Image unavailable: LANDACRE BRIDGE, EXMOOR.LANDACRE BRIDGE, EXMOOR.
from flood and foeman (Lorna Doone, chapter xlvii.), and lower down still is the moorland village of Withypool. In summer, the water-meadows here, with background of brown moor, are lovely, but in rainy seasons Withypool is a wet place indeed, the little streams being even more to be dreaded that the raging of the Barle and Kennsford Water. In passing through the village a few years ago, I happened to hear that there are five wise men of Withypool, whose names were mentioned to me. One, I believe, was a follower of St Crispin, whom his neighbours, on account of his being at once “long-headed” and little of stature, called, Torney Mouse. Here also resides the renowned “Joe” Milton, a champion of the old wrestling days, in which he bore off many a trophy.
When the snow lies piled in impracticable drifts on the main Exford road, the Simonsbath people creep round to Dulverton and the world by way of Withypool. Let us proceed to the capital of Exmoor by this route. As we do so, it may be well to say something of the term “forest,” as applied to Exmoor. To anyone who knows the country, such a description must inevitably suggest the famous etymology,lucus a non lucendo; except at Simonsbath, there is hardly a tree to be seen. But, according to legal usage the word does not of necessity connote timber; it indicates nothing more than an uncultivated tract of country reserved for the chase. The term indeed is said to be identical with the Welshgoresorgorest(waste land), whence comes also the word “gorse,” used alternately with “furze,” as being a common growth on wastes.From the earliest times, Exmoor was a royal hunting-ground, and so remained until that portion of it which still belonged to the Crown was sold, in 1818, to Mr John Knight, of Worcestershire. The Crown allotment comprised 10,000 acres; subsequently Mr Knight bought 6000 more, and so became owner of, at least, four-fifths of the forest.
Much has been written concerning those ancient denizens of the moor—the ponies. In myBook of Exmoor, I have dealt almost exhaustively with the subject as regards the pure breed; and every year experts in horsey matters favour the British public with accounts of those wary little animals in various periodicals. Sportsmen, however, have often put to me the question, “After all, what good are they?” That they are good for some purpose, is proved by the ready sales at Bampton Fair; but it is true, nevertheless, that the breed labours under a grave disadvantage in point of size, and those interested in the problem have often essayed to produce a serviceable cross.
Instead of treating once again those aspects of pony science which have been discussedad nauseam, I propose to devote attention almost exclusively to Mr Knight’s remarkable efforts in this direction, full particulars of which have never, so far I know, been embodied in any permanent work.
For some years previous to the sale of the forest, the price of the ponies ranged from four to six pounds, but the exportation of this class of live-stock, as well as sheep, did not always proceed on regular or legitimate lines. The Exmoorshepherds, in defiance of the “anchor brand,” took liberal tithe of them, and, at nightfall, passed them over the hills to their crafty Wiltshire customers. On the completion of the sale the original uncrossed herd was transferred to Winsford Hill, where Sir Thomas had another “allotment,” only a dozen mare ponies being left to continue the line. At that time Soho Square was as fashionable a quarter as Belgravia, and one of its residents was the celebrated naturalist, Sir Joseph Banks, who invited Mr Knight to a dinner party. Bruce’s Abyssinian stories were then all the rage, and the conversation chanced to fall on the merits of the Dongola horse, described by the “travelling giant” as an Arab of sixteen hands, peculiar to the regions round about Nubia. Sir Joseph consulted his guests as to the desirability of procuring some of the breed, and Lords Hadley, Morton, and Dundas, and Mr Knight were so enamoured of the idea that they handed him there and then a joint cheque for one thousand pounds to cover the expense.
Over and above their height, the Dongola animals had somewhat Roman noses, their skin was of a very fine texture, they were well chiselled under the jowl, and, like all their race, clear-winded. As regards their action, it was of the “knee-in-the-curb-chain” sort, whilst their short thick backs and great hindquarters made them rare weight-carriers. As against all this, the “gaudy blacks” had flattish ribs, drooping croups, rather long white legs, and blaze foreheads. Perfect asmanègehorses, the dusky Nubian who brought them over galloped them straight at a wall in the riding-school, makingthem stop dead when they reached it. Altogether ten or twelve horses and mares arrived, of which the Marquis of Anglesey observed that they would “improve any breed alive.” Acting on his advice, Mr Knight bought Lord Hadley’s share, and two sires and three mares were at once sent to Simonsbath, where the new owner had established a stud of seven or eight thoroughbred mares, thirty half-breds of the coaching Cleveland variety, and a dozen twelve-hand pony mares. The result of the first cross between these last and one of the Dongolas was that the produce came generally fourteen hands two, and very seldom black. The mealy nose, so distinctive of the Exmoors, was completely knocked; but not so the buffy, which stood true to its colour, so that the type was not wholly destroyed.
The West Somerset pack often visited Exmoor to draw for a fox, and on such occasions the services of white-robed guides were usually called into requisition; but the half Dongolas performed so admirably that this practice gradually fell into disuse. They managed to get down the difficult hills so cleverly, and in crossing the brooks were so close up to the hounds, that nothing further was necessary.[14]
The cross-out was intended for size only, not for character. No sire with the Dongola bloodwas used, and such mares as did not retain a good proportion of the Exmoor type were immediately drafted. The first important successor of the Dongola was Pandarus, a white-coloured son of Whalebone, fifteen hands high, who confirmed the original bay, but reduced the standard to thirteen hands or thirteen and a half. Another sire was Canopus, a grandson of Velocipede, by whom the fine breeding as well as the Pandarus bay was perpetuated.
