James Moore.
“Jan,” said he, “I yur thee art very bad, and thee hasn’t got nort to eat. I’ve killed a sheep and brought thee a piece of mutton.”
“Aw, maister,” answered the poor man, “I thort thee’d a bin the last man to come to zee me.”
“What vur, Jan?”
“Well, I don’t know, maister, how I can taste the mutton, for I’ve stole scores o’ sheep from thee at the time you lived to Thurn and the time you lived to Ashit.”
“Never mind, Jan, I freely forgive thee, and I aup that God’ll do the same.”
Glass never got over the illness, but soon after this touching interview gave up the ghost, and was buried in Exford churchyard.
Betty Glass was just as resolute a thief as old Jan, and, whilst at Larcombe, was very intimate with Sally Bristowe (or “Bursta,” asthe name was pronounced), at Rocks, an adjoining farm. On one occasion, Betty paid a visit to Sally at harvest time, when young turkeys were about, and after she had been hospitably entertained, eating what she liked and drinking what she liked, she had the good taste to go out and steal a score of the aforesaid small turkeys. Shortly afterwards, Sally happened to open the door and found the heads of some of the birds lying in the yard, whereupon she set out in pursuit of old Betty, overtook her, and discovered the bodies of the turkeys in the old woman’s apron, blood still flowing from them.
“Now, Betty,” quoth the indignant woman, “however could’st thee steal my turkeys after I’d gi’d thee plenty to eat and drink.”
“Aw, for goodness sake,” was the reply, “keep dark. I’ll give thee a guinea. Say nort about it.”
Sally thereupon accepted the guinea, deeming it better to do so than institute proceedings. This was certainly a mistake, for a week or two later, when Betty was in company with Farmer Brewer, and three sheets in the wind, she remarked, “Hey, Jimmy, what’s think of Sal Bursta’s spot-faced yo? D’ye think I be going to give her a guinea for nort?”
From which it was evident that she stole the ewe to make good the loss of the money. Sal undoubtedly lost the sheep.
During a visit to Minehead, seeing nothing else on which she could conveniently lay hands, Betty appropriated two 7-lb. weights; but she had not gone more than a mile or two from the town when she found the weights tooheavy to carry, and dropped them beside the hedge.
At that time the Crown Inn, Exford, was kept by Nicholas and Mary Harwood. One day when Betty was on the spree, Mrs Harwood entered the house and looked over the old woman’s wardrobe. To her surprise she found three of her own dresses and several petticoats, which she brought down into the kitchen, and, spreading them out before old Betty, inquired how she came by them.
“Needn’t make so much fuss about it,” was the easy response, “for, if I’d sold ’em, you’d a had the coin.”
As Betty was a good customer at the Crown, Mrs Harwood “kept dark” and condoned the offence.
On another occasion, Betty brought a bag into the “White Horse” and put it behind the settle. A man, called Mike Adams, was in the room, and mischievously turned the bag mouth downwards, so that when old Betty took it up, out fell the mutton—very likely a joint of Sal Bristowe’s spot-faced ewe. On hearing the thud, Mike ran round the settle, and was immediately “squared” by Betty, who observed, “Say nort, and I’ll sell it and spend the money.”
Before her marriage with Jan, Betty had an illegitimate son, Jack Reed. In due time this boy was apprenticed to the husband of Sal Bristowe, who kept a farm and proved a rough master. Things grew so bad that at last the lad declared that, if he stayed there, he should be either transported or hanged. Luckily he had a warm friend in young Sally Bristowe. They hadgrown up boy and girl together, and shared each other’s confidences. Privately, Sally made a collection for Jack, and amassed the large sum of sixteen shillings, which she placed in his hands.
The ’prentice had now to look out for a favourable opportunity of escape, and this offered when Farmer Bristowe went to Bratton Fleming Fair, since by running away at this time the boy was assured of a day’s start. On going to bed, Jack ostentatiously bolted the door, but unbolted it “with the same,” so that the old woman might not hear when he made his exit. The plan worked perfectly, and Jack ultimately settled down at Bristol.
