1 
 
 Mn»vvvv\a/|/ 

 
 txmhlm m Btmmljm, 
 
 mi^ 
 
 €nlm mi pnrtrij. 
 
 13b 
 
 -autl^or of " ScillB atiti its ^ cgcntJs." 
 
 *' J^ox 1)111, nor firoofi, toe pace along, 
 "iiut Ijas its Ugcnti, or its song." 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, AND CO. 
 F. T. VIBErvT, MARKET-PLACE, PENZANCE. 
 
 1854.
 
 r. T. VIEERT, PEIXTER, PEXZAXCE.
 
 TO MY WIFE. 
 
 If, my dear Sarah, this little worh possesses any merit, 
 it Gives the greater part of that merit to you, and you must 
 therefore accept the dedication of it, as a mere act of justice. 
 Perhaps, in the words of Statins to his ivife Claxidia, I may 
 find a dearer motive for coupling your name with a Bool, 
 during the composition of ivhich your care and affection have 
 given me so many causes for gratitude. 
 
 " Forsitan, exhausti Lachesis mihi temporafati, 
 Te tantum miserata, dedif^ 
 
 Your affectionate Husband, 
 H. J. W.
 
 Cjin^ittr fmi 
 
 STOIvE GABRIEL. 
 
 WslJ^ F all natural boundaries, the most beautiful 
 is that formed by a noble river. It was, 
 indeed, the origin of the word " rival," from 
 the disputes to Avhich its Avanderings to and 
 fro gave rise, yet there is no resisting its appeal 
 to the eye. It lends to the imagination another 
 element, another sense, without the addition of which 
 the interest felt in any scenery is incomplete. A stream, 
 like the Dart, is a fair object, of which any place might be 
 proud. But it is fairer still, when its course is through a 
 romantic country, full of historic associations, always lovely, 
 and sometimes bordering on the sublime. 
 
 The parish of Stoke Gabriel, where I write, extends ir- 
 regularly, for nearly three miles, along the verge of the 
 Dart. It could not have a more delightful barrier, as it 
 seems to think, for its belt of woods comes down to the
 
 RAMBLES IN DEVONSHIKE. 
 
 margin of the water droopingly, forming a peaceful solitude. 
 The groves along its borders arc full of paths, liiit they are 
 hidden ; and the absence of an apparent thoroughfare makes 
 tlie retirement of its banks more solemn, and more sacred. 
 The river does not flow along the' parish in an vuibroken 
 line. It trends round a green slope, ou which is seen IMr. 
 Ilulme's pretty seat " Maisonette." Then an indentation is 
 formed by a wide estuary, across which there is a stone 
 mill-dam ; and so the village, or, as it would be called in 
 Cornwall, the " church town," of Stoke, is divided from 
 Sandridge, and from the hamlet of Waddeton, 
 
 The place itself has nothing in it remarkable, Avith one 
 exception, which, however, is an object deserving almost a 
 pilgrimage of its own. In the church-j'ard is a yew-tree, of 
 such magnificent proportions, as to have, I believe, one rival 
 only, of its age and size, in England. It overshadovrs the 
 Church, which possesses but the remains of a light rood- 
 screen, and an ancient perpendicular windoAv in the tower, 
 to tell us what it was of old.* But the great tree beside it 
 is of an architecture that knows neither degradation nor 
 change. Much to the credit of the parish, it is protected 
 with the most scrvipulous care, a wall being erected round 
 it, and props placed under all its limbs. Bampfylde Moore 
 Carew is said to have begged, or held forth, beneath it, but 
 this incident is comparatively modern. Wlien we look at it, 
 how the Past rises before us ! \^Tiat a history, what a tale 
 
 * I am happy to say that there is a prospect of its partial restora- 
 tion. Towards renewing the roof, and substituting open seats for the 
 wretched deal boxes, called pews, Mr. Ilulme, of Maisonette, offered 
 the munificent sum of £50 ; and I have no doubt that his Christian 
 generosity will call forth corresponding spirit in the other parishioners.
 
 RAMBLES IN DEVONSHIRE. 
 
 of romance, might not that patriarch tell, could only its 
 foliage, like that of the oak at Dodona, find a tongue ! In 
 the corner of the burial-ground lies an antique arch, pros- 
 trate, and overgrown with moss. Ask whose hand it was 
 that shaped and fashioned it. In another corner stood once, 
 it is said, a religious house. Who built it, and who flung 
 it down ? How much should we learn, could we but give 
 speech and language to that august and silent witness of 
 other days ! 
 
 THE CHURCH- YARD YEW. 
 
 Fairy spells, that memory weaves, 
 
 Shades with outlines dim. 
 Linger in thy whispering leaves, 
 
 Moan in every limb. 
 Aged Yew, for many a day j| 
 
 Wherefore dost thou murmur so ? 
 And the aged Yew replieth, 
 
 Well-a-day, Avell-a-day, 
 'Tis the ghost of Time that sigheth ; 
 Life and death 'tis mine to show, 
 Life above, and death below. 
 
 Thou hast seen the Druids' reign, 
 
 Thou hast seen the grey Culdee, 
 And the Raven of the Dane, 
 
 And the Cross of Calvary. 
 
 Ill
 
 Thou hast seen tliem pass awaj, 
 Like the Dart's eternal flow ; 
 
 Overhead the birds are singing, 
 "VVell-a-day, Avell-a-day, 
 
 Underneath the weeds are springing, 
 
 While the graves of nations grow, 
 
 Life above, and death below. 
 
 Thou hast seen the Saxon slave, 
 
 Seen the Church flung madly down, 
 Seen the Norman's bloody glaive, 
 
 And the Martyr's fiery crown ; 
 And we come to kneel and pray, 
 
 As in ages, long ago, 
 "VYhile the sky was smiUng o'er thee, 
 
 "\Yell-a-day, well-a-day. 
 Others knelt and prayed before thee ; 
 They are gone, where all must go. 
 Life above, and death below. 
 
 A melancholy history is attached to the ancient arch, 
 mentioned above, which is said to have led doAvn to the 
 Vicarage house. There is a tradition that a former Vicar 
 was found hanging upon it. From a short Latin biography 
 of him, in the parish register, the poor man's name was 
 Goetz, Latinised, after the fashion of the day, into Getsius. 
 Originally a Protestant emigrant from the Palatinate, he 
 held this living for forty years, and appears to have lost his 
 wife about twelve months before his unhappy end.
 
 1 
 
 GAMBLES IN DEVONSHIRE. 
 
 The most striking part of the parish is that comprising 
 Sandriclge, and the adjacent hamlet of Waddeton. It fringes 
 the Dai't with a succession of wooded slopes, having, here 
 and there, a boat-house, or a workman's hut, lying em- 
 bosomed in them, on the water's edge. There is a heronry 
 at Sharpham, on the other side of the river, and the birds 
 are seen floating lazily about, or Avatching the shallows for 
 fish. Sandridge, the property of Lord Cranstoun, is an 
 Italian villa of great beauty. It has been built, with much 
 taste and judgment, on the brow of a long gentle upland, 
 from which it has a double view of the Dart, through vistas 
 of patriarchal trees, now swelling boldly, and then, with a 
 deep glade, sinking down, and appearing to mingle with the 
 stream. The walks in the grounds are Avell worth a visit, 
 and, especially, when the evergreens, those weeds of Devon- 
 shire, are so fine, as to remind us of what Milman called 
 " the dim twilight of the laurel grove," 
 
 where Delos looks coyly down uj)on the blue ^gean. 
 
 Waddeton Court, the handsome seat of Mr. Studdy, is a 
 modern Elizabethan mansion, exceedingly well placed, like 
 Sandridge, on the crest of a fine rising ground. It com- 
 mands a noble view of Dittishani Pool, and of the Beacon 
 Hill beyond. Below it is a deep gorge, buried in the shadow 
 of its aged woods, and stretching away to the water-side. 
 Nothing more noisy than the call of a pheasant, or a rustle 
 of sylvan life, is heard among the ancestral trees. Come a 
 step or two beyond their precincts, and all is labour, and 
 traffic, while a little steamer glances past, and boats go by, 
 and, from time to time, a larger vessel comes slowly on, the 
 water rippling and sparkling from her bows.
 
 RAMBLES IN DEVONSHIRE. 
 
 The real beauty of a prospect depends on its accessories. 
 If yon arc alone, yon are a mere animal unit in a material 
 desert, a Avaudei'cr in an Australian forest, with its canojiy 
 of thin flickering leaves. You want a Past, to connect you 
 with your human ancestrj- ; and a Future, like a track of 
 glory from the sun, leading you up to God. If you would 
 have the full dignity of manhood, you cannot isolate yourself 
 from the great heart of your mortal nature. In the most 
 exquisite scene, you want some human sympathy, some 
 connexion with older days, and with other men, to teach 
 you that you are not alone Such a remembrance is not 
 wanting here. It is one, full of stern romance, harmonizing 
 with the locality, and with the gazer's thoughts. Before 
 you, on that headland, is Greenaway, once the dwelling of 
 Sir Walter Raleigh. His history conjures up a world of 
 spirits, passing with a slow and stately march. The Gold- 
 land sends tliere its plumed Incas, and they turn on you a 
 glance, sad and reproachful as their history. Shadowy 
 figures, like those of Drake, and Frobisher, and Gilbert, 
 move along in a dim procession, — those true old sea-kings, 
 whose very names struck terror into the heart of Spain. 
 What a melancholy panorama it is, and how varied ! Yet 
 it is but the life of that noble gentleman, sitting tranquilly 
 in the casement yonder, from the hour when he threw down 
 his cloak before the feet of Elizabeth, to the last scene on 
 Tower-hill, closed by the gloomy Gondomar, stiiF in his 
 S2)anish ruff, as I saw him in his j^ortrait at Stowe. 
 
 But thoughts like these are not for Devonshire, nor for 
 the sunny Dart, nor for its green lanes. They Avind over 
 this parish, as they do everywhere, like a network of
 
 RAMBLES IN DEVONSHIRE. 
 
 emeralds, Avliile the trees above form a natural arch, and 
 the banks are bright with spring and summer flowers, and 
 in autumn the tall fern waves its Oriental leaves, like the 
 banner of the departing year. The Spaniards have a 
 proverb relating to this subject : — ■ 
 
 " There is danger in green leaves, and a beautiful face." 
 
 Now this saying is not applicable to its birth-place, Avhicli 
 is a land of broad vast soUtudes, of fantastic mountain 
 chains, crowned, ever and anon, with old Moorish towers, 
 looking, in spectral piide, over a realm which is their's no 
 more. It has the deep barranco, the Sierra, mantling with 
 its groves of cork and chesnut, the great Castilian table-land, 
 the bluffs of Biscay, the royal oak of Guernica. The pilgrim 
 sees a burgh on the hill-top, and recognises Saguntum. He 
 crosses the Ebro in its swing boat, and straightway there 
 arises before his mind's eye the march of the Carthaginian 
 arm}^, beginning at Carthago Nova, to end at Cannaj; its 
 eighty elephants pacing royally along ; its white-robed 
 infantry ; its swarthy Numidian horse ; and, at the head of 
 all, he Avhom Wellington pronounced the greatest Captain 
 of all ages, the young Hannibal. But these immortal 
 memories do not harmonize with the spirit of that saying. 
 The palmy South, indeed, might claim them, but even the 
 South is wanting in one element of romance, for it lacks 
 strength and manliness. All the bright-eyed creepers, all 
 the ivy wreaths in the world, are nothing, without the oak 
 for their embrace. " The inen of Valencia," says an antique 
 Castilian saw, " are Avomen, the women are animals, the 
 animals are grass, the grass is water, and the water nothing."
 
 But the West of England, liowcver Ixviutiful, is not 
 effeminate, nor is there an enervating atmosphere in the 
 solitudes, -where you may wander for hours alone. Nor is 
 grandeur lacking to the bright Dart, as it rushes forth from 
 the tors of the moor, and flows, amid fairy combes and deep 
 valleys, to the sea. The proverb might have been written 
 for this country, by a Poet Avho felt its witcheries. It is a 
 Devonshire lane, embodied, or rather amplified, in Avords. 
 
 And when twilight, with its shadows, comes down 
 
 More tender, and more faint, 
 Soft as a glory on the brow 
 Of an expiring Saint ; 
 
 and makes the woodland holier and more solemn, and tinges 
 with a yellow lustre the bosom of the stream, it fills the 
 mind with images of poetry. We have been lingering all 
 day on the banks of the river, and they deserve at least a 
 farewell in sons.
 
 TO THE RIVER DART. 
 
 BeautiM river, Iioav calm is tliy way, 
 Lingering fondly, ere winding away; 
 Winding away to the Ocean, wliose sigli 
 Comes, in low mtuniiurs, imploringly by. 
 Fairy-like river, how long is thy way, 
 Timidly coying in haven and bay; 
 ]\Iusical wanderer, haste to depart. 
 Child of the wilderness, beautifol Dart, 
 
 Bold is the rush of the kingly Rhine, 
 Bright is his coronet, bright is his wine. 
 Soft, in the shade of his mountain zone, 
 Laughs the blue glance of the bounding Rhone. 
 Proudly the yellow-haired Tiber may flow. 
 Singing his dirge to the dead below. 
 Which of the river gods, which may it be. 
 Beautiful Dart, to be mated with thee ? 
 
 Thou hast no chaplet of vine-clad bowers, 
 Thou hast no circlet of feudal towers, 
 Tliou hast no gUtter of charging ranks. 
 Fleets on thy bosom, and blood on thy banks ;
 
 LINES ON THE COMBE, 
 
 Hark ! along yon eliin dale 
 Floats a sweet and solemn wail. 
 By the Oread's leafy pall, 
 By the silver waterfall. 
 Straying o'er the haunted hUl, 
 Singing in the busy mill, 
 Comes a long and loving sigh, 
 Comes a plaintive murmur by; 
 Is it Echo, or a Fay 
 Melting into song away ? 
 
 Echo ! Echo ! 
 Is it from thy mystic shrine. 
 Is the voice of music thine ? 
 
 Hark, again I hear its cry, 
 Trembling, witching, lingering, by. 
 Mingled with the di'eams that stir 
 In the branches of the fir, 
 By the brake's enamelled side 
 Mingled with the moaning tide. 
 Wlaispering ever, low, but clear, 
 " Wilt thou seek me, I am here ! 
 Here, with many a tender spell, 
 I, the lone enchantress, dwell." 
 Echo ! Echo !
 
 S 12 
 
 RAJfBLES IN DEVONSHIRE. 
 
 Shrink Avithin tliy magic mine, 
 'Tis a SAveeter cliann than thine. 
 
 Hark, it calls thee ! " Wilt thou hear 
 
 Strains that fit a Seraph's ear, 
 
 Wilt thou see a halo, fair 
 
 As a Martyi''s brow may wear ? 
 
 Fairy wings are gleaming bright, 
 
 Fairy harps are hymning light, 
 
 Fairy forms are glancing free, 
 
 'Mid aerial minstrelsy; 
 
 Here are Fancy's thoiisand wiles. 
 
 Here are Love's responsive smiles. 
 
 Echo ! Echo ! 
 Hermit of the rifted pine. 
 Dull thy shade of sound to mine." 
 
 " Wilt thou seek me ? I am nigh, 
 Pleading to the Pilgrim's eye. 
 Felt in Beauty's power to bless, 
 Seen in Nature's loveliness. 
 I can fill the dreamy shade, 
 I can light the glowing glade, 
 I can bid the fair and good 
 Share my peopled solitude, 
 When the film of earth departs. 
 Thrilling in then* heart of hearts. 
 
 Echo ! Echo ! 
 Wandering sprite, thy claims resign. 
 Lonely wanderer, yield to mine ! "
 
 Cjiajittr Itrnnii, 
 
 Y Lord," said an unhappy Jiir}anan, cm- 
 pannelled against his will, and at his wit's 
 end for an excuse, " I can't afford to keej^ an 
 apprentice." " Then, Sir," was my Lord's 
 reply, " then. Sir, jow oiight to be able to 
 aiford it." And the master of twenty 
 legions had, of course, his logical and un- 
 disputed way. Li like fashion, Ave might 
 say to the winding valley leading from Portbridge to Stoke 
 Gabriel, if there are no pixies here, nor elves, there certainly 
 ought to be. It is so beautiful ! especially as I saw it in 
 early spring, one bright March day, full of primroses and 
 violets, with a green iindergrowth of orchis and blue bell, 
 peeping out at you softly, and nestling in the sun. If no 
 fairies hold their revels upon its tapestry of moss, and under 
 its restless canopy of leaves, they have lost their taste for 
 sylvan witcheries. They have given place to the vulgar 
 ivishnesses* which are as gross and as common-place, as the 
 minds that indulge in them.
 
 RAMBLES IN DEVONSHIRE. 
 
 In a country aboiuiding in natural charms, we always look 
 for some local matters of interest, some legendary records of 
 those who, like oru'selves, felt the spirit of the place. The 
 most perfect combination of Nature's works is, without this, 
 like a body without a sovil. Thank Heaven we are not all, 
 nor usually, like the Yankee who, at the first sight of Niagara, 
 only cried out, " what an everlasting water-power for mills." 
 The most prosaic of us has in the midst of such scenes as 
 these a want within him, often an unexplained yearning, for 
 something to fill up the visible framework, to bring in the 
 Past, with its dim religious spells, and to connect us Avith 
 our kinsmen of other days, by the still small voice of 
 IMeniory. 
 
 Yet, fair as it is, this quiet nook of Devonshire is not rich 
 in relics of old Time. The few lying around you here are 
 neither in themselves stirring, nor of particular interest. A 
 branch of the great house of Pomeroy once lived there, on 
 the hill opposite, where now stands Lord Cranstoim's pretty 
 Italian villa. It is said that a Benedictine Monastery 
 flourished near the present Church, the name of part of 
 its farm buUdings being preserved in the corrupted word 
 *' Barnies," given to a modern house. Descending to later 
 times, there is certainly a tradition linked Avith this sweet 
 hollow, but it is one neither romantic, nor recalled with 
 pleasure. Along that road, and wp the winding ascent, and 
 doA\'n the stecj) lane beyond, still called Parliament lane, from 
 his first coiincil having been held in yonder old farm house, 
 rode, after his landing at Brixham, William of Orange. 
 Behind him followed Ginkle, and Bentinck, and Schomberg, 
 and the swarm of Dutch locusts, and Enghsh rebels. We
 
 may, if we list, see the rearguard croA\aiing yon crest, and 
 passing slowly away, a trumpet-call only floating back upon 
 tlie air, as it still stirred some loiterer's plume. 
 
 Upon such a memorial as this it is not pleasant to dwell. 
 But when you reach the main road, and stand on Portbridge, 
 you find something that tells you of a different, and a prouder, 
 fellowship. Upon the hill on your left hand, looking towards 
 Waddeton, is a small Roman camp. In general, there is 
 little, connected with our recollections of those masters of 
 the Avorld, but violence, and rapine. There was, to be sure, 
 grandeur in their deeds of wi'ong. They swayed and smote 
 in an Imperial fashion, allowing no meaner tyranny, and 
 when they departed, leaving the impress of a giant's traces 
 on their abandoned works, like the awful sign of a bloody 
 hand,* stamped upon the silent walls of the ruined cities of 
 Mexico. 
 
 Yet, here, the rule is not quite applicable. I heard the 
 other day a tale of superstition inherited by that deserted 
 station, the disjointed links of which I have endeavoured to 
 unite. The fathers of this hamlet were the principal actors 
 in it, so it is not out of place, nor unwelcome, here. I will 
 call it — 
 
 ®J)e ffif)urci) of Stofee St. ffiabriel, anH f)otD it iaas founticU. 
 
 * In one of the illustrations to Fortune's last work on China, this 
 same mysterious type or token is seen, graven upon a rock, by the side 
 of a stream. 
 
 IT
 
 THE CHURCH OF STOKE St. GABKIEL, 
 
 AND HOW IT WAS FOUNDED. 
 
 EFORE Wyclyf was, and before 
 Rainold Peacock was, and before the 
 blessed truths of the Reformation had 
 ilhimmated the darkness of our land, there stood, 
 in the corner of the present churchyard at Stoke 
 Gabriel, a little chantry or chapel. It was suc- 
 ceeded by a stately chiirch. How this befel, and 
 after what a strange fashion, I will endeavour to 
 relate. 
 
 It was long before the wars of the Roses that 
 these scenes occurred. Courtenaye of Powderham 
 then claimed cousinship and kin with every Royal 
 house in Europe, as the descendant of that Coiu'tenaye, who 
 refused to marry his daughter and heiress to a " Child of 
 France," unless the princely wooer assumed the name and 
 arms of his bride. Pomerei of Berry, Baron of Totnes, Avas 
 then the lord of fifty-eight fiefs. These days, and the events 
 acted in them, were old and traditional, when the Burghers 
 of Totnes covenanted to keep a barge, with six servitors, 
 properly apparelled, to be ever in readiness to convey the 
 Lord of Dartington across the sheet of water, granted to
 
 tliem by him, and tlien bounding tlie base of the hill, on 
 wliich the Town stood. It was long before tlie wars of the 
 Roses, as I have just said, that these events took place. The 
 land of Norman and of Saxon was yet hardly England, 
 though the fusion of races had perceptibly coiiimenced. 
 Many a Thane and Franklin resided on his father's heritage, 
 and dwelt in the low rude halls of one story, Avhich they still 
 affected, in sullen contrast to the fortified houses and castles 
 of the intrusive conquerors. 
 
 Another element, too, was not yet entirely extinct in this 
 state of transition and of change. Although the Romans 
 had long disappeared from Britain, traces of their mighty 
 hand everywhere remained. The memorials of their de- 
 parted Empire siu'vived even its name. Throughout the 
 length and breadth of the land, the antique spirit of Latian 
 greatness might, here and there, be still deemed to live, and 
 be evoked from its ashes. The eye recognized it in the 
 pillars of a decayed temple, or in a fortress, or in an altar, 
 raised by some legion to a favourite officer, or in some lonely 
 Avail, or in a few scattered houses, partly destroyed for the 
 sake of the materials, and partly spared, because the excel- 
 lence of the bituminous cement was such, that the work of 
 demolition became unprofitable and costly. Pevensey was 
 called Norman, but was actually Roman. Rutupium was 
 named Richborough, and Regulbium was turned into Recul- 
 vers, and Portus Lemanis became Lynme ; but the buildings 
 themselves were imaltered, from the day Avhen the Roman 
 Ai-chitect completed them, and the Augur blessed them, and 
 the Eagle spread over them his haughty wings. So also, in 
 many retired spots, /^a^/ and villa; Avere softened into pays
 
 and ville, luit the ancient Roman fabrics still stood, like 
 iisurpers in a subject land, marking the site of some former 
 statio or castrvim, and recalling, even in the corruption of 
 theii' names, a stem remembrance of those whose Empire 
 was once the world. While, however, the Patriarchal relic 
 tlius lingered on, there generally arose, by its side, in some 
 position less suited for military occupation than that selected 
 by the warlike colonists of Italy, a Saxon, or rather an 
 English, population, thriving, busy, active, and progressing. 
 The parent remained stationary, retaining the shadowy in- 
 heritance of a mighty name, while its offspring, distinguished 
 by that of Stoke, which signifies an outlying hamlet, grew 
 and flourished, outstripping its aged mother, and contrasting 
 its restless lustihood with her time-honoured and dignified 
 decay. 
 
 And this is the Spirit of our Island life, even to the busy 
 current of the passing hour. It induced the Senate of 
 England to make a stand for the retention of the word 
 " Alderman." It permitted the electors of a Cornish borough 
 to go through the ceremony of choosing their representatives 
 round an old tree. The shadow of the majestic Past gave 
 grandeur to an idea that were else trivial and absurd. It 
 even hallowed those idle forms. It is a part of our august 
 inheritance, and our strength of to-day is founded upon that 
 ■great Charter, wrung from the Crown, seven centuries ago, 
 by that same race of nobles " who willed not that the laws 
 of England should be changed." Upon that broad base 
 stands the Pyramid of our birthright. Until within the last 
 twenty years, the game laws of the Plantagenets were 
 tmrepealed. Ask who founded an University, and the
 
 answer tells of Alfred. Demand what course was i^ursued, 
 Avlien it pleased God to afflict our King with the loss ol" 
 reason, and you find that a Committee was appointed to 
 inquire for precedents, nor would the legislature act, until it 
 knew what course had been pursued by our forefathers 
 under similar circumstances, five hu^ndred years before. We 
 have been, as a nation, too thoughtful and too wise to disdain 
 the lessons of Avisdom, bequeathed to us by our long ancestry. 
 A magnificent ruin was not to us a grey pile, and nothing 
 more. Some fine" historical memory had there 
 
 " A local habitation, and a name" 
 of which the neighbourhood was proud. The village at its 
 foot was perhaps destined to be a Manchester or a Liverpool, 
 but the very artisans looked up to the Castle with reverence, 
 though they had never heard, it might be, of the de Vipont 
 Avho reared it, and kneAv nothing of the six annulets upon 
 his mouldering shield. 
 
 It was so with the villa, or town, which forms the subject 
 of my tale. Such, at the early time to which I refer, Avas 
 its state, decayed, but not altogether discroAvned. Its very 
 name has perished. It was an Imj^erial waif, upon the green 
 hiEside, seen on crossing the little bridge in the valley, and 
 beginning the ascent of the beautiful slope, which conducts 
 to the old Saxon hamlet of Waddeton. All that remains of 
 it, now, is one of those distinctive terms, which are the 
 universal becpiest of Rome. Its principal gate looked towards 
 the rivulet, and the winding track bej^ond, and the fact still 
 survives in the word " Port bridge " or " the bridge of the 
 gate." On the left hand, as you face the vanished burgh, is 
 one of those positions which Kome luved to choose, and
 
 20 RAMBLES IN DEVONSHmE. 
 
 which she never chose wrong. And there, haughtily apart, 
 was, and still is, a camp or fortified enclosxire, for one or two 
 companies of legionaries. It was merely a castrum cestivmn, 
 or " summer camp," but its site Avas admii-ably selected, 
 looking down, as from an eyrie, on its charge below, and 
 ready to furnish defenders to any of the maritime posts 
 around, should pirate or invader threaten them. 
 
 In the early days of the Plantagenets, the Roman town, 
 though indeed mouldering, was extant stiU. Surrounded by 
 a grey wall, it lay upon its fair upland, with a kind of dim 
 religious beauty, full of ghostly memories. Those, who 
 had never heard of its stern Iniilders, reverenced its hoar 
 anticpiity, and spared its bent arches, and its ivied towers. 
 The camp upon the hill was unprofaned by the plough. The 
 shades of its great lords seemed to protect it from wrong. 
 The old town presented its municipia, its borough privileges, 
 intact, just as when the clarions of the guard above sounded 
 at sunrise, and at sunset, and the legionaries sauntered 
 through its narrow streets, or lounged in its little Fonuu, to 
 wile away the tedium of garrison life. 
 
 But, at a short distance from that quiet spot, matters were 
 gradually assuming a far different, and a busier, aspect. Less 
 than a mile from the bridge, the piety of some faithful 
 Catholic had erected a Monastery of Black Friars, adjoining 
 St. Gabriel's cell. By degrees houses rose around it, until, 
 under its protecting shadow, the place became a village, and 
 took, as was usual in those days, the name of " Stoke." 
 Considered simply as a hamlet, attached to the older town, 
 it grew prosperous and wealthy. Its position on the lovely 
 river Dart, nestled, as it were, in a fairy hollow upon the
 
 slioi'e, atti'acted some local commerce. Its fisheries, matters 
 of some importance in those days of fasting, gave employ- 
 ment to the hardy and the young. Its religions connnunity 
 formed the centre of a circle of dependents, flourishing under 
 its easy conventual rule. Nor did the especial patronage of 
 St. Gabriel, and the sanctity attached to his ancient image, 
 count for nought in that day of simple superstition. All 
 these causes comliined together to render the hopeftd progeny 
 independent of its feeble parent, and little inclined it to 
 submit to those claims of superiority, which, springing from 
 the memory of the Past, had, indeed, dignity and poetry to 
 invest them with a dreamy grace, but were of small weight, 
 in the rude eyes of the socmen and the thralls of Devon. 
 
 Things went on smoothly enoi;gh, just so long as no 
 question of interest arose between the people of the mother 
 town, and of Stoke. The loAver orders everywhere, and 
 especially in the West, are people of one idea. That idea, 
 in Devonshire is superstition. The folks of Stoke had been 
 accustomed to look up to the old town, and to consider 
 themselves an offset, only, from it. Those who did not go 
 to Mass at the Black Friars, or at St. Gabriel's Chapel, did 
 so at the old Basilica, once Pagan, then Christian, where 
 their fathei-s from time inunemorial had knelt. It was to 
 them a solemn tradition, wherein was mingled the simple 
 record of their ancestral life. They looked to the old Cluu'ch 
 as their natural place of resort on all occasions of ceremony, 
 and of high festival, repairing to it, like dutitul children, for 
 baptism and for marriage, and, " after life's fitful fever," 
 sleeping, side by side, under the shadow of its blessed walls. 
 
 Alas for humanity ! Superstition is a mighty engine.
 
 Traditional records have a vast power over the mind. Chiims, 
 to which men have long assented, stand firmly ii^ion their 
 accorded respect and reverence, and are not easily disputed 
 nor set aside. But these are shadows, enchanting indeed, and 
 of a dim vague majesty, which may be shaken off whenever 
 the effort can be made. And the effort will be made, and 
 the deed will be done, whenever it is our interest to do it. 
 Age, and honoiu", and the sanctity of time, and the mellowed 
 beauty of those ties, half mortal and half divine, seen in a 
 rehgion Avhich has an ancestry of centiiries, are, before the 
 greed of selfish feelings, only what a tall tree is befox'e 
 the lightning stroke. Its very loftiness, and the brow it 
 uprears to Heaven, expose it to the blow, and make the 
 shock more sure. 
 
 Such a question was it that came do-wn suddenly, even as 
 a deadly blight, or a cloud of lociists, upon the villeins, or 
 iiistics, of Stoke. The bookmen of the Monastery complained 
 of their dulness in spiritual things. Argvxments, however 
 soimd, could never make them comprehend the divine nature 
 of tithes, nor the privilege of paying them. They always 
 surrendered their loak-hen * under protest. They murmured 
 at giving uj? the finest salmon of the haul, though it were to 
 be honoured by appearing at the table of the Abbot himself. 
 But Avheu a case occurred, involving merks and nobles, and 
 they were to be thus amerced, to their own inconvenience, 
 and for the benefit of others, there was no lack of wit among 
 them. Quicksilver does not amalgamate gold more magically 
 than did this common risk enlighten and unite them. Socmen 
 and bondmen, freemen and serfs, yeomen and homagers, all 
 
 * i.e. hick-hen.
 
 RAMBLES IN DEVONSHIRE. 23 
 
 recognized the impending peril, and arose to meet it. As 
 well might it have taken away the air they breathed. 
 It touched their pockets. Five hundred years ago, English- 
 men had, on this point, as keen a preception, and a fellow- 
 feeling as warm, as now. At that period Dissent was rather 
 a ticklish affair, and martyrdom and persecution were 
 different things from singing psalms out of tune in a snug 
 chapel. But if any real Dissenters existed then, I have not 
 the slightest doubt that their conscientious scruples had a 
 mysterious connexion with tithes. 
 
 The moving cause of all this pious bile was, at first sight, 
 hardly equal to the effects produced. It merely regarded 
 the site of a new Church, which was rendered necessary by 
 the increased and increasing population. Now this seemed 
 a simple thing, and one easy of arrangement. But it was 
 compHcated by English prejudices, and by those hereditary 
 and honoiu'ed claims, our svibmission to which makes us, in 
 effect, the calm and sober people that we are. The question 
 was not altogether one of privilege, nor of interest only, but 
 also of convenience, and so precedence and comfort came 
 into collision in a manner very threatening to the peace of 
 the two places. For the first time the old town was put in 
 opposition to Stoke, its upstart offspring, and there it stood, 
 sullenly planting its dignity, and its crowned head of yester- 
 day, against the parvenu spirit of to-day. 
 
 The Church, Avhich it was proposed to build, was to 
 replace the old Roman Basilica, now almost in ruins, and 
 likewise far too small for those who frequented it. Since it 
 was for the use of the whole united population, it was only 
 natural and proper that it should be erected in some central
 
 UAilBLES IN DEVONSHIRE. 
 
 spot, to wliicli both parties might easily and conveniently 
 repair. But here — precisely at the wrong point — stepped 
 in prescription, like an old dowager, with its antiquated 
 pretensions. 
 