Meanwhile the colts were wintered on limed land, and thus enabled to bear up pretty well against the climate. Later, however, the farms were let by the late Sir Frederick (then Mr F. W.) Knight—a course which necessitated the withdrawal of the ponies to the naked moor, where, if the mares with the first cross could put up with the fare and the climate, they grew too thin to give any milk. On the other hand, those which were only half bred stood it well with their foals. About 1842 the whole pony stud was remodelled. The lighter mares were drafted, and from that time Mr Knight resolved to stick to his own ponies and the conventional sire. For many years this was strictly observed, and apart from the chestnut Hero, a horse of massive build sprung from a Pandarus sire, and the grey Lillias, of almost unalloyed Acland blood, no colour was used but the original buff.
An able judge who visited the moor in 1860, included in his report the following remarks, which are worth quoting:—
“The pony stock consists of a hundred brood mares of all ages, from one to thirteen. The mares are put to the horse at three, and up tothat age they share the eight hundred heather acres of Badgery with the red deer and the blackcock, protected on all sides by high stone walls, which even Lillias, the gay Lothario of the moor, cannot jump in his moonlight rambles....
“The bays and the buffy bays (a description of yellow), both with mealy noses, are in a majority of at least three to one. The ten sires are all wintered together in an allotment until the 1st of May, apart from the mares; but Lillias, who has more of the old pony blood than any of them, twice scrambled over at least a score of six feet walls, and away to his loved North Forest. It is a beautiful sight to see them jealously beating the bounds, when they are once more in their own domains; and they would, if they wore shoes, break every bone in a usurper’s skin. The challenge to a battle royal is given with a snort, and then they commence by rearing up against each other’s necks, so as to get the first leverage for a worry. When they weary of that they turn tail to tail, and commence a series of heavy exchanges, till the least exhausted of the two watches his opportunity, and whisking round, gives his antagonist a broadside in the ribs, which fairly echoes down the glen. In the closing scene they face each other once more, and begin like bull-dogs to manœuvre for their favourite bite on the arm. The first which is caught off his guard goes down like a shot, and then scurries off with the victor in hot pursuit, savagely ‘weaving,’ while his head nearly touches the ground, and his ‘flag’ waves triumphantly in the air. With the exception of Lillias, the tenare generally pretty content with their one thousand acres of territory, and like Sayers and Heenan, they are ultimately ‘reconciled’ in November.
“The percentage of deaths is comparatively small, and during last winter, when many of the old ponies fairly gave in on the neighbouring hills, Mr Knight’s ponies fought through it, but five or six of them died from exhaustion at foaling, or slipped foals at ten months. Their greatest peril is when they are tempted into bogs about that period by the green bait of the early aquatic grasses, and flounder about under weakness and heavy pressure till they die. The stud-book contains some very curious records. ‘Died of old age in the snow,’ forms quite a pathetic St Bernard sort of entry. ‘Found dead in a bog’ has less poetry about it. ‘Iron grey, found dead with a broken leg at the foot of a hill,’ is rather an odd mortality comment on such a chamois-footed race; while ‘grey mare c. 22 and grey yearling, missing; both found, mare with a foal at her foot,’ gives a rather more cheery glimpse of forest history.”
The “forest mark,” with which the foals are branded on the saddle-place, was changed by Mr Knight from the Acland anchor to the spur, which formed part of his crest, and is burnt in with a hot iron, just enough to sear the roots of the hair. No age eradicates it. Should a dispute arise concerning a wandering pony, the hair is clipped off, and once it happened that after a white sire had been lost for three seasons he was discovered in this manner by the head herdsman’s brother. The spur has only oneheel, and the brand can be affixed with a rowel pointing in four directions, on each side of the pony, beginning towards the neck. It thus coincides with a cycle of eight years, and is available as a guide if the footmarks are prematurely worn out.
The hoof-marks are of two kinds—that of the year of entry on the off hoof, and the register figure of the dam on the near. In the second week of October the Dominical letters of their year are placed on the yearlings, and the registered hoof-marks renewed on the mares. The foal, of course, is not marked on the foot, but an exact record is taken of his dam and all his points.
Until 1850 the ponies were sold by private contract. Sales were then established, and in 1853 an auditory of two hundred persons assembled at Stony Plot, the knoll with its belt of grey quartz boulders where now stands the church. The following autumn the venue was altered to Bampton Fair. There is a curious story or legend—I hardly know what to make of it—that after one of the Simonsbath sales a Mr Lock, of Lynmouth, roasted an Exmoor pony for his friends, who, if they ever partook of the repast, must be credited with fine Tartar taste.
According to one version the original Exmoor ponies, with their buffy bay colour and mealy nose, were brought over by the Phœnicians during their visits to the shores of Cornwall to trade in tin and metals; and ever since that time the animals have preserved their characteristics. We do not propose to go so far back into the recesses of history, but will return for a moment to the now rather distant date, 1790, before
Image unavailable: BAGWORTHY VALLEY (page 141).BAGWORTHY VALLEY (page 141.)
which hardly anything is known of Simonsbath. At that period there are said to have been only five men and a woman and a girl on Exmoor. The girl drew beer at the Simonsbath public-house, and the customers were a decidedly rough lot. Doones indeed there were none—their day was past—but the illicit love of mutton was universal in the West country, as was also a partiality for cheap cognac. Smugglers slung their kegs across their “scrambling Jacks” at night, and hid their treasure in the rocks, or left it at a certain gate till the next mystic hand in the living chain gave it a lift on the road to Exeter. When they did not care to do this, there were always friendly cellars under the old house at Simonsbath. The ale was decent, the landlady wisely deaf, and who can doubt that the old ingle, where the date 1654 still lingers on a beam shorn or built into half its length, heard many an exciting tale of contraband prime brandy and extra parochial liberties which would have extorted blushes from an honest beadle and groans from a conscientious exciseman?