The master of the Devon and Somerset staghounds (Mr R. A. Sanders) resides at Exford, and here are the kennels of the pack. The latter are substantial stone buildings with gable ends, and stand on the slope of a hill, close beside the road to Simonsbath. One enters first the “cooking-house,” the lobby of which is hung around with antlered heads, brow, bay, and tray. Some heads are preserved on account of their peculiarities or misshapen forms; and to each head is attached a plate setting forth the date and place of the capture of the animal. Advancing, one is conscious of a pungent odour, which is found to proceed from a chamber where a huge furnace is burning fiercely, and a seething mass of horse flesh is being boiled off the bones for the dogs. Some of this boiled flesh is in a large wooden trough, and, mixed with oatmeal, flour, or biscuit, is undergoing a process of solidification. In the adjoining room are two larger troughs, in one of which biscuit is soaking, whilst the other containsa quantity of oatmeal paste. Both sorts of food are intended for the younger dogs.
The kennels of these hounds, situated at a short distance, are provided with an extensive boarded-in grass plot, which forms their exercise-yard. When heavy rain does not permit of a parade, they will be found on the bench. A magnificent lot of dogs, containing the blood of the most celebrated hounds in the best packs, they are not much disturbed by the entrance of strangers. Some of them half step down from the bench, when you pat and stroke them; they do not attempt to bite, and are, in fact, exceedingly quiet, unless you are foolish enough to strike them. Then you will see. Although the hounds are so much alike, the huntsman has the name of each dog on the tip of his tongue, and when, he calls, the animal is back in his place in an instant—so absolute is his command.
As regards the older hounds, they are kennelled in the same fashion, reclining on a bench with a thick layer of clean straw. They have had a season or two’s “blooding,” and during that time some of them, by their doings in the pack, have made a name for themselves. A few years ago two of them had the honour of appearing on several public platforms in attendance on the huntsman, the late Anthony Huxtable, a merry dog himself, who, as he could troll a rattling hunting-song, was in great request at local concerts, and on such occasions brought the hounds with him as a bit of realism.
Another kennel houses the oldest hounds—dogs which have hunted for seven seasons or more, and are still fit.
Image unavailable: WINSFORD (page 111).WINSFORD (page 111.)
It is a curious fact that nothing upsets hounds so much as thunder. A flash of lightning followed by a loud crash of thunder makes every dog spring to his feet and relieve his feelings by low whines and growls.
A Faggus incident (see below, chapter xiv.) is duly credited to Exford by Blackmore, who entrusts the telling of it to John Fry (Lorna Doone, chapter xxxix.). He appears, however, to have robbed the parish of a still more thrilling episode (see chapters xiv. and xvi.).
FromExford to Simonsbath the road presents few points of interest. At White Cross enters the highway that leads from Spire Cross to Comer’s Gate, and thence between hedges to Chibbet (always so spelt and pronounced, but query Gibbet?) Post, a rendezvous of the staghounds and other packs; and perhaps the spot where Red Jem hung in chains, but it is more than two miles from Dunkery. After White Cross we arrive at Red Stone Gate, where we alight or not as we choose. Red Stone, having been mentioned in the perambulation records as a landmark of the old forest, has some claim to be considered historic. Then we pass what is commonly known as Gallon House, a white-washed building with a porch, standing back from the road and formerly a public-house. Its proper name was the Red Deer, and it is said to have been called Gallon House from the fact that “drink”—beer is always or often thus described hereabouts—was sold only by the gallon. That may or may not have been the case, but, as regards intoxicants, Exmoor is still under restrictions. To ensure the respectabilityof the neighbourhood, the “Exmoor Forest” Hotel (late the “William Rufus”) is limited to the sale of wine, no beer or spirits being obtainable. This rule was imposed by Sir Frederick Knight, and is maintained in full force by his successor, Lord Ebrington.