 The site of the Roman camp had long been regarded with 
 feelings of superstitious awe. Perhaps the tradition, which 
 thus brooded over it, was connected with the myth of an older 
 tale. There might the Druid have woven his spells, or the 
 Culdee have celebrated his simple rites, and so had come 
 doAvn a memory of some religion, a shadow of some mighty 
 presence, that lingered about the magic cii'cle, and gave to 
 the abode of those warlike pilgrims an influence, not its own. 
 Whatever might be the reason, the result at least was that 
 a great deal of involuntary reverence was paid to the solitaiy 
 mounds of turf, long silent and desolate. Influenced by this 
 feeling, and wishing probably to assert their hereditary rights, 
 the men of the biu'gh insisted on there erecting the Church. 
 Setting aside the fatigviing ascent, it would thus be placed at 
 a distance of nearly a league from Stoke, and from the very 
 population for whose accommodation it Avas professedly built. 
 And the motive for such a fantastic choice appeared solely 
 to be the weight attached to a legendary notion; and to a 
 prescriptive dignity, which none had yet disputed, because 
 it was worth no one's while to do so; and to an assertion of 
 claims, dying, as fast as possible, a natural death. 
 
 They had noAv, however, no lack of opponents. The 
 worthy burghers had evoked a spirit too strong for them, |= 
 meet it as they Avoidd. The pretensions of the old camp to 
 any sort of sanctity Avere ridiculed. Miracles eA^en Avere 
 produced in faA'our of St. Gabriel's cell. A pious monk.
 
 passing its precincts one night after supping with a hospitable 
 franklin, and taking a deep draught of mead — solely as a 
 precaution agamst the cold — was qiute certain that he saw, 
 above the chapel door, two figures of the Saint, instead of 
 one. He never could exactly tell what he heard, but fear, 
 and a mysterious soiuid in his head, so deprived him of his 
 senses, that next morning he was found, fast asleep, and very 
 miserable, in the ditch hard by. The sceptics of the other 
 party had the profaneness to assert that the spirits seen by 
 the good man were a duphcate of those at his supper, and 
 that all he heard was but their humming in his brain. This 
 charge produced so warm a rejoinder, that resort seemed 
 hkely to be had to blows and dagger thrusts, had not the 
 stout Knight, Sir Henry de Waddeton, interfered, and put 
 down the turmoil Avith the strong hand. Being uaterested 
 in having the Chiu'ch ei'ccted near "Waddeton Coiu't, he also 
 supported the men of the villa to such effect, that they 
 carried their point, and the camp was fixed upon as the site 
 for the new edifice. Be sure there were murmurs and 
 discontents enough, but the sanction of the Ordinary was 
 obtained, and plans were fixrnished, and, ere four months had 
 gone by, workmen were busily excavating the foundations, 
 and the building was begun. 
 
 So at first it Avent on bravely. After the old Roman 
 custom, not yet disused, the substratum was vamped in, 
 and upon it were placed the sohd Avails. They rose, first 
 to a level with the soil, and next above it. Then, hoAvever, 
 came a stop to the progi'ess of the Avork. One morning, 
 the labourers, on returning to the spot, found a ruin, Avhere 
 they had left every thing correct and fair. The Avreck did
 
 not seem man's doing, so speedy was it, and so complete. 
 No liand at least was visible. Peradventure the deemons, 
 once worshipped there, had arisen to play their unholy 
 pranks. Peradventure they were wroth with the creation 
 of a sacred fabric upon the scene of their wild spells, and 
 so the destruction of the rising temple was the work of 
 those, whom it was a sin to name. The carved stones were 
 strewn about, as it Avere, in bitter mockery; the trench was 
 half fiUed up; and as the masons ascended the bold slope 
 that crowns the hill, they thought they beheld, in the un- 
 certain mist of morning, shadowy forms flitting about, while 
 they almost fancied that they heard strange peals of eldiich 
 laughter, ringing through the gloom. Wlien they reached 
 the scene of desolation, naithless, all was silent. A soHtary 
 bittern rose sluggishly on the wing, with a low booming cry. 
 The fog rolled in wreaths away. The cold early beams of 
 dawn played over the melancholy scene. There was stillness 
 and solitxide. Men looked roimd fearfiUly at each other. 
 Not a word was spoken. They turned them sorrowfully 
 home. 
 
 Still the work was not abandoned. Rather it was pressed 
 on more vigorously than before, but always with the same 
 result. As soon as the walls had reached a certaua height, 
 an unseen and malignant influence seemed to be rained upon 
 them; the same scene of ruin was reacted, the same overthrow 
 was accomplished. The Monks of Stoke took no part m the 
 matter. They refused wholly to interfere, either by exorcism 
 or by advice. So after many attempts at restoration, and as 
 many failures, a pause of weariness ensued. It seemed vain 
 to contend against an evil power, so persevering and so
 
 strong. Men knew not wliat to think. Some said that the 
 gods of the Pagans ruled still upon the accursed spot. 
 Others held that the soil once used as a Heathen camp, and 
 stained doubtless with the blood of Heathen sacrifices, was 
 no site for a Christian Church. But none knew the truth, 
 nor could they do more than guess at the real solution of the 
 mystery. They desisted indeed from the task, with a sort of 
 forced inaction, and exhaiistion. They submitted gloomily 
 to a hand apparently stronger than their own, raised against 
 them on unequal terms, and baffling them with contempt 
 and scorn. 
 
 Then, after many debates, the matter took a new turn. 
 Both parties were tired of the strife, and, but for very 
 shame, would have made overtm-es for peace. The franklins 
 and all of the better class, in the parish, were vexed, as 
 Christian men needs must be, with these uncharitable broils. 
 So they used their influence, not -with their lord only, but 
 with the people round about, for a worthy end, even to pro- 
 mote love and union. They thought it a pity that a work, so 
 profitable for many, should be thus hindered by the devices of 
 the Evil One. And they spake kindly and soothingly with 
 the burghers ; and they dealt with their lord so skilfully, that 
 he consented to forego his opposition, and to sanction the 
 transfer of the Church to Stoke. Thus it was agreed that a 
 meeting of the two parties should be held there, in the burial- 
 ground, under the great yew, where, even from the time of the 
 Heptarchy, itinerant Priests had been accustomed to preach. 
 Above it, on the hill side, was the Monastery of Black Friars, 
 and beneath its massy shadow arose the modest cell of St. 
 Gabriel, soon to be superseded by a prouder iane.
 
 For the last time, as two separate interests, the men of the 
 ancient burgh, and the dwellers at Stoke, assembled under 
 the canopy of that majestic temple, erected by God's hand. 
 In the days of old, when ceiled dwellings were unknoAvm, under 
 such a leafy hall did the simple worshijipers assemble, as 
 when they came to the oak of Dodona, and knelt, and j^rayed. 
 The Lord of AVaddeton took the first place, having on his 
 right hand the Prior, while around him stood the Monks, and 
 the chief men of the neighbourhood. Then there ensued a 
 long and sharp debate, that would surely have groAvn into 
 sterner strife, but for the presence and authority of the noble 
 and reverend men who presided over the meeting. After 
 many Avords, the Prior brought the matter to a decision. 
 
 " None could deny," he said, " that a miracle had been 
 performed , and that the buildings at the Camp had been super- 
 natiu-ally hindered." Several persons in the crowd here looked 
 down. " None could deny," he resumed, " that a Avorthy and 
 pious brother of their house had, on a late occasion, seen 
 double, and had beheld two Saints, instead of one." Here 
 the good man blushed most modestly. " Which," added the 
 Prior, " must also be accounted miraculous. It Avas therefore 
 evident that St. Gabriel disapproved of the site so hastily 
 selected, Avhile he, by the marvel thus vouchsafed to them, 
 honoured Avith his preference the one noAv before them. There, 
 then, he jDrojiosed that they should tmite their efforts in 
 erecting a stately fabric, dedicated to the Saint ; and he 
 submitted further that, in memory of the late events, the 
 place should henceforth, and for ever, be knoAvn by the name 
 of Stoke St. Gabriel." 
 
 The offer Avas imanimously accepted. A fair Church, in
 
 RAMBLES IN DEVONSHIRE. 
 
 the Perpendicular style, was raised and decorated, in a manner 
 worthy of the cause that gave it birth. Of the original 
 building, there is, in the tower, one window only remaining, 
 but several fragments of carving and of painting, scattered 
 through the interior, attest its former beauty. It is, alas ! 
 too frequently from fragments that Ave learn how the worshijD- 
 pers of that early day spared not their means, no, nor the 
 labours of their hands, in the service of God. Little indeed 
 is, m this instance, left, yet that Httle is sufficient to show us 
 that our forefathers must have been earnest in their faith, 
 when they created such a fabric in the retirement of this 
 romantic vale. 
 
 We, of this more enlightened day, smile at a narrative of 
 events, then fondly deemed miraculous. We might say that 
 the denizens of Stoke had a deep interest in obstructing the 
 erection of the distant Church, and would be tacitly seconded 
 in their efforts by the Monks. The long dark nights, and 
 the evil reputation of the Camp, enabled the malcontents to 
 fling doA\^T. the ill cemented walls. They would fear no 
 interruption upon that haunted down, especially at an hour 
 when spu'its walk abroad. Nor is there any difficulty in 
 disposing of the apparition of the two images. To see double, 
 after many a kindly pledge, is now at least no marvel, what- 
 ever it might have been in those darker times. 
 
 Yet let us not look too closely into the shadowy annals, 
 Avhich, to our ancestors, were articles of faith. To their 
 humble and confiding belief we owe one good, for to it are 
 we indebted for the Church in which, for many centuries, an 
 united congregation met in the sacrifice of prayer. To it, 
 also, we may attribute the decay, and disappearance of the
 
 S'g -l.^^ fas^^ I ■! J.<=,JtA s 
 
 RAMBLES IN DEVONSHIRE. 
 
 ancient biu'gli. It soon dwindled, and passed away, upheld 
 by no vitality of its own, and linked, by no endui'ing tie, 
 to tlie fortiines of its strong ojBTspring. It followed, in its 
 decrepitude and decay, tlie Camp that had once protected it. 
 It fell and was forgotten. "Wlien you cross the little rivulet 
 at the foot of the hill, you are on " Port bridge," on the 
 bridge facing the joort or gate of the old town. On your left 
 is the weird camp, long its survivor, but doomed itself, 
 diu"ing the coiu'se of this present year, to be levelled with the 
 groimd. You joiu'ney onwards towards Brixham, and pass 
 the hall of the Lords of Waddeton. As you ascend the hill, 
 you find, in a line parallel with the modem road, a narrow 
 biidle-track. It existed, long, long ago. Saxon and Norman 
 rode along it, in other days, but have left of their passage 
 no memorial, save the silent eloquence with which Natiu'e, 
 in these her relics, reminds us of the storied Past; save that 
 which our ancestors beqtieath to us with theu* Presence, 
 
 " A mouldering slope, a mossy stone, 
 A ruin, and a name."
 
 LINES TO A FALCON. 
 
 Seen prom the Roman Camp, March 23, 1853. 
 
 Bird of the tameless wing, away ! 
 
 High is thy gallant flight, 
 High o'er the portals of the day, 
 
 Bird of the wing of light ! 
 The tlnmder hails thee Avith its shock, 
 
 The tempest with its moan, 
 On, to thy eyrie of the rock ! 
 
 On, to thy desei't throne ! 
 
 Canst thou not hear a ghostly cry, 
 
 A dread unearthly tone. 
 Ere, like a meteor in the sky. 
 
 Thou flashest, and art gone ? 
 Canst thou not feel, o'er heath and grove. 
 
 Dim spells, that mutter low. 
 And Spirits in the air above, 
 
 And Shades that stir below ? 
 
 Here on this Camp, whose moimds appear 
 
 Traced faintly to the view, 
 Rome planted her broad foot, and here 
 
 Her Eao-le banner flew.
 
 32 
 
 EAJIBLES IN DEVONSHIRE. 
 
 And here thy brother of the Past 
 
 Bursts his imperial dream, 
 And sends thee, mingling with the blast, 
 
 His deep exulting scream ! 
 
 Yet on, thy weary wings to fold, 
 
 On, where the ice-gnomes dwell, 
 The Eagle of the men of old 
 
 Bids thee a stern farewell. 
 Thou wouldst not change thy mountain hold 
 
 For Beauty, or for Spring, 
 Lord of the glacier and the wold. 
 
 Bird of the tameless wing !
 
 m, 
 
 HE sea-port of Brixliam, Avliicli is 
 about seven miles from hence, lias 
 nothing in particular to distinguish 
 it from other fishing towais on the coast. 
 Perhaps it is a shade dirtier ; perhaps its 
 shops and market are not quite equal to 
 hose of its maritime neighbours; perhaps its 
 denizens are somewhat saucier than the common run of 
 young England ; for the other day a gentleman, ■ who 
 happened to be riding through its streets, on a horse touched 
 in the wind, was stopped, and gravely accosted by a ragged 
 urchin with this question, " Pray, Sir, does your horse spit 
 Avhen he coughs ? " 
 
 In one respect, however, it is honoui-ably distinguished, 
 and gives a favourable augury of its Future. It is free 
 from the disgrace of Plymouth. There is no sectarianism, 
 preaching oj^position to authorities, and being insubordinate 
 for the love of God. But it has, what is better, an admirable 
 Clerical Establishment, united in doctrine and in well doing, 
 under a most able and excellent Vicar. When I saAv the
 
 rite of Confirmation administered there by the Bishop, 
 laothing could be more becoming than the behaviour of the 
 children, nor more impressive than the whole service. A fine 
 painted window had just been presented by the Vicar's Lady. 
 Sir John and Lady Yarde Buller, the Vicar (the Eev. Mr. 
 Holdsworth), and some of the principal Parishioners, had 
 contributed munificently to the fittings and ornaments ; and 
 the Church, thus decorated anew, was formally re-opened on 
 the occasion of the Bishop's visit. 
 
 " Blessed be the Lord God of our Fathers, which hath 
 put such a thing as this in the ling's heart, to beautify the 
 house of the Lord." 
 
 Brixham has also two other characteristics, one connected 
 with the Past, and one belonging to our busy To-day. The 
 first of the two is that William of Orange landed there, on 
 his charitable and disinterested errand of redressing our 
 ■\vi"ongs. You are showTi the spot where he first planted his foot 
 on Enghsh soil. He who cried, " Wliere is Bohun ! where is 
 de Vere ! nay, greater than all, where is Plantagenet ! " might 
 have appealed, well and bitterly, to the days and to the men 
 of old, as the Dutch Stadtholder stepped on shore, with his 
 thin, sharp, suspicious face, and his mercenary follomng, 
 and his worthy Chaplain, Bishop Burnet, " who always 
 suspected a Clergyman." This is the great memory of 
 Brixham. At the present time, however, if jou are fond 
 of variety and of national pecidiarities, you would find much 
 to interest you there. You may collect coins of all nations 
 brought by the different coasting vessels : and, if you love 
 tales of adventure over flood and fell, you may enjoy them 
 to your heart's content.
 
 There is however one people which has no representative 
 at Brixham, having no taste for saHne odours and stale fish. 
 You may now and then see odd-looking foreigners : you may 
 know a Greek by his red cap and greco, and a Russian, 
 in his caftan, with his uncombed beard; but, though you 
 find him often enough nearer the East, you may here 
 look vainly for the " Moor." The place knows him not. 
 It has no sympathy with his poetry, nor with his traditions 
 of Empire. With his melancholy eye, and Avith his box of 
 drugs and of essences, meet him where you will, he is 
 a Gentleman, and eschews salt ling. I have seen him 
 standing on the Quay at Leghorn, sad and silent, gazing 
 over the blue Mediterranean, as though its water might 
 bear away a sigh or a blessing to his ancestral home, 
 under some Valencian pahn grove, or beneath the shadow 
 of the grim rock of Malaga. The hnk that bound him to 
 them was yet existing in his thoughts, and he still looked, 
 in his mind's eye, upon some legendary mansion, whose 
 key and whose title deeds he treasured up, in his little 
 dweUing at Morocco.* "With that tideless sea, sighmg and 
 rollmg at his feet, he is not alone, he has a connexion with 
 it, and Avith the Past, though to mortal eyes it was rudely 
 snajDped asunder two centuries and a half ago, when the 
 Castilian Sovereigns rode into Granada, bearing before them 
 the triumphant Cross. But here, at Brixham, you seek the 
 Moor in vain. He has no fellowship with its pursuits. If 
 
 * Washington Irving, in his Tales of the Alhambra, one of the 
 most exquisite works ever produced by a gifted mind, says that many 
 Moorish families preserve, as religious relics, these memorials of their 
 Spanish descent.
 
 lie be an alien and an exile, it is in a land nearer the Sun, 
 which has heard of him and his, and which can at least 
 give him sunshine, and the waving of the crested Pahnetto, 
 and the recollections of his Fathers' glories, when all that he, 
 the outcast, looked upon, was theirs. 
 
 It was a fine idea, in old Sam Johnson's epitaph on a 
 friend* " that he touched nothing, to which he did not lend 
 a charm." So was it with the Moor. His name was a 
 legacy of enchantment. There was a magic in his footprint, 
 that cannot die. The very last association, Hnked with his 
 remembrance on Spanish ground, is one of plaintive beauty. 
 Near Granada, on the road to the Sierra Alpuxarra is a gentle 
 slope, still called " El ultimo suspiro del Moro," — " the last 
 sigh of the Moor." Tradition says that when Boabdil el 
 Chico, the Sidtan of Granada, after its siu'render, left the 
 city, he paused for a moment on this ascent, and hfted up 
 his voice, and wept, as he looked over its towers. Ayesha, 
 his Mother, gazed upon him mth true Moslem scorn. " You 
 do well, my son," said she " to weep, Hke a woman, over the 
 land which you dared not defend like a man." The small 
 postern gate, through which he passed on his departiu'e, and 
 which, by his orders, was blocked up, and closed for ever, is 
 still shown in the antique wall. I saAv once, in some verses 
 on the subject, praise and honour attribrited to Boabdil — 
 well called " El Zogoybi," or " the unlucky," — Avhich he by 
 no means deserved, and I wrote the folloA\dng Unes in reply. 
 There is about the Moor poetry and chivalry enough to 
 gild a world of national tales, ■wdthoiit endowing him with 
 iiuaginary wtues. 
 
 * " Nihil, quod tetigit, non orna\'it."
 
 •' THE MOOR'S LAST SIGH." 
 
 He pray'd not thus, no decent pride 
 A gleam along his spirit cast, 
 
 Wlien on his home, by Darro's side, 
 The Royal Exile looked his last. 
 
 In that fair land, the storied scene 
 Of warrior feat, and legend high, 
 
 Far other, lady, should have been 
 The Moor's last sigh. 
 
 If aught of Empire linger'd yet 
 
 In the faU'n Monarch's baser strain, 
 
 'Twas when he bade the closing gate 
 Be seal'd, and ne'er iinclosed again. 
 
 No meaner sacrifice might gild 
 
 The spot that saw a Sovereign fly, 
 
 And stiU expiring glory fill'd 
 
 The Moor's last sigh. 
 
 Aromid his steed a wailing crowd 
 Of slaves and women fondly came. 
 
 And shriek'd upon the breeze aloud 
 
 Their country's and tlieir Chieftain's name. 
 
 " Weep, womanlike," his Mother spake, 
 " The realm for which thou dar'st not die, 
 
 Not thus its echoes should awake 
 The Moor's last sigh."
 
 RA3IBLES IN DEVONSHIRE 
 
 He saw around the Alliambra stand 
 
 Eight ages of imperial sway, 
 Cold was his heart, and faint his hand, 
 
 To sign that heritage away. 
 If weak to save, not his the race 
 
 Wliose son from honotir's death should fly, 
 The Moor's last battle-field should grace 
 The Moor's last sigh. 
 
 The nearest approach to the Moor is the Spaniard, his 
 degenerate successor. You see him, sometimes, in the streets 
 of Brixham, landed from some merchant-vessel, hstless and 
 dirty, looking very unlike the descendant of that noble race 
 whose war cry " St. James, and close, Spain ! " was heard 
 so often in answer to the Arabian " Leilahs," as they are 
 termed by Cervantes, " La Allah il Allah ! " — " There is 
 no God but God ! " See that swarthy, shambling sailor. 
 Perhaps his fathers were with Pelayo, in his Asturian cave, 
 and fought at las Navas, and entered the Alhambra in the 
 Castihan train. How changed, if it were so ! Dtu-ing the 
 Carlist war, an Enghsh officer expressed, to a native, his 
 wonder at their apathy, " Sir," said his companion " oiu' 
 ancestors took eight centimes to expel the Moors, and Avhy 
 should we be in a hurry now ? " 
 
 In some matters, however, that degraded Spaniard has 
 qualities worthy of his Moorish blood. In endurance of 
 privations, he has no rival. Peradventure his silent fortitude 
 may spring from pride, like that of the beggar of Madi-id,
 
 "wlio said, to a friendly counseller, " I asked yoii for your 
 money, Sir, and not for your advice." It might show itself 
 in a form as ludicrous as did that of the Grandee, who fell 
 down and hurt his nose, and then called out, " this comes of 
 walking on the earth." It might prefer death to a breach 
 of etiquette, as in the case of the King, who was overcome by 
 the heat of the fire, and who chose literally to remain and die, 
 because there was at hand none of the household of sufficient 
 rank, either to warrant him in removing the burning logs, 
 or in assisting the Monarch from his seat. Still, however, 
 from whatever cause it may proceed, patience, sobriety, 
 simplicity, and a deep religious feeling -all Moorish virtues - 
 are all found in the modern inhabitant of Spain. Mis- 
 government, superstition, neglect, evil example, have done 
 their sorrovsrful work upon him. The Castilian himself jests 
 at his national defects. There is a popular story of a certain 
 king of Spain, so celebrated for his piety, that he was said 
 to be favoured Avith a vision of the Vii'gin Mary, who desired 
 him to ask some especial blessing for his country. The 
 king obeyed. All his first requests were granted. Valoiu* 
 for her sons, beauty for her daughters, piety for her priests, 
 were, one by one, conceded, until finally he demanded, as a 
 last gift, " good government." It was positively refused. 
 " No," was the reply, " No, were Spain only to be ruled well, 
 she would be a land so blessed, that the very Angels would 
 desert Heaven to dwell in her." The Spaniard is to-day the 
 fallen inheritor of a mighty name, and of a gallant race. He 
 is the ofFsprmg of those men of Arragon, who, when they 
 met under the great oak, to administer the Coronation oath 
 to their Sovereigns, began it thus: — " Nos, que valemos
 
 tanto corao vos," — " Ave who are as good as you."* In many 
 respects he took wp the mantle of the Moor, and wears it 
 after a picturesque fashion of his own. Ask that sailor 
 who and what he is. He will not answer "A Spaniard," but 
 according to his province, " Son Castillano," he Avill say — 
 or, " Son Catalan," — " I am a Catalonian," and he will 
 probably add, " the Ivhig is a Ivuig in Spain, but he is only 
 Count of Barcelona." 
 
 He may possibly tell you some legends of the days of old. 
 For the Spanish mind is essentially poetical, and dreamy, 
 and prides itself on being as unpractical as can well be 
 conceived. It loves to run a tilt at a windmill, like its 
 representative of la Mancha. It has no romance noAv, its 
 rulers have taken good care of that, so it turns to that of the 
 Past, and it lives in a world of its own. Most of the tales 
 met with in the Peninsula refer to the Moors, and they may 
 Avell do so, for, Avith the close of the Avar of Granada, the 
 Spirit of Spanish Chivalry breathed its last. The Great 
 Duke said that, for the last hundi-ed and fifty years, there 
 had lived in Spain no one fit to command an army. Not 
 that there Avas any Avant of individual covirage and conduct. 
 At Barrossa, Avhen the French Grenadiers d'elite advanced 
 Avith the bayonet to attack the EngHsh, some Spanish 
 prisoners Avere ordered to lie doA^^l on their faces. All 
 
 *" Nos que valemos tanto como a'OS, os hazemos nuestro rey y Senor, 
 con tal que nos gardeis nuestros fueros y libertades ; y si no, no." — 
 Jurameyito tie los ricos hotubres de Arragon. 
 
 " AVe who are as good as you, take you as our king and lord, on 
 condition that you preserve for us our laws and liberties ; and if not, 
 not." — Oath of the Nobles of Arragon.
 
 RAMBLES IN DEVONSHIRE. 
 
 obeyed, but one, a grim and grey Hidalgo, and lie positively 
 refused. " I was never afraid," lie said, " to look deatli in 
 the face." But still, wlieii tlie shadow of the Moor darkened 
 the land no longer, its light and its inspiration seemed to 
 have passed away. It is then no marvel that, proud as he is 
 of his Gothic descent, of his sangue azul (his blue blood), 
 the Spaniard yet invokes the Spirit of the Moor, and sees it 
 lingering aroiuid his old watch-towers, and glancing along 
 the beautiful Guadiana, and filling the great void of memory 
 with its graceful witcheries. 
 
 The following tradition is one of those traces, left by that 
 elegant and gifted people, on their passage through the 
 Peninsula. If it points no higher moral, it certainly proves 
 one thing. It is, as it were, an arabesque of the Alhambra, 
 contrasted with a factory. It is a plume of the egret on an 
 Ethiop's brow. It shows, Avhat I set out with asserting, that 
 the Moor has no place in Brixham.
 
 LA MOEA ENCANTADA; 
 
 OR, 
 
 THE ENCHANTED MOOR. 
 
 HE genius of a people is usually stamped and 
 graven upon a land in wliicli their race lias 
 dwelt. The Roman leaA^es to posterity the 
 legacy of his enduring fabrics, of fortresses 
 that still awe vis, of bridges yet spamiing a 
 mighty stream, of columns which we pride ourselves on 
 feebly imitating. The Assyrian has just come forth from 
 the sepulchres of his cities, and bids us look upon his wild 
 creations, and confess the majesty of his antique empire. 
 The spirit of the Greek breathes and lives wherever the 
 Beautiful is felt. The shaft upon the lovely point of Sunium, 
 the Parthenon, are his mind, embodied in a material form. 
 Transplanted elsewhere, they are a poor copy. On the soil 
 of their nativity, they are akin to the divine : they tell of 
 Phidias, they have a memory of immortality, of the victorious 
 trumpet-call at Plattea, of the white sails that gleamed above 
 the fight at Salamis, of the spears of Marathon. The 
 elegant Etrurian opens his monumental records, and points 
 to his carved and jewelled relics, as a proof of what he was 
 before Rome laid upon him her heavy hand, and crushed out 
 of the heart of his countiy her stores of science and of skill.
 
 So does tlie Moor speak, from the Past. So lias he written 
 the characters of his gifted soid upon every spot that was 
 once his abiding place. We recognise his exquisite taste in 
 his owTi peculiar arch, and in those flowing and delicate 
 Arabesques, Avhich are so like him and so worthy of his 
 hand. We know him too by those great buildings, half 
 palace, and half fortress, Avhich he reared in the Peninsula; 
 and by the jNIosques, as at Cordova, and at Seville, in which 
 the degenerate Spaniard now kneels, amid the pillared and 
 mazy glories of an architecture which he has neither talent 
 to emulate, nor heart to comprehend. 
 
 These noble fabrics, these castles and towers, are seen 
 most frequently, and are best preserved, in retired nooks, 
 and in those solitudes of natiu'al loveliness, which the ]\Ioor 
 fertihzed and u-rigated, as it Avere, with the dew of his 
 poetry and romance. They harmonized with the spiritings 
 of his luxurious imagination. lie loved to dwell in their 
 recesses, and to look upon them, and to dream among them. 
 There was nothing effeminate in his voluptuous tranquillity. 
 He was, every inch of him, manly and a warrior, but he was 
 not the less a lover and a poet too, and perhaps even more, 
 for none but a brave man can love a woman as a woman 
 should be loved, nor feel as a Poet ought to feel. So the 
 Moor planted his dwelhngs amid scenes of kindred beauty, 
 and there are they still survi\dng, like the great tower of 
 Obidos, so many national ej)itaphs, written in a marble 
 tongue, illegible to the dull race around them, but, often and 
 often, rising suddenly before the stranger's eye, and telling 
 him their stern and eloquent tale. 
 
 One of those storied castles is the subject of the following
 
 44 RAMBLES IN DEVONSHIRE. 
 
 history. Those who have journeyed down the Doiiro, 
 between Lamego and Oporto, know it well. It is situated 
 on a little peninsula, formed by the junction of two streams, 
 and is, from its position, called " Entre Eios." It was once 
 a place of great importance, as it commanded the main road, 
 Avhich winds beneath its walls through a deep ravine, only 
 sufficiently broad to allow space, within its depths, for both. 
 At the beginning of the present century it was one vast iiiin, 
 the centre, and only inhabited part, of which, was a colossal 
 tower, overshadowed by plane trees, and perched upon the 
 summit of the hill, from which 
 
 " its gloomy frown 
 On its degenerate sons looked darkly down." 
 
 The dwelHng, and the surrounding valley, belonged to a 
 branch of the noble family of Meneses, once of wealth equal 
 to its descent and dignity, but, at the period when my tale 
 commences, sinking apparently into decay. 
 
 At the close of the Avar of independence, the Castle, and 
 a smaU adjacent estate, were all the inheritance of a young 
 Nobleman, called Don Antonio Tello de Meneses. At fifteen, 
 when httle more than a boy, he had joined the Anglo 
 Portuguese army, having, through his connexion and his 
 name, obtained the rank of Captain in a regiment of 
 Ca9adores. He had been present at all the actions of that 
 immortal struggle, and had benefitted by some of its hard 
 blows. At its conclusion, his occupation was gone. He 
 retii-ed to his patiimouial estate, with the rank and allowances 
 of Colonel, having nothing, Avherewith to maintain his title 
 and ancestral honours, but a yearly revenue of five hundi-ed 
 croAvns, and his half-pay, Avhich reached him, after the
 
 custom of the Portuguese Treasury, at most uncertain and 
 ceremonious intei'vals. Upon this modest income he lived. 
 His whole establishment comprised a married couple, the 
 husband having been his regimental servant, a favourite 
 charger, and a few old dogs. Such was the remnant of his 
 feudal state, the common contrast of a Fidalgo's past with 
 his abject and sorrowful present. Don Antonio was too 
 proud to mingle on unequal terms with his Peers, to parade 
 his wants before the world, or to accept hospitalities for 
 which he could make no adequate return. So lonely and, 
 to all appearance, so painful was his lot. It could have but 
 an end as sad; nor Avas a prophet from the grave needed to 
 predict that, if things went on in this fashion, the old castle 
 wotild some day be masterless, and its Lord add one more 
 scutcheon, and one other coffin to those of his blood who 
 had gone to rest in "their last and longest dwelling-place." 
 The habits of the young Cavalier combined Avith his 
 circumstances to depress him, and to keep him back. His 
 high birth forbade him to repair his broken fortunes by trade, 
 even had such a resource not been vitterly distasteful to him. 
 His profession was closed against him, unless as an aide de 
 camp at Court, and he shrunk with scorn from such a gilded 
 slavery. '' His SAVord hmig idly on the Avail," and there had 
 he voAved it should remain, until Avar ga\"e it fitting employ- 
 ment, and found for himself a Avorthy foe. He Avas too noble 
 to faAA'n upon those greater than himself, too true to flatter, 
 perhaps too modest to feel his OAvn poAvers, and to trust to 
 them for advancement, as he had trusted to his OAvn good 
 steel. So he retired Avithin himself, and led a life of dreamy 
 abstraction, than aa'IucIi nothing could be more 2:)leasant, and
 
 less jDrofitable. The solitude in wliicli lie dwelt became his 
 ■world. He loved study indeed, as far as the means for 
 enjoying it were within his reach, but his library was 
 composed chiefly of old romances, and works on chivalry, 
 which recalled the names, and the achievements, of other 
 days. He was fond of lingering over the dusty parchments, 
 and the heraldic honoui's, of his house, for he cherished his 
 pride of race, and clung to it perhaps the more, because that 
 race was fallen. So, absorbed in his Avild and passionate 
 musings, he would sally forth, and spur his steed over the 
 flowery plains of the Tras os Montes, or the Entre Minho e 
 Douro, taking no note of time, and feeding on bitter thought. 
 Or, at sweet eventide, he would stroll do^ni the ravine, or 
 stretch his limbs listlessly upon the tiu'f beneath the moulder- 
 ing keep, sheltered by the massy plane trees, and there dream 
 away the houi's. Then the air came heavy with fragrance 
 from the rosemary, and mp-tle, and jonquil, that bowed its 
 head, as if for sleep. Then the aloe, blooming only to 
 die, and the lotus of Abyssinia, and the dwarf palmetto of 
 Arabia, gave an Oriental character to the scene. Perhaps 
 these exotics brought to his imagination images of their 
 native clime, where his forefathers, viceroys and princes, 
 amassed the wealth, long, alas ! squandered away. Perhaps 
 the setting sun seemed like the genius of his house, rising, 
 a blaze of glory, in the East, and setting, amid clouds, in 
 the darkened splendours of the West, for ever. 
 