Simonsbath having been formerly so insignificant, it is not to be wondered at that Blackmore only refers to it as the abode of a “wise woman,” by which he means a witch (Lorna Doone, chapter xviii.).
Simonsbathis the centre of several converging roads, all of them waiting to help the traveller out of Exmoor before he is well in it. A drive from Lynton or some other fairly populous or fashionable resort, followed by a lunch at the Simonsbath Hotel, is many people’s conception of the proper method of “doing” Exmoor; but, while pleasant enough as an excursion, such a mode of exploration permits of only scanty guesses and imperfect glimpses of the inner fastnesses, which seem for the most part far away.
If the excitement of the chase be not too distracting, possibly the best way of acquainting oneself with the country is by following the staghounds; but should that be impracticable, the most useful advice the writer can offer is to follow the watercourses. Any one of these, if patiently traced, will usher the pilgrim into Nature’s mysterious solitudes, which, if he be at all of a contemplative turn of mind, will awaken in him many a pleasant or pensive reverie. In any case, one must get away from the roads, the veryexcellence of which is evil, as tempting to sloth.
I cannot, however, send forth an innocent person into the wilds without referring to the bogs. Personally, I have a considerable respect for Exmoor bogs, as I have for “they Hexëmoor vogs,” which are equally treacherous, and make one wet through as sure and as fast as any rain; nor is it so many years ago that Sheardon Hutch and similar names were sounds of terror in my ears. Familiarity breeds contempt, and therefore those at home in the district—some of them, at all events—are apt to disparage these man-traps, which are not by any means confined to the low lands, but are found on the summits of hills, especially the notorious Chains. In many places black decayed vegetable matter has been accumulating for ages to a depth of several feet, and as the rocks beneath are of the transition class, impervious to water, the rain is retained and saturates the bog-mould. After much wet weather, there are spots that will not bear the weight of a man, let alone a horse, and in riding over the moor, they constitute so real and serious a danger that great care should be exercised to avoid getting into them. Otherwise it may prove an impossible task to extricate the devoted “mount.” There is one consolation—heather will not grow on those deep bogs, and wherever its purple bells show, the ground is safe.
The Exmoor hills are variously configured. Sometimes they take the form of a bold foreland, sometimes of a continuous ridge, sometimes of an isolated cone or orb. A very intelligent moorman reminded me, somewhat superfluously, when Ilooked in upon him on a September evening, that all the hills have names, and queer names some of them are—e.g., “Tom’s Hill,” “Swap Hill,” “Scob Hill,” etc., etc. The meaning of not a few is anything but plain, but one “termination,” if the phrase be permitted, speaks for itself. I allude to the expression “ball,” which is frequent on Exmoor, and much more likely to be derived from visual impression than any long-descended traditions of Baal, to which a late friend of mine, out of regard for the Phœnicians and their hill-altars, was anxious to assign it. Thus we have Cloutsham Ball (famous as the scene of the opening-meet of the Devon and Somerset Staghounds), Ware Ball, Ricksy Ball, Ferny Ball, and, as a gloss, Round Hill. The intersecting valleys have somewhat the character of huge corridors leading in and out of each other, and the smaller “combes,” running up into the hills, may be likened to stairways of providential appointment, for the Exmoor “sides” are not quite perpendicular. The hill-tops and slopes are dotted with sure-footed Exmoor horned sheep and Cheviots, beautiful long-tailed ponies, and a few red cattle. The grass is of two sorts—a short, close variety found in the drier parts, and tall sedge grass on wet ground, where it grows rankly. Sheep are fond of the former when it comes up green and fresh after the annual “swalings,” which take place in February or March. Exmoor sheep have faces like those of the native deer, being free from wool, while the sharp-pointed nose resembles that of a fox.
Simonsbath village is in a sheltered position on the left bank of the Barle, and, thanks to thecare of the late Sir Frederick Knight and his father, it is further protected against the keen winterly gales by ample plantations of fir and other trees. Hence we again mount the hills, this time in the direction of Brendon Two Gates, where the “forest” ends. After a time we gain a point from which a good view is obtained of the Prayway (or Prayaway) Meads. There are no hedges here, and, with the inconsistency of human nature, one misses them. It seems so odd to stand and gaze over a grassy expanse that has never been enclosed, and yet has much the look of ordinary meadow. Through the midst flows the Exe, here quite a baby-stream; we are, indeed, not far from its source. To those who are familiar with its lower reaches, and call to mind the river as it appears (say) at Cowley Bridge, the sight is inexpressibly absurd. The absence of trees and shrubs makes Prayway seem bare and forsaken. The high sloping banks are like deserted ramparts or—but the name may have some influence—the nave of a vast natural cathedral haunted by the ghosts of dead Britons. Continuing our route, we arrive at a gate, inside which is a sort of quarry known as Black Pits. The gate opens into a common, at the other end of which is Brendon Two Gates. The origin of this term has been explained; it may be well to add that at present it is a misnomer.
We now for the first time catch sight of Bagworthy, lying over on the right, and Bagworthy, as the reader may happen to remember, was, or has been imputed to be, the stronghold of the savage Doones. This is, in a sense, the parting of the ways. The traveller may eitherquit the beaten track for the carpet of sward in quest of a shepherd’s cot, whence he may easily proceed to the traditional site of Doone Castle and down the Doone valley, along the Bagworthy Water, to Malmsmead, where the Bagworthy water unites with the East Lyn, and so by Cosgate or Brendon to Lynton; or he may stick to the road, which will take him by a shorter cut to the same destination, by Farley and Cheriton and the aforesaid Scob Hill. It may be that, like the mythical churchmen of old, when asked to state which see he preferred—Bath or Wells—the latter-day pilgrim may elect for “both.” I will assume, however, that his immediate objective is the famous valley, and that, once there, he will pursue without faltering the longest way round.