The proper name of Gallon House was the “Red Deer,” but Blackmore was evidently acquainted with the other description. John Fry is led by a shepherd to a “public-house near Exford,” where “nothing less than agallon of aleand half a gammon of bacon” brings him to his right mind again (Lorna Doone, chapter xxxi.).
The associations of Gallon House and its vicinage are tragic, since it was in a cottage situated in the rear that William Burgess, in the fifties of the last century, murdered his little daughter. He then conveyed her body across the road and down into the valley, where he buried it; but, fearing detection, he again removed the poor child’s corpse and threw it down the shaft of the disused Wheal Eliza, a copper-mine. Here it remained undiscovered for months, but at last, through the untiring exertions of the Rev. W. H. Thornton, then curate of Exmoor, it was found, and the unnatural father expiated his crime on the gallows.
In his privately printedReminiscences, Mr Thornton has given a detailed account of the whole episode.
The Wheal Eliza appears to have been the original of Uncle Ben’s gold-mine, so far as situation is concerned.
The next stage is to Honeymead Two Gates,with Honeymead Farm[13]lying away to the left. “Two Gates” is quite an Exmoor term. We meet with it again in Brendon Two Gates, and it stands for an arrangement whereby on both sides of the posts are suspended separate gates, so hung as to fall inwards. These effectually prevent stock from getting either in or out of the enclosuresproprio motu, whilst the farmer, by crooking back the near gate with his whip, and pushing his horse against the other, can pass through without having to dismount. To judge from the maps, Simonsbath is the hub of the moor. In some senses this is true and soothfast, but as one travels along the excellent highway and looks across the country, there is little suggestion of either moor or forest. The land is evidently poor, but everywhere one’s glance falls on enclosed fields, and Winsford Hill harmonises much better with one’s preconceived ideas of Exmoor than this eminently civilised region. Doubtless the landscape presented a very different aspect before Mr Knight’s advent in 1818, and one hardly knows whether to thank him for his pioneer improvements or not. At all events, one would have preferred the dry-wall system that obtains in the North Forest, to fences that seem stable and permanent, though shivering sheep may be of a different opinion.
Cloven Rocks, the next point, has no obvious right to the name. Its situation, however, may be indicated by stating that it lies at a bend of the road, and a tiny stream trickles down through the bare turf. It may be needless to remind thereader that Cloven Rocks is twice mentioned inLorna Dooneas adjacent to the Wizard’s Slough, a perilous morass that has since been drained. Whether the story which appears in chapter lviii. of the romance is based on a real tradition, or is the offspring of Blackmore’s fertile imagination, I am unable to say. It has, at any rate, a genuine ring, and all Exmoor once teemed with strange legends, which the present “more enlightened” generation has chosen to forget.
Which reminds me. The little stream above referred to is called White Water, and joins the Barle at Cow Castle, an old British camp, which is situated on one of three hills. Cow Castle is the name of the principal eminence as given in the maps, and Cae Castle it is sometimes called by the learned. To the natives, however, it is known as Ring Castle, and is so described in a delightful article contributed by the Rev. George Tugwell, M.A., author of an excellentNorth Devon Handbook, toFrasers Magazinein 1857. His delineations of the scenery are worthy of a Blackmore or a Black, and would that I had room for some of them! As I have not, I must confine the quotation to the dialogue between the wanderer and a peasant, carried on by the blaze of the latter’s peat fire.
“‘Half an hour before we met you and little Nelly, we discovered an old British camp—a real discovery, an indubitable camp, with its line of earthworks as perfect, gateway and all, as when it was first piled—and to be found in no book or antiquarian memoir in all the three kingdoms. There it stood, a circular crown on the brow of a lonely conical hill, washed on three sides by thewanderings of the Barle, out of bow-shot from all the neighbouring heights, with plenty of water, and provisions in abundance, for three valleys trended from it in a triple direction, commanding a wide and glorious view of peak and ravine, centrally placed in the very heart of “the forest.” In truth, those old Britons knew something of the art of fastnesses, if they were not well skilled in the art of war. Did you ever see the stronghold of your ancestors, friend Jan?’