 But who can teU by what channels, and in what mysterious 
 ways, Natiire comes and communes with the heart that yearns 
 for her ? She has a langviage, unspoken indeed, but not unfelt ; 
 she has Avhispers and visions, only heard and seen by those
 
 RAMBLES IN DEVONSHIKE, 
 
 47 
 
 she honours "with her choice. She gives, to such, another 
 and a holier sense, a power to embrace, to comprehend, and 
 to love. She gives to the mind, to the angelic eye within, 
 that which she denies to the mere reason, however elevated 
 and acute. Such a wealth had she lavished on Don Antonio. 
 He had a bosom full of poetry. He felt the want of some- 
 thing to share his Avasted affections. His sole resource was 
 that fellowship which every anchorite may enjoy, and he 
 turned to it, and became its worshipper. Hour by hour 
 this devotion grew on him, and absorbed him in its new 
 fascinations. Every solitary ramble, each hour of meditation, 
 was welcomed as a familiar friend, with an increasing repug- 
 nance to the Avorld, and a more confirmed abstraction from 
 its claims. So he became less fitted for its stern realities, 
 and abode moodily in a being of his oAvn. Like all dis- 
 appointed men, he fancied himself wronged, and grew silent 
 and cA'en peeA'ish, though he had but himself to thank for 
 his present isolation. He AA^as a Pilgrim into dream-land, 
 and he Avondered, and felt aggrieved, because the reveries of 
 fancy jarred Avith the harsh business of to-day. 
 
 As, evening after evening, he lay in his favourite nook, 
 he greAV less capable of exertion, while the motives for enter- 
 prise, or for excitement, seemed so little worth. BeloAV him, 
 and aroimd, Avas a scene of noble and gracefid tranquility. 
 Here and there Avere copses of quercus coccifera, and cork- 
 trees, and chesnuts; and far aAvay Avere slopes enamelled 
 Avith the natiA'e rosella, and painted Avith the spotted fox- 
 glove, and Avith the orange scilla, Avhile myrtles made girdles 
 of emeralds, and softened the gay hues that gioAved so brightly 
 in the sun. In such a s]30t, and at such an hour, the mere
 
 RAMBLES IN DEVONSHIRE. 
 
 feeling of existence is a cliarm. And thus did the young 
 Noble find it. So did lie pass many a visionary eve, — 
 
 Wlien drowsily, so drowsily, 
 
 The dew came down in showers, 
 And lovingly, so lovingly, 
 
 Peeped in the cistus flowers. 
 And elves each airy leaflet spanned, 
 
 And gleamed on every bough. 
 And filmy dreams from fairy land 
 
 Were Avreathed around his brow. 
 
 Wlaen silently, so silently, 
 
 A spirit, Hke a bride. 
 Came timidly, so timidly, 
 
 And lingered by his side, 
 And then a voice of melody. 
 
 Said, " wilt thou not resign 
 An earthly love for one Hke me. 
 
 And wilt thou not be mine ? " 
 
 And then the great river rushed by with a low miirmur, and 
 the wild bee wou.nd his bugle horn from branch to l^ranch ; 
 and from the little chapel of Mala, below, up swelled the 
 evening hymn, imtil a gush of tenderness flowed over his 
 heart, and he felt that xeligion Avhich words cannot teach. 
 
 As, glowing with celestial fire, 
 
 The music pealed on high, 
 He almost paused to hear the quire 
 
 Of Angels' harps I'eply. 
 
 ^%T==^5=^
 
 RAMBLES IN DEVONSHIRE. 
 
 Few men perhaps feel as lie did, and none but those few 
 would understand him. His listlessness, and taciturnity, 
 and seclusion, however much to his taste, excited only 
 surprise and pity in the breast of his old follower. 
 
 " The Noble Count," quoth he, " is clean gone out of his 
 mind, and is no longer what he was, when he rode in among 
 the skirmishers at Orthez. Pray Heaven the Mora Encan- 
 tada has not looked on him ! " 
 
 One sumaner twilight, after a day of unusual languor and 
 heat, Avhen the atmosphere seemed to float in a fiery haze, 
 Don Antonio had repaired to his favourite post. He lay 
 there, neither dreaming, nor awake, but in a state of un- 
 consciousness, sensible of external objects, his thoughts 
 floating idly through his brain, without volition or guide. 
 They wandered from one subject to another, as the hum- 
 ming bird flashes from bud to bud, in those delicious reveries 
 which Poets love. Suddenly, from the distance, mellowed, 
 and mingled Avith the fragrance of the orange groves, the 
 hymn to the Virgin stole softly by. A group of peasants 
 had assembled at their humble devotions, and were seen, 
 their kneeling forms bending before the image of the 
 Madonna. One exquisite female voice rose thrillingly above 
 the rest. Not a note was lost, not a cadence, in the magic of 
 that unbroken calm. The very Spirit of the place was love. 
 The sunple Avords came uninterruptedly upon his ear. — 
 
 " Lady, who on earth below 
 
 Once hast thrilled with mortal woe, 
 When our lowly hearts appear 
 At thine altar, Lady, hear ! 
 When we lay us down to rest, 
 "When we rise from slumber blest, 
 O'er us bend thy guardian brow, 
 Gentle Lady, hear us now ! 
 
 Ave, Maria.
 
 KAMBLES IN DEA'ONSIIIRE. 
 
 Though from Heaven our steps depart, 
 Hear us, by tliy tender heart. 
 Thougli deceit our souls has wiled, 
 Hear us, by thy holy Child. 
 By thy breast, Irom frailty free. 
 By the mercy, shown to thee. 
 By the love that warms our vow, 
 Hear us ever, hear us now ! 
 
 Ave, Maria." 
 
 Scarcely had the h^st murmurs of this plamtive melody 
 died away, -when they were taken up by a voice, close to 
 Don Antonio, with such sweetness, with power so magic, 
 that he dared not move, lest he shovild break the sj^ell, or 
 lose one sigh, one echo, of the sound. 
 
 It was a Moorish air, familiar to his ears from infancy, for 
 it was often sung by the peasantry, in whose traditions, as 
 is so frequently the case, its memory Avas embalmed. He 
 remained without motion, listening to that gushing strain. — 
 
 " Thou, to whom tire Moslem kneels. 
 Thou, whose power the Moslem feels, 
 Thou, to whom he loves to bow, 
 Allah, Father, listen thou ! 
 Ay de mi. 
 
 Though to other shrines they pray, 
 Turn not thou thy face away. 
 Though in blind belief they bow, 
 Allah, Father, listen thou ! 
 Ay de mi. 
 
 In the realm where strangers sway. 
 In the courts where strangers pray, 
 Hear the latest Moslem's vow, 
 Allah, Father, listen thou ! 
 Ay de mi. 
 
 Hear a maiden's prayer, the last 
 Echoed from the glorious Past, 
 Hear the incense of my vow, 
 Allah, Father, listen thou ! 
 Ay de mi."
 
 There was silence upon the hill, ere Don Antonio, awakened 
 from his trance, ventured to rouse himself, and to look 
 round. Wlien at last he did so, his wonder was not lessened 
 by what he beheld. Beneath a ruined arch, sheltered by 
 the plane tree, against which she leaned in a melancholy 
 attitude, her head resting upon her hand, was a female 
 figure of the most surpassing loveliness. Her cheek, fair 
 but not pale, and apparently slightly tinged with colour by 
 the exertion of singing, her nose, delicately aquiline, her 
 lofty forehead, her dark and hazel eye, bespoke her of 
 Moresco blood ; as did also the jewelled tiu'ban, and the silk 
 caftan, and the golden anklets and armlets which she wore. 
 Her features were in harmony with her song ; and the spirit 
 of sweetness that spread a sunshine over them, and the tender 
 sadness of her smile, as her lustrous gaze encountered that 
 of Meneses, thrilled through his inmost soul. For a time 
 he remained motionless, his being rivetted upon the glorious 
 lineaments before him, unable to collect his thoughts, imable 
 to speak. The functions of life seemed to be suspended, save 
 only the faculty of sight, as he drank in the enchantments 
 of that long earnest look. There was in it, and about the 
 whole mien and bearing of the stranger, something ineffably 
 imposing, something that, with admiration, awoke also awe. 
 So stood the Apollo Belvidere with his glance of empire. So, 
 in early days, might a heathen goddess be supposed to ha^'e 
 looked tipon the children of men, superior even in her kind- 
 ness, blessing one humbler than herself, an innnortal in the 
 presence of mortality. 
 
 Don Antonio raised himself fee1)ly and unsteadily upon 
 his feet, and advanced towards the apparition. Iler face still
 
 Avore the same expression of i^ity, and of cliastened grief, 
 but seemed to grow indistinct, and then waxed fainter, and 
 yet more faint, as he approached. He started, and sprang 
 eagerly forward. She was gone. The grey ruin, before 
 which she stood, shone bright and clear in the chequered 
 moonlight. Not a Avhisper stole upon the silence of the 
 night, by which to track her footsteps. Not a shadow 
 floated over the wall, or trembled athwart the path, to 
 betray her course. He rushed through the arch, and gazed 
 Avildly on the desolation beyond. It was lifeless, voiceless ! 
 A horned owl hooted suddenly from its ivied cell, and made 
 his heart leap and tremble at the sound. A fox, distui'bed 
 in his prowling, stole across the broken steps. It caught 
 his eye, and for a moment he hoped again. But the cold 
 shadows came doA\Ti around him with a deeper gloom. 
 The owl, with a ghostly Avhoop, flitted before him, and 
 passed away. The fox slunk by stealthily, and disappeared. 
 All was once more gloom and solitude. All Avas again at rest. 
 
 It were as if, from Heaven's high throne, 
 The Sun that gave him life Avas gone, 
 
 And left a void behind ; 
 A di'eamy shade o'er Nature thrown, 
 
 A darkness on the mind. 
 As those, who look on day's broad eye, 
 TiUTiing their heads, can nought descry. 
 Save flickering motes, that spot the sky. 
 
 So stunned was he, and blind. 
 That yomig and gallant Cavaher, 
 
 In hall and greeuAvood shade.
 
 RAMBLES IN DEVONSHIRE. 53 
 
 Had oft, to many a gentle ear, 
 
 A willing homage paid. 
 Had led, with A'illage belle, the dance. 
 Beneath the langhing vines of France, 
 Had drunlv the Spanish maiden's sigh, 
 And owiicd the magic of her eye. 
 Plighted, with many a vow, his troth. 
 Yet tvirned him, Avhole of heart from both. 
 But in that dream, divinely fair. 
 Eternity itself Avas there, 
 One spark of fire his being mov'd. 
 He saw and felt ; he looked and lov'd ! 
 
 To confess the truth, the human clay of Don Antonio was 
 tempered with not a little of his native smi. The Fidalgos 
 of Portugal are in general a set as impracticable, and as 
 common-place, as can easily be conceived. But the youth 
 was fashioned, body and soul, in a nobler moiild. He had 
 profited by the opportunities that had fallen within his reach. 
 As a brave soldier, he had played no inglorious part in the 
 Great War. As a Crusader against the enemies of his faith 
 and country, he had borne arms in a religio^is and thoughtful 
 spirit, scanning with a curious eye the Spain which was 
 once a model of chivalry, and of romance. x\s " a man of 
 honour and a Cavalier," to use the words of Burke, he had 
 gained a stern instructive lesson from the degeneracy of its 
 children, from the phantoms of its departed power, and 
 from its violated shrines. Handsome, high-born, and true, 
 wherever he went, he found a Avelcome ; and whenever he 
 passed away, soft eyes looked after him with sorrow and
 
 54 RAMBLES IK DEVONSHIRE. 
 
 regret. Towards the gentler sex lie had that perfection of 
 instinctive devotion, which elevates the beloved being into 
 a Saint, and regards her Avith pure, distant, enthusiastic 
 Avorship, apart from every feeling of sense. Hitherto, 
 however, his adoration of beauty had been vague, and 
 general, and though he had looked the language of gallantry 
 to eyes that half reproachfully replied, he had paid but an 
 ideal homage, not survivuig the hour that gave it birth. He 
 had never felt the deep strong throb of an awakening heart, 
 for never, as yet, had an object appeared to kindle its dormant 
 fire. And thus, when he really felt, as men feel in life but 
 once, the sensation, like an electric shock, or a flash of 
 lightning, glowed through every fibre of his being. It was 
 an idea, scorched upon his brain. It was a vision become 
 worship ; seen but for a moment, felt and remembered for 
 ever. 
 
 Dizzy, and sick at heart, he returned to his solitary home. 
 His charger rested in its stall. His dogs in vain strove to 
 attract his attention, pushing their shaggy noses vmder his 
 hand, and whining at his unwonted neglect. Days, and 
 weeks, passed onward, and found him lingering on the spot 
 where the mysterious lady had appeared, and endeavouring 
 to discover some clue to her retreat. Dreamer as he was, 
 he was loth to admit that glorious beau.ty to be a visitant 
 from another world. Yet his senses gave evidence hardly 
 to be combated, eA'en by his stubborn luibeUef. Besides, be 
 it remembered that Portugal is still a land of legends, which 
 it is not yet the fashion either to disprove, or to doubt. He 
 thought the figure fair enough to be that of a goddess, but 
 he clung to the hope that it was flesh and blood.
 
 At last he hazarded a question to his faithful follower, and 
 demanded, in a manner as guarded as possible, whether any 
 maiden, young and pretty, had been seen in the place. The 
 veteran only crossed himself, and replied in the negative. 
 
 " I thought so," said he to his wife, " I thought it was so." 
 
 " What ? " said his helpmate, tartly, for women ha^-e no 
 notion of a husband knowing or discovering anything, " what, 
 Pedro ? " 
 
 " His Lordship has seen the Mora." 
 
 It was evening, such as evening is only in the South. The 
 year was now approaching its hour of fulness. There was 
 no symptom of decay in its brightness, but its fruits became 
 golden, and its flowers were less sweet, and more gorgeous, 
 and its foliage put on a deeper shade. The days grew closer, 
 and the atmosphere of night more heavy and less fresh. The 
 time, in fact, was Autumn, and the hour, sunset, and the air, 
 as was not unusual, full of oppression and of languor. It rose 
 for a moment, and then again flagged, and rose heavily, like 
 a swallow Avhose wings are charged with rain, endeavouring, 
 yet unable, to spread them forth. The head ached with the 
 overpowering fragrance that crept upon the senses, and 
 seemed to brood upon the breeze. The birds sat silent, 
 under the shade of the oranges and myrtles. The little 
 green lizard lay motionless at the mouth of its hole, showing 
 Hfe only by the glittering of its bright keen eyes. The hymn 
 to the Virgin, as it floated along the water, and trembled 
 upwards, sounded dull and heavy, and without life. As the 
 sun went down, there gathered around his track masses of 
 crimson and battlemented clouds, from which liu-id stars 
 looked out. The aspect of Lisbon might have worn such a
 
 RAMBLES IN DEVONSHIRE. 
 
 wrathful gloom, on the eve of the earthquake, clestmed to 
 level it with the dust. 
 
 Don Antonio lay in his favourite retreat, listless and un- 
 happy. The book of chivalry, which he had brought with 
 him, remained unopened by his side. His head rested upon 
 his hand. He gazed imconsciously upon the Saracenic arch, 
 under Avhich had apjoeared the lady of his vision. As he 
 mused, there came over his brain a strange drowsiness, that 
 Avas not rest, but rather torpor, 
 
 " "When the mind labours, but the brow will keep 
 A terrible similitude of sleep." 
 
 Under the close breath of that oppressive sky he hardly 
 seemed to dose for a moment, and yet, when he woke, the 
 moon looked out iipon the night, and the dews fell thick 
 around him. As, Avith a hasty exclamation, he essayed to 
 rise, the Hfeblood gushed back madly to his heart, for there, 
 in the same attitude, and on the same spot as before, stood 
 the beautiful Unknown. He did not move nor speak. 
 Perhaps he remembered the ill-success of his former 
 attempt. Perhaps in such a moment of dread, the functions, 
 both of mind and body, were stilled. Perhaps his spirit 
 was rebuked, and humbled, before that which noAV stood, 
 face to face, so near him, solemn in its aAA'ful loA'eliness. 
 He paused, and gazed with reverence, that had not in it a 
 particle of fear, upon that transcendent form, clad as he had 
 formerly beheld it, and Avearing on its broAv the same charni 
 of unearthly expression, the same deep intelligence, and the 
 same melancholy smile. 
 
 Don Antonio Avould haA-e spoken, but his tongue clave 
 to the roof of his mouth. He Avould haA'e knelt in nnite
 
 idolatry, but his limbs I'efased to obey. His boldness, his 
 gallantry, his noble bearing, were all at fault. lie felt like 
 a poor Page who loves a Princess, doomed to offer up his 
 orisons from afar, in silence, and in vain. At last the 
 apparition moved, and pointed with her finger at a chest 
 that lay on the turf beside her. — 
 
 " Christian," she said, in a low sweet voice, *' who rulest 
 in the halls of my fathers, I love thee, for thy nature is not 
 as the rude nature of thy cou.ntrynien. When thy ancestor 
 spoiled my sire of this goodly inheritance, I, his daughter, 
 with his choicest wealth, was hidden Avithin a vault of this 
 tower, — even this, upon whose ruins we stand. It was the 
 will of Allah that all, to whom the secret of my retreat was 
 entrusted, should perish under the swords of the Infidels, 
 and I, in my place of afiliction, Avas left alone to die, and, as 
 a watchman watcheth over his charge, to stand sentinel over 
 this forgotten gold. Here have I lingered, bending an evil 
 eye upon thy race, and beholding it wither, as Avithereth the 
 grass of the field, until thou, yea. Christian, thou alone 
 remainest. It is enough, and I Avill vex thee no more. In 
 this chest is Avealth, such as thy Fathers never dreamed of 
 possessing, in their proudest days. Take it, for it is thine. 
 And Avhen thou prayest to the God of the Christians, pray 
 thou too for Leila, the daughter of the Moor. The maiden 
 of Araby has, in this strange land, no resting-place for the 
 sole of her feet. As the gazelle pineth for the spring of 
 the desert, even so doth her bosom yearn for the country 
 Avhere the spirits of her race abide. Peradventure she may 
 meet and bless thee in the Gardens of the Faithful, Avheu
 
 our souls ma}' be inade right iu tlic sight of Allali, and 
 ■whei'L' her Fathers have waited for lier so long." 
 
 She looked for a nioinent up to Heaven, and then bent a 
 long gaze on Antonio. ^Murmuring, almost sorrowfully, 
 " a Dios, Cristiauos, a Dios," she Avaved her hand to him, and 
 disappeared. The brain of the young noble reeled. As the 
 figure passed away, he stretched out his arms, in a vain 
 effort to detain her, uttered a convulsive cry of agony, and 
 fell senseless to the ground. 
 
 His old servitors Avei'e too much accustomed to his irregular 
 habits, to feel surprise or xuieasiness at his absence. So he 
 remained in his trance, until, at dawn, he sloAvly recovered 
 his consciousness. At first he seemed to have had a fearful 
 dream. Then, step liy step, and word by word, memory 
 retraced the events of the night. He staggered to his feet. 
 As he did so, the Casket caught his eye. It appeared to be 
 a case of solid silver, exquisitely worked, and covered with 
 Arabic figures and inscriptions, probably from the Koran. 
 On the lid, of the same pure metal, was a curiously wi'ought 
 key. Placing this iu his bosom, Don Antonio raised the 
 chest, though with difficulty, in his arms, and carried it to his 
 apartment. On opening it, he found that it was filled, partly 
 Avith antique gold coins, and in part Avith jcAvels of, cA'en 
 to his unpractised eye, inestimable value. They appeared 
 to haA-e belonged principally to a lady, being arranged in 
 A-arious sets of ornaments. He mused in silence upon the 
 donor of this princely Avealth. He thought of her Avith 
 gratitude and Avith aAve. His meditations Avere contradictory 
 and confused. Ambitious as he Avas, he saAV again the lustre
 
 of his coronet, and tlie restored honours of his house. En- 
 thusiast as he was, he turned from these to the One so lovely, 
 so ideal, and so lost. He trembled with the excess of his 
 emotions, alternating between joy and sorrow, between 
 exultation and regret. He seemed at one moment standing 
 among his Peers, second to none, and then he recollected the 
 sacrifice by which this lofty station was purchased, and his 
 heart grew cold within him. The lover and the man strove 
 with each other. The one held in his hand all that the 
 ■world deems dear. The other had lost that which is worth 
 a world. 
 
 The first step taken by Don Antonio, in perfect accordance 
 with his upright character, was to send for his religious 
 adviser, a good and simple man, who officiated at the little 
 cell of Mala below. The worthy Priest was at the outset 
 rather staggered by the tale. He naturally half suspected 
 the sanity of the Count. But there was no denying his 
 proofs, for there was the evidence of the fair casket, with its 
 Saracenic texts, and all its uncounted stores. The Padre 
 was rather illiterate, like most of his brotherhood, but he 
 was stiU a person of considerable shrewdness and common 
 sense. He proposed, in the first instance, to excavate under 
 the old tower, and to see if any thing could there be discovered 
 in support of the wondrous tale. To this Don Antonio 
 willingly assented, and the work was begun. After many 
 days of useless labour, just when eveiy one despaired of 
 success, the pickaxe of a labourer struck upon something, 
 that returned a ringing sound. On clearing away from it 
 the rubbish of the fallen building, the workmen found 
 themselves before an iron door. The fastenings, corroded 
 
 Ttt
 
 by time, soon gave way, and Don Antonio, and the Pnest, 
 having provided themselves with torches, entered the vault. 
 They looked around it with feelings of instinctive awe. They 
 beheld in it a thrilling confirmation of Don Antonio's tale. 
 
 Lying upon a low cai-ved couch, or divan, of ivory, was 
 Avhat, at first sight, seemed a sleeping form, the exact 
 counterpart of that seen by the Count. There, like an 
 enchanted statue, was Leila, the fair Moor. Her face was 
 pillowed on one hand, while the other, in an attitiide of 
 infantine grace, was crossed upon her bosom. Everything 
 stamped on Don Antonio's memory, was visible to his sight. 
 The noble, and the aged priest stood and gazed, as men gaze 
 upon an unearthly vision. They spake not, neither did they 
 at first venture to move, so entranced were they by what 
 they saw. At last the Father, led probably by an impulse 
 for which he could not accoiuit, approached the figure, and 
 making upon its forehead the sign of the Cross, pronounced 
 the solemn words of Baptism. As he did so, a sudden change 
 came over the delicate features. They appeared to recede 
 before his touch. Ere he had finished the blessing, all was 
 gone ! The beautiful robes, the lineaments of seraphic 
 sweetness, melted away, as it were, into dust. Face, shape, 
 and presence, all were gone ! And there remained, in their 
 place, only a thin heaj) of ashes, amid which glittered anklets 
 and armlets of gold, and a few scattered gems. 
 
 The Priest in silence gathered together these ghastly relics 
 of mortality. Bending over the S2Dot, he again pronounced 
 a prayer, and then, with Don Antonio, left the vault, which 
 was carefully secured. They ascended to an upper room, 
 and sate there, for a considerable time, lost in thought.
 
 Their frame of mind was sucli, and such the oppression of 
 their spirits, that it required no common exertion to relieve 
 it by words. It was Don Antonio who first spoke. He 
 proposed to the good Priest to found a Chantry, in which a 
 daily mass should be said for the soul of his benefactress, 
 and that her remains, as far as they Avere preserved, 
 should there receive Christian biu'ial. They were meantime 
 deposited reverently in her gift, the silver chest, and Avere 
 guarded, untU the hour of their sepultiu'e, Avith scrupulous 
 care. They now sleep beneath a graceful altar tomb of 
 alabaster, in the sweet valley of Mala, over which, at sunset, 
 the great toAvcr flings a broad protecting shade. 
 
 Years passed by, and the young Count mingled with the 
 Avorld. He became the Lord of his ancestral inheritance, 
 but it Avas long before he purchased haj^piness with his 
 wealth. It was long before the remembrance of that vision 
 grew cold Avithin him, and died away. Wlien at last he 
 brought with him to the castle a young and noble bride, 
 there Avas often a cloud upon his broAV, and a shadoAV on his 
 soul, as he looked upon the vast keep, which he would ncA'er 
 suffer to be rebuilt. After such a fashion as this might he 
 have dreamed: — 
 
 Oh blame me not, if thought Avill rove 
 
 At memory's tender AvDe, 
 If I have loved as others love. 
 
 And smiled as others smile. 
 If I haA^e idly mourned to j^art 
 
 From gifts, like beauty's sigh, 
 So bright and fleet, that scarce the heart 
 
 Could seize them, ere they fly.
 
 Oh blame me not, for thus the sun, 
 
 On the red West rechned, 
 Looks back on this fair workl, as one 
 
 He mourns to leave behind. 
 If still the dreams of morning last, 
 
 And still her spells I see. 
 The heart, thus faithful to the Past, 
 
 Can ne'er be false to thee. 
 
 Time, as it sped onward, came and went, with healing on 
 its wings. It brought roimd his hearth children, those 
 sources of domestic affection. It gave him the feelings 
 which only a father can have for the mother of those 
 children, the new and wonderful feelings of a parent. It 
 softened his regret into a grateful melancholy. He was 
 happy in the present, and not unhappy in the past. The 
 mystery of his sudden wealth was faithfully kept by the 
 Priest. Men, indeed, speculated upon its origin, and mar- 
 velled at it, but to all such guesses and inquiries old Pedro 
 had a short answer, which, for want of a better solution, 
 they were fain to accept, " Did I not always say," quoth he, 
 " that His Excellency had seen the Mora ? "
 
 Siirtmnntt 
 
 -^s AILING in a boat, down the 
 
 ' \ \ -^^^ Dart, on a fine day, is a very 
 
 S-ii^B pleasant aifair. There is not 
 
 grandeur of the Ehone, 
 
 _J^' nor the legendary beaiity of 
 the Rhine, but perhaps you enjoy it qiiite as much. It is 
 only the Dart, after all, coming down gently from its native 
 Tors, and winding here and there, with a wood on one side, 
 and on the other a ruin, and then a current that might 
 almost be termed rapid, and then again a broad silver bay, 
 and at last, to your surprise, a sea-port, and the sea, and an 
 end to your qiiiet voyage. 
 
 Still it has no lack of objects, on its banks, to interest and 
 to charm. There is that fine old mansion, Dartington Hall, 
 with its memories of the Duke of Exeter, and of the 
 ChampernoAvnes, its present possessors. There is Dartington 
 Parsonage, linked with a name knoA\ai to every Churchman, 
 the name of Froude. There is Berry Pomeroy, with a host 
 of traditions; and the old Keep of Joel de Totnes; and 
 Sharpham, remhiding me of a dear place which I shall
 
 never see again; and Stoke Gabriel, nestling in its little 
 amphitheatre of slope and wood ; and Sandridge ; and 
 Waddeton Court, showing its Elizabethan outlines well upon 
 the hill ; and Dittisham ; and Greenaway ; and the rock in 
 the stream upon which Raleigh is said to have smoked his 
 first pipe ; and then the oak groves of Lupton House ; and 
 then Dartmouth. All these are peacefid beauties, but they 
 are such as one does not often see compressed in so small a 
 compass. There you have in succession wood, and ruin, and 
 hill, and between all, a noble stream, and croAvning all, the 
 Great Deep. It woidd, I think, be difficult to find an 
 additional charm, or to say where one is wanting in the list. 
 
 Gliding down, gliding do-\vn, 
 
 Gliding down the stream, 
 Like an old familiar tune. 
 
 Like a quiet dream, 
 Every whisper breathes a song. 
 
 Bright is every beam, 
 As we muse, and float along. 
 
 Gliding down the stream. 
 
 Holy light , o'er earth and sky, 
 
 Hovereth ever near. 
 And a voice, from days gone by, 
 
 Answereth to the ear, 
 TeUing us of those who thus 
 
 Bask'd in pleasure's beam. 
 Those Avho pass'd away, like us. 
 
 Gliding down the stream.
 
 We are on a quest as gay, 
 
 Ours are smiles as fond, 
 They have left the bright To-day 
 
 For the Deep beyond, 
 They hare closed their pilgrimage, 
 
 And to us they seem 
 Guides along the unknown Dark, 
 
 Gliding doAvn the stream. 
 
 And then ^\e come upon Dartmouth, and a pretty Panorama 
 it is. The town lies in a not ungraceful cluster, on the right, 
 below Mount Boone. Facing us is Kingsweare, and beyond 
 it Brookhill, and the Beacon, and opposite to them Clifton 
 Castle, and St. Petrox Church. And between their shores, 
 amid scenes as beautiful as ever eye beheld, or mind con- 
 ceived, the Dart is lost upon the bosom of the broad sea. 
 
 Dartmouth may be viewed under three aspects. An 
 Antiquarian might come to it, and find ample enjoyment for 
 his misty mind. I mean tangible and visible enjoyment. 
 Its whole appearance is partly nautical, and 2:>artly mcdioBval. 
 It has three old Churches, (to one of which I will allude more 
 particidarly, as it is the lion of Dartmouth,) and there ai'c 
 several remains of forts and intrenchmcnts. It has also, 
 particularly in the Butter Row, some very curious antique 
 houses, Avith fronts grotesquely canned and embellished. Its 
 streets go up and down, with now a flight of steps, and then 
 a steep descent, meandering along the water's edge in a kind 
 of capricious zigzag, so that a stranger never knows where he 
 is, nor to what the little tortuous way may lead him. One 
 of them took mc into an old batteiy, a ileur d'eau, dirty and
 
 deserted. But tlie place is a clianning specimen of the 
 decayed English sea-port, Avith all the prestige of other days, 
 and possessing just enough intei-est and- occupation now to 
 keep it alive, and to fill it with the descendants and the 
 representatives of the men whose names are still honoured 
 in Devon, where Drake, and Raleigh, and Gilbert, are 
 unforgot. 
 
 The Chiu'ch of St. Saviour's is well worth a visit. Its 
 rood screen is magnificent, and it has a fine stone pulpit, 
 painted and gilt. The piscina and sedilia, on one side of 
 the altar, are carefidly restored, but, on the part opposite, 
 the seats are covered up by a board on Avhich are inscribed 
 the ten Commandments. A table-cover and carpet, wrouglit 
 after an antique pattern, in pure Ecclesiastical taste, were 
 worked, and presented to the Church, by some ladies of the 
 place. There is a remarkable door of, (I think,) the date of 
 1G04. The screen is decorated with several coats of arms, 
 belonging to families, some of which are extinct, but others 
 still connected with the neighbourhood. A history might 
 be compiled from those proud lilazonries. There are the hon 
 of the Pomeroys, and the manche of the Mohuns, and there 
 are memories of Fitz-Stcphens, and Flemings, and Carews. 
 They are well placed, high upon that splendid rood screen, 
 those armories of other days. When it was first reared, 
 th-ey were no memorials of departed greatness. The Lords 
 of those ancestral shields were still rulers and Princes in the 
 land. The}' are now, for the most pai't, gone. Their places 
 are empty, and their names a mere shadow, thrown dimly 
 from the Past. It lingers, as here, around a faded escutcheon, 
 or bequeaths a legend of their renoAvn to some vast ruin.
 
 which pilgrims come from afar to visit, and whicli its present 
 owners bar with a deal boarding, and open only for a dole 
 of half-a-crown. 
 