Technically we are no longer on Exmoor. Bagworthy, Badgworthy, or Badgery—all are permissible forms—is in the parish of Brendon and the county of Devon. In ancient times the wood is said to have covered a much greater area, and a century ago some of the older shepherds could point out its former limits. Within their recollection and since their time, its dimensions steadily contracted, until the disappointment with the valley, to which visitors so often and freely own, became explicable.
Now it must be admitted that inLorna Doonethere is a large spice of exaggeration, and this quality is naturally reflected in the illustrations with which the goodlier editions are adorned. Such deviations from the literal have brought it to pass that nowhere is Blackmore in so little esteem as among the hills he pictured so lovingly. Even the humble writer of the present volumeprobably enjoys on Exmoor a greater measure of esteem as a more trustworthy historian of the neighbourhood. But, sensible people will agree, the writer of a romance must be in a large measure a law unto himself, and he is under not the least obligation to consult the feelings of plain folk incapable of sharing his flights of imagination. It is a question of the light “borrowed from the youthful poet’s dream,” and I am inclined to apply the phrase in a somewhat distinct and definite sense. A romance—this romance in particular—may be regarded as a fairy-tale raised to a higher plane of evolution, and Blackmore seems to have possessed the godlike faculty of reflecting in his pages the shining images of his boyish fantasy, when, to copy Kingsley, every goose was a swan and every lass a queen. On this point I shall say no more, but return forthwith to the matter-of-fact. This includes the deep pool and the waterslide, but the reality of Doone Castle, or its remains, cannot for various reasons be taken for granted.
The first printed notice regarding these malefactors occurs in Mr Cooper’sGuide to Lynton, published in 1851, and runs as follows:—
“The ruins of a village long forsaken and deserted stand in an adjacent valley, which, before the destruction of the timber, must have been a spot exactly suited to the wants of the wild inhabitants. Tradition relates that it consisted of eleven cottages, and that here the ‘Doones’ took up their residence, being the terror of the country for many miles round. For a long time they were in the habit of escaping with theirbooty across the wild hills of Exmoor to Bagworthy, where few thought it safe or even practicable to follow them. They were not natives of this part of the country, but having been disturbed by the Revolution from their homes, suddenly entered Devonshire and erected the village alluded to. It was known from the first to the inhabitants of the neighbouring villages that this village was erected and inhabited by robbers, but the fear which their deeds inspired in the minds of the peasants prevented them from attacking and destroying it. The idea is prevalent that before their leaving home they had been men of distinction, and not common peasants. The site of a house may still be seen on a part of the forest called the Warren, which is said to have belonged to a person called ‘the Squire,’ who was robbed and murdered by the Doones.
“A farmhouse called Yenworthy, lying just above Glenthorne, on the left of the Lynton and Porlock road, was beset by them one night; but a woman firing on them from one of the windows with a long duck-gun, they retreated, and blood was tracked the next morning for several miles in the direction of Bagworthy. The gun was found at Yenworthy, and was purchased by the Rev. W. S. Halliday. They entered and robbed a house at Exford in the evening before dark, and found there only a child, whom they murdered. A woman servant who was concealed in an oven, is said to have heard them say to the unfortunate infant the following barbarous couplet:
‘If any one asks who killed thee,Tell ’m ’twas the Doones of Bagworthy.’
‘If any one asks who killed thee,Tell ’m ’twas the Doones of Bagworthy.’
‘If any one asks who killed thee,Tell ’m ’twas the Doones of Bagworthy.’
Image unavailable: BRENDON, NEAR OARE (page 150).BRENDON, NEAR OARE (page 150.)
“It was for this murder that the whole country rose in arms against them, and going to their abode in great haste and force, succeeded in taking into custody the whole gang, who soon after met with the punishment due to their crimes.”
This excerpt represents the legend of the Doones which Blackmore inherited, and which it is absurd to designate as his invention. What he did was to add colour and definition to an already existing, though faded, tradition. How much of the substructure ofLorna Dooneis due to his imaginative genius, is a fascinating problem, which, it is to be feared, it is beyond the wit of man to solve satisfactorily. In the above quotation, for instance, no mention occurs of the heroine, but it does not follow that she found no place in the local tales, and Blackmore, quite as good an authority as the writer of the guide, and on this particular subject even better, expressly affirms the contrary.
As to the time of the Doones, Mr Cooper, it will be noticed, says “after the Revolution.” This is altogether opposed to Blackmore’s account, which sets back their advent to a date long anterior to 1688. Mr Edwin J. Rawle, whose valuableAnnals of the Royal Forest of Exmoorentitles him to a very respectful hearing, is absolute in rejecting any historical basis for the tradition, the mere existence of which he tardily acknowledges. Mr Rawle’s theory is that “Doone” really stands for “Dane,” the sea-wolves in the olden times having harried the neighbourhood pretty severely. I do not know what philologers may say of this suggestion, butthe vagaries of the local dialect suggest a far more plausible explanation. In the romance John Fry speaks of his “goon,” meaning his “gun.” Now “Dunn” is a fairly common patronymic in the West Country, and I am informed that the natives formerly pronounced the vowel in an indeterminate manner consistent with either spelling.