“‘I’m thinking we’re somehow about Ring Castle!’ quoth Jan, with sly good humour in his eye. ‘Camp indeed! I don’t know much about camps [we omit the Doric]; but all I know is, that it was something far different which built Ring Castle.’
“Hereupon, dropping his voice, he hurled up the broad chimney a whole series of mystery-betokening smoke cloudlets.
“‘Did you ever hear tell on Pixies?’ quoth Jan again, after a pause. ‘And fairy rings?’ he added, as Nelly emerged from a dark corner, and nestled close to her father’s shoulder. We suggested that we had heard of the Devonshire fairies, a race of spirits peculiar for their diminutive size and perfect beauty, and for their friendly dealing with mankind.
“‘Well,’ said John, ‘this here be all about it.’
(And he proceeded to tell us so pretty a legend that we cannot refrain from translating it for the benefit of the uninitiated in the Devonshire dialect.)
“‘Ever so long ago, the Pixies were at war with the mine spirits who live underground allabout the forest and the wild hill-country around. Now, the Pixies being perfectly harmless, and withal good-natured to excess, weren’t at all a match for the evil-nurtured earth-demons, who were always forging all kinds of fearful weapons in their underground armouries, and overcoming their poor little foes by all manner of unfair and unexpected stratagems. But the Pixie Queen of those days being like all women, fertile in resources, bethought her of a means of escape from the unbearable tyranny of the oppressors. Ever since the days of Merlin, running water, the numbers three and seven, and the mysteries of the emblematic circle, have been sure protections against the machinations of the foul fiend and his allies. And the fairy queen, like a wise woman, recollected this fact, and, like a wiser woman, applied it; for she assembled all her subjects, and bade them build on the summit of this central Exmoor Peak that strange circle which you have seen to-day. But it was no common building this, for with every stone and turf that the builders laid, they buried the memory of some kindly deed which the good Pixies had done to the race of men; and so, when the magic ring was completed, the baffled demons raved and plotted in vain around its sacred enclosure. Nor was this all; for when the grey morning broke upon that first night of victory and repose, as the driving mists rolled upwards and swept along the hill-tops like the advance-guard of a victorious army [we are not sure that this was Jan’s own similitude], from the summit of the fairy fortification there rose ring after ring of faintest amber-tinted vapour,and floated away in the brightening sky, each on its own mission of safety and peace.
“‘For these tiny wreathlets wandered hither and thither all over the broad expanse of the Exmoor country, and wherever the grass was greenest, and the neighbouring stream sang most merrily, and the sunlight was purest, and the moonbeams brightest, there these magic circles sank down softly on the level sward, and left no trace behind them of what they had been, or whence they had journeyed.
“‘But from each soft resting-place there sprang a ring of greenest grass, which flourished and grew year by year; and within those safe enclosures the Pixies danced on moonlight nights in peace and security, unharmed by the demon rout, who were never seen aboveground after that memorable morning. So you see that kind hearts and actions do not go unrewarded, even in other spheres than our own.
“‘And so,’ concluded Jan, ‘that’s my story about the building of the Pixie’s camp; and wise folk may talk for a year and a day without making me believe that there’s any other reason for fairy rings, at all events, hereabouts in Exmoor Forest.’
“Of course it would have been absolute cruelty, after so fanciful a legend, to have instilled any botanical ideas into Jan’s head, with regard to the law of the circular increase of fungi and the like; so we ‘left him alone in his glory,’ and felt duly thankful for the pleasure he had given us.”
Lower down the river is Landacre Bridge, where Jeremy Stickles had so narrow an escape