 So much for the present state of Dartmouth, called formerly 
 Dartmoiith-Clifton-Hardnesse, though it now retains only the 
 former name. It is a picturesque and dear little place, nothing 
 like so fishy as Brixham, nor does it put you in mind so much 
 of the Dutch Schipper's definition of a good man and true. 
 " He was a real gentleman, for he paid his passage money, 
 and he gave a rix dollar to the crew." But, interesting as 
 it now is, it has ties and associations that ai'e still more 
 attractive to a thoughtful mind. There is in CTrccian history 
 a story of a gay party that was sobered by finding, half hid 
 among flowers and weeds, (which are only flowers inheriting 
 the curse and run Avild,) an antique tomb, on Avhich was 
 inscribed this epitaph, reminding the readers of one who 
 had been as light as they ; — 
 
 " ET EGO OLIM IN ARCADIA VIXI." 
 
 ^ " And I, too, once dwelt in Arcady." 
 
 I thought of this, Avhen descending the river, for, while 
 laugliing and jesting, some one pointed out to us a mast of 
 the unhappy " Amazon." It "was on a wharf, on the right 
 hand, charred and blackened, the waves just rippling against 
 it, and the simlight playing over it» It seemed strangely 
 out of place, as it lay there, and yet it put me somewhat in 
 mind of the antecedents of Dartmouth, which do not want 
 grandeui", in their connexion Avith old times. 
 
 In the year of grace 1190, Kichard of the Lion heart 
 gathered here the flower of his khigdom, and led them away 
 to the Crusades. It was a religious fellowship of warriors,
 
 such as perliaps tlie world never looked upon again. AVliat 
 a sight must the little borough then have presented, with 
 the barons of England coming in, one hy one, as the old 
 Chronicler said of the Camp de drap d'or, — "many a 
 man's fair estate upon his back." Here and there might be 
 seen riding past, at the head of his retainers, some knight, 
 who won his first spurs in that burning war, under the sun 
 of Palestine, and has left his coat armoiu- with its cross, and 
 escallo]) shells, the sole memorial of his deeds, upon the rood 
 screen of St. Saviour's Church. Such a dream of chivalry 
 is enough to redeem centuries of dull traific. The wealth 
 of ages might have flowed into " Hawley's Hoe,"* but it 
 coiild never purchase one hour spent in gazing on the 
 Crusader's array, on Montacute, and Mauley, and Valence, 
 and Multon, and de Vere, and at their head, with his clear 
 blue eye, and his giant's strength, and the frankness of a 
 soldier tempering the bearing of a King, he who, as leader, 
 and as Sovereign, never met his peer, the worthy rival of 
 the great Saladiu, the greater Richard Plantagenet. It is a 
 grand remembrance for the fair little to^vn, when we recall 
 the lines of gaudy galleys, gay with streamer, and banner, 
 and pennoncelle, with pointed shields, hung in rows over the 
 
 * John Ilawley, a rich merchant of Dartmouth, died in 1408, and 
 was buried in the chancel of St. Saviour's. There still remains a fine 
 brass of himself, between his two wives, the hand of the favourite 
 only being, it is said, in his. From his Avealth, the following quaint 
 distich had its origin, — 
 
 " Blow the wind high, or blow it low, 
 
 It bloweth fair for Hawley's Hoe." 
 
 Referring thus to the number of his ships, which was such that every 
 
 wind was sure to bring one into port, from whatever quarter it might 
 
 come.
 
 1 RAMBLES IN DEVONSHIRE. 69 
 
 bulwarks, with our fathers, the champions of the Cross, and 
 "vvith him of Anjou, wlio here looked his last upon his 
 realm. 
 
 In this bay, too, assembled the naval division of the West, 
 when Edward the Third mustered his forces for the siege of 
 Calais. And from hence Davis set out, on his search for a 
 North-west passage to India. From this port Sir Humphrey 
 Gilbert sailed on his voyage across the Atlantic. He passed 
 down that estuary, on the high deck of his caravel, waving his 
 hearty farewell to the shoi-e, as his Avhite plume streamed 
 upon the wind. And often and often has Sir Walter Raleigh 
 dropped down the river, and looked across that great expanse 
 of waters, thinking of America, and its fabulous fountain of 
 youth, and its inexhaustible treasures, the pursuit of which 
 was to close, so dearly, his romantic life. 
 
 There are many other points of interest connected with 
 the history of the place, and with its local antiquities, which 
 I must pass over briefly. Here, in 1404, the French landed, 
 but the invading force failed in its attack, and was all slain, 
 or taken. In 1643, after a sharp siege, Fairfax made him- 
 self master of the town, and its forts, since which time its 
 defences have not been restored. Dartmouth Castle, indeed, 
 lies low on the water's edge, biit its Avarlikc uses are but a 
 mere name. As a ship floats by, the only challenge heard 
 from its battlements is the hoarse cry, " From what port ?" 
 or, " "Wliither bound ?" So peacefvd is the inheritance of the 
 little haven. St. Petrox Church, beside the old tower, seems 
 to have instilled its spirit into its neighbour. Like an aged 
 warrior, now unused to arms, the keep rests tranquilly upon 
 the margin of the stream. Its worst enemy is Time. Its 
 
 _ I 
 
 T
 
 RAMBLES IN DEVONSIIIKE. 
 
 ■\vatcli is become one of peace alone. It remains, as a 
 guardian, in quiet dignity, "where of old it stood in its 
 strength, and smote. 
 
 Still these recollections do not, in one respect, harmonize 
 ill with the scenes around. We never call back the Past 
 for its hajDpiness. The landmarks of Time's passage are 
 generally remembrances of sorrow and of pain. There is 
 no attraction in the fertile tameness of a country, even 
 though it be as smiling as that of Lombardy. You look 
 back rather upon the Alps. They may be cold and desolate 
 but their very desolation is sublime. Most of the vanished 
 hours which you recall are marked by pangs. You remem- 
 ber the sigh, the sacrifice, the agony, and you feel their 
 reflection come sweetly, not sadly, back. 
 
 Count uj) thy hours of youthful prime, 
 
 When Hfe begins to wane, 
 How much of all that glowing time, 
 
 Say, wouldst thou live again ? 
 
 Count up thy hours of lonely thought. 
 
 Thy long, long, dreams of pain, 
 How much of all their sadness taught. 
 
 Say, hast thou Icarn'd in vaia ? 
 
 The smiles, that seenf d so softly fair. 
 
 Are but as trials given; 
 The pangs that seem'd so hard to bear, 
 
 Are but the way to Heaven.
 
 That shadow of the Cross shall be 
 
 A beacon on thy road; 
 And though it lead by Calvaiy, 
 
 'Twill guide thee on to God. 
 
 Perhaps these annals, and their events, are felt unconscious- 
 ly, in looking at the scenes round Dartmouth. Yet I am 
 sure they want no accessories to make them brighter than 
 they are. From the first biu'st of the Dart, on issuing from 
 the moor, to the spot where it mingles with the sea, it has only 
 beauty and tranquillity around it. And when it has passed 
 the town, flowing in a deep blue channel, it has still the same 
 cliaracter, only, if possil^le, lovelier and more striking. It 
 never seems so fair, as when it is bidding you farewell. 
 
 Opposite the Castle and St. Petrox Church, the groimd 
 rises abruptly to a considerable height. It is called the 
 Beacon. In a part of it, overhanging the Avater, and looking 
 down on the relics of a fort, is a little seat, half concealed 
 in ivy. The view from it is enchanting. On the right is 
 Dartmouth, and before you the Church and Castle, lying 
 inider Gallants' bower, the works on -which once protected 
 them. Far to the left is the heritage of England, the great 
 deep. You may dream away hours there, very pleasantly, 
 in the enjojanent of what you see, and, if you please, in 
 recalling its connexion Avith the Past. Yet I woidd not 
 do so. The charms of Nature, so solitary, yet so peopled 
 and so eloquent, Avant no aid to perfect them ; and, least 
 of all, do they need such aid as could be afforded by tales of 
 vii)lence and of blood. You repel those images as they rise. 
 For a moment you thiidv of the galleys of the Crusaders,
 
 and of the fleet that Aveut forth to the great fight at Shiys, 
 but it is only for a moment. See where the Dart closes its 
 pilgrimage in the ocean. It greets him Avell. The rocks 
 and woods look dovni upon the union, and the sky smiles 
 upon it. A grey tower low upon the shore, an ancient fane, 
 a quiet seat, a path to be trodden musingly, a religious 
 silence, are fitted for that lovely spot. Do not intrade a 
 discord into it. Do not bring from history a trumpet-call, 
 to awaken its echoes, nor a dream of war to profane a spot 
 so still. Do not let a thought of man's troubHng mar what 
 Nature has made so fair. She can only lose in effect by his 
 neighbourhood. A simple illustration will prove this strictly 
 tnie. Evening came doA\ai, while I was sitting there, in that 
 ivied nook. 
 
 As, o'er days fair hosts retiring, 
 
 Fancy sheds her influence fond, 
 And, from glory's smiles expiring, 
 
 Paints how vast their fount beyond. 
 
 The town gradually grew darker and more dark ; a few 
 scattered lights twinkled here and there; the outlines of 
 Mount Boone became indistinct, and, bye and bye, all the 
 landscape, in that direction, was clothed in a dull msset hue. 
 There was man's abode. Then I turned aAvay. To seaward 
 the view was stiU unclouded. The shadows and vapours, 
 that cluster over human dwellings, came not there. A line 
 of pale light trembled along the verge of the horizon, and 
 the moon began to tinge the tips of the waves with a 
 Avandering ray. A single star looked suddenly out upon
 
 RAMBLES IN DEYONSfflRE. 
 
 73 
 
 tlie night. Its beams, now red, noAv pale, fell, with a line of 
 delicate fire, npon the ripples of the water, Avandering hither 
 and thither, yet always finding their way back, and true to 
 the little fountain of their life above. There is the abode 
 where man cannot intrude. There is the contrast between 
 the works of his hand, and the works of a hand that is 
 mightier than his. The example is a forcible one, though 
 homely. There are scenes amid which we seek our fellows, 
 and feel the want of their companionship. There are spots 
 where Nature tells you, and where you know, that it is better 
 to be alone, and this is one of them, this little ivied seat, 
 amid the gorse and heath of the Beacon, below Dartmou.th, 
 on the solitary hill side. 
 
 Look, from j^onder ivied seat. 
 
 Stranger, look uj)on the scene. 
 Bathed in beauty at thy feet. 
 While the mountain shadows meet 
 
 In a soft embrace between. 
 Folding, spirit-like, their arms 
 O'er the Dart's departing charms. 
 
 Come, and sit, at sunset's hoiu", 
 Sit within that nook, and di'cam, 
 
 Clifton, with its aged tower. 
 
 And the crest of Gallants' bower, 
 Mirror'd in the fairj^ stream, 
 
 And the ancient Cluxrch "\ve see. 
 
 Have they not a voice for thee ?
 
 Have they not a voice, reminding 
 Of the Past, -with all its train ; 
 
 Spells around the broad hill winding. 
 
 Dim ancestral memories, binding 
 Coronals o'er earth and main, 
 
 Is there not a voice, in these ? 
 
 Are not they onr witnesses ? 
 
 There the Martyr's host departed, 
 There, the noble, the betrayed, 
 
 Ealeigh, on his death-qnest started; 
 
 Eichard there, the Lion-hearted, 
 Led away the Great Ciaisade; 
 
 Hand of shade, and ghostly tone. 
 
 Sigh a Avarning, lead thee on. 
 
 Learn from them, if trials sear thee. 
 
 Learn to do thy duty well. 
 There will be a Power to cheer thee, 
 There may be an Angel near thee, 
 
 Though to thee invisible. 
 Answering, as thy bosom jDray'd, 
 Whispering, to thy Aveakness, aid. 
 
 Teach thine inward eye the story 
 Of the brave, and good, of old. 
 Track, amid Time's footprints hoary, 
 Track the traces of their glory. 
 
 And be patient, true, and bold; 
 So shall theirs thy guerdon be. 
 So shall others learn by thee.
 
 Dean |kiar, 
 
 DARTMOOR. 
 
 EAN COURT, fis I saw it yesterday, 
 is a relic of the days of the Tudors, and 
 possesses interest, not so mncli for what it 
 is, as for what it once has been. Having, 
 through the kindness of a friend, obtained a 
 letter to the tenant from the proprietor of the 
 estate, Mr. Yarde Biiller, I went there, for two 
 reasons. I wished to visit a beautiful country, 
 and an old mansion, of which I had read and heard; and I 
 wanted also to see the place Avhich was formerly the abode 
 of Robert Herrick. 
 
 I made my way to it on horseback, princijially through 
 lanes, such as only Devonshii'e lanes can be. The best 
 approach from Totnes is by a narrow road on the left, shortly 
 after passing Dartington. It ascends for some distance, and 
 is shaded by hedge-rows and by trees, so thoroughly, as to 
 permit only occasional glimpses of the broad bright valleys 
 below. After rising for, I shoidd think, two miles, near the 
 village of Rattery it opens suddenly on a most glorious 
 prospect, presentmg every variety of wood and vale, beyond 
 which, like a dark belt, lie the swelling outlines and bold
 
 Tors of Dartmoor. Another two miles, or thereabouts, (for 
 Devonshire miles expand like a Scotch " mile and a bittock") 
 bring you to Dean Court. 
 
 At first sight it disappoints you. It is a shadow of a great 
 name, fallen from its high estate, and looking very much like 
 a place in Chancery. Indeed it is noAV only a farm house. 
 An old doorway or two meets you with an air of faded 
 gentility, and ushers you into what remains of the great hall, 
 through a screen of oak pannelling, in good preser\''ation. 
 Some armorial bearings, and crests are scattered, here and 
 there, over the walls. For me at least they had a peculiar 
 interest, since an ancestor of mine mari'ied the heiress of one 
 branch of the family of Giles, and I quarter their arms. The 
 dusty escutcheons, and the dark carved work, and the vacant 
 stillness of all around, were not without a solemn and an 
 imposing effect. I stood upon the dais, and looked do^^^l the 
 desolate room. Many a health had there been pledged to 
 the King, and his good cause. Many a time had Herrick, 
 and his friend Sir Edward Giles, who built the mansion, sat 
 beside that wide hearth, lamenting the evil days, and making 
 perhaps the old rafters ring with the chorus of some Cavalier 
 ditty. We see the Knight and his boon companion, like 
 shadows, in their high backed chairs, congenial spirits, and 
 possessing at least the merit of being, in a spot and during 
 a time when false traitors were in the ascendant, ahvays 
 loyal, always, like the noble Douglas, " tender and true." 
 
 The chief interest of the neighboiu'hood lies, in fact, in its 
 connexion with Herrick. Here he resided, during a great 
 portion of his restless life, and here he closed his days, and 
 here, beneath the shelter of the great yew tree, long since
 
 cut down, he was buried amid his flock.* He was presented 
 to the living of Dean Prior, in 1G29, by the Earl of Exeter, 
 and hither he came, from a roystering career in town, 
 dreaming perchance of Arcadia, and anticipating the deHglits 
 of that pastoral existence, about which he, in common with 
 his contemporaries, dreamed and raved. He Avas soon un- 
 deceived. He felt like the young lady in Theocritus, who 
 informed her rustic lover that her beauties were reserved for 
 the city, and could only be properly estimated there. He 
 had no idea of Amaryllis, save in the last French mode. 
 He set no store on Nature, unless embellished in the trim 
 alleys, and improved in the parterres, of Wliitehall. He had 
 praised her sweetly, and professed to yearn for her, and she 
 repaid the compliment by placing him in an Elysium, which 
 he voted a bore. 
 
 The tenant of Dean Court, a most civil and intelligent 
 man, walked with me doAvn to Dean bourne, which poor 
 Herrick so bitterly apostrophized as — 
 
 " Dean, and thy warty incivility." 
 We can sympathize with a Poet and Cavalier, like Lovelace, 
 when, in the Tower, he thus sang: — 
 
 " Stone walls do not a prison make, 
 
 Nor iron bars a cage ; 
 Minds, innocent and quiet, take 
 
 These for a hermitage." 
 
 but we can hardly have a fellow feeling with one who was 
 both of gentle and of loyal strain, and who yet saw no 
 beauty in that scene. My companion knew a great deal 
 about Herrick, and offered to procure for me on the spot an 
 
 * Many of these details are gathered from an excellent Memoir of 
 the Poet, in Frazer's Magazine.
 
 E.UIBLES IN DEVONSHIRE. 
 
 old copy of Ills works. We stood for some time on the 
 bridge, and looked upon the rushing brook. It flashed 
 through a green meadow, and skirted a bold hanging wood, 
 and was lost in its shade, the great belt of distant Dartmoor 
 l}dng beyond, and seeming to close over it. Now Herrick, 
 a fine and thoughtful A\T.-iter, gazed often upon this prospect. 
 It is said that sorrow " cradles the mind into song." He had 
 passed throiigh much tribixlation. He might have imitated 
 George Herbert, teachmg us, in the outpourings of a bruised 
 spirit, that it is good for man to be afflicted. He might have 
 seen, in these grand solitudes, a soft rehgious peace. But 
 he did no such thing. Gifted as he was, he felt and knew 
 nothing of those nobler feelings, which are, alas ! the inherit- 
 ance of few. This is what the bard WTote, and these were 
 his impressions of Natiu"e in all her loveliness : — 
 
 " More discontents I never had, 
 Since I was born, than here, 
 
 Where I have been, and still am, sad. 
 In this dull Devonshire." 
 
 We take a journey to see the abiding-place of a man who 
 
 thus appreciated it. So sang the Poet of the Hesperides, 
 
 dwelling in the Garden of Devon. Probably he thought 
 
 somewhat thus : — 
 
 *' I am weary, I am weary, 
 
 Of this sad unlov'd retreat, 
 
 Where a Spirit, lone and dreary, 
 
 Haunt eth me with silent feet. 
 
 Still it paceth wearily, 
 
 Still it siugeth drearily, 
 
 ' When wilt thou rest with me. 
 
 Under the Old Yew Tree ? '
 
 " And it blendeth, and it blendeth, 
 
 With the bourne's unceasing moan, 
 On the wood its sigh descendeth, 
 
 Lingering o'er each Runic stone, 
 By the moor it wanders lonely, 
 Every where it calls me only, 
 
 ' Lay down thy load with me, 
 
 Under the Old Yew Tree.' 
 
 " Broken hearted, broken hearted. 
 
 Still it answers as I sing. 
 Telling of the brave departed. 
 
 Telling of my martyred king. 
 To the aged peace it bringeth. 
 And a dirge its music singeth, 
 
 ' Come, and lie down with me. 
 
 Under the Old Yew Tree.' " 
 
 When Herrick came down to Dean Prior, as Licumbent, 
 the strife of parties was running high. He was fresh from 
 the atmosphere of a Court, and probably his religious tenets 
 were those of Laud. He found Puritanism rampant in his 
 new parish, and he had in himself no inward wealth, no 
 taste for the beauties of Nature, no contented heart, to 
 give him company. He neither loved his parish, nor his 
 Parishioners, as may be inferred from an anecdote of him 
 still extant, for it is said that once he flung his sermon at 
 their heads. So when his loyal friend, Sir EdAvard Giles, 
 was absent from Dean Court, Herrick stole away too, lingering 
 about "Wliitehall and the Mall, and sorrowing but little Avhen
 
 RAMBLES IN DEVONSHIRE. 
 
 " one John Syms, a pious, painfid preacher " arose, by order 
 of the Eump, and snnfiled in his place. At the Restoration, 
 he returned rehictantly to duties for which he had no taste ; 
 and remained, in what to him was exile, imtil his death. 
 Then, -u-ith few to love or to lament him, he laid his dust 
 to diist, October 15th, 1674. The Church has been recently 
 rebuilt by Sii' John Yarde BuUer; the ancestral yew that 
 overshadowed his rude headstone, is gone ; and there is left 
 no record of the poor Poet, but a memory of some of his 
 eccentricities, and noAV and then the coming of a stranger, 
 to look upon the scenes, connected dimly with his name. 
 
 This is certainly not what we should expect from the 
 Author of the Hesperides. But poetical genius is one of those 
 anomalies in Nature Avhich perplexes us most. A poet has 
 generally an ideal world, from wdiich he draws his images, 
 and a visionary standard of perfection, to which he elevates 
 every object. He does not paint the one he loves as she is, 
 but as he imagines her to be ; and the only difference, in this 
 respect, between him and a common mind, is that he has the 
 power of describing that which another can only feel. Every 
 lover thinks his mistress an angel, but the poet makes others 
 think her so too. Thus also is it with Nature, and all her 
 charms. He draws on his imagination for the scenes of 
 Avhich he discoiu'ses so j^leasantly. He is seldom really 
 of a contemplative and rural tui'n, such as we should fancy 
 him. I remember Scott once saying that, what with coursmg 
 by day, and dinners in the evening, and salmon spearing by 
 night, he had no time for an;yi:hing. INIoore averred that he 
 saw little beauty in the Bermu.das, — " the storm-vexed 
 Bermoothes," and I always associate him with Bond-street,
 
 for I was introduced to him tliere. Byron, who had the 
 world before him, was contented in Venice. We need not 
 wonder at these contradictions of genius. They are the 
 infirmities of its human ancestry, the links that give to it 
 its connexion with the eartli and with us. There is another 
 side to the picture which, for the sake of our kindred nature, 
 it is pleasant to contemplate. As those who embody grand 
 conceptions do not always appear to realize or to feel 
 them, so many, who really appreciate, have no power to 
 describe. The chain of gold is wanting. The sense of 
 beauty, that is within, has no outlet, no outward expression, 
 by which others can recognise it. Its inward music is for 
 the inward ear alone. Many a mind, alive to the charms of 
 Creation, full of a painter's inspiration, seeing and storing 
 up every light and shadow, has not yet the power of drawing 
 a straight line. Many a mind, capable of feeling, and esti- 
 mating, not only poetry itself, but the sources of poetry, 
 existing wherever sight can travel, or the mind quicken, 
 cannot produce a single rhyme. It is Nature's compensation 
 for the wealth she lavishes on others, wherewith she redresses 
 her balance, and, in the end, measu.res out her gifts justly 
 to all. She gives exquisite sensibilities, but they do not 
 bring unmingled happiness. She gives deficiencies, but they 
 are also accompanied with blessings, denied to those gifted 
 highly, but sorrowfidly. In this respect we may often thank 
 her for that Avhich is refused to us, and which, perhaps, it is 
 better for us not to have. 
 
 In the beautiful neighbourhood of Dean there are a 
 thousand charms. Strangers, who have never written in 
 their lives a line of verse, linger among them. For such
 
 Dean boiu"iie lias a pleasant music, and Dean Court recalls 
 many dreamy memories, and the Tors of Dartmoor dwell 
 grandly apart, Avitli a romance and a history of their OAvn. 
 They cannot tell of these things ; they feel and appreciate, 
 but they know not how to describe them. And here too 
 Robert Herrick, who wrote so much that we could wish to 
 forget, and so much also that will live while the English 
 language exists, here too he abode, and looked on all these 
 things, as they changed with the changing seasons, and saw 
 in them no spells, no, not one single excellence. He lacked 
 that which minds of an order inferior to his possess. He 
 possessed that which minds inferior to his yearn to have, yet 
 cannot. So Nature denied to him the happiness she gives to 
 us. She denied to him the power of extractmg a blessing 
 from every dispensation, of seeing a good and gracious 
 Providence in all things, and of being contented in all. 
 
 I do not know a valley more lovely than that of Dean. 
 Dartmoor seems to shut it in from the troubles of the world. 
 The qiierulous reproaches of poor Herrick soimd harshly 
 there, and discordantly, and out of place. He should have 
 enjoyed the comforts within his reach, and the society of a 
 kind friend, and a sense of duties performed, and above all, 
 as Shelley says, he should, like a true Poet, " have walked 
 with inward glory crowned," rather than have wasted his 
 time and his talents in vain regrets, in regrets like these: — 
 
 I cannot love, I cannot sing, 
 
 As in that early day, 
 "Wlien life was like a dream of Spring, 
 
 And carolled in my lay.
 
 RAMBLES IN DEVONSHIRE. 
 
 83 
 
 Too seldom now my lyre is strung, 
 
 My heart too faintly moved ; 
 I cannot sing, as then I sung, 
 
 Nor love, as once I loved. 
 
 If thou -vvouldst wake that airy theme, 
 
 That deep delicious pain, 
 Oh give me back, with youth's fond dream. 
 
 The heart of youth again. 
 Oh give me back the rose-hues, flung 
 
 By hope where'er I roved, 
 And I could sing, as then I sung, 
 
 And love, as once I loved. 
 
 No, from the rose of winter, wake 
 
 The fragrant sighs of May, 
 And bid the weary spirit break, 
 
 But not again be gay. 
 Since I am now no longer young. 
 
 And vain my vows have proved, 
 How can I sing, as then I sung, 
 
 Or love, as once I loved ? 
 
 The bones of Robert Herrick lie undistinguished in what 
 the Saxons called so beautifully " God's acre," in the Church- 
 yard of Dean Prior. The wind comes up the valley, and 
 breathes sweetly, over the graves of Puritan, and of Cavalier, 
 alike. And we jotarney as pilgrims to the Poet's unwilling- 
 retirement, seeking that which he soiight not, and admii-ing 
 that which he little loved. And all, that is left of him, is 
 that a guide book tells us, " The Author of the Hesperides 
 lived in this place," to Avhich some rustic cicerone adds, 
 " and he didn't like it."
 
 Slnrient IiiIIh, 
 
 N the neighbourhood of Stoke Gabriel 
 there are many objects of interest. 
 .Some of these are "well known. Every 
 visits Berry Pomeroy Castle, and sees the 
 Norman Keep at Totnes. They are well 
 ■th a pilgrimage, provided only that it be 
 le in company with those who have some 
 jeling with youi'self, and who do not associ- 
 ate those eloquent ruins, as Lady Mary Wortly 
 Montagu did her evening, 
 
 " With Champagne and a chicken at last." 
 But there is one place, at no great distance, which few take 
 the trouble of seeking, and fewer still appreciate. And yet 
 a most distinguished artist pronounced it better worth seeing 
 than anything he had met with hereabouts. Probably many 
 residents will be siu'prised at this opinion, when they hear 
 that it refers to " Compton Castle," or rather, as it ought to 
 be called, " Compton Hall." 
 
 There are in England stately ruins of a class far superior 
 to these. Their very grandeur fences them round, and
 
 protects them. Generally speaking, tliey are picturesque, 
 and magnificent, and form a connecting link with the Past, 
 taking us back to the days when the Lords of the soil still 
 ruled in them, and franklin and thrall clustered for security 
 under the shadow of their walls. Sometimes they owe their 
 preservation to family pride ; sometimes their remote position 
 has been their safeguard ; and, not unfrequently, at the present 
 day, the revival of a purer, and more national, taste has saved 
 them from the hand of the destroyer, and has even led to 
 their restoration. To this improved state of public feeling 
 the Norman tower, at Bury St. Edmund's, is indebted for 
 its repairs. And though, in many places, as at Llanthony, 
 wanton and shameful destruction has done its work irrepar- 
 ably, yet it is very seldom now that such a case occurs. 
 The great Abbey, spoiled of its revenues, is guarded by the 
 hallowed associations, that give dignity to its beautiful decay. 
 The lofty Castle, even in the hands of strangers, does not 
 plead in vain for immunity from violence and wrong. 
 Edifices, like these, are seen in every district. Pilgrims 
 come to visit them, and speak of them when they go away; 
 and authors fling around them an additional charm, until, 
 Avhile they seem the property of some one, who neither 
 knows nor cares aught about them, they are really a pubhc 
 inheritance, guarded by public taste and opinion, and perhaps 
 only left intact, because they are near some borough which 
 their Lord dares not offend. 
 
 But it is not so with siich a building as Conipton. It 
 never was a place of dignity. It was simply a fortified 
 house, a dwelling of that class now so very rare, and of 
 which Raglan is probably the noblest and finest specimen
 
 still remaining. And it is this very fact, this very humility, 
 which constitutes its greatest claim. Most of its compeers 
 have perished. They have yielded, successively, to new 
 habits, and new tastes. They had no prescriptive exemption 
 from the law of change, and of decay. One by one they 
 were modernized, iintil the hideous Dutch deluge swept 
 away what Tudor, and Stuart, had hitherto spared. Only in 
 some secluded nook do we now find a survivor of that almost 
 extinct family, a sort of fossil mansion, something between 
 a ruin and a farm house, owing its curious existence to its 
 out of the way situation, and to its low site, and to the 
 trouble of pulling it doAvn being more than it was worth. 
 Probably all these causes had something to do with the 
 preservation of Compton Hall. 
 
 At first I could find out nothing about it. People told 
 me that all connected with it was a mystery, and that, when 
 I got there, I should see nothing to repay me for my trouble. 
 It is said to have been built by a Sir Maurice de Pole, in 
 the reign of Henry the Second; and it has, among other 
 families, belonged to the Comptons, of Compton. A manu- 
 script account, kept by the tenant, gives some further 
 particulars, but they are of no great consequence. The 
 place does not derive its peculiar interest from them, but 
 rather from its unique and solitary character, and from the 
 knowledge that very few resembling it are left. We look at 
 it with wonder, not unmixed Avith a certain degree of awe, 
 just as we regard an Indian warrior, less for any claims that 
 he has, personally, on our attention, than as the representative 
 of a race, once great and mighty, but now rapidly passing 
 away. 
 
 ^^-^-■■-•s"^-
 
 The front of the house is imposing, and gives some idea 
 of its ancient appeai'auce, though hardly a feature remains 
 uninjured, or unchanged. The same may be said of the 
 interior, with one singular and striking exception. The 
 Chapel, mutilated indeed, and defaced, and desecrated, still 
 exists. AVhile high above it, rising in the air, over the mass 
 of ivy, in •which the building is wreathed, is a simple cross. 
 It is an affecting memorial of the days when the polluted 
 shrine below was yet a house of prayer. Seen amid 
 desolation, made even deeper by the green robe in which 
 Nature has veiled it, while the eye rests for a moment on 
 the tracery of the Avindows, and then ujion the winding 
 stair, and then ti'avels upward to its blessed outlines, traced 
 in relief upon the blue, OA'erhead, it has a significance which 
 comes to the heart at once. The hand, that placed it there, 
 was surely guided by a devout impulse, of which none need 
 be ashamed. Surely there was religion, as well as jooetry, 
 in the very thought. 
 
 Three centuries have passed, since the chimes of Marldon 
 were answered by those of Compton, and since they both 
 took up the notes, borne upon the Avind from Torre Abbey. 
 In one of these consecrated places the old faith is still 
 professed. In a second it has but a memory, amid darkness 
 and decay. And in a third it has given way to another, and 
 a purer, form. Yet when the Sunday peal is rung out, as 
 it lingers aroimd the ruined Chapel, and echoes in the 
 deserted courts, it has a strange sad language, a call which 
 we might deem the dust, and the dead that sleep within it, 
 would feel and answer.
 
 Hark! upon the wings of twilight, 
 
 Solemnly a cadence swells, 
 Hark! Avith fitful falls, and dying, 
 
 Comes a voice from Marldon bells. 
 " Never more, oh! never more, 
 Shall the Past its kin restore ; 
 Never shall our chimes recall 
 Answering tones from Compton Hall." 
 
 Spii-its miu-mur in their pealing, 
 Tales are in their echoes told. 
 Of the happy days of Compton, 
 Of the days and deeds of old, 
 Till, within the ancient hold, 
 Holy Rood and hearts were cold, 
 Till, of all the ancient strain. 
 Memories, and the dead, remain. 
 
 Yet a light, of joys departed, 
 
 Lingereth with a ray divine, 
 O'er the vacant hearth of Compton, 
 
 O'er its long deserted shrine. 
 For, where ivy boughs are green. 
 Where the owl hoots out between, 
 O'er the Chapel, high in air, 
 Still the Cross of God is there. 
 
 And the bells of Marldon whisper 
 Welcome to the blessed sign, 
 
 To the lonely Rood of Compton, 
 Watching o'er its ruined shrine.
 
 RAMBLES IN DEVONSHIRE. 
 
 Bearing, from the world of rest, 
 Tidings of each parted guest, 
 With a ghostly sound and dread, 
 Like a message from the dead. 
 
 Arch and oriel, all are broken, 
 
 Broken is the winding stair, 
 And the lichen, rainbow-tinted, 
 
 Hangs its wild festooning there. 
 There are dust and doom beneath, 
 And the floAvers of Nature's wreath, 
 And the sign of grace and love, 
 And the deep blue Heaven above. 
 