Blackmore, however, evidently regarded the name as identical with the Scottish “Doune,” and his assertion of a high North British pedigree for the robbers has been wonderfully seconded of late by the publication of Miss Ida Browne’sShort History of the Original Doones, which, if correct in every particular, proves amongst other things how extremely imperfect and untrustworthy are many of the records on which the scrupulous historian is wont to rely. Mr Rawle will not have that it is correct, and her pleasant and plausible narrative is the object of a fierce onslaught in his brochure,The Doones of Exmoor. Personally, I have always favoured the notion that the rogues were a similar set to the Gubbinses and Cheritons, little communities of moorland savages, and that their rascalities, handed down from generation to generation, were magnified and distorted in every re-telling. This solution has the advantage of being easily reconciled with Mr Rawle’s demand for authentic evidence of their monstrous doings and Blackmore’s and Miss Ida’s Browne’s insistence on their Scottish nationality. To me, however, it seems like beating the air to attempt any final settlement of the question on our present information, and if I again refer to the lady’s booklet—already I havegiven the substance of it in myBook of Exmoor—it is not so much from the belief that it casts any certain light on the actuality of the Exmoor marauders as on account of the possibility—which she notes—that Blackmore by some means obtained access to the evidence now in her possession.
This consists of a manuscript entitled “The Lineage and History of our Family, from 1561 to the Present Day,” compiled by Charles Doone of Braemar, 1804; the Journal of Rupert Doone, 1748; oral information, and certain family heirlooms. Assuming these to be genuine, there is obviously much likelihood, in view of the numerous points in common, that Blackmore succeeded in getting hold of the written testimony of the later Doones; and, indeed, the circumstance may have been the factor which led him to elaborate the romance on a scale transcending that of his other stories, since he must have realised that here he had struck an entirely original vein of historical fiction.
Before quitting this part of the subject, it is desirable to present the views of the Rev. J. F. Chanter, who has given much attention to the problem, and whose long and intimate acquaintance with the district invests his opinions with exceptional importance. In a letter received from him, he remarks:—
“I may say that, as far as I am concerned, I accept as genuine the main facts of Miss Browne’s story, but not its details,i.e., the relationship between Sir Ensor and Lord Moray, or even Sir Ensor being a knight. The title ‘Sir’ was given at that date to many who wereneither knights nor baronets,e.g., the clergy always; and as I find in rural districts, even to this day, a lady of the manor is spoken of, and written to, as Lady so-and-so. Mr Rawle’s criticism is entirely negative; his position seems to be this:—Miss Browne’s paper states that Sir Ensor was twin brother of Lord Moray. Now Lord Moray had no twin brother; therefore the whole claim falls to the ground.”
To this I answer:
“1. If the claim of Charles Doone of Braemar, as to the ancestry of his family, is wrong, it is absurd to say he had no ancestors. We are all apt to claim as ancestors people who were not really so, and many of the published pedigrees do this, claiming as ancestors some of the same name, though there is no evidence of the link.
“2. The peerage is no evidence that Lord Moray had not other brothers, though not twins. There is, for instance, evidence that Lord Moray had a brother mentioned in no peerage I ever saw, one John Stuart who was executed for murder in 1609.
“3. There may have been merely a tribal connection between the Doones of Bagworthy and the Stewarts of Doune, and a tribal feud caused them to fly to a remote spot; and they were recalled on a later Lord Moray wanting every help when he fell from Royal favour.
“Be this as it may, Miss Browne’s story fits in so wonderfully with Blackmore’s romance that I cannot conceive he had not heard of it. This I can vouch for—Miss Browne did not invent it.
“Now as to Miss Browne’s documentaryevidence, I had the original of Charles Doone’s family history, and it was undoubtedly a genuine document of the age it purported to be. I made a full copy of it. Of other documents I only saw copies. The originals she stated to be in the possession of a cousin in Scotland, and promised to get them for me as soon as she could. I have, however, not seen them as yet. The relics also seem to me genuine.”
It must not be supposed that these were Blackmore’s only sources of information—they deal in the main with merely one side of the story. Other material, both written and oral, was available on the spot. Mr Chanter observes on this point: “I myself can perfectly recall that, when I first went to a boarding-school in 1863, there was a boy there from the Exmoor neighbourhood who used to relate at night in the dormitories blood-curdling stories of the Doones.” That boy, it is interesting to know, is still alive. At any rate, he was alive in July 1903, when he addressed to theDaily Chroniclethe following letter in answer to a sceptical effusion from a correspondent signing himself “West Somerset.” “‘West Somerset’ could never have known Exmoor half so intimately as was the case with myself during my boyhood, youth, and early manhood, or he must have heard of the Doones. During the ‘fifties’ and ‘sixties’ of last century I lived on Exmoor, knew it thoroughly, and rarely missed a meet of the staghounds. The stories or legends of the Doones were perfectly familiar to me. They varied much, but the germs of the great romance were so well known and remembered by methat when it was issued, one of its many charms was the tracing of the writer’s embroidery of the current tales. I have hardly been in the district since 1868, but my memory is sufficiently good to remember the names of several from whom I heard the traditional annals. Among them were John Perry, the old ‘wanter’ or mole-catcher of Luccombe; Larkham, the one-armed gamekeeper of Sir Thomas Acland, and above all, Blackmore, the harbourer of the deer.[15]The name of another old man, who allowed me on two occasions to take down Doone stories at the inn at Brendon, has escaped me. So familiar were these stories to me when I was a boy that I used to retail them with curdling embellishments of my own in the dormitory of a West-country boarding-school. The result of this was that a room-mate of mine, either just before or just after he went to Oxford, wove my yarns (he had not himself then ever visited Exmoor) into a story, which he called ‘The Doones of Exmoor.’ This tale was eventually published in some half-dozen consecutive numbers of theLeisure Hour. My copy of it has long been lost, but I remember that, though it was delayed some time by the editor, it appeared three or four years beforeLorna Doone. Moreover, I had a letter from Mr R. D. Blackmore, soon after his immortal work was issued, wherein he acknowledged that it was the accidental glancing at the poor stuff in theLeisure Hourthat gave him the clue for the weaving of the romance, and caused him to study the details on the spot. I have never been across ExmoorsinceLorna Doonewas published, but I am sure that I could at once find my way either on foot or horseback to the very place that I knew so well as the stronghold of the Doones, either from the Porlock or the Lynton side.”