 So, to every musing pilgrim, 
 
 Sighs the voice of Marldon bells, 
 
 Sighs the crowned shade of Compton, 
 Answering, as the cadence SAvells ; 
 
 Though the walls in ruin lie. 
 
 All is hope and light on high; 
 
 And the Cross, against the sky, 
 
 Speaks of immortality. 
 
 As a military post, the house is of no value; for it is 
 commanded by the old " pleasaunce," or garden, to which, in 
 rear of the building, the ascent is by a broad flight of steps. 
 From their summit, there is a charming view of that part 
 of the fabric, which contains the hall and chapel. The 
 whole is indeed buried in a luxuriant growth of ivy. But, 
 here and there, grey arcliAvays peep out, and a fragment of
 
 what is called a "well" stair, and a decayed tower, and, 
 
 over all, the Cross. When I stood and looked n2:)on this 
 
 view, in which the Past and the Present blended so many 
 
 beauties, I did not wonder at the enthusiasm of the great 
 
 artist, of whose visit to these ruins I spoke before. And 
 
 Avhen I thought upon the world beyond, and iipon those that 
 
 composed its sum, I wondered as little that ninety-nine, 
 
 out of every hundred, idlers who came here, should go 
 
 away disappointed, under a firm conviction that there was 
 
 nothing wortli seeing at Compton. 
 * * * * * * 
 
 When William the Norman landed, and won the fight of 
 Hastings, he granted the barony of Totnes, part of the in- 
 heritance of the Confessor, to one Judhael,* who straightway 
 built, on the old Roman mound, a strong Castle, of Avhich 
 the Keep is still remaining. So the stout knight became 
 Baron of Totnes ; and in that pleasant toAvn he founded two 
 religious houses ; and he caused the curfew to be rung out, 
 for the behoof of the conquered Saxons ; and his name was 
 Avritten in Domesday Book ; and he seemed likely to become 
 the founder of a line of nobles. But it was not to be. In 
 the next generation his power, and his name, were gone. 
 Wilham Rufus transferred his heritage to another; and 
 Judhael of Totnes is remembered only by those who visit 
 the mins of his tall round Keep, some to appreciate the 
 military eye of the old spoiler, who chose such a site for his 
 stronghold, and others, — these indeed forming the great 
 majority, — to be struck with its capabilities for a pic-nic. 
 
 * " Judhael," corrupted popularly into " Joel."
 
 Very different was the fortune of his comrade, Eafe de 
 Pomerei, Lord of Bury, or Berry, to which Saxon name — 
 after the fashion of the day — he added his own. The ancient 
 grange became Berripomerei Castle. The line of Pomerei, 
 like that of Judhael, seemed rooted in the soil. So, indeed, 
 for five hundred years, it was. Till the reign of Henry the 
 Third, the head of the house Avas a Peer of England. It 
 mixed its blood with that of Plantagenet. It possessed 
 fifty-eight Lordships in the West, where it had scarcely an 
 equal. Then came the turning-tide. In 1549, Thomas de 
 Pomeroy — as it was then spelt — was attainted for rebellion : 
 his vast estates were forfeited, and conveyed, it is believed, 
 by a Royal grant, to the Seymours ; and so went out the race 
 that dated the patent of its English nobility from the sword 
 of Hastings, 
 
 All that is left of the stern old Judhael, and of Eafe the 
 Noi'man, may be seen any day, after the English fashion, 
 by those who are wiUing to pay for the privilege. And 
 Berry Pomeroy is worth its price. There is not much of 
 the ancient building remaining, for the principal part of the 
 present imposing ruin was built by the Seymoiu's, in the in- 
 congruous style — soi-disant classical — Avhich was in vogue 
 at the time of its erection. But the interest attached to 
 Berry Pomeroy does not depend only on its august remains. 
 Its very solitude is sublime. You come upon it sviddenly, 
 as it stands among thick woods, overhanging a chff', yet in a 
 shadowy valley of its own. From that cliff, in the reign of 
 Eichard the First, Henry de Pomerei leaped his horse, and 
 Avas dashed to pieces in the depths below. The antique 
 magnificence of that lofty line was well displayed, and was
 
 c Ptat- ■ _ ^i=ig^iSisgte: 
 
 92 
 
 RAMBLES IN DEVONSHIRE. 
 
 fitly seated, there. Lord Byron said that Waterloo was a 
 place suited to be the arena, in Avhich two mighty nations 
 contended for victory. So there could not be a nobler home, 
 for the head of a great family, than that feudal castle among 
 the woods. "We could imagine the strong arm, that drove 
 out the Saxon thane, maintaining itself upon that throne of 
 rock, and grimly holding its o-\vn. The doom of violence, 
 and of wrong, was upon it, nor was the scene unsuited to 
 such a catastrophe. Many a time has the expelled Saxon 
 gazed wistfully, and gloomily, upon the stately dwelling of 
 his spoiler, and cursed it in his bitterness. And now the 
 account of blood is settled, and the balance struck, and 
 the stranger comes hither, and looks at the gateway, on 
 which he sees carved " a lion rampant," * and says, — " this 
 place once belonged to the Pomeroys."
 
 THE DOOM OF BERRY POMEROY. 
 
 High on the castled brow! 
 
 High o'er the wood, Avhere the ravens croak, 
 Swinging slow on a mossy bough 
 
 Of a gnarled and ancient oak ; 
 Of an ancient oak, whose birth might see 
 The star of the Saxon Hejitarchy, 
 Robed in the mantle grey, 
 
 Wliere Nature veils what her years destroy, 
 Grand and stern in its proud decay. 
 
 Frowns the dim spectre of Pomeroy. 
 
 High on the castled brow! 
 
 High o'er the depths, where a vision broods. 
 And a voice comes forth, and murmurs low 
 
 To the Spirit of the woods. 
 Of the woods that saw, like a seer of doom, 
 Stern Judhael, the avenger, come, 
 And Rafe, the war-wolf of the sea, 
 
 Strong to slay with a fiendish joy : 
 Leaving a curse, as he passed, to be 
 
 The dower of lordly Pomeroy. 
 
 High on the castled brow, 
 
 Standeth ever its phantom grey! 
 Standeth ever on walls that bow. 
 
 Blent with them, and as firm as they.
 
 Still the shadows of vengeance sleep, 
 NeA^er to vanish from court or keep, 
 Never shall mortal power recall 
 
 Eace or line, that the dead destroy, 
 Or light the hearth-stone, or rear the hall. 
 
 Where scowls the spectre of Pomeroy. 
 
 High on the castled brow, 
 
 Leaped its Lord, when his foes were nigh. 
 And spurred his steed to the depths below. 
 
 And died, as a knight should die. 
 Men said, as he cleft the rushing air, 
 The ghost of Eafe the wolf was there. 
 The victim passed, but the curse remains. 
 
 And sons of other sires enjoy 
 The valley dashed mth its crimson stains. 
 
 The fatal fief of Pomeroy.
 
 t'lit kiim nf tilt |5nst. 
 
 OT many miles from Stoke Gabriel there existed, in 
 former days, a monastic foundation, of great wealth 
 and magnificence. It has been, of course, secidar- 
 ized, and is now the residence of an ancient Catholic family. 
 Yet it still retains enough of its oi'iginal character, to give 
 dignity, and interest, to its present decay. There are con- 
 siderable remains of the old building, protected from further 
 ruin by a good and pious taste. Even in its change of 
 destiny men call it " the Abbey " still. 
 
 It is the fashion now to scoff at mediaeval tastes. Yet to 
 them Europe owes an incalculable debt of gratitude, for the 
 preservation of all that would else have perished, in the ages 
 which we, in our pride, term " dark." Those old recluses, 
 of whose capacities we think so lightly, had at least one 
 sense, one instinctive faculty, — the sense of beauty. It 
 lives in every relic of their handyAvork. It lingers in each 
 fragment of their homes, in the sites they chose, in the 
 tracery of a window, in a tall ivied arch. "Wlien the Baron 
 erected liis fortalice on a rock, the jVIonk searched out some 
 dim religious solitude, with an eye that never erred. There, 
 in a spot overlooked by others, he fixed his abiding place; 
 and, in every instance, he can point to the mouldering 
 creations of his mind, and say " these are my witnesses."
 
 Wordsworth expressed tliis sentiment finely, in some lines 
 written at Llantliony Abbey, and ending thus : — 
 
 " The heart, that may forget thee in a crowd, 
 Cannot forget thee here, where thou hast built, 
 To thine own glory, in the wilderness." 
 
 The Abbey, to which I am now alluding, was not indeed 
 entirely secluded from the world. Yet its retirement was 
 sufficient for the purposes of meditation, and of prayer. It 
 lies near the ocean, that ebbs and flows, scarce a bow-shot 
 distant. A range of swelling and romantic hills girds it in, 
 and shelters it from the cold winds. Those picturesque 
 eminences were once clothed, along their imdulating out- 
 lines, Avith woods, that have now given way to the terraces 
 of a fashionable watering place, where Greek and Gothic 
 are rampant, as Chaucer says, — 
 
 " After the school of Stratford-atte-Bow." 
 
 How different must have been the appearance of that 
 beautiful and holy soHtude, when the great Monastery yet 
 stood erect. It was indeed worthy of the munificence of its 
 foinider, and of the house from which he sprung, which had 
 given a co-Eegent to England. Spehnan, quoting Hoveden, 
 writes thus: — 
 
 " Summos autem Justiciarios regni Kex constituit WilHel- 
 mum Eliensem Episcopum, et Galfridum filium Petri, et 
 Dominum Willielmum Bruere." 
 
 This was in 1190. And in 1196 William de Bruyere 
 raised, in this fair nook, and dedicated to God, a gi-and and 
 solemn pile. The hills looked tranquilly doAvn upon it, and 
 the dim groves closed it in, lovingly, AAath an embrace of 
 peace. The bowmen of Acre, or of Ascalon, would have
 
 sent a cloth-yard shaft from its porch into the sea, whose 
 miirnrar came up, across the meadow, and mingled with the 
 notes of matins or of lauds. It can do so still, but the mighty 
 foundation is dissolved; the resting-place of Avayfarers, and 
 of pilgrims, exists no longer; the Abbey liA^es only in its 
 name. — 
 
 Hallowed, but desolate; sad, but divine, 
 
 Lies the pale shade of the beautiful shrine. 
 
 Morning and evening the sigh of the main 
 
 Comes for an ansAver it hears not again, 
 
 Comes for an ansAver that echoes no more 
 
 Through the grey courts, and the cloisters, of Toree. 
 
 There was the home of the pilgrim, and there, 
 Blessing and blest, Avas the Spirit of prayer, 
 Telling how WiUiam of Bruyere abode 
 There, in the temple he raised to his God, 
 Bartering glory for penance and dole, 
 The cell for his body, the mass for his soul. 
 
 Where is his stately fane? Gone! it is gone, 
 
 Altar of marble, and pillar of stone; 
 
 Only the Past is our limner, to paint 
 
 The tomb of the founder, the shrine of the saint; 
 
 Meeting our mournful eye, mocking our tread. 
 
 Only the Past is there, only the dead. 
 
 Still a loAV music, at vesper and prime, 
 Singeth a song to the burden of time ;
 
 RAMBLES IN DEVONSHIRE. 
 
 Still a dread -witness, that never shall die, 
 Writcth its tale on the earth and the sky; 
 Present to mark, where the spoiler hath trod, 
 Bearing the cry of the martyr to God, 
 
 Thine are the o2-isons. Ocean, at last. 
 Thine is the witness, the voice of the Past, 
 Man, and his glory, may flourish, and flee. 
 There is no rise, and no setting, for thee. 
 Lift np thy dirge for the faith that is o'er. 
 Mourn in thy majesty. Ocean, for Torre! 
 
 "We Enghsh of this enlightened age, as we are pleased to 
 call it, are beginning to revert to some of those old world 
 ideas, which have long been out of date. We confess, slowly 
 ? indeed, and sadly, that tmmixed blessings were not produced 
 by that great political and rehgious convulsion, which beheld 
 literary treasures, and homes of learning, laid waste; which 
 destroyed some of the noblest fabrics ever reared by mortal 
 hands ; which drove forth from the tabernacle the servants 
 of the Most High, and flung a firebrand into His shrines. 
 Through the Puritan arteries of three centuries, we feel 
 now a throb, as it were, of that agony, when the great heart 
 of English faith was snapt in twain, and its frame shattered, 
 and its wealth dispersed abroad. This age of oujs, which 
 has vindicated the Crusades, gazes upon the Past, and upon 
 these its landmarks, with an impartial eye. But it is diffi- 
 cult to do so, when looking on the time-honoured monuments 
 of other days, or, rather, upon their graceful ruins. The
 
 great Abbey rises before our mind's eye. "We find it hard 
 to justify the tyrant's hand, that smote it, and made it what 
 it is. 
 
 If this be so to us, if that grey porch pleads so sorrowfully, 
 even to us Protestants, in spite of otu' better judgment, what 
 must be the feeling of the Catholic, when he comes to visit 
 one of those desecrated fanes, which to him has a thousand 
 tongues? That was God's house. 'Wliere is its carved work, 
 and its altar, and its daily ministration, and its anointed in- 
 mates, and all its present memories of eternity? And how 
 were they destroyed, and by whom? History tells him of 
 the Eighth Henry, and his blood boils in his veins, as he 
 reads. He feels as the gallant Maccabees felt. He feels 
 that the " Pilgrimage of Grace " was a necessity to the men 
 who beheld such things. He feels why Judas and his brethren 
 took, for their motto, and their war-cry, the text " mi Camoka 
 baclim, Jehovah," " who among the gods is hke unto Thee, 
 O Lord," and he longs to act, like them. 
 
 We do not, of course, think thus. Without highly 
 Avrought sentiments of this kind, Ave can yet sympathize 
 with the roofless church, and with the alienated patrimony, 
 once devoted to deeds of religion, and of charity. What- 
 ever may have been the abuses that Avere, during a long 
 course of years, suffered to impair the utility, and to sap 
 the foundations, of these great institutions, Ave cannot help 
 regarding them with a stern sense of a Avrong done. We 
 can hardly avoid feeling that a sad and terrible account is 
 due from those who perpetrated such acts, and that the fate, 
 said to Avait upon unjust gain, must brood over their houses, 
 and their posterity.
 
 RAMBLES IN DEVONSHIRE. 
 
 There are, indeed, two ways, in wliicli a retribution, a 
 kind of invisible, and avenging fate, lias been deemed to 
 follow the confiscation of Church property, and to attend 
 upon the families of those enriched by its spoils. Wlierever 
 a Monastery, or a Nunnery, has been secularized, and 
 turned into a dwelling house, it has generally borne an evil 
 reputation. It has been held what in the North is termed 
 " uncannie." Wliether the inmate of some oubliette has 
 arisen to the light of day, and haunted the scene of its 
 agonies, where it was immured with those words of awful 
 mockery, " vade in pace " (go in peace) ; or Avhether the 
 shade is only the presence of some dim, di'ead spirit, brooding 
 over its outraged home ; it is certain that the sites of religious 
 foundations, perverted from their original use, are said, 
 populai'ly, to be frequented by appaiitions of a ghostly 
 character. AVithout referring to the works of Howitt, and 
 of Mrs. Crowe, I can affirm that I myself know two houses 
 of this description, in a midland county, both of which are 
 mysteriously visited by phantoms, for whose appearance no 
 explanation can be offered. 
 
 The first of these was believed to be the abode of a spectre, 
 no less celebrated than that of Eosamond CliflPord. The 
 house, a dissolved Nunnery, Avas granted, at the Keformation, 
 to the family of Clifford, and it is still theirs; existing, 
 almost, as it stood in the days of old. There is a room in it, 
 apparently the property of their unhappy ancestress, whose 
 portrait is shown in the drawing room; and which, from its 
 beauty, goes far to justify Queen Eleanor's feminine auger. 
 One peculiarity of her coming is scarcely to be wondered at, 
 considering her history, and her wrongs. She puts on her
 
 terrors, only, for men. The chamber, which is her own, is 
 dark, and antique; communicating, by a Avinding stair, with 
 the crj^^t, and dungeon, below, where chains and bones bear 
 ghastly witness to the crimes, and cruelties, of other days. 
 Here the ghost of fair Eosamond is said to linger, visible, as 
 the tradition goes, only to men. I was told, on the spot, 
 that two gentlemen, one connected with the family, the other 
 the nephew of a great statesman, and both ignorant of the 
 story, were, at different times, put to sleep there, and that 
 they both left the room before morning, declaring that nothing 
 shoiild induce them to pass another night witliin it. There 
 Avas no positive, or tangible form, but something kept con- 
 stantly moving to and fro in the darkness, and there was a 
 consciousness of some unexplained and oppi'essive presence, 
 Avhose very indistinctness became at last intolerable. 
 
 The second instance was in the same neighbourhood. A 
 figure, clad in a dark robe, resembling silk, and possessing 
 the horribly distinctive mark of having only hollow sockets, 
 instead of eyes, appeared constantly in the house, which was, 
 like the other, an ancient Nunnery, On one occasion, it 
 showed itself to two young ladies, staying there on a visit, 
 no previous communication having been made to them on 
 the subject. On another, it Avas foimd, by the daughter of 
 the gentleman to Avhom the place belonged, bending over an 
 open draAver, which it closed AAdth an impatient gesture, and 
 then, turning suddenly round, exposed its angry and scowling 
 face. It never spoke, but seemed always restless and gloomy, 
 Avearing a fierce vindictiA^e look. 
 
 It has been, also, frequently remarked, that possessions, 
 Avrmig violently from the Church, seemed to bring no pros-
 
 102 
 
 R.VMBLES IN DEVONSHIRE. 
 
 perity, and no blessing, with tliem. Families, liow richly 
 soever endowed, appeared, with their sacrilege, to inherit, 
 likewise, a doom Avhich never left them. And this has been 
 noticed more, and has been more remarkable, when the 
 persons, so benefitted, were Protestants. The two cases 
 I have just mentioned, are striking instances of this dis- 
 tinction. The Catholic Clifford, took, and stUl holds, that 
 which was wrested from consecrated hands. In the other 
 case, as far as I can collect, the property was granted to 
 Protestants, but it seems, of late years at least, to have never 
 remained more than one generation in the same Une, and its 
 acquisition has been accompanied with the most romantic 
 misfortunes. Not long since, I heard a list of coincidences 
 of this kind, which were very strange, and seemed too 
 numerous to be accidental. One of them referred to a great 
 house, gorged, to a degree hardly credible, Avith Chui'ch 
 spoils, and tithes, by Heniy the Eighth. I cannot now, 
 ■wi'iting from memory, recall the particulars, but I remember 
 that hardly any portion of the family history was unmarked 
 by some dark event; and that no fewer than six peerages 
 became extinct, the holders of which Avere connected, by 
 marriage, Avith its daughters. 
 
 The most zealous Reformer, and one to whom the truths 
 of the Reformation are most dear, still feels, with sorrow and 
 regret, the injustice then done; and confesses how httle the 
 honour and glory of God were promoted by that mighty 
 convulsion. Let us put ourselves in the place of those who, 
 for many long centuries, had endowed, with their Avealth, 
 foundations dedicated to purposes of mercy and of prayer. 
 They never doubted that, as long as England Avas a kingdom,
 
 RAMBLES IN DEVONSHIRE. 
 
 103 
 
 SO long would tlieir faith endure, and their works be had in 
 remembrance. They believed, at least, that the daily seiTice, 
 the mass, the dole, were for their soul's health, and would 
 continue for a blessing iinto them, and vinto their posterity. 
 As race succeeded race, this feeling gained strength and 
 sanctity. The bones of the founder slept in the tomb he 
 had raised, in the noblest of all tombs, iTuder a roof conse- 
 crated to worship, and to alms. Thither successively, one 
 by one, were borne his descendants, until the place became 
 a ghostly pedigree, linked to the hearts of those that came 
 after, by the dearest and the holiest ties. The Bai-on, or 
 Crusader, who biiilt the original pile, and whose mutilated 
 effigy was still seen in the Chancel, cross-legged, and in the 
 attitude of prayer, formed one of a dim procession, closed 
 by the parents of the present Lord, and guarding a vacant 
 place for him. A third of the whole soil of England was 
 the property of the Church, and teas thus, as it tcere, set 
 apart, at the Reformation. When it was alienated, it was 
 applied to no good, or pious, use. The lust, the rapine, and 
 the violence, of a tyrant, had no such justification to plead. 
 It was in vain that the best friends of religion, such as 
 Latimer, entreated the King to spare some of the Nunneries, 
 as Godstow, and Woodstock, against which no Avord of 
 slander had been breathed. He never listened to their voice. 
 The rich inheritance, accumulated by the piety and munifi- 
 cence of ages, was wasted among parasites and covirtiers. 
 It should, at least, have been brought back to its original 
 purpose. Form and rite, if corrupted by the lapse of years, 
 might have been purified; foundations, if in some measure 
 abused, might have yet been restored, according to the in-
 
 tentions of their donors, and made to minister to the ser^-ice 
 of God. Even had the broad lands, and the vast revenues, 
 been seized or resumed, the Churches should still have been 
 2:)reserved, with a decent svipport for their ministers. The 
 libraries, the treasures of art, the noble fabrics, had done no 
 wrong. A tithe of the wealth stolen from them would have 
 left enough of endowment, to transform the Chapel of the 
 Priory, or of the Convent, into a Protestant fane, where 
 the Gospel might have been preached, and the Truth ex- 
 pounded, to those who else were left in darkness, and in 
 ignorance. As a minor consequence of this great robbery, 
 the country would have been spared the introduction of a 
 poor law, which was enacted, as early as in the X'eign of 
 Elizabeth. The vast charities of the religious houses were 
 gone. The change had turned the poor into paiipers. The 
 state had grasped the resources, by which so many Avere fed 
 with kind love. It had created starvation, and it gave an 
 imwilling pittance to those it had injured. It legalized 
 beggary, and called this atonement, and satisfaction, for the 
 wrong. 
 
 We can hardly then wonder at the doom, which has been 
 held by enthusiasts to accompany possessions, acquired in a 
 manner so foul, and so unnatiu'al. The curse of spoHation, 
 and of guilt, like the stain of the boy's blood on the hearth- 
 stone at Berry Pomeroy, is indelible. It is the destiny that 
 watches over ill-got gold. Neither can we be surprised at 
 the bitterness of those who saw the gifts of their ancestors, 
 their chantries, their hospitals, their alms houses, made a 
 prey to the greedy and the profane. No man, beholding 
 these things, could found a charity, without a fear, lest it
 
 should be perverted by some monstrous distortion of right, 
 and so his intentions rendered vain. The idea is not new, 
 that an evil spirit haunts the scene of any great crime. The 
 Buccaneers, when they buried a treasure, slew a prisoner, 
 and flung his body into the pit, believing that his unquiet 
 ghost would cling to the spot, and watch over their guilty 
 gold. So did it seem to be with the robbers of the Church. 
 They did not prosper at last. They did not escape the doom 
 that waited on them. The wrong they had committed was 
 repaid. 
 
 Spirit, who art thou, that sittest 
 By the arch, o'ergroAvn with moss ; 
 
 Spirit, who art thou, that flittest 
 Dimly, by the moiddering Cross; 
 
 Clad in amice, sandal-shod. 
 
 Near the ruined house of God, 
 
 With a veiled and drooping brow. 
 
 Shadowy Presence, who art thou? 
 
 There, where Faith of old was seated, 
 
 There, where rose the blessed shrine. 
 There, where holy lips repeated 
 Hymnings to the One Divine, 
 Pilgrim from the days of prayer, 
 Only thou art lingering there. 
 Brooding o'er thy patient vow. 
 Sister guardians, Time and thou. 
 
 Thou art one, whose influence blighteth 
 All Avho live by Faith's decay;
 
 RAMBLES IN DEVONSHIRE. 
 
 Coming, as tlie spoiler smiteth, 
 FoUoAving, as he turns away; 
 Bending round an evil eye, 
 Witnessing eternally; 
 Raining, like the Upas bough. 
 Death and doom, we know not how. 
 
 Thou art one, whose vengeance keepeth 
 
 Vigils that shall rest no more, 
 While the Rood's dim memoiy sleepeth 
 
 On the chancel's broken floor. 
 Like a ministering ill, 
 Like a mute avenger still, 
 While with nameless awe we bow. 
 Twin with ruin, there art thou. 
 
 Ever, like a Fate, thou sittest 
 
 Breeding misery, boding loss ; 
 Ever, like a shade, thou flittest. 
 
 Round the Abbey's ivied Cross ; 
 Clad in amice, sandal-shod. 
 Spirit of the house of God, 
 Living hearts thy power avow, 
 Dead, but deathless, dust and thou. 
 
 The associations connected with the fine reHc of the Past, 
 that still looks out upon the glories of Torbay, have extended 
 this chapter to an unreasonable length. I will conclude, 
 therefore, with two more instances of the ill-luck, thought 
 to attach itself to a heritage of wrong. 
 
 There is, in a Welch coiuity, what Avas once a noble
 
 RAMBLES IN DEVONSHIRE 
 
 Priory. I have spent many a liappy day within its walls, 
 for it is now maintained only as an Inn. On the hill side, 
 above the decayed Church, where piety and prayer have 
 given place to IMethodism and skittles, there is seen, also, a 
 ruin, but of another kind. Some architect, doubtless, " much 
 renowned for Greek," built there, for the lord of that storied 
 and violated Temple, an elaborate villa. For its erection, 
 the Church of the Monastery, then almost perfect, Avas 
 pulled down. It was a costly prudence after all. No sooner 
 was the house finished, than a fire broke out in it, and burned 
 it to the ground. It lies, a blackened wreck, full in the 
 accusing presence of the grey pile below. There is no 
 dignity in the mingling of its charred remains, with the 
 weeds and brambles that creep over it. But time deals 
 gently Avitli its aged neighbour, and does no injury to its 
 nobility. Amid the ivy, with which it has garlanded the 
 buttressess and arches, it has left a solemn memorial of other 
 days. By a strange coincidence the founder's tomb is the 
 only one spared. It requires no great stretch of imagination 
 to draw a contrast between the things we sec. Above there, 
 up among the black shadows of the beetling hill, is the mind 
 of the man of to-day, embodied in his creation. At our 
 foot is the coflSn-lid of the Lacy, who built this, his monu- 
 ment. When once I saw a party playing at nine-pins, and 
 heard their ribald songs, in the chancel, where lay that stern 
 sad effigy, I thought of a passage in the old Norman-French 
 romance of Jehan de Saintre. 
 
 " Le Roy, et la Eoyne dirent, que, pour Famor des trcs- 
 passe's, dont Pen ne devait mye estrc joyeulx, ja n'y seroit 
 chante, ne dance faicte."
 
 I) The second instance to Avliicli I alluded bore relation to a 
 
 family, once seated in the North. It was noble when Norman 
 "William landed, having come to this Island with Canute, the 
 King. Its children were qualified for the Order of Saint 
 Michael of Bavaria, the statutes of Avhich demand that the 
 first known ancestor of every knight should be nolile. One 
 of them, in 1190, was co-regent of Englaiid, with that very 
 William de Bruyere, who, in 1196, founded Torre Abbey. 
 It was settled near Hexham, in the midst of the Danelagh, 
 holding seventeen lordships and manors of the great Abbey of 
 Hexham, and bearing on its charters, confiiined by William 
 the Lion, the proud statement that they had existed from 
 time immemorial, " a tempore, de quo non extat memoria." 
 At the Eeformation, it had interest enough to procure a grant, 
 on easy terms, of all that it held, " by bridle and sjiear," of 
 the Church. Then the ban was upon it, and it dwindled aAvay, 
 and fell. There was no visible cause for its decline, but it 
 seemed to submit to a fate that was inevitable. Last went 
 that Avhich it had grasped last, being part of the spoils torn 
 from Wolsey, and including a fine old mansion, and a deer 
 park, and a royal chase. That was the end of sacrilege. 
 That Avas " the doom of the Past." 
 
 As it hung over the ruined inheritance of the oppressor, 
 men might say of it, in the words of Bolingbroke — 
 " it hath fed upon his seignories, 
 Dispaiked his parks, and felled his forest woods, 
 From his own windows torn his household coat, 
 Razed out his impress, leaving him no sign, 
 Save men's ojjinions, and his living blood.
 
 €l)t fmwM %hmt 
 
 Bi'oken roof, and lialls forsaken 
 Shivering in the mournful blast. 
 
 Solemn are the thoughts ye waken, 
 Of the dead and buried Past, 
 
 Tottering, trembling, to your fall. 
 
 Broken roof, and mouldering- wall! 
 
 Many a tender word was spoken, 
 Many a vow of rapture sighed, 
 
 Many a heart, perchance, was broken, 
 Many a flower decayed, and died, 
 
 Ere that roof, so silent now. 
 
 Bent to time its stately brow. 
 
 Gallant youth, and highborn maiden, 
 Grew in strength and beauty there ; 
 
 Pleasure-wearied, sorrow-laden, 
 Age laid down its load of care; 
 
 Sepulchre of loving hearts, 
 
 E'en thy very dust departs.
 
 110 
 
 KAMBLES IN DEVONSHIRE. 
 
 Like a phantom, dimly gleaming 
 
 By its own funereal light, 
 Thou art seen, still, haply, dreaming, 
 
 In thy widowhood and night ; 
 Time, whose shaft is death, to thee 
 Leaves, at least, thy memory. 
 
 So, \^dthiu thy shattered portal, 
 Lives a power, that ne'er departs ; 
 
 AU, that is in man immortal, 
 All the life of deathless hearts. 
 
 Comes, and communes with the mind, 
 
 Lingering, sad, but sweet, behind. 
 
 Hall of other days, we leave thee 
 
 Dwelling in thy shade alone. 
 May no ruthless hand bereave thee 
 
 Of the visions, still thine own; 
 Kest within thy mystic dell, 
 Hall of other days, farewell! 
 
 There is something indescribably sad in the appearance of 
 an old mansion, which has, by the lapse of years, been con- 
 verted into the homestead of a farm. It is, in such a state, 
 more melancholy than an utter ruin. Silence, and dust, and 
 solitude, are not incompatible Avith dignity, and even with 
 sublimity. They reign in the empty hall, and in the lady's 
 bower ; where a fcAV fragments of paper, bearing, perhaps, a 
 golden star on an azure groimd, teU us that, in the reign of 
 Edward the Third, that lonely spot Avas the withdrawing
 
 room of the liighboni, and the beatitifuL An inhiid mando- 
 lin may lie unheeded in a corner, and bring back a memory 
 of the hand that once strayed among its wires. And now 
 the instrument is broken, and the fingers that touched it 
 gone, and the chamber, in Avhich it exhaled its loveliness, 
 deserted. Only the Past sends a spirit to people that place 
 of cobwebs. There is ever a pale angel, sitting, like a golden 
 shadow, in that carved oak chair. We do not Avant sterner 
 associations. They are for history to blazon, with its deeds 
 of violence, and of blood. In the relics of truth and inno- 
 cence, and in their records, there can be no wrong. They 
 give d moiu^nful charm to these silent spots, and invest them 
 with ineffable attractions. They tell us, perchance, of some 
 hall once dear to us ; of some memory connected with music 
 and with beauty ; of some hour, and of some scene unforgotten , 
 though recalled most vividly amid loneliness, and silence, 
 and decay. 
 
 But a manor house, turned into a farm, with its parlour, 
 and its pig-sties, has no such images to refine and to ennoble 
 it. Of all possible contrasts, it presents to us the one most 
 painful. And such is the state of the only place in Stoke 
 Gabriel, at all connected with antiquity, and possessing, in 
 any way, the character of a " haunted house." 
 
 It lies on the left hand, after leaving Portbridge, mider the 
 Eoman camp, and not far from the road to Brixham. The 
 name, by which it is now knoAvn, is not that which it bore 
 in other days. It was then called " EoAve's Gi-een," and was 
 the property of a Roman Catholic family, the head of Avhich, 
 Mr Eowe, resided there, at the time of the Civil Wars. 
 