I am permitted to quote also a passage from a private letter of Miss Gratiana Chanter (now Mrs Longworth Knocker), author ofWanderings in North Devon, who is a firm believer in the Doones.
“I wish you could have a talk with old John Bate of Tippacott [he is dead]; he gave me a most exciting description one day of how the Doones first ‘coomed in over.’ No dates, of course; you never get them. He said there was a farmhouse in the Doone Valley where an old farmer lived with his maidservant. ’Twas one terrible snowy night when the Doones first ‘coomed.’ They came to the house and turned the farmer and his maid out into the black night. Both were found dead—one at the withy bank and the other somewhere else. He said, ‘They say, Miss, they was honest folk in the North, but they took to thieving wonderful quick.’
“Bate, and one John Lethaby, a mason, were both at work at the building of the shepherd’s cot in the Doone Valley, and had tales of an underground passage they found that fell in, and that they took a lot of stones from the huts for the shepherd’s cot.”
To return to Mr Chanter, we learn that, even before those nightly entertainments in the dormitory, he had read about the Doones in an old manuscript belonging to his father, and he addsthat there were to be found at that period in North Devon several such manuscripts, which, he thinks, had a common origin, and might be traced to the tales of old people living in and around Lynton seventy or eighty years ago. In range of information and power of memory none might compare with a reputed witch, one Ursula Johnson, who, though now practically forgotten, can be proved from the parish register to have been born a Babb in 1738—not forty years after the exeunt of the Doones. The family of Babb were servants to Wichehalses, and one may recall the circumstance that in chapter lxx. ofLorna DooneJohn Babb is represented as shooting and capturing Major Wade. Ursula was not so ignorant as many of her gossips, and upon her marriage to Richard Johnson, a “sojourner,” could sign her name—a feat of which the bridegroom was incapable. Her long life reached its termination in 1826, when she was, so to speak, within sight of ninety.
Seven years later a locally well-remembered vicar, the Rev. Matthew Murdy, came to Lynton, and being keenly interested in the old lady’s stories, began a collection of them. Subsequently two friends of his, Dr and Miss Cowell, entered into his labours by “pumping” Ursula Fry, a native of Pinkworthy on Exmoor, and Aggie Norman. Both were tough old creatures, the former dying in 1856, at the age of ninety, and the latter in 1860, when she was eighty-three. In Mrs Norman, who passed a good deal of her time in a hut built by her husband on the top of the Castle Rock, in the Valley of
Image unavailable: NICHOLAS SNOW’S FARMYARD GATE (page 159).NICHOLAS SNOW’S FARMYARD GATE (page 159.)
Rocks, Lynton, Mr Chanter identifies the original Mother Meldrum.
Mr Mundy reduced the tales to something like literary shape, and they were then transcribed by the older girls in the National School, whose mistress, Miss Spurrier, saw that the copies were properly executed. An old lady residing at Lynton possesses one of the documents, dated 1848, of which the contents include a description of the neighbourhood, reference to Ursula Johnson, and three “legends”: those of De Wichehalse, the Doones of Bagworthy, and Faggus and his Strawberry Horse. In theWestern Antiquaryof 1884, part xi., may be found an excellent account of the manuscript by the late Mr J. R. Chanter, who quotes the following observations by the editor:—
“The recent introduction of candles into the cottages of the neighbouring poor has tended greatly to produce the most lamentable decay of legendary lore: the old housewife, crouching over the smouldering turf, no longer enlivens the tedious winter evening with well-remembered tales of the desperate deeds of the outlaws or the wonders wrought by the witches or wisemen, and many of the curious legends are in danger of being consigned to utter oblivion, unless immediately collected from the old peasants, who are falling fast: their children being by far too much engrossed by the Jacobin publications of the day, to pay any attention to these memorials of the days of yore. From these causes much has already been lost.”
That R. D. Blackmore obtained a sight of one of these MSS. is, on the face of it, extremelyprobable, but for certain elements of the story he might well have been indebted to his grandfather, the Rector of Oare. Such are the account of the great frost, the mining and wrestling incidents, and the tales of the Doones, in chapters v. and lxix., which the notes pronounce to be authentic, and which differ from other versions.