 The Church of Eome has always, since the Reformation,
 
 been nnpopular in. the West. In modem times this feeling 
 has been mainly attributed to the recollection of the bloody 
 assizes of Jeffreys, and of " Kirke's lambs." But it existed 
 long befoi'e. It reduced to a state of comparative isolation 
 the few families still clinging to the old faith. In the case 
 of Mr. Eowe, it acted with yet greater force. As a Cavalier, 
 of ancient lineage, as a Catholic, earnest and. sincere in his 
 convictions, he stood almost alone in his opinions, and opposed 
 to the sense of the whole neighbourhood, which Avas inclined 
 to the cause of the Eepublic, and to the tenets of the Puritans. 
 He had fought, and suffered, in the caiise of his martyred 
 Iving. He had endured persecution for the sake of his re- 
 ligion. It was then no wonder that the master of " Rowe's 
 Green " shou.ld, on his retirement from the world, become, 
 in men's eyes, bigoted and ascetic ; and cease to mingle with 
 those whom he regarded in the light of traitors to their 
 Sovereign, and aliens from the truth. 
 
 He remained, in his lonely and widowed home, apparently 
 unnoticed, by the niling powers. But it was not so. He 
 was, indeed, unvisited by fine or persecution, when the few 
 gentlemen around, of his o'wti persuasion, in religion or in 
 politics, were heavily amerced. Yet it was not from his 
 insignificance, nor from any mildness on the part of the 
 Government, that he Avas thus spared, but, rather, from a 
 motive, which, had he kno-wni it, would have galled him more 
 bitterly than the utmost extremity of sectarian bigotry and 
 wrong. 
 
 He had a son, a gallant and an only son, who, at the time 
 of which I am writing, was sei-ving tmder Admiral Blake, 
 in the English Navy. It is well known that the fleet con-
 
 tinned to act beneatli tlie Republican banner, when the cause 
 of Royalty went down. It struck, as it professed, for its 
 country alone. And so Captain Rowe, who had gone afloat 
 at an early age, and who was, like his father, attached to the 
 principles of the Court, did not leave his profession, when 
 an usurper filled the throne of the Stuarts. He rose to high 
 rank, and to merited distinction. It was his name, and the 
 weight of his tried sword, that were thrown in the balance 
 against the obnoxious tenets of his father, Avhose dogged 
 spirit disdained to submit to a tyranny which he was unable 
 to resist. Captain Rowe was well aware of this, and knew 
 exactly what were the motives for forbearance, and how far 
 the Government would allow them to prevail. To give them 
 all the weight possible, he visited " Rowe's Green " as often 
 as he could, few as were the inducements held out by it to 
 one like himself. The batteries of Tunis, indeed, were less 
 terrible to the young sailor, than the solitude of his unloved 
 home, where vigil and fasting were the I'ule, and a smile was 
 almost deemed a crime. The aged Priest, who was, save 
 himself, his father's sole companion, never left his house of 
 refuge, whither he had fled from the hatred of the aiithorities ; 
 neither did his father ever quit the precincts of his own 
 grounds. So the son, when in want of some fitting fellow- 
 ship, wandered, through the woods, to the banks of the Dart, 
 whose waters possessed a natural charm for him. Shut out 
 as he Avas from human sympathies, he was more susceptible 
 of those which, in some measure, become an equivalent for 
 their loss. He had, like most of his noble profession, a deep 
 sense of religion. Commerce Avith those of other creeds had 
 Avorn aAvay the asperities of his early belief, and rounded
 
 114 
 
 RAMBLES IN DEVONSHIRE. 
 
 off tlie roughness of his hereditary prejudices. He was not 
 less sincere and faithful, but he was far less bigoted and 
 stern. He was shocked at the austerities of his father and of 
 tlie Priest, to whom age had taught no mildness, and sufFei'ing 
 no mercy. During his residence at " Howe's Green," there- 
 fore, he was much absent from its gloomy roof. The banks 
 of the Dart, and its bright stream, taught him a deep religion 
 of their own. God's works whisper to us, and we answer 
 them, with an unspoken prayer. So it was with the young 
 sailor. He was thoughtful, serious, and devout. But he had 
 seen good men of other creeds, with whom cheerfulness was 
 not a sin. The sunlight that played upon the summit of 
 Beacon Hill, and skimmed over Dittisham Pool, gave him 
 more pleasure than the deep groves of Sandridge. Nature 
 thus, by her voice Avhich was in him, led him to the bright 
 and the beautiful, and taught him that it was not less pure, 
 nor less hallowed, than the mystic or the sad. In such a 
 temper, and with such reveries as these, seeking the tiiith, 
 perplexed and wandering, did he, day after day, leave his 
 uncomfortable dwelling, and stroll down to the river side, 
 only withheld from shortening his visit, by a sense of duty 
 to his father, who was unconsciously shielded by his con- 
 tinued presence there. 
 
 One day, he had left his home, feeling more than commonly 
 depressed. The gloom of " Eowe's Green " became intolera- 
 ble, he knew not why. He passed along the narx'ow bridle- 
 track, in the direction of Brixham, and, turning to the right, 
 near the old Grange, inhabited then by a branch of the 
 Pomeroys, went straight through the woods, luitil he reached 
 the Dart. His mind was heavy, and his frame burning with
 
 RAMBLES IN DEVONSHIRE. 
 
 115 
 
 latent fever. An anticipation of some misfortune, or rather 
 of some event, foreshadowed and impending, seemed to brood 
 over him. He entered liis Httle boat, and, casting her adrift, 
 suffered her to float lazily down the stream. He thus crossed 
 Dittisham Pool, and Greenaway. Tlie soft gliding motion, 
 and the absence of exertion, soothed him, and gave him 
 relief. The sea breeze, sighing up the Channel, played 
 around his heated brow, and he felt restored and refreshed. 
 He had escaped from an atmosphere that almost stifled him. 
 Nature, as she always does, elevated his mind, even from 
 the contrast of her brightness and her liberty, with man's 
 poverty and littleness. 
 
 Suddenly, as he lay in the stern, thvts idly musing, yet in 
 no ungentle nor irreverent strain, a large boat went heavily 
 by, impelled by a pair of sweeps, both wind and current 
 being adverse. Captain Rowe glanced listlessly at her, and 
 felt his attention aroused, as his practised eye detected in her 
 signs of her foreign build. It was a time when men looked 
 warily at all that occurred, for laAvless deeds were done, 
 under favour of those civil broils, and many walked abroad 
 unchallenged, who, in more peaceful times, would have been 
 called to a stern account. As the boat slowly and clumsily 
 gained upon him, he raised himself upon his elbow, and 
 watched her with some curiosity. There appeared to be on 
 board of her three persons only, whose faces were so hidden 
 by large slouched hats, and by the Avrappers round their 
 necks and chins, that it was impossible to make out who or 
 what they were. As they neared him, he stood up, and 
 looked into the vessel. His uniform attracted their attention, 
 and they pulled away, more vigorously than before. He
 
 hailed them, but they made no rei3ly. Seizing his oars, two 
 or three powerful strokes sent him alongside, and he Avas 
 about to renew his questions in a more peremptory manner 
 when he was interrupted by a low stifled cry, followed by a 
 piercing shriek. He looked towards the spot from whence 
 the voice proceeded. At the bottom of the boat he beheld 
 a female figure, now struggling in the grasp of one of the 
 sailors. She had thrown off the cloak, imder which she 
 was concealed, and stretched out her arms, uttering piteous 
 and passionate cries for aid. 
 
 Captain Eowe was brave, yovmg, an officer, and a gentle- 
 man. He did not hesitate an instant. Laying his hand on 
 the bulwark, he leaped lightly into the vessel, with his drawn 
 sword in his hand. A single do-\\airight blow, laid the ruffian, 
 who held the lady, bleeding and senseless on the deck. He 
 then turned ujion the other two. The nearest struck at him 
 with a long knife, such as was borne by seafaring men in those 
 days. He parried the thrust without difficulty, and ran the 
 fellow through the body. The third did not wait his attack, 
 but sprang overboai'd, and escaped by swimming to the shore. 
 Captain Eowe then advanced to the young lady, Avho had 
 fainted, and raised her gently in his arms. As he did so, 
 she revived, and, opening her large dark eyes, fixed them 
 upon his face with a mute appealing look of agony. 
 
 There was nothing there to terrify, but everything to re- 
 assure, a maiden's heart. He was handsome, with a frank 
 manly brow, and a free generous smile. The few kind words 
 he spoke put her at her ease at once. She felt safe under 
 his protection. But as he beheld the form lying in his arms, 
 and the face that looked up pleadingly and timidly to his
 
 RAMBLES IN DEVONSHIRE. 
 
 117 
 
 own, he became aware that there was still much danger, 
 though it was to himself. He had never yet known the 
 power of such loveliness, as that now before him, entranced, 
 as it were, in that grateful pause; connected with him by 
 the dearest and most adamantine link, the link of strength 
 and helplessness, of gallant protection, and of beautiful trust, 
 of manhood in all its energy, and of woman, powerful and 
 conquering, even in the confession of her feebleness. 
 
 "It is God, Sir," said she, extricating herself modestly 
 from his arms, " it is God who hath sent you to deliver me." 
 
 Captain Rowe blushed with very shame, for he felt himself 
 the person obliged. He would have said so, but he lacked 
 power to utter a word. The fair girl cast do-\^m her eyes 
 before his ardent gaze. The veiled lids seemed to give him 
 courage. He mustered sufficient to ask her name. When it 
 was told, he knew at once that she was the only daughter of 
 a coimtry Gentleman, to whom belonged the old Elizabethan 
 house of Greenaway, — the house of Sir Walter Raleigh. 
 She had been kidnapped by these foreign desperados, Avho 
 hoped to obtain for her an enormous ransom, irom the love 
 or fears of lier father. 
 
 " I am safe," she concluded, " thanks to God, and, brave 
 Sir, to you. Will you now take me to my Father ? He will 
 join me in blessing you, though we can never repay you." 
 
 Captain Rowe looked as though a way of payment might 
 without difficvdty be found, but he did not venture to reply. 
 His own boat was gone, having drifted away during the 
 contest. One of the sweeps had also broken loose, but 
 the other remained. AVith some trouble, he guided the 
 unwieldly craft to the bank. The young lady leant uj^on his
 
 HAMBLES IN DEVONSHIRE. 
 
 arm, as they slowly ascended the steep slope. He listened 
 to the story of her seizure, and hvmg upon her words. They 
 soon reached the old porch. Her father, aged and infirm, 
 had been unable to join in the pursuit after her captors. He 
 came forth to welcome her back, and to thank her companion. 
 With instinctive dehcacy, Captain Eowe left them to their 
 own happiness. He bore away with him a portion of it, as 
 at parting, their blessings followed him, and lingered in his 
 willing ears. 
 
 And the next day, and the next, and each day that came, 
 foiuid Captain Eowe at the side of the young Rose of Green- 
 away. She was indeed " beautiful exceedingly." It was 
 the report of her charms, combined with the reputation of 
 her father's wealth, that had suggested to the villains the 
 idea of carrying her off. But there was small danger now. 
 She often wandered in the woods, and glided over the sui'face 
 of the Dart, but her companion was one whom none, not 
 enamoured of danger for its own sake, would attack. And 
 the meetings became more tender, and the partings more 
 eloquent and more sad. Captain Rowe talked of rejoining 
 his ship, but there was still an excuse for remaining. He 
 spoke of breaking from a thrall, now become too absorbing, 
 yet, though it depended upon himself only to do so, he made 
 no effort to depart. He was a Catholic, and she a Protestant, 
 He was by birth, and by inclination, loyal, and a Cavalier, 
 and her only remaining parent a Repiiblican. Captain Rowe 
 despaired of his father's consent. He had no hope, save in 
 time and patience. He thought of his religion, of his prin- 
 ciples, of his birth, and then he looked at the beauty of his 
 love, and forgot all but her perfections.
 
 The end came, as the end ever comes, Avhen young passion 
 pleads against prudence. The alternative was between part- 
 ing at once, and immediate union. They made their choice ; 
 few would have done differently, and fewer still would blame 
 them. Their hands were joined, in holy matrimony, by a 
 Minister of the Established Chviixh, though it was then in 
 bonds, and so the Rose of Greenaway became the young 
 sailor's bride. 
 
 The first months of their marriage passed on ■\\ings. The 
 secrecy, the mystery, the meeting by stealth, the lingering 
 embrace at parting, prolonged the romance of their love. 
 Captain Eowe had now a motive for delaying his departure, 
 and for remaining under his gloomy roof, where his father 
 seemed neither to mark his presence, nor, by any sign, to 
 indicate a wish for his absence. And, for the young wife, 
 all was bright, all was sunshine. She had no future, no 
 hereafter of earthly happiness, to anticipate in her dreams 
 of hope. She had realized all that existence could give her 
 of unalloyed bliss, and her cup indeed seemed full. Her 
 daily task was now to coimt the hours, and to chide them 
 for dallying on their course. She sat in the casement that 
 commanded the jiath by which he was Avont to approach, 
 though she knew that he was far away. Her mind's eye 
 saw the shadow of his foot-prints ere they fell. In the 
 quaint language of the time, so might she have been 
 addressed^ — 
 
 Why dost thou pause awhile, 
 
 Sigh, and pause so long, 
 Lady, in thy happy smile. 
 And in thy low sweet song;
 
 120 
 
 RAMBLES IN DEVONSHIRE. 
 
 Is tliy bosom trembling, 
 
 At thoughts of care assembUng? 
 
 'Tis a pleasing sorrow 
 
 That her yoimg heart moves, 
 She will meet tomorrow 
 
 With the One she loves. 
 She thinks how brief the meeting, 
 How stolen, and how fleeting. 
 
 Sadly, in life's sequel. 
 
 Thou those hours shalt trace ; 
 Life has nought to equal 
 
 That passionate embrace. 
 Thou hast earth's one blessing. 
 Loving and possessing. 
 
 Bright hours are always, and, from their nature, must be, 
 
 brief. It is the law of their very intensity, for the mind 
 
 would faint before a sustained rapture, as under a prolonged 
 
 agony. In this case — 
 
 " How soon that day of splendoiir was o'ercast, 
 That bright brief day, too beautiful to last." 
 
 It was not possible that an event such as this should escape 
 notice and comment. At any other time it would have been 
 discovered at once. Even at a season of lawlessness and 
 distrust, these constant passings to and fro, this tender com- 
 merce between two beings so remarkable, and, each of 
 them, so attractive, drew attention, and led to reports and 
 whispered remarks. They indeed were too happy to regard
 
 unglit but their own perfect joy. But tlicre was one wlio 
 unseen and unsuspected, watclied tlieni from afar, listening, 
 inquiring, weigliing, spying, with a foot that never grew 
 Aveary in the pursuit, and a spirit that never flagged. This 
 was the aged Priest of " Eowe's Green." 
 
 Those Avho mingle with the crowd, and learn in the world 
 that bitter experience, which is so dearly bought, and is 
 hardly worth the cost, seem often to be made by external 
 circiimstances, while in reality they only Avork out their own 
 natural bent. They find evil, and are led to it. They meet 
 with good, and claim kindred Avith it. They appear to be 
 moulded by outward things, Avhile they obey the iuAvard 
 inclination, — the innate tendency, which guides them in- 
 stinctively to cleave to that Avhich they resemble, and Avhich 
 links like to like. It Avas so Avith the gloomy ascetic, whose 
 gaze, like, the pursiiit of a Greek Fate, rested upon Captain 
 RoAve, and his bride. There Avas no personal hostility in 
 Avhat he did. lie had outlived the feeling, if it CA^er existed, 
 lie coidd neither loA'e nor hate. But he Avas more terrible 
 in this indifl'ercnce. Some men Avear a smile to hide dark 
 thoughts beneath. But he had nothing beloAv to conceal. 
 His heart Avas not mox'e impassiA'e than his look. No 
 emotion ruffled the one, or animated, or Avruug, the other. 
 He did A\diat he deemed his duty. He would have done it 
 at the stake. He did it, Avhen it involved the certain misery, 
 and ruin, of those Avho had Avrought him no Avrong. He had 
 in the Avorld seen Avhat others thought good, and evil, but he 
 never regarded them in that light. He thought of them, 
 simply, as they affected the cause he had at heart. In
 
 advancing that, he employed all means alike. He had no 
 feeling for the beauty of an action, nor for its hideousness. 
 He had no preference, in the abstract, for either. In his 
 eyes, the slightest attention, paid to such a choice, Avould 
 be a romantic dream. When the interests of his religion 
 dictated to him a temperate and gentle course, such an one 
 did he follow; not because he took any pleasure in mei"cy, 
 or in kindness, for these to him were mere words, but for 
 the sake of the great cause. ^Vlien he felt called upon, 
 for the same reason, to strike and slay, his blow was death ; 
 not that he was merciless, but simply that he was impassible. 
 Such as he was, he came across the path of Captain Rowe 
 and his bride. His errand was to destroy. And well did 
 he fulfil it. "Well did he work it out. 
 
 Probably Mr. Rowe, who had ceased to hold commiuiion 
 with any of his fellow men, Avould have remained to the last 
 ignorant of what had occuiTed. But, to the Priest, intrigue 
 Avas the breath of life. In gathering up the threads of a plot, 
 and in detecting its clue, his skill was never exerted in vain. 
 A hint, a word, a look, were sufficient to teach him all. 
 Nor were these wanting now. The visits of the heir of a 
 Catholic house, to a family both Protestant and Republican, 
 had a significance striking enough for any one, and little 
 likely to escape the eye of a veteran spy, and that spy a 
 Priest. He lost no tune in inquiring; and the result of his 
 dark and tortuous steps was arrived at siu'ely and fatally. 
 While no human being even suspected the truth, he kncAV 
 And he j)repared to act vipon what he knew, not 
 pirit of rancour nor of hostility, but to improve an
 
 I 
 
 RAMBLES IN DEVONSHIRE. 123 
 
 occurrence, at first sight of sucli evil promise, to liis own 
 profit, as it was connected witli the profit of liis Church. 
 
 One summer morning, when a veil of sunHght trembled 
 over the broad woods of Sandridge, rising and falling along 
 the bosom of the Dart, Captain Eowe was unloosing his boat, 
 and meditating upon his own strange position. As he arose 
 from his stooping position, a hand was laid hghtly upon his 
 shoulder. He turned around, and saw before him, face to 
 face, the aged Priest. 
 
 Perhaps he could scarcely have had a more unwelcome 
 visiter. His naval education, his habits of command, his 
 experience among men, rendered him impatient of that kind 
 of control and tutelage, which his father's spiritual adviser 
 thought fit also to impose upon him. He had, on more than 
 one occasion, repelled it haughtily. Less than ever was he 
 inclined to endure it now. 
 
 " My son," said the old man, " it is not often that I 
 venture so far from home, but, if you will permit me, I will 
 accompany you on your trip." 
 
 And, without waiting for a reply, he stepped into the skiff 
 and took his seat. 
 
 Captain Eowe boAved gravely, and cast off from the shore. 
 They floated doAvn the stream silently. It was a singular 
 and ill assorted companionship, that bold and gallant j^outh, 
 with that cold and ancient recluse. They crossed Dittisham 
 Pool, and were under the shadow of Grcenawaj-. As they 
 rounded the point below the house, a beautifid girl came to 
 the edge of the landing-place. It Avas the bride of the young 
 sailor. She saAv that he Avas not alone, and turned awa}'. 
 But she AA'as not unseen.
 
 " My eyes are waxing dim," said the Priest, " but is not 
 that young lady she Avhoui the heretics of these parts call 
 the ' Rose of Greenaway ? ' " 
 
 Captain Rowe looked his questioner sternly in the face. 
 His features, however, were of marble. He went on without 
 waiting for a reply. 
 
 " Whom you, my Son, saved from abduction ? " 
 
 Captain Rowe made no answer. 
 
 " "Wliom you visit so frequently; to whom, it is even 
 said, you have been clandestinely married, tliough that 
 cannot be ? " 
 
 Captain Rowe bit his lip so violently, that the blood 
 trickled down his chin. The Priest knew it, though he 
 never looked in that direction. There was no answer still. 
 
 " INIy Son," said the old man, as gently and as calmly, as 
 though every word he uttered did not fall on tlie heart of 
 his hearer like drops of molten lead, " my Son, it cannot be. 
 There can be no marriage, unblest by the Church. There 
 can be none between a believer and a heretic. Between two 
 children of the same holy faith it were easy, and conceal- 
 ment would be idle. Doubtless you remember your birth 
 and your creed. Therefore I say, it cannot be." 
 
 A cold spasmodic agony ran through Captain Rowe's 
 frame. His teeth met through his lip. But he had all his 
 father's terrible energy. He sjDake not one word. 
 
 " If it be so, my Son," continued the Priest, " if, unhappily, 
 you have taken this false and hasty step, still it is not irre- 
 parable. The blessing of my office need not be withheld 
 from those Avho seek it. Perhaps you may hope to bring 
 into the true fold a stray lamb. If so, you do well. Ponder
 
 on my words, my Son, ami let vis now return. The son of 
 my dear friend well knows what is due to his name, his 
 honour, and his faith." 
 
 So ended the conference. No other syllable was uttered. 
 The Priest went back, under shelter of the woods, to " Rowe's 
 Green." The yoiuig sailor, burning Avith passion, hurried 
 to his bride, to recount what had passed, and to ti-y and 
 stifle, in her bosom, and in his own, the presentiment of evil, 
 ncAvly and fatally awakened there. 
 
 A Aveek had passed hj, a week of suspense and anguish, 
 Avhen the Priest appeared again tipon the scene. He went 
 at once to Greenaway, and saAV its fair young mistress, for 
 her father, Avho miglit have counselled and protected her, 
 was no more. He glided into her presence, gave a qirick 
 keen glance at her figui'e, and sat doAvn unbidden. She 
 kncAv him instinctively. The Avoman yvas armed in her at 
 once. She felt near her the presence of something evil, of 
 something hostile to her, and deadly. The gift of her sex 
 seemed, at the moment, preternaturally quickened in her. 
 She saAV the spirit of the temj)ter in the subtle, sidelong 
 glance, that never met her oAvn. 
 
 " You do not knoAV me, my Daughter," said he Avith a Ioav 
 voice, and a bland smile, " biit you AviU pardon my intrusion, 
 since I come from the home of your husband." 
 
 Prepared as she Avas for discovery, she coiild not repress 
 a start at his Avords. lint he did not seem to remark it. 
 
 " His Avelfare, and yours, my child, arc too dear to me, 
 and (he soul at stake is too precious, to permit any restraints 
 of ceremony, or of delicacy, to stand in the Avay of duty. 
 Captain lioAve is a sincere Catholic. He neither could, nor
 
 ■would, -wed one avIio was not also a member of the true 
 Churcli." 
 
 For a moment, lier self-possession was about to desert lier. 
 The words " I am a Protestant " were trembling upon her 
 lips. For a brief instant, also, her physical firmness gave 
 way. Her bearing was as calm, and her look as assvired, as 
 that of the Priest. But her courage was mere outward 
 seeming. Like all women, she forced herself, and was brave 
 against her bent ; while she felt that inclination common to 
 all Avomen, — the strain and tension over, — to follow her 
 natural tendency, and relieve herself by a burst of hysterical 
 tears. But she kept down the rising sob : she restrained the 
 avowal. And when she spoke it was as prudently, and with 
 a manner as resolute, as could be hoped. Indeed, consider- 
 ing the parties in that unequal contest, it was wonderful to 
 see a timid girl, foihng, with his own weapons, and -with 
 superior skill and wit, that deep hoary dissembler. 
 
 " Sir," she replied " you are a stranger to this house, and 
 to me. I do not know what right you have to question me 
 about matters which are not in yoiu- province, and which 
 are only between me and my God. I will take counsel with 
 those in whom I can trust. In the mean time, Sir, permit 
 me to withdraw." 
 
 She left the Priest discomfited, but not subdtied. That 
 night Mr. Eowe also heard all. The next morning his son 
 was summoned into his presence. Then commenced the 
 tragedy. 
 
 None were in the room, when the father and the son met 
 in that last awful intendew, save those two only, and the 
 Priest. None, save the actors in the scene, and One above.
 
 knew what passed. High angry voices penetrated even into 
 the adjoining apartments. Tlien, on a sudden, there Avas a 
 sound as of a dead heavy fall, and there followed an awful 
 silence, endimng long, and unbroken by a single murmur. 
 Nothing further was known. All that Avas certain seemed 
 to be that CajDtain EoAve was never seen again. Men Avere 
 ignorant Avhether he left the place alive, or no. He was met 
 or beheld by none. Nor was anything said of his disappear- 
 ance. He must have been a bold man who questioned the 
 stern proud father. He Avould have been one more than 
 Imnian, to have extracted aught of the secret from that dark 
 Priest. 
 
 Many Aveeks Avent by. The situation of the unhappy lady 
 of Greenaway could no longer be concealed. The anticipated 
 anguish of the mother Avas added to the sorroAV of the 
 bereaved Avife. And again the Priest sought her. He found 
 her in no mood for resistance. She had lost the A'cry power. 
 And Avhen, in soft kind tones, he saluted her by a name so 
 dear to her, — by the name of her husband, — even as though 
 it were her right, she gave up at once. He came to her 
 Avith the most plausible message, on the part of her father- 
 in-laAV, and of her husband, Avho, he said, Avas absent, on 
 protracted and unavoidable business ; but he entreated her 
 to repair with him to " Rowe's Green," and to remain there 
 till his return. In an ca^I hour, and in the absence of all 
 friendly aid, she sadly and reluctantly complied. 
 f She became an inmate of that solitary dwelling, buried in 
 
 its lonely Avoods, and not, like her own home, bright Avith 
 sunshine, and echoing to the murmurs of the SAveet Dart. 
 She Avas attended, Avith all formal respect, by servitors as
 
 gloomy as the mansion. Her husband never returned. She 
 never saw liis father. The Priest brought to her frequent 
 messages from botli, but, save for his visits, she remained 
 utterly alone. But she did not feel this acutely. She had 
 lost the sense of feeling. The time of her becoming a mother 
 drew near, but she scarcely marked it. Her indiiference 
 became torpor. She was stupified into endurance. The 
 time of her becoming a mother approached — was come — 
 was gone. And she was gone too. And the infant, also, 
 born, or unborn, departed with her. She died, it was said, 
 in the true faith. And so closed the scene. The gallant 
 heir, and the fair bride, and the young hope of both, passed 
 away as suddenly, and as mysteriously, as a dream of the 
 night. Li those troubled times, few inquiries were made 
 into such events. The dead seemed to have departed, and 
 there were only left at " Eowe's Green" a stern old man, and a 
 ghostly adviser not less stern, and a rumoiir of some terriljle 
 event, felt, rather than whispered or surmised. 
 
 He seemed alone, that old man, but Avho can tell Avhat 
 images peopled his solitude, or what forms were ever by 
 his side? He himself was silent. But others were less im- 
 passible. Reports were circulated of strange noises heard 
 in the house, of figures seen gliding about, of muttered 
 meanings coming suddenly on the sense. The servants 
 feared to go on their duties, save in pairs. Into one room, 
 the room which had Avitnessed the lady's death, they never 
 ventiu'ed. It was arranged after that event, and then 
 securely closed. It was situated over the library, in Avhich 
 Mr. RoAve alAA^ays sate. And it Ava* said that steps AA^ere 
 often heard, pacing to and fro, and Ioav sounds, and the
 
 RAMBLES IN DEVOKSHIRE. 
 
 129 
 
 wailing, as of a cliild. But, if sucli things Avere, Mr. Rowe 
 perceived them not. He was the only person Avho appeared 
 unconscious of the doom impending oA'er his roof. Others 
 trembled but he gave no sign, He might have been sensible 
 of that haunted atmosphere. He might haA'e heard the 
 footsteps of the avenger following him. But he showed no 
 sense of its presence, nor any of fear. Of that oj^pressed 
 and stricken household, he only was silent and unmoved. 
 
 After a considerable lapse of time, the establishment Avas 
 surprised to receive orders to prepare for the reception of a 
 visiter. Nor was their astonishment diminished, when the 
 chamber of death, so long and so mysteriously closed, Avas 
 announced as the one selected for him. The ncAV comer 
 was a young man, bearing the family name, and also, by 
 blood, the next heir to the property. None kncAV Avhy he 
 Avas invited, nor Avhy he came. On the CA'cning of the 
 second day from that on Avhich the commands Avere issued, 
 he appeared at the outer gates, Avas speedily admitted, and 
 rode up to the house, attended by a single follower. 
 
 William RoAve, for such Avas his name, Avas not yet of 
 middle age, and bore a strong resemblance to the Captain, 
 being indeed his cousin. He was simply yet handsomely 
 dressed, and looked like one to whom dangers Avere not 
 unknoAvn. As he paused for a moment before the porch, he 
 took a steady survey of the AA'hole building, noting all that 
 met his eye, as though some interest Avas attached to the 
 grey pile. With a graA'c sad air, he dismounted sloAvly, 
 thrcAV his rein to the groom, and entered the hall. There 
 the household Avas draAvn up to meet him. He paused once 
 more, and gazed anxiously around. As he did so, the Priest
 
 130 EAMBLES IN DEVOXSIIIKE. 
 
 came forward to welcome him. The manner of William 
 Rowe instantly changed. He retiu-ned the greeting in the 
 coldest and stateliest manner, and was led forAvard, without 
 further delay, into the f)rescnce of his kinsman. 
 
 Mr. Rowe received him with formal kindness. They 
 conversed much together, but on indifferent subjects. There 
 was one, near to the hearts of both, but neither touched on 
 it. At last, at an early horu" the guest, pleading fatigue, 
 begged permission to withdraw. Mr. Rowe himself escorted 
 his nephew to his chamber. When he did so, it was remarked 
 that he was deadly pale, though as composed as ever. On 
 entering the room, probably for the first time since Death 
 had been busy there, he turned to his young companion, and 
 made a courteous apology for the faded appearance of the 
 furniture, for which he accounted by adding that it had 
 been long unused. He then, after a moment's silence, bade 
 his visiter good night, and retired, having summoned the 
 Priest to attend him in the Library below. As soon as he 
 had departed, William Rowe also dismissed his sen-ant, and 
 remained in the gloomy chamber alone. He first looked to 
 his mails, which were lying open on the ground, and then 
 sui-veyed the apartment. He knew nothing of the history 
 forming an awful part of it. He Avas a perfect stranger to 
 its mysteries. Yet he felt an innate something, telhng him 
 that he was not alone. He seemed to have a dim company 
 beside him, of whose coming and going reason could give 
 no account. 
 
 And are we not overbold in our doctrine, when we assert 
 that such things cannot be? They, that are spirits, may be 
 nearer to us than we dream. As we sit by the solitary
 
 hearth, there often comes over us an unaccountable shutlJer, 
 and Ave glance round to discover the cause, which is invisible. 
 It may be that some one is nigh us, though we discern not 
 its ghostly presence. As we lie sleeping upon our beds, 
 perhaps we wake with a start, and with a cold deadly thrill. 
 How can we tell who is beside our couch? How do we 
 know but that some departed kindred of ours may be there, 
 and that the diviae essence, common to both, may hold a 
 communion, of Avhich our dim nature is only sensible in 
 part? These things are felt, but not seen. They are beyond 
 the province of reason, and are not amenable to its control. 
 We are more susceptible of them at particular times. Few 
 could be in William RoAve's place, and not give Avay to such 
 a weakness. He was a brave man, and a tried soldier, yet 
 there stole over him a sudden, and a not unmanly, aAve. 
 
 He sat by the fire of logs, that blazed and crackled in the 
 wide hearth. In spite of himself, dai-k and painful thoughts 
 came silently upon his mind, as though they were the heir- 
 loom of that antique chamber. He looked uneasily around. 
 The furniture was of oak, massive and gloomy, suited well 
 to the deep hangings of crimson velvet, and to the large 
 plumes of feathers, Avaving, as on a hearse, at the corners of 
 the great bed. The Avails Avere of napkin panncUing, Avithout 
 ornament of any kind, saA^e that, over the fireplace, the 
 AA'hole space betAA'een that and the ceiling Avas occupied by a 
 large Venetian mirror. There was a damp close smell in 
 the room, as though it had been long tinoccupied. Whether 
 the Avind gained admittance through some chink, or whether 
 some shadoAA'y influence really reigned arouiul, it seemed as 
 though, from time to time, a hand moved among the curtains,
 
 132 RAMBLES IN DEVONSIIIKE. 
 
 and a kind of mist passed before the surface of the glass. A 
 miu'mur of low voices, which were possibly those of Mr. 
 Eowe and of the Priest, in the Library beneath, rose from 
 vacancy, as it were, and kept time to the movements of the 
 unearthly dwellers in unseen space. Added to these in- 
 distinct and undefined apprehensions was the memory of 
 what had occurred within those precincts. William Rowe 
 had heard but little of those events, and that little had been 
 from the Priest, but there had been a rumour of unfair 
 dealings and of great and ill concealed crimes. Mystery, 
 darkness, the dull chamber, the physiognomy of the tAvo 
 stern inhabitants of that house, agreed well with a tale of 
 horrors, and gave it a local habitation, and a reality. It dwelt 
 upon the mind of William Eowe, until his firm nerves were 
 fairly shaken. He sprang to his feet, as though it were to 
 confront a foe. His action in doing so created a current of 
 air, that stirred the curtains, and he turned round, half 
 expecting to see some figure emerge from their sombre folds. 
 Ashamed of his fears, he threw off hastily his upper clothing, 
 lay do\\Ti upon the bed, and, having first commended his 
 soul to God, endeavoured to compose himself to sleep. 
 