I come now to the facts of the Wade episode mentioned in chapter lxx. ofLorna Doone. In this same parish of Brendon is a hamlet called Bridgeball, and on a hill just above the hamlet is Farley farm, where a comparatively new house occupies the site of an older structure pulled down in 1853. It was on this farm that Major Wade, one of the leaders in the Monmouth Rebellion, was captured after the battle of Sedgemoor. Driven ashore in an attempt to escape down the Channel, he succeeded in concealing himself for several days among the rocks at Illford Bridges, and made a confidante of the wife of a little farmer named How, who lived at Bridgeball in a house of which he was the owner, while the field behind it and a portion of land near the present parsonage were also his property. The good woman provided him with food so long as he continued in his rocky hiding-place, and interceded for him with a farmer at Farley named Birch, who consented to harbour him for a time. Situated on the verge of Exmoor, no refuge could have appeared more secure than this isolated spot, but the event proved that Wade might have been as safe, or safer, in a great and populous centre. To his credit it must be recorded that, after obtaining his pardon, the gallant gentleman did not forget his benefactress,on whom he settled an annuity. The particulars of his capture have been preserved in the Lansdowne MS., No. 1152, which contains the following rather dramatic reports:—
“Barnstaple,ye31st July 1685.“My Lord,—I here enclosed send your Lop. an account of yeapprehending of Nathaniel Wade, one of yelate rebells. I came to this towne to-day, and can, therefore, only give yrLop. wtrelation I have from yeapothecary and chirurgeon wchthey had drawn up in a letter designed for Sir Bourchier Wrey; their examination of him is enclosed in yeletter, to wchI refer your Lop. He continues very ill of a wound given him at his apprehending sixteen miles hence, at Braundon parish in Devon. I designe to examine him as soon as his condition will permitt, he promising to make large and considerable confessions; and herein, or if he dye, I humbly desire your Lop.’sdirections to me at Barnstaple, and shall herein proceed as becomes my duty to his Majesty and your Lop.—My Lord, yrLop.’smost humble Servant,Richard Armesley.”
“Barnstaple,ye31st July 1685.
“My Lord,—I here enclosed send your Lop. an account of yeapprehending of Nathaniel Wade, one of yelate rebells. I came to this towne to-day, and can, therefore, only give yrLop. wtrelation I have from yeapothecary and chirurgeon wchthey had drawn up in a letter designed for Sir Bourchier Wrey; their examination of him is enclosed in yeletter, to wchI refer your Lop. He continues very ill of a wound given him at his apprehending sixteen miles hence, at Braundon parish in Devon. I designe to examine him as soon as his condition will permitt, he promising to make large and considerable confessions; and herein, or if he dye, I humbly desire your Lop.’sdirections to me at Barnstaple, and shall herein proceed as becomes my duty to his Majesty and your Lop.—My Lord, yrLop.’smost humble Servant,
Richard Armesley.”
“Brendon,30th July ’85.“HonrdSir,—This comes to give you an account of one, not yeleast of yerebells, whowas taken up last Monday night at a place called Fairleigh in yep’ish of Brundun, by Jno. Witchalse, Esq., RicdPowell, Rectof yesame, Jno. Babb, servtto Jno. Witchalse and Rob. Parris. They haveing some small notice of a stranger to have bin a little before about ytvillage, came about nine of yeclock at night to one Jno. Burtchis house. As soon as they had guarded yehouse round, they heard a noise. Watching closely and being well armed, out of a little back door slipt out this person within named, and two more as they say, and run all as hard as they cold. Babb and Parris espieing them, bid them stand againe and againe. They still kept running, and they cockt their pistols at them. Parris his mist fire, but Babb’s went off, being chargdwtha single bullett, wchstuck very close in yerebells right side; ye entrance was about two inches from yespina doris. Yebullett lodged in yeunder part of yeright hypogastrind, wchwe cut out. Yebullett past right under yepleura; from the orifice it entered to yeother, wchwe were forced to make to extract yebullett (having strong convulsions on him): it was in distance between six and seven inches. He was very faint, having lost a great quantity of blood. Yeorifice we made (yebullett lying neere yecutis) was halfe an inch higher ynyeother. It begins to digest, and his spirits are much revived, only this day about 10 of yeclock he was taken with an aguish fitt, wchI suppose was caused by his hard diet and cold lodging ever since yerout, he leaving his horse at Illfordcomb. Ever since Tuesday last in the afternoon, Mr Ravening and myself have bin wthhim, and cannot wthsafety movefrom him. We desire to know his Maties pleasure wtwe shall due wthhis corps, if he dyes, wchif he does before ye answer, we think to embowell him. We will due wtpossible we can, for he hath assurdus, ytas soon as he is a little better, he will make a full discovery of all he knows, of wchthis inclosed is part, by wchhe hopes to have, but not by merrits, his pardon. Here is noe one ytcomes to him ythe will talk soe freely wthas wthus; if you will have any materiall questions of business or p’sons to be askt of him, pray give it in yrsto us. We will be privat, faithfull, to orKing, whome God long preserve. Wchis all at present from them who will ever make it their business to be.—Sryrmost humble Servts,“NicsCookeandHenry Ravening.”
“Brendon,30th July ’85.
“HonrdSir,—This comes to give you an account of one, not yeleast of yerebells, whowas taken up last Monday night at a place called Fairleigh in yep’ish of Brundun, by Jno. Witchalse, Esq., RicdPowell, Rectof yesame, Jno. Babb, servtto Jno. Witchalse and Rob. Parris. They haveing some small notice of a stranger to have bin a little before about ytvillage, came about nine of yeclock at night to one Jno. Burtchis house. As soon as they had guarded yehouse round, they heard a noise. Watching closely and being well armed, out of a little back door slipt out this person within named, and two more as they say, and run all as hard as they cold. Babb and Parris espieing them, bid them stand againe and againe. They still kept running, and they cockt their pistols at them. Parris his mist fire, but Babb’s went off, being chargdwtha single bullett, wchstuck very close in yerebells right side; ye entrance was about two inches from yespina doris. Yebullett lodged in yeunder part of yeright hypogastrind, wchwe cut out. Yebullett past right under yepleura; from the orifice it entered to yeother, wchwe were forced to make to extract yebullett (having strong convulsions on him): it was in distance between six and seven inches. He was very faint, having lost a great quantity of blood. Yeorifice we made (yebullett lying neere yecutis) was halfe an inch higher ynyeother. It begins to digest, and his spirits are much revived, only this day about 10 of yeclock he was taken with an aguish fitt, wchI suppose was caused by his hard diet and cold lodging ever since yerout, he leaving his horse at Illfordcomb. Ever since Tuesday last in the afternoon, Mr Ravening and myself have bin wthhim, and cannot wthsafety movefrom him. We desire to know his Maties pleasure wtwe shall due wthhis corps, if he dyes, wchif he does before ye answer, we think to embowell him. We will due wtpossible we can, for he hath assurdus, ytas soon as he is a little better, he will make a full discovery of all he knows, of wchthis inclosed is part, by wchhe hopes to have, but not by merrits, his pardon. Here is noe one ytcomes to him ythe will talk soe freely wthas wthus; if you will have any materiall questions of business or p’sons to be askt of him, pray give it in yrsto us. We will be privat, faithfull, to orKing, whome God long preserve. Wchis all at present from them who will ever make it their business to be.—Sryrmost humble Servts,
“NicsCookeandHenry Ravening.”