 It was long ere he cou.ld succeed. There is a frame of 
 mind, and an utter weariness of body, — a feverish and a 
 burning lassitude, — incapable of quiet rest. So William 
 Rowe tossed restlessly upon his couch, now dozing for a 
 moment, then suddenly awakening, and listening to some 
 fancied voice, that seemed close by his ear. At last he sank 
 into a deep torpor. How long he remained buried in it he 
 could not tell, nor did he know Avhat roused him. It was 
 not the touch of a hand, nor Avas it a call, nor could he
 
 
 EAMBLES IN DEVONSHIRE. 
 
 ^sgj^j^ta.- «=lJ^--a^ 
 
 133 
 
 account for the power that brought his senses into instant 
 activity, lie "vvas only aware of a state of sudden con- 
 sciousness ; his brain strung Avith unnatural excitement ; his 
 faculties morbidly acute, and alive to the influences around. 
 He raised himself on his elboAV, and held his breath to see. 
 
 The fire had burnt out; the wax tapers Avere also ex- 
 tinguished; and there should have been entire darkness. 
 Yet it was not so. On the contrary, the room Avas full of 
 light, though it Avas such a light as he had never before 
 beheld. It Avas a blue, lambent, hazy stream of radiance, 
 not fixed, nor motionless, but trembling and flickering, and 
 inconstant. It seemed to proceed from the Avide hearth, 
 and to flash from it, at intervals, Avith an increasing glory. 
 The surface of the great mirror caught it and gave it back Avith 
 a bright reflection. It Avandered over the crimson hangings, 
 gilding their faded lustre, and then again leaving them a deeper 
 shade. There Avas more terror in that luminous apparition, 
 than in a host of foes. It might be the torch, held by a 
 band of ministering spirits, before the coming of some 
 Sovereign Presence of their oAvn. William EoAve lay, and 
 gazed, in a state approaching agony. His very soul and lil'e 
 seemed frozen in his look. 
 
 Suddenly a change came OA'er the scene. The large 
 mirror, Avhich faced the foot of the bed, grcAV intensely 
 bright. The chimney seemed Avliite with a ray of sparkling, 
 and spreading flame. Then, in a moment it parted asunder 
 like a veil. It left an open space beyond. The depth Avas 
 not vacant, but peopled Avith phantom life, for, as he looked, 
 moving forms Avere seen Avithin. They grew more distinct, 
 and more corporeal still. Then there stepped out, into the
 
 134: E.\3IBLE3 IX DEVOXSIIIRE. 
 
 cliamber a yovuig man, and a lady, pale, but of exquisite 
 beaiity, and bearing in lier arms a child. They came 
 forward to his bedside ; and there they stood, their eyes 
 riveted on his own. They stood, hand in hand, silent, and 
 wearing upon their brows an expression almost like a 
 •welcome, sweetly, yet sadly kind. Their lips did not move; 
 they made no gesture, nor any sign ; but after remaining, 
 for a few minutes, by the bedside, they turned away. With 
 their eyes still fixed on his they paced several times, slowly 
 and solemnly, across the room, and then re-entered the 
 chimney, and faded from his sight. All this while the pale 
 glory continued in its intensity, making every object horribly 
 distinct. At last the functions of life, that seemed suspended 
 for a time, returned with a start to "William EoAve. He 
 breathed a long-draAvn sigh. A shiver passed over liis 
 fi-ame. He was about to spring from the bed, and to leave 
 that fatal spot. 
 
 As he was rising for the purpose, he was arrested by 
 a voice from without. The door leading to the corridor was 
 violently thrown open, and Mr. Eowe entered, under the 
 impulse of some unusual excitement. With a wild look, and 
 hurried step, his grey hair streaming back from his forehead 
 and his whole manner almost frenzied, he came to the bedside. 
 He did not seem at first to be aware of the peculiar appear- 
 ance of the place, though the tajier in his hand grew dim in 
 the midst of that unearthly light. Then a sense of something 
 strange seemed to come over him. Yet, by a strong effort, 
 he mastered himself, and again came forward, demanding, 
 in stern but nearly inarticulate accents, Avho had been there, 
 and what heavy steps had just been pacing over his head.
 
 RAMBLES IN DEVONSHIRE. 
 
 Tlien, for the first time, even Avliile speakiug, liis attention 
 became drawn to tlie bright apparition, and his looks grew 
 fixed, and his features waxed livid as those of death. 
 "William Eowe obsem-ed his ghastly stare, and his eye 
 followed its dii'ection. It rested on the large mirror, over 
 the fireplace. There, in fidl relief, alive in death, burned in, 
 as it were, upon the very siu-face, horribly and unutterably 
 distinct, were the pair who had just visited him. The 
 similitude of life only made the hvery of the grave more 
 tiiithfid and more terrible. Their stony orbs glared on the 
 old man. But, after the first recognition, he was unconscious 
 of their presence. He was past mortal impressions, or 
 mortal fears. Terror had done its work on his enfeebled 
 frame. It was, however, so frozen by the shock, so petrified, 
 that it still stood ; the eyes dilated, the jaw dropped, held 
 erect by that palsy Avhich killed the sjjirit, while it hardened 
 the limbs- to stone. WiUiam Rowe turned and looked upon 
 him. As he did so, the light waned ; the power, that for a 
 time gave to the dead body a mockery of Ufe, ceased ; the 
 frame collapsed, and fell heavily across his knees. He could 
 bear the tension on his brain no longer. Flinging aside the 
 body, he sprang from the bed, and shouted wildly for lights, 
 and for aid. Both came, but both were equally vain, either 
 to clear \;p the mj-stery, or to restore the dead to life. The 
 oppressor, nnd the ojipressed, were gone alike to their account, 
 and William Kowe was the Lord of that doomed and dread in- 
 heritance. He left it at early daAvn, and, as soon as possible, 
 sold it, Avith its dark traditions, nor did he ever see it again. 
 
 About fifty years ago, a girl, sleeping in one of the old 
 rooms, saw two figures, such as I have described them,
 
 136 
 
 RAMBLES IN DEVONSHIRE. 
 
 come from the great chimney, and pace abont the chamber. 
 Wliat makes tliis coincidence the more remarkable is that 
 some persons below heard the steps, and came to learn the 
 canso. And nearly at the same time, a boy, playing with a 
 whip in the Oast house, or drying kiln, caught with the lash 
 the corner of a stone which fell doAvn. Behind it, in a deep 
 aperture, were the bones of an infant. It had no voice fur 
 its wi'ongs, nor echo, to whisper the secret of its fate. 
 Such is the legend of the Haunted House. 
 In how many shadowy and silent nooks, in how many old 
 recesses, are tales like these hidden from every eye, save 
 One ! Yet they are sometimes unveiled. A form appears 
 to us, or a vision sj^eaks, or a skeleton unfolds its message 
 from the charnel house. We catch a whisper from the 
 invisible world, and it guides our researches, and gives us a 
 clue to the tiaith. And for the existence, and occasional 
 occurrence of such things, there is scarcely room for doubt. 
 Rather let us be silent and suspend our judgment ; not 
 treating as fables, nor despising, the authenticated memorials 
 of these glimpses of another Avorld. Better were it to grieve 
 that such visits are so few, to yearn for their spiritual 
 ministry, to feel that their agency is divine, to say, in answer 
 to such messengers, and to such messages, as these : — 
 Oh ! tell me of that blessed sphere 
 
 ^Yliere pain and anguish cease ; 
 Where those, Avho walk in darkness here. 
 
 May find repose and peace. 
 Where bloom the flowers that smile at time. 
 
 The spring that never dies. 
 If thou hast known that happy clime, 
 
 Oh ! tell me Avhere it lies.
 
 BOUT tlie centre of tlie village of 
 Paignton, near the Chiircli, there 
 stands a small and lonely tower. A 
 fragment of a battlemented wall still clings 
 to it, and forms the bovmdary of a garden. 
 It is a mere riiin, clothed in ivy, full of 
 ominous fissures, and telling, apparently, its 
 tale of oblivion and decay. As if in con- 
 trast to it, some speculator has erected Avithin 
 a stone's throw, two staring terraces, in the true Cockney 
 Greek style, which, being untenanted, are, in their way, 
 as desolate and melancholy as their ancient neighbour. 
 It is quite a mystery how it came to be spared, when the 
 building, of which it formed a part, Avas destroyed. Yet
 
 j^ ■ -...- • ■ -■- targ^gna 
 
 138 RAMBLES IN DEVONSHIRE. 
 
 there it is, dignified and silent, attracting, now and then, 
 a look and a word of inquiry, and bearing still the im- 
 mistakeable impress of a noble origin, and of having, as 
 the phrase is, seen better days. 
 
 If only for one circumstance connected with it, Time 
 ought to lay its hand gently ujion that ruined relic, and man 
 shoi;ld spare it There is a natural tendency in the human 
 mind to reverence those spots, which have been hallowed by 
 the presence of the great and good. The Church of Rome 
 avails herself of this instinctive, this spiritual, kindred, to 
 attach sanctity to the scenes of other days, to the places 
 Avhere her Saints have prayed and laboixred, or her Martyrs 
 bled. She shoAvs, in thus acting, her usual skill, her pro- 
 found knowledge of the heart. It is hardly possible to 
 behold, unmoved, the abiding place of one who has, by his 
 deeds, dignified our mortal natui'e. It is stiU more difficult 
 to do so, when he, whom Ave remember, has been, as it 
 were, one of the pioneers of the Faith, making straight the 
 way of the Gospel. Even as Ave Jionour the dust and the 
 stones of Sion, so also do we feel deeply and solemnly, AA-hen 
 there comes back to us, in such a grey and quiet nook as 
 this, some memory of the men who, in the fiery days of the 
 axe and stake, taught our Fathers the truth, as it is in 
 the Lord Jesus, and shoAved them hoAV to live, and hoAv to 
 die. For the Protestant, such an aAvful, yet aifectionate, 
 thought should arise, at the sight of that stern and simple 
 toAver. It formed part of the Palace of the Bishops of 
 Exeter. It ceased to be inhabited at the Eeformation. Its 
 last tenant Avas that Prelate, AA'hose name, by an honour no 
 less distinguished than deserved, is indissolubly connected 
 
 ^4^
 
 witli that of the Bible. ]\Iany look upon that ruin, but few 
 know or say, " there lived Miles CovEnDALE." 
 
 Bright is yon bay, where Heaven's soft hue 
 Bends down, and robes the Avave Avith blue ; 
 Where, glowing like an Angel's eyes, 
 A restless, wandering, glory lies ; 
 Yet a dim Shade of deeper power 
 Broods o'er that grey and lonely tOAver. 
 
 It rises from the Past, and brings 
 
 A Spirit on its cloudy wings ; 
 
 It tells of Faith's great victory won ; 
 
 It tells of Faith's Immortal Son ; 
 
 Who, through man's scorn, and shame, and loss, 
 
 Bore the dear banner of the Cross. 
 
 No myrtles wreathed that old man's sword ; 
 No conquering thousands hailed him lord ; 
 To him no earthly croAvn Avas given ; 
 He only led his hosts to Heaven ; 
 His hand mweiled God's book, to be 
 The birthright of his memory. 
 
 Place for the mighty ! those Avho trod 
 First in the red array of God ; 
 Wliere axe and stake their tortures plied ; 
 "Wliere Martyrs and Confessors died ; 
 Place for the Warrior Saints ! Avhosc cry 
 Was first for God and Liberty.
 
 And, foremost of tlaat glorious tale, 
 Place for tlie name of Coverdale ! 
 'Twas lie wlio there abode ; 'twas he 
 "Who strove, to set the Scriptures free, 
 Wliile in that tower, beside the sea, 
 He walked with Christ of Galilee. 
 
 The name of Coverdale is from the North, and he came 
 from thence in common with many of his brethren. It 
 seemed as though the work of those days required, for its 
 successful accomplishment, men who were of a sterner 
 nature than their fellows. It Avas said that Latimer leant 
 on Cranmer, and Cranmer on Eidley, and Eidley on him- 
 self. He also was a Borderer, a Ridley of Willimondswick. 
 The father of Tyndale was exiled for some wdld feat, and 
 his sou, instead of his family name, took that of his paternal 
 title, he being Baron of Tynedale. Doubtless men of these 
 races were stout companions in field and foray, who said, 
 like the Douglas, — 
 
 " I thank the Virgin, son of mine, 
 Save Gawain, ne'er could pen a line." 
 
 Little recked they that all relating to them would be 
 forgotten, or only recalled from their connexion with the 
 peaceful Minister or Martyr. Little did the fierce Baron 
 of Tynedale think that his son was to be honoured as the 
 translator of the Bible, then sealed and forbidden. Coverdale, 
 Bishop of Exeter, was, in those days, no mean person. Yet 
 he is knoAvn to us, as Tyndale is known, only as one of those 
 who gave the Bible to Englishmen. Else he might be handed 
 do-\\Ti to posterity as a mere name, with an altar tomb, and 
 mitre, and vestment, bearing his crozier, in his Ei^iscopal
 
 RAMBLES IN DEVONSHIRE. 
 
 141 
 
 Cathedral. He is no unit, in the pomp of an Ecclesiastical 
 bead-i'oll. All that remains of his dwelling is that little 
 watchtower. All that is left of himself is a mutilated shield 
 of painted glass, in the north aisle of Paignton Church, on 
 Avhich his arms are scarcely visible. But he has a nobler 
 monument than a recumbent figure in alb and cope ; a more 
 illustrious blazonry than yonder fragment of gules and or ; 
 a worthier record than the smooth falsehood of an epitaph. 
 His memory is associated with the Bible, on yonder desk. 
 It is Avorth a hundred tombs. It is better than any eulogium, 
 graven on marble, for it is the truth. 
 
 The situation of Paignton is very charming, and not 
 unlike that of Penzance. But the capital of pilchards has 
 one advantage over its rival, for Torbay, magnificent though 
 it be, has no " St. Michael's Mount." Still it is exceed- 
 ingly lovely, and Lies within its little semicircle of hills, 
 looking modestly at Torquay, as if wondering at that Queen 
 of upstarts. It has a kind of winning way, that grows on 
 you, you hardly know why, for it is best described by 
 negatives. It is not fashionable, nor showy, nor cheap, nor 
 has it good shops, except for cakes and pastry, nor does it 
 seem to be peopled by scarcely any but females. But still it 
 is a place that most people like. And if I were asked to point 
 out one spot more beautiful than another, one house more 
 exqiiisitely situated than another, one thoroughly English 
 home-view in which were combined sea and land, and all 
 that was fairest in each, I should certainly stake my repu- 
 tation for taste on the decision, and give the palm to 
 " Prdiley Hill." 
 
 The Church is a fine old structure, with some good
 
 perpendicular windows, and a splendid pnlpit. But it is 
 disfigiu-ed by the usual system of mixed pews, by tlie 
 debased style of some of tlie windows, and by the general 
 alterations made in it, from time to time, at a period when 
 Ecclesiastical architecture was at a very low ebb. This, 
 however, can now no longer be said. The revival of a 
 purer taste is only the outward manifestation of a deeper 
 and a holier feehng. The care taken of our sacred edifices 
 proceeds from a reverence for the religion, of which they 
 are the visible home. The awakening of the inward mind 
 finds a language, and an expression, in the outward sense. 
 It cannot understand a comprehension of the Divine and the 
 Beautiful, which remains content Avith a state of things, in 
 God's Sanctuary, hardly to be described in fitting words. It 
 is rather apt to contrast the " cedar and vermilion," of old 
 times, Avith the whitewash and the deal of these. 
 
 There is, in Paignton Church, a mortuary Chapel, or 
 transept, which gives us an example of what has been, and 
 of what, we hope, yet may be. The monuments are those of 
 the Parker family. The Chapel, I believe, is attached to 
 an estate called Collaton Kirkham, which has lately become, 
 by purchase, the property of a Clergyman in the neighbour- 
 hood. The tombs, separated from the aisle by a carved 
 screen of exquisite beauty, are in a very florid style, of late 
 date, but extremely delicate and elaborate. Two beautiful 
 windows have been plastered up by the piety of the 
 Puritans ; and I was told that the bosses of the crockets and 
 finials were, once upon a time, knocked off by the sexton, 
 and sold to cooks and housemaids, to use in polishing their 
 pots and pans.
 
 RAMBLES IN DEVONSHIKE. 
 
 143 
 
 Fortunately, this fine relic of antiquity lias fallen into 
 good hands. I understand that it is to be perfectly restored, 
 the Avindows opened, and the deal pews exchanged for 
 can'ed oaken seats, at the sole expense of the munificent 
 proprietor. 
 
 There are, in Paignton, many, very many, friends of the 
 Church. They will hardly, I trust, see the perfect reparation 
 of the Pai'ker Chapel, without a Avish to follow the example 
 so liberally set. It would not require a large sum, to make 
 their Church what it has been, and ought to be ; for a 
 Protestant place of worship is aiot, necessarily, devoid of all 
 decent ornament, nor is the perfection of God's temple the 
 nearest possible approach to a meeting-house. "We ai'e, 
 indeed, ha^^pily arrived at a time, when whitewash and 
 Protestantism are no longer synonymous. I hope the 
 restoration of the Avhole fabric to its pristine beauty will be 
 the result of its partial decoration. This is the age of 
 testimonials. Every body gets one, except those who really 
 deserve it, like Dargan. But in the reparation of this fine 
 old place of Avorship there Avould really be a deep significance. 
 It AA'ould, I think, be an offering to Avhich none could object; 
 for, Avhen it AA'as completed, these Avords might be added : — 
 
 En I)onour of 
 
 33isI)op of Exeter 
 
 llntJ translator of tf)e %Me, 
 
 a®f;o tltoclt in tfjis parisi) 
 
 '3n"t( li)orsI)ippcti toitfjin tijcsc toalls, 
 
 aSRalking J;umblr) toitf) Ijis GoU.
 
 'J^^ 
 
 I was once looking at tlie site of an ancient Church, some 
 of the arches of which were lying scattered around ; and I 
 expressed, to a bystander, my sorrow at the wanton des- 
 truction of such a place. " It Avas a pity," said I, " that a 
 building like this should have been throAvn do\Aai." " Well 
 Sir," quoth the worthy man, " I suppose there was no harm 
 in the walls, though it was a Roman Church." I gazed in 
 silence at some fragments of carved work, lying at my feet, 
 and indeed I thou.ght so too. 

 
 €ntne.0. 
 
 SHORT time since, there was picked 
 iijT, in tins neigliboiirliood, a little silver 
 coin, or token. It bore a shield, thus 
 emblazoned, " Sable, on a chevron en- 
 grailed, argent, three escallop shells, 
 proper," with the inscription, — " Mary 
 Farwell,^ of Toctones, 1658." 
 That is all its history. One of the family, whose name is 
 connected with it, was Mayor of Totnes, and went to Brix- 
 ham, when Dutch William paid us that friendly visit, which 
 lasted so long, that we never got rid of him. The Corporate 
 officers of the old town sallied forth, in state, to welcome the 
 Stadtholder, as he rode down the hill to Bridgetown Pomeroy. 
 Considering that he professed to come on a pacific errand, 
 he travelled with rather a numerous establishment. The 
 civic dignitary met with a gracious reception, and greeted 
 the grim dispenser of compliments with woi'ds of welcome, 
 probably as sincere as his own. 
 
 It is not known who the Lady was, handed down to pos- 
 terity upon this little coin, nor are her arms the same as 
 those borne by the Farwells now, which are, " Sable, a 
 chevron engrailed, argent, between three escallop shells, 
 proper." Prol)ably the charge was so altered for a difference.
 
 146 RAMBLES IN DEVONSHIRE, 
 
 as the family is of considerable antiquity, and was extant, in 
 Yorkshire, temp. Edw. I., A.D. 1270. It came from thence 
 into Somersetshire, where it must have been powerful, as its 
 head married the daughter of Seymour, of Berry Pomeroy. 
 The date is one of interest, for it tells of a year when the 
 power of CromAvell was passing away, and the sword falling 
 from his mighty hand. It tells of a period unhappy, but 
 not inglorioiis ; of a policy, illegal indeed at home, and 
 arbitrary, but full of majesty and of patriotism abroad. 
 This little stray piece of silver is, as it were, a cenotaph of 
 that solemn time, and of one who played her part in it. 
 
 Sparkling on the haunted moor, 
 Lay a coin, defaced and broken ; 
 
 Many an age had wandered o'er 
 That slight and silent token, 
 
 Many an age had passed aAvay, 
 
 "Wliere that lonely "witness lay. 
 
 It was fashioned on a die 
 
 Wrought in England's evil hour, 
 
 When the grim Protector's eye 
 Veiled its awful power. 
 
 When, in death, the Conqueror's eye 
 
 Veiled its glance of victory. 
 
 Dweller on the desert wold, 
 
 Long and painful vigil keeping, 
 Has it not a tale of old. 
 
 Treasured in its sleeping ?
 
 RAMBLES IN DEVONSHIRE. 
 
 Has its waking noiTglit to yield, 
 Save a name, a date, a shield ? 
 
 Like a mummy in its cave ; 
 
 Like a skeleton, whose story 
 Lives but in its shattered glaive 
 
 On a field of glory ; 
 Thus, to all who think and feel. 
 Comes that lingerer's mute appeal. 
 
 Gone is she, whose lineage fair 
 Lives in that armorial bearing ; 
 
 Gone is he, who placed it there, 
 One oblivion sharing ; 
 
 Only^ on the vacant plains. 
 
 Still and pale, that sign remains. 
 
 'Tis a type of mortal doom ; 
 
 'Tis to us a symbol given ; 
 As the cypress, from a tomb, 
 
 Pointeth wp to Heaven, 
 So that sleeper, on its sod, 
 Leads us from the Past to God. 
 
 So the sky, o'er it, and us. 
 
 Like our great hereafter bendeth. 
 On and on, we journey thus, 
 
 Till our warfare endeth, 
 Till, as now, some gem alone. 
 Tells that we, and they, are gone !
 
 Totnes is beautifully placed, ou the Dart, amid \^ooded 
 liills, that so encircle it, as to make it appear low, which it 
 by no means is. On the contrary, its principal street, after 
 crossing the bridge, rises for a considerable distance, until 
 the steep ascent is crowned by the ancient Norman heep. 
 The Church has a fine roodscreen and pulpit. It is a 
 singular thing that, in Devonshire, roodscreens are more 
 numerous, and are finer, than in any other part of England 
 with which I am acquainted ; Avliile it is Avell known that 
 the principles of the Keformation were welcomed, and ^veve 
 carried out here, more Avarmly than elsewhere. Near the 
 Church is the Guildhall. Well would it be for the place if 
 it were at the bottom of Torbay, could it only convey with it 
 the feelings of gall and bitterness, engendered by the genius 
 of the spot. Probably the strife of politics is sterner, and 
 more incessant, in Totnes, than in any other town. The 
 very Peace Conference, in JNIanchester, does not quarrel half 
 so much. The stream of water down the street was made a 
 badge of faction ; and, no doubt, washing Avas considered 
 a sign of party. I verily believe that if baths and wash- 
 houses were built for the poor, by some one who liked 
 clean linen, a placard would immediately come out, headed, 
 " Citizens, beware ! " And all freemen and electors, and 
 especially the great unkempt, would be put on their guard 
 against the dangers attendant on an unusual supj^ly of soap. 
 
 Small country places, like gi'eat ones, have their alter- 
 nations of good, and of adverse, fortune, contingent ou a 
 concurrence of circumstances, as luiexpected, as the events 
 to which they give rise. Alexander founded the city of 
 Alexandria in Egypt, seeing, with a keen projDlietic glance.
 
 its futiu'e importance, as the emporium of Eastern and 
 Westeni commerce.* The discovery of the Cape of Good 
 Hope for a time diverted the course of traffic, from the 
 channel he had foreshadowed. But later ages justified his 
 anticipations. India once more pours her wealth through 
 the outlet, marked out for it by that great statesman and 
 conqueror, and the judgment of two thousand years has 
 ratified the wisdom of his choice. Here and there, the scale 
 may differ, but in how many places are these variations of 
 rise, or of decadence, to be seen ! It has been so, in its 
 modest way, with Totnes. 
 
 At the beginning of the present century, a few fishermen 
 dwelt in the sheltered cove, beyond Torre Abbey, where was 
 the quay, or landing-place, for the neighbouring cluster of 
 houses, called Tor. And there, with its thirteen thousand 
 inhabitants, all stucco and malachite, is Torquay. It is so 
 in many parts of this southern coast. A Doctor, or a Grand 
 Duchess, or some one equally followed, and equally fallible, 
 takes a fancy to a place, and sets up the standard of physic, 
 or of fashion, and peojile cry out " Eureka," and a new 
 fountain of health is j^jroclaimed. And this goes on for some 
 years, till the ruling Esculapius has a few desperate cases 
 sent down to him, by a jealous London Sangrado ; or the 
 confidential maid of a great lady quarrels with some local 
 celebrity, and forthwith the place gets a bad name, and Jews 
 and speculators are ruined, and leave it, and some other idol 
 is worshipped in its stead. 
 
 * Yet how entirely was his genius at fault, in founding the Parapo- 
 misan Alexandria. How limited was tlie range of vision here, which 
 elsewhere pierced into futurity !
 
 KAJIBLES IN DEVONSHIRE. 
 
 Now causes like these worked, in the course of years, the 
 overthrow of Totnes, Its position on the tidal river, Dart, 
 made it always a place of some consequence ; but when it 
 attained to civic stature, it stood still, with its Mayor and 
 Corporation, and never grew an inch. Then came these 
 parvenu rivals on the coast, and it dwindled still more, imtil 
 a vessel, laden with culm or coal, formed all its traffic. At 
 last, in 1830, the mind of the country received that great 
 impulse, which has created a social revolution. The steam 
 engine began its Avork. A railroad Avas completed between 
 Loudon and Plymouth ; and Totnes became an important 
 station, connectmg Dartmouth, and the Avhole of its coast 
 line, by the Dart, with Town. So it is decidedly looking up, 
 and showing its vitality by municipal tom-naments on a 
 grander scale, and by omnibuses running to, and from, the 
 railroad, and by whole harvests of placards. 
 
 Yet the neighbourhood, if less pacific than could be 
 wished, is very lovely. Look at the place, on a simimer 
 evening, from Weston House, and where will you show a 
 brighter scene? It floats, in sunshine and in shadow, like 
 a dissolving view : river and houses, bold upland, and rich 
 woods, being massed together, and forming an artificial fore- 
 ground, set, in a confused and broken majesty, against 
 Dartmoor. Sometimes the distant hills have a violet hue, 
 such as rests purpling on the Apennines, in the few moments 
 that precede an Itahan sunset. Sometimes the atmosphere 
 has a transparency, almost resembling that of the bright 
 South. And, ever and anon, a stillness, and an imutterable 
 calm, seems to come down upon the Avide expanse, softening 
 the mind Avith the religion A\diich Nature teaches, and leading
 
 it, entranced witli Avliat it sees, to Him Avho made earth so 
 fair. 
 
 Shadow of the Beautiful ! 
 
 Spirit, pure and bright ! 
 Streaming from a fountain, full 
 
 Of a golden light. 
 Flashed from angels' pinions nigh, 
 
 Caught from angels' shells, 
 When the song of lauds on high 
 
 Ever, ever, swells ! 
 
 Wliere the sense of beauty speaks 
 
 With a conscious sigh ; 
 Wliere the gift of beauty seeks 
 
 For a kindred eye ; 
 There thoii smilest from above, 
 
 From a source divine, 
 Breathing of a fount of love, 
 
 Holier, far, than thine. 
 
 Thou art where the sunbeam floats, 
 
 Thou art in the shade, 
 Whispering in the wild birds' notes, 
 
 Wandering in the glade; 
 Angel of the Beautiful, 
 
 Wliither dost thou come? 
 Teach us all thy lore to cull, 
 
 Tell lis of thy home !
 
 152 
 
 RAMBLES IN DEVONSHIRE. 
 
 Eising from tliy throne on earth, 
 
 Spread thy wings abroad ; 
 Show our faith thy pUxce of birtli, 
 
 Lead our hearts to God. 
 Like the moonhght at its full, 
 
 Like the smile of even, 
 All thou hast of Beautiful, 
 
 Spirit, is from Heaven ! 
 
 So farewell to the old Town, with all its present charms, 
 and with all the associations of its Past. I could fancy no 
 more pleasant resting-place, as an Lm, than the " Seymour 
 Arms," separated from the bustle of business by the Dart, 
 along which its pretty gardens tempt you to a stroll. Centu- 
 ries are brooding over that teeming and romantic slope, and 
 might furnish forth, to the mind's eye, images the most 
 strange, and the most incongruous. "VVliat a singular result 
 would be obtained, were we to mingle together, on the stage, 
 scenes that passed, on this spot, at different and remote 
 periods 
 
 Let us imagine the Conquest effected, the ancient realm 
 of England lying, Avith dead Harold, on his last of fields, 
 and the land portioned out among the spoilers. Let us 
 imao-ine the narrow road along that ascent, covered with 
 clusters of conical huts ; showdng, at intei-vals, the dwelling 
 of a franklin, thatched with straw, and composed of one 
 story only, with a court yard of low wooden sheds, for the 
 cattle, and for the thralls, and villeins, who tended them. 
 Suddenly the note of a clarion comes ringing out, nearer,
 
 RAMBLES IN DEVONSHIRE. 
 
 and yet more near. Then spear-lieads flash in the sun, and 
 a swallow-tailed j^ennon is seen floating on high, and a gallant 
 plump of speai's issues from the bank opposite, and mounts 
 the hill. At its head rides a stalwart figure, in chain mail, 
 wearing one of those flat helmets, like a beehive reversed, 
 made familiar to us in pictures of the Templars. It is the 
 stern old Knight, Messire Judhael, now, by the grace of 
 the intrusive King, Baron de Toctones. An estpiire bears 
 his lance, and shield, and by his side is the bloody sword of 
 ITastings. Only annihilate eight centuries. Picture that 
 gallant company, flushed with victory, and looking with 
 scorn upon the cowed and vanquished loiterers around. As 
 it rides along, it reaches the hollow yonder, where there is 
 a roadside hut. A Saxon is standing tliere in his tight 
 garments, and peaked cap, and, over all, a rude sheepskin 
 cloak. Fancy his advancing into the road, laying his hand 
 on the bridle of the proud Norman, and demanding a penny, 
 as toll. The house you see is a tollgate, under the shadow 
 of the great Keep. That is the contrast between the morrow 
 after Hastings, and our prosaic to-day.
 
 =rfW=,-=^g^^2r^?=^ 
 
 ^-^^r- 
 
 Jlmiab iif tlje ]km\). 
 
 HE pai'ocliial registers of Stoke Gal)ricl are, in 
 two respects, very remarkable. They com- 
 mence at a date unusually early ; and tliey 
 arc continued, in an luibroken succession, to the 
 present day. 
 
 "\Mien thoy were begun, Bayard, the knight, 
 " Avithout fear and without reproach," was still 
 living ; vows of chivalry were made ; and the 
 glories of the listed field had not yet passed away. 
 The memory of Surrey and of Geraldine, too, em- 
 balms those stormy days, and recalls the time of lais 
 and contes, of kingly minstrels, and of troubadours upon 
 whom Princesses smiled.
 
 I love to read of tlie days of old, 
 
 To hear of the kniglits of pi'ide, 
 "When they rode abroad, on the waste and wold. 
 
 With glory for a bride. 
 When the snowy plume, and the shield of gold, 
 
 In the joust went gaily by, 
 And the laggard, then, as he gazed, grew bold 
 
 In the Sun of Beauty's eye. 
 