The addressee was Sir Bourchier Wrey, of Tawstock, Bart., son of another Sir Bourchier, and grandson of Sir Chichester Wrey, who married Ann, youngest daughter of Edward Bourchier, Earl of Bath.
Bagworthy and Farley are both in the parish of Brendon, but we must not forget that, as regards bodily presence, we are still in the Doone valley, and not far from Oare, where, according to Rupert Doone’s Diary, his ancestors, on quitting Scotland in 1627, first fixed their residence. They then removed to the upper part of the Lyn valley, on an estate bounded on one side by Oare and on the other by Bagworthy. The Doone valley, which used to be called Hoccombe, is a glen lying between BagworthyLees and Bagworthy, and Mr Chanter expresses the belief that this name and that of “Lorna’s Bower” were first applied to the small sidecombes by his cousins, the Misses Chanter, soon after the publication ofLorna Doone. Ruins of the traditional “Castle,” rectangular in form, are still to be traced, and consist of two groups. Unfortunately, stones were taken from them to build an adjoining wall, and now it is impossible to state the character of the buildings, some of which were probably houses, and others cattle-sheds. Miss Browne, indeed, is of opinion that they were all of the latter description, and that the real home of the Doones was in the Weir Water valley, between Oareford and the rise of the East Lyn. So far as Hoccombe is concerned, Blackmore has idealised it with a vengeance. The “sheer cliffs standing around,” the “steep and gliddening stairway,” the rocky cleft or “Doone-gate,” the “gnarled roots,” are all purely imaginary. As regards “Doone track” or “Doones’ path,” it directly faces the valley, and after crossing the Bagworthy Water, ascends the Deer Park and Oare Common, and so to Oare. Being covered with grass or hidden by heather and scrub, it is not easy to follow, but viewed at a little distance it presents the appearance of a broad terraced roadway, not improbably Roman, and connecting Showlsborough Castle, near Challacombe, with the coast. The site of the house where the “Squire” was robbed and murdered by the Doones is still visible in the part of the forest known as the Warren (Lorna Doone, chapter lxxii.).
Exmoor was once a paradise of yeomen, thrifty sons of the soil, who owned their own farms. They consisted of two classes: those who did the work themselves, with the assistance of their family and jobbing workmen, to whom they paid good wages; and the owners of large farms, where labourers were constantly employed at a shilling a day. The former sort is entirely extinct. Many of their descendants have been merged in the mass of common labourers; a few have risen to the rank of large farmers; others have emigrated.
The more substantial class of yeomen is still represented in the district. The late Mr W. L. Chorley, Master of the Quarme Harriers, was an excellent specimen of the order, but the most relevant example is that of the Snows, whom Blackmore treats somewhat unfairly. The family may not have been rich in what Counsellor Doone described as the “great element of blood,” but a genuine yeoman of the type in question would hardly have been dubbed “Farmer Snowe,” and he certainly would not have perpetrated such an awful lapse as “pralimbinaries.” I have been informed by a correspondent that Blackmore apologised to the family for his painful caricature, which was only just, in view of their actual status and the esteem in which they are held by their neighbours. About the year 1678, two-fifths of the manor of Oare belonged to the family of Spurrier, and passed by marriage at the beginning of the eighteenth century into the possession of Mr Nicholas Snow, who left it to a son of his ownname. The latter, in 1788, purchased the other three-fifths, and, at his death in 1791, bequeathed the manor to his youngest son, John Snow, who died without issue, leaving the property to his nephew, Nicholas Snow—the “Farmer Snowe” ofLorna Doone.
It will be noticed that the Snows did not become landowners at Oare until long after the period of the story. As for the Ridds, or Reds, the only mention of the name in the parish register occurs in the year 1768, when John Red was married to Mary Ley. The real Plover’s Barrows was Broomstreet Farm, in the neighbouring parish of Culbone; at any rate, a John Ridd was resident there. A John Fry, no mere farm-servant, was churchwarden of Countisbury, of which Jasper Kebby was likewise a parishioner. Plover’s Barrows has been identified by Mr Page with Mr Snow’s residence—“according to Blackmore, anciently the farm of the Ridds.” But inLorna Doone(chapter vii.) the two farms are represented as adjoining, and Plover’s Barrows is evidently further upstream (seeLorna Doone, chapter xiv.: “In the evening Farmer Snowecame up.”) The same writer speaks of the Snows as having been seated at Oare since the time of Alfred. Can Mr Page be thinking of John Ridd’s boast to King Charles (Lorna Doone, chapter lxviii.)?
Oare Church, where the elder Ridd lay buried, where his son stole the lead from the porch to his subsequent shame, and where the brute Carver shot Lorna on her bridal morn, has received an addition in the shape of the chancel