 I love to read of the far Crusade, 
 
 When Christian warfare ceased, 
 Wlien his vow the lied Cross Pilgrim made 
 
 To bounc him for the East. 
 A sign on his brow, and a prayer in his heart, 
 
 And a word to his gallant train, 
 " Let the true and brave with their Lord depart, 
 
 And the churl and the slave remain." 
 
 Give me, oh ! give me, the souls that craved 
 
 The sway of a pure renown ; 
 When a conquering Cliief, by the realm he saved. 
 
 Was paid with a laurel croAvn. 
 Give me the Spirit of faith, and love, 
 
 Those saintly warriors bore ; 
 Let me look, like them, for the Cross aljove. 
 
 And live in the days of yore.
 
 There is a mclanclioly interest, attached to these quaint 
 old records of men who filled our places, ftnd Avho reasoned 
 of their forefathers, as we speculate about them. Some of 
 the entries are singular enough, 
 
 " The Vlth daye of Maje, 1558, 
 
 Phillipp the hegger had a child christened, named John." 
 
 " The Vlllth daye of I\Iayc, 
 
 John the hcgger's sonn Avas buried." 
 
 This reminds me of a similar entry at Paignton, Avhich a 
 
 friend mentioned to me the other day : — 
 
 " John the Coachman's son Avas baptised." 
 it being evident from this that one person only, in the place, 
 kept a servant of that kind. 
 Then again 
 
 " The 2Gth of Aprill, 1591, 
 Cherytye the begster* Avas buried." 
 " The second of April, 1591, 
 Adrian the Indian A\'as buried." 
 " The 30th of April, 1G23, 
 Young Yalentyne Pomeroye, Gent., Avas buried." 
 These Avere the Pomeroys of Sandridge, to Avhom there is 
 a monument in the aisle. 
 
 The next entry helps us to a deriA^ation : — 
 
 " 12th of July, 1G24, 
 John Ffull of Hoihvell had a child baptised JeflPery." 
 The place so Avritten is now corrupted into IIoavcH, or 
 Iloyle. 
 
 It is a protly little sjoring or stream, gushing oiit of a bank 
 in a romantic dell beneath a Avood. The orio-inal name Avas 
 
 * Baker.
 
 eitlier liocli weil, or lieilig weil, lioly fount, and prol)ably it 
 had a tradition or a marvel assigned to it, in other times. 
 Tliese aherations are sometimes odd enoiigli. At a place 
 called Risbury, near Leominster, there is a cavern dubbed 
 " Hell hole," the real orthography of -which Avas " heilige 
 hiihle," " Holy Cave." So, in this instance, all the poetry 
 of " Holy Fountain " has disappeared in the diill bathos of 
 " Hoyle." 
 
 Davis, the famous navigator, Avas born at Sandridge. 
 In the hedge by the roadside, between that place and 
 Waddeton, is found a small everlasting pea. It is said that 
 a sentimental groom committed suicide, for some cruel 
 housemaid ; and that, before the fatal act, he sowed some of 
 the seed, from which this little melancholy looking floAver 
 has since grown wild. 
 
 The great convulsions that, at the Reformation, and in the 
 Rebellion, shook England to its centre, made scarcely any 
 impression on these memorials. During the first centmy, 
 that is, down to the civil wars, the names entered are 
 singularly unvaried. Alse, or Alice, Fridiswin, Petornell, or 
 Petronilla, and Wilmott, all given to women, and Pentecost, 
 borne by one male Skinner, being the only exception. A 
 Vicar and his son were called Adrian. Then, Avith Puritan 
 principles, came also Puritan names. Charity, Faith, Grace, 
 Zachariah, Josiah; but only one is ever given, and the same 
 person seems ahvays to have ofhciated. I cannot, hoAVCA'cr, 
 help thinking, that the population Avas formerly far greater 
 than it is noAv. The entries of deaths, and baptisms, and 
 marriages are double in number, comjiared Avith the present 
 talc. Yeomen arc mentioned as living, Avhere there has long
 
 KAMBLES IX DEVONSHIRE. 
 
 been no trace of a liousc. A field at Aisli Cross is called 
 tlie " Bothy Bakehouse," and bidldings there — one of -which 
 is of some extent, though now iu rains — and remains of 
 foundations, show that it has much diminished of late years. 
 Jl There is also a tradition that the Great Duke of Marlborough 
 Avas bom at Aish. The legend of the ancient clrarch, and 
 the name of Port -bridge, prove that, in former times, there 
 must have been a considerable population in that direction, 
 for no sane person would have built a ncAv place of Avorship, 
 evidently for the convenience of an increased congregation, 
 in a situation almost unapproachable by the greater portion. 
 It could not have been for the accommodation of the old de 
 Waddetons, for they had a chapel of their ovra. The name 
 of Stoke, too, tells its OAvn history. 
 
 There is matter for deeper thought, Avhen Ave look at these 
 simple annals in a religious light. They date from the year 
 1539, being,— 
 
 X. 
 
 " a true llRegistcr (or tl)c parisT; of Stofee ffinbi'dl, t)cginn(nge t!)e 
 ^eave of or. IZort) ©otJ 1539, anU in tl)c rcignc of or. Soticraigne TLoxO 
 ti)s, Ifvinge t'^e xxxt!) ycarc of !)is ratgnc, tlje xxxist "tjayc of Sanuanje. 
 
 " STljcrc teas nilnistcrcU unto 3R{c!)art( J^a^riclke tf)c Sacrament of 
 J¥[atrimoniie." 
 
 Then folloAVS an entry of solemn import. 
 
 " ®i)e sccont) "Daye of (©ctobcr, IRidjartJ Xanc rccciljc"D tl)c Sacrament 
 of ^fVlatrimomj." 
 
 The spirit of those that legislated for Stoke, and ordained 
 the penance of the Church patli, seems embodied here. The 
 name of the lord of the creation, only, is recorded. That 
 of his helpmate Avas not thought Avorth the immortality of 
 one poor line.
 
 Tlie words, however, have a deeper significance than this. 
 Tliey record the administration of the " Sacrament of 
 Matrimony " for the last time. Traced carelessly, and 
 coming, as a matter of routine, from the hand of the 
 olKciating minister, they are to us even as a monument, 
 embodying the final act of dominion, graven on these images 
 by the doomed majesty of Rome. The veil, the ring, the 
 cross, ministered to that Sacrament its aAvful mysteries ; 
 the Priest, in cope and stole, raised his hand in blessing ; the 
 acolyte was thci'c, swinging his censer slowly to and fro ; 
 and, amid the fragrant cloud of incense, the bridal party left 
 the Church, and the rite was over, never more to be honoured 
 and acted there. The great agony was well nigh consummated. 
 The light of the ancient Church was setting in tears and 
 blood. Of the local details of that shock, of the disappear- 
 ance of the monastic establishment, said to have existed 
 here, of the dawning of a purer ray, we know nothing, save 
 in the brief sentence of this rude register. "What a curt 
 epitaph for such a tremendous revolution ! 
 
 At this time we cannot realize its terrors, nor the way in 
 Avhich it came down to every hearth. Our very system was 
 religion. The Church, at the period of the Eeformation, 
 was mistress of one third of the soil. Her privileges, her 
 blessings, and her abuses, extended into every cranny of the 
 land. The most minute and distant fibres and nei-ves of 
 the body politic throbbed with the pulsations of her great 
 heart. Before her altars all worshipped in apparent union ; 
 and the whole realm, and all in it that breathed, were 
 hers. And now her crown was taken from her, and she 
 Avas despoiled of her purple robe, and of her authority.
 
 160 
 
 RAMBLES IN DEVONSHIRE. 
 
 Her stately fabrics Avere overtlirown ; while from their 
 gates went forth a mingled crowd of old and young, Priest 
 and consecrated maiden, helpless, and unfitted to meet the 
 trials of the world. Noble Avomen, and highljorn men, long 
 devoted to the service of the Sanctuary, were driven abroad 
 by lackeys and servitors, to find, if they could, a home 
 in a world which, to their overwrought feelings, had ceased 
 to have either a visible religion or a God, The throes of 
 that earthquake rocked sullenly to and fro, nor were there 
 any so mighty as to be above its shocks, nor did one exist 
 so lowly as to be unconscious of its coming, and of its 
 passing away. 
 
 The change then wrought in England was far greater 
 than that effected in the Roman state by Constantine. It 
 came more home to men's feelings ; it entered into every 
 village ; it crept into the sanctuary of every hearth. 'Wlien 
 Paganism was no longer the imperial religion, it lingered 
 fondly, as its very name shows, in the rural districts. But 
 when Rome fell, the shadow of her awful and omnipresent 
 beauty was banished at once, and departed from the land 
 which for many a day, yea, so recently, was hers, and 
 Avhich it was impossible that she could share with a rival 
 creed. The champions of each spake, trumpet-tongued, to 
 their gathering hosts. " Men are called to go into God's 
 vineyard," said Sir Thomas More, " and between willing, 
 and not willing, they enter not there." Then the Reformers 
 put into the hands of the Commonalty, Wyclyf 's tracts, and 
 his translations, and taught their lips to say, in the stern 
 Saxon syllables to which many a Martyr's tongue gave 
 utterance. " For whit couz y schal go in ye myddes of
 
 P.AMBLES IN DEVONSHIRE. 
 
 schadewe of deetli ; y schal not drede y^'els, for tliou ai't "\vid 
 me." There Avas no choice, foi', thougli an appeal was made 
 to private judgment, it were Avoe to those who exercised it 
 against the doctrines of the ruling powders. The ancient 
 faith had, indeed, heen too powerful to hope for mercy, or to 
 have a claim to that ruth which she never showed in h§r 
 hour of pride. Witnesses rose up against her, on every 
 side. Nor were these less hostile, because they appeared, 
 clothed in a garb of melancholy grace, pleading with airy 
 tongues, and appealing to memories that could not die. 
 Wherever a wayside Cross was spared, wherever a ruined 
 shrine tottered, but did not fall, or the great Monastery 
 still smouldered in its ashes, or the little Chapel, spoiled, but 
 liardly worth the lighted brand, lay desolate in its quiet 
 nook, beneath some forest glade, there was a remembrance, 
 and a testimony ; a silence that was eloquent ; a cry that 
 violence- could not suppress. At this hour we look upon 
 hallowed memorials, such as these, with reverence and with 
 awe. But then they spake, with an accusing voice, against 
 the hand that smote them, and laid them low. Every hamlet 
 had an echo of this universal brotherhood ; and the very 
 poorest cell, the meanest chantry, met the eye of one party 
 Avith the semblance of an intruder, and of the other with a 
 claim for sympathy, and for redress. 
 
 A true and devoted Priest, looking forth on these scenes, 
 might have sorroAved as King Arthur did, Avhen his chivalry 
 Avas about to depart on the quest of the Sainct Graal, " the 
 teres fy lie in hys eyes, and he said, ' ye have setc me in 
 grete sorroAve, for I have grete doubte that my true feloAV- 
 shippe schal never mete here more agayne. I Avote Avel
 
 ^^= 
 
 162 
 
 RAMBLES IN DEVONSHIRE. 
 
 there sclial no manner of joye remedie me.' " Yet many an 
 earnest minister of Kome, — sloAvly indeed and sorrowfully, — 
 left her ranks, and, as in the folknving tale, attained unto the 
 knowledge of the truth. It was in such conversions as these 
 that her supremacy received its deadliest blow. Fabric and 
 lite might be altered and restored, but there were ordinances 
 which had become a portion of her being. They were no 
 longer the innovations of Eadbert, or of Gregory, but identi- 
 fied with herself. Above all, Avhen the Priest laid aside his 
 vow of celibacy, and was once more a man, her knell was 
 somided. She knew that her spiritual thraldom in these 
 islands was dissolved, and that her work was done.
 
 €\)t last Ifm^ nf ^kkt (Snlirir 
 
 N tlie year of grace, 1539, there was 
 
 nouglit, save contention, and confusion, 
 
 Avitliin tlie borders of nierrie England. 
 
 The times seemed to be as sad, and 
 
 judgments as heavy to have visited the 
 
 land, as when William the son of Arlotte 
 
 ^-'"of Falaise, called by his followers " the 
 
 'Conqueror," bade cunning scribes compile the 
 
 accoimt of his unlawful possessions, and the poor despoiled 
 
 Saxons called it " Domesday Book." Men, in those times, 
 
 told tales of their sjioilcrs, as they conversed ti>gothcr in 
 
 their little cone-shaped huts, or in caverns, Avhither they 
 
 had fled from the terrors of the Norman glaive. Then, 
 
 suddenly, the soimd of a bell rang through the air ; and the 
 
 serfs, and thralls, and villeins, knew that it was the couvre- 
 
 fcu, or curfew, and they extinguished, in haste, the scanty 
 
 embers on their hearths, and went to the rest of which alone 
 
 their tyrants could not rob them. Those were dark daj-s.
 
 1~ 
 
 1G4 RAMBLES IN DEVONSIIIKE. 
 
 remembered, in after seasons, witli fear and dread. And 
 dark, also, were the closing days of tlie reign of Henry, the 
 eighth of that name. Surely he was a Prince who, as Avas 
 said of him, spared neither woman in his desires, nor man 
 in his hate. He was one who neither loved, nor ruined, by 
 halves. Woe Avorth a land, when its sceptre is held by an 
 arm so fell ! 
 
 Chiefly among the covmtry parts, as in this portion of 
 Devonshire, Avas felt the change in their Sovereign's faith. 
 In London, good men and pious, like Master Ridley, and 
 simple Master Latimer, preached at the Crosses, and ex- 
 pounded the Scripture ; and copies thereof, chained to the 
 desk, were placed in the principal churches, so that some 
 learned person might read and explain its blessed contents 
 to the ignorant commons. But, in the remote nooks, tliis 
 could hardly be done. Few, even of the Priests, could be 
 found equal to such a task, while books Avere also Avanting, 
 as Avell as the poAver to decipher them. Plain people, and 
 uninstructed, kncAv not Avhat to belicA'c. The Monasteries 
 and Nunneries Avere throAvn doAvn, yea, and laid Avaste. The 
 images of the Saints Avere trampled in the mire ; the canned 
 Avork, and the curious ornaments of the tabernacle, Avere 
 defaced ; even the Holy Rood Avas broken and destroyed. The 
 Church of the six Articles Avas by laAv established. But every 
 year there came forth neAV edicts, setting forth the Iving's 
 commands, and enjoining all men to put their trust therein. 
 Plain people, and ignorant, as I said before, kncAV not Avhat 
 to believe. All that they had once held holy, they Avere noAV 
 told to doubt. They had no intellect, no poAver of reasoning. 
 They had only faith, and, noAV they Avere robbed of that,
 
 RAMBLES IN DEVONSHIRE. 165 
 
 Avliitlier could tlicy turn ? They felt, tlioiigli tliey could 
 not exjiress it iu words, that an Act of rarliaincnt is not 
 religion, and they "were as wanderers on Dartmoor, having 
 lost their land-marks, and not knowing where to betake 
 them for guidance, or for aid. 
 
 Into the retired districts the new doctrines penetrated but 
 slowly. They had in general no wealthy establishments, 
 wherewith to bribe those who had the power and the will 
 to plunder. They offered no temptation to knaves and 
 plottei's. So they remained, for the most part, safe in their 
 obscurity. It fared thus with Stoke Gabriel. There little 
 change was seen. The Monastery, indeed, was dissolved, 
 and its inmates expelled, and the building itself closed, but 
 the ancient recluses, and denizens thereof, departed not from 
 the pleasant banks of the Dart, where they abode, in peace 
 and unmolested. The Priest of the village, Master John 
 Preter, li-kewdse stood fast, albeit warned often, in no kindly 
 spirit, by men who went about, calling themselves Bible 
 clerks, or Gospellers, teaching a new doctrine of equality, 
 and freedom of conscience, and denouncing the mass men, 
 and the followers of liome. The folks of Devon, like their 
 fat steers, arc slow to move. And as they had then no 
 motive of interest to quicken them, they saw, as usual, one 
 side only of the question, and they rested contented Avilli 
 that. So the fair Clmrch of St. Gabriel still had its 
 congregation, bending reverently before the Host, elevated, 
 as of old; and still the ofiices of the ancient Faith went on; 
 and lauds and canticles were borne forth upon the wind, and 
 trembled amid the branches of the great solemn yew, as if 
 calling on the spirits of the dead beneath to hear.
 
 Sootli to say, conduct like unto this Avas not unfrequcntly 
 rewarded with martyrdom. The " Sacrament of Matrimony " 
 Avas administered within these walls long after it was disused, 
 in that fashion, elsewhere. So the dim parchment records 
 of the village testify. And this was done, not by the 
 resistance of the leal men and true, owning chattels, and 
 having charge, in Stoke, but solely by that which, in troiibled 
 times, asserts its innate and instinctive superiority, — by the 
 bold heart of one man, strong in a supposed sense of duty 
 done, and in a total absence of that caution, which is only 
 another name for cowardice. This man Avas IMaster John 
 Preter, or Mess John, as he Avas more commonly called, the 
 Priest of Stoke St. Gabriel. 
 
 The ATorthy Churchman had dwelt in the parish for some 
 years, inhabiting the little Vicarage, Avhich stood in the 
 Orchard beloAv the Church, opposite the cluster of houses 
 called Eady. He Avas alone in the AA'orld, apparently, of a 
 pale and thoughtful presence, cold in manner, and, in his 
 habits, simple and reserved. It is Avell knoAvn that the Clergy 
 of England, as a body, Avere grossly ignorant, even at a time 
 A\dicn the capture of Constantinople, in 1453, and the dis- 
 covery of the art of printing, had spread abroad, throughout 
 Eui-oi^e the knowledge of Greek letters, and had led to the 
 reviA'al of literature in the West. Yet Avhen John Preter 
 came to Stoke, he brought Avith him the reputation of great 
 learning, the result of Avhich Avas that he Avas accounted a 
 Avizard, applied to for spells and exorcisms,* and Avhen he 
 
 * It is hardly credible that in this (so called) enlightened age when 
 religions education is so universal, the following silly, and almost
 
 RAMBLES IN DEVONSHIRE. 
 
 167 
 
 refused to give tlicm, only lield a hypocrite too. It is a fact, 
 likewise, tliat the Churchmen of the lower grades were then 
 coarse, as well as unlearned, and dissolute ; being, in their 
 tastes and habits, on a level with the rustics around. Yet 
 Master John Preter was not so minded, neither did he thus 
 walk in his little sphere. With the mien rather of a soldier, 
 or of a courtier, and with the carriage of one to whom 
 dangers, and camps, and stately halls were familiar, with a 
 knoAvledge of far lands beyond the sea, and of scenes and 
 struggles, rather imj^lied than exj^ressed, he came to this 
 calm valley, Avhere his learning, his experience, his energy, 
 were all in vain, and remained in seeming content. 
 
 Perad venture the peace he felt was real, for there is a 
 Garden of Eden even here below, albeit every sense hath 
 not faith to discern it. 
 
 There are thoughts divine, in a world of strife, 
 There are I'osy isles, in the sea of life, 
 
 But fcAv there be to find them ; 
 For men sail on, with passion rife, 
 
 Wliile Eden lies behind them. 
 
 impious, lines were shewn to me, by a parishioner, who assured 
 tliat bearing them on the person was a certain specific for the p; 
 therein named : — 
 
 " As Peter sate on a marble stone, 
 Christ came to him, as he sate there alone. 
 Christ said to Peter, ' what aileth thee ? ' 
 ' My Lord and Master, the toothach, said he.' 
 ' Arise, Peter, I will cure thee of that ach. 
 And all them that keep these lines, for my sake.' " 

 
 There are myriad starry eyes on liigli, 
 Keeping a Avatch in the quiet sky, 
 
 In God's blue dome before us ; 
 The Souls of the Blessed, eternally, 
 
 May there be smiling o'er us. 
 
 Thei'e are spells as sweet as the moonlit night. 
 There are thoughts on earth, if we list, as bright, 
 
 And a fount as pure is given, 
 When Faith comes near, on its Avings of light. 
 
 And Hope looks up to Heaven. 
 
 But Time sweeps on, and the planets fly, 
 And the fountain stops, and the roses die. 
 
 And we tu.rn, from a world of sorrow, 
 To a deathless earth, and a changeless sky. 
 
 And a day, that knows no morrow. 
 
 So, of a verity, did Master John live, in a calm, abstracted, 
 world. No word of the past, nor any allusion to his former 
 calling, ever passed his lips. He neither sought, nor did he 
 shun, company. His most familiar felloAvship seemed to be 
 in the book -room of the Monastery, Avhere he was always 
 welcome, despite the usual antagonism between the seculars 
 and the regulars. When deprived of that, he appeared just 
 as satisfied with his own little stock of black-letter volumes, 
 one of which usually accompanied him in his walks. So 
 gviarded, he was an object of great awe to the thralls of 
 that district, books and the dark arts being, in their eyes, 
 synonymous. Many a bout of qnarter-stafF, and many a
 
 tender tryst, came to a sudden end, at the sight of Mess 
 John of Stoke, bending over his solitary page. 
 
 Had he, however, been of a character less firm, he would 
 liavc filled his sacred place, even as others did, and have 
 bent to the tyranny that overshadowed the land. Had he 
 been less learned, and less esteemed, his influence would 
 have availed little on behalf of his tottering cluu'ch, nor 
 Avould it, for a moment, have delayed her fall, nor have 
 continued her offices so long. Surely the mind of a com- 
 munity is often but the reflected mind of one man, abler, or 
 perhaps only stronger, than the rest. In times of tran- 
 cpiillity. Mess John would have been bvit the respected. 
 Priest. In an hour of peril, when a prayer more or less 
 Avas, 2:)eradventure, a death Avarrant to the recusant utterer, 
 he became a champion in the fight of Faith. Bernal Diaz 
 tells us that, in a battle against the Mexicans, the figure of 
 St. Jago,- mounted on a white charger, and bearing on high 
 the Cross, was seen leading the Spanish Chivalry. So men 
 looked up to the tall spare form, and pale brow, of Master 
 John Prefer ; and when they saw that he took no heed of 
 the edicts sent down from London, but prayed and ministered 
 as in times past, they had heart of grace, and suffered him 
 to do even as he listed. 
 
 " Of a verity," said the yeomen and the Commons of 
 Stoke, " Mess John knoweth best. Wherefore should we 
 be in a hurry to change ? He is a learned Clerk, and it is 
 ill opposing S. man Avho can read black letters, and, doubt- 
 less, hath at his will cantrips and spells. Our Lady and 
 St. Gabriel forefend ! " 
 
 Naithless, while thus the old Faith held its ground, and
 
 RAMBLES IN DEVONSIIIKE 
 
 went not down, as in other places, it is not to be thought 
 that outwai'd conformity implied perfect union within. 
 Copies of Tyndale's and Coverdale's Bible were brought 
 about by Missionaries, and little tracts were circulated and 
 discussed. Many villagers, especially those who had been 
 foremost in assailing the Monastery, and who felt themselves 
 compromised thereby, looked askance at the Priest, and 
 spoke against the Mass, as being a vain invention, and 
 founded on no sure Avarranty of Scripture. The women 
 also, who are caught with novelties, gave ear to these things, 
 and began to waver. Yet one portion of the sex, and that 
 a very influential one, held by Mess John, and supported 
 him strenuously. It were hard to say whether they clave 
 to the ancient faith from that habit of devoted and impulsive 
 piety, so remarkable in females, which does not doubt nor 
 question, but lovingly and trustingly believes, or from their 
 personal reverence for Master John Preter. 
 
 In those days, as I said before, and in country parts, 
 an accomplished priest was somewhat of a marvel. "Wlien 
 one appeared, as at Stoke, both accomplished, and known to 
 have mixed with other scenes, and in other and marvellous 
 lands, he was natiu-ally regarded, by the young and enthusi- 
 astic of his flock, as a superior being. And he was aided 
 herein by that awful engine of power, peculiar to Rome, — 
 by the tremendous influence of the Confessional. 
 
 To a young man, brought up in a cell, schooled and 
 tutored by those who laboured to make him as passionless 
 as themselves, for Avhom the tonsure was only one more 
 distinction, and not a safeguard, and to Avhom the breviary 
 was his only knowledge, — to a mere human automaton like
 
 this, there was little danger in. the confidences of Confession. 
 But Master John Preter had been, like the Monk of St. 
 Mary's aisle, 
 
 " Not always a man of woo." 
 
 He had mixed with the world, of which so many of his 
 fellows knew nothing. In becoming a priest, he had not 
 ceased to be a man. lie had miscalculated his own strength, 
 in thus acting; and had believed feelings to be dead within 
 him, which were only chilled by disappointment, or by 
 weariness. He was as fervent a servant of Rome, and as 
 true to her cause, as the veriest bigot that ever persecuted, 
 or anathematized, in the name of charity. He never once 
 doubted his vocation, nor distrusted his own strength. But 
 it was simply because his vocation was in his eyes un- 
 questioned, and the measure of his strength as yet vintried. 
 He could keep aloof from others with a brow as calm, as 
 erst in danger, and amid death, and in this his knowledge 
 of the world taught him how to act. But it availed him 
 nothing in his communion with those, to whose fascinations 
 he had once been no stranger, and who came to him doubly 
 armed against his soul, from their kind feeling towards him, 
 and from that permitted familiarity, and ixtter absence of 
 restraint or of reserve, existing between a Priest and all his 
 fair young penitents. 
 
 To him there was an additional, and, for a long time, an 
 unsuspected, danger. In this the very haughty indilFerence 
 which he assumed, and perhaps really i'elt, was unhappily a, 
 snare. The trial came upon him insensibly ; the temptation 
 Avas in his heart, ere he was aware of its existence. He 
 had received many attentions from the young and fair.
 
 who formed a part of his flock, albeit he heeded them not. 
 But among those, who were both youthful and lovely, there 
 was one far beyond her companions, both in the charms of 
 person and of mind. He had noticed her frequently, not so 
 much for her bright thoughtful brow, as for the modest 
 intelligence that beamed upon it ; not so much for her 
 ovitward superiority, as for that within — that kindred spirit, 
 that deep, religious, yet not immaidenly, constancy, that 
 proud, yet loving, humility, wherewith, in the perfect liberty 
 of the Confessional-, her heart answered to his own. It is 
 strange how sometimes, at the first glance, we recognise jf 
 a kindred soul. We feel attracted to some one by an 
 unexplained influence, we know not why. There is a 
 mysterious power which draws one being into communion 
 with another, which exchanges thoughts and feelings, ere a 
 word, or a whisper, pass. Such a linked attraction seemed 
 to come upon INIaster John Prefer. And yet more terrible 
 Avas it, and yet more perilous, Avhen he discovered the exist- 
 ence of these mutual feelings in another ; when the secrets 
 of another heart revealed them ; when the sin Avas no longer 
 his OAvn ; Avhen he recognised, in Avords poured forth un- 
 restrainedly, an answer to his OAvn unspoken thoughts ; Avlien 
 one of his flock seemed led to err, through him ; Avhen he, 
 a Priest of Home, trembled, lest he too loved. 
 
 The person to Avhom this befell Avas the daughter of a 
 stout yeoman of his parish. Her Christian name Avas 
 Willmott. She was, in sooth, very Avinning to vicAV, and 
 very fair Avithal. The Priest had from the first regarded 
 her Avith kindly and tender feelings, that had instinctively 
 become more ripe and Avarm, as he saAV in her so much that
 
 RAMBLES IN DEVONSHIRE. 173 
 
 Avas good and worthy of praise. For some time he had 
 watched her more closely, as, from the nature of her answers 
 to his inquiries, he misdoubted sadly that she was Avavcring 
 in her spiritual allegiance. She Avas aAvare of more than he 
 deemed it good for her to knoAV. The peculiar interest 
 Avhich he took in lier, made him more jealous of her 
 perseverance amid so much falling aAvay. So he marked 
 her heedfuUy, and alas ! Avith sorroAV and regret ; for, day 
 by day, he felt more assured of her backsliding. Of all the 
 members of his flock, this one Avas to him most dear, most 
 precious. She became at last, too fatally and fondly prized. 
 He AA'as himself firm in the faith ; resolute in his duty ; 
 sustaining his halloAved charge ; outwaixlly, strong to the 
 last. The conflict and the agony Avere Avithin. His experi- 
 ence told him what he felt. His conscience shoAved him 
 all the enormity of his sinful Aveakness. He kncAV his 
 infirmity, and hoAV lapsed and frail he Avas, at a moment 
 Avhen his devotion, and his energy, held up a lost cause, and 
 he Avas prepared to become a INIartyr, as in all human 
 px'obability, he soon AA'ould be, even as More and Fisher had 
 been, for the Faith of Rome. 
 
 There is no bond of union betAveen tAV'o beings like the 
 possession of a common secret. Yet when that secret 
 relates to a forbidden subject, and especially to the heart, 
 and Avhen its mysteries arc but partially discovered, and are 
 such as almost to be deemed a crime, it creates a sudden 
 restraint, more suspicious than the prcA'ious familiar inlL'r- 
 course. It gives to each a conscious air, and, for i'rankness 
 and innocent freedom, substitutes coldness and timidity. 
 So it Avas Avith the Priest, and IJiir yuuiig Willniult. They
 
 were oppressed with the weight of the hnk that bound them, 
 imperfect as their knowledge of it might be. The absence 
 of all intentional wrong made them outwardly more uneasy. 
 Their very sinlessness magnified, in their own eyes, their 
 fauh. 
 
 One day Master John, on leaving his house, took, — 
 perhaps from habit, — the road to At-bridge, where the 
 stout yeoman, her father, dwelt. The path, after passing 
 that winding slope called Combe Shute, led him along the 
 verge of a steep bank, overhanging the broad estuary by 
 which it is parted from Saudridge. The character of that 
 romantic gorge was then, what it still is, full of successive 
 beauties, now a dim avenue, now a bold upland brow, and 
 now a broad silver lake, reflecting in its bosom masses of 
 aged firs, and closed in, as it were, from the world by a 
 bright waterfall, where a brook seemed to collect all its 
 energies for a spring into its final home below. There 
 was no visible outlet to that secluded way, as it lay in its 
 shadow, like a violet beneath its leaves, and yet Heaven's 
 light always reached it through the green arch above, and 
 it came forth at last, under the foot of the Saxon road, 
 and close to the old Roman bridge. 
 
 As he walked along musingly, and in a spirit of sadness 
 approaching pain, he saw before him the object of his 
 every thought. She was not alone. Beside her was one of 
 those itinerant teachers, who travelled about the country, 
 reading and expounding the Scriptures. He appeared to be 
 speaking to her earnestly as the Priest drew near, but when 
 he perceived who it was, he turned away with a sullen 
 air of defiance, and left her. Mess John heeded him not.
 
 There was no ft-lloAvship between the rude Gospeller, and 
 the proud dignified Priest, tutored into cold sujieriority by 
 the discipline of dangers, and by contact with the learned 
 and the noble. It was the first time that one of these men 
 had crossed his path, and though his right hand turned, 
 instinctively, to where his sword hilt had been, he repressed 
 the sinful thought, and murmuring, " culpa mea, mea 
 maxima culpa, peccavi," crossed himself sorrowfully, and 
 advanced to fair Willmott's side. As he did so, he saw that 
 she was weeping. There is, in a Avoman's tears, something 
 terrible to a brave man, something unnerving, and irre- 
 sistible, and more especially when she who weeps is beautiful 
 and beloved. A pang shot through the heart of the Priest. 
 Yet he strove with his agony, and kept it down ; and he 
 bent a gentle look vipon the poor girl, as she sobbed in 
 silence before him ; and when he spoke, it was in those low 
 sweet modulated tones, which are used only in the depths 
 ' of passion, and which go to the heart at once. 
 
 " Benedicite, my daughter," w^as his simple greeting. 
 " Wherefore art thou thus sad, and why dost thou weep 
 so sorely ? " 
 
 Painful as the question was, it brought relief and comfort 
 with it, and in sooth it was put somewhat artfully, for it 
 made no mention of her late companion. Yet, though she 
 paused a little in her convulsive sighs, she I'cturned no 
 reply. 
 
 The Priest gazed anxiously upon her downcast face. Its 
 expression Avas very diflficiilt to unravel. There Avas in it 
 no repugnance, nor unAvillingness to remain, only a fearful 
 kind of Avild and vague supplication, a look which a lover
 
 RAMBLES IN DEVONSHIRE. 
 
 might have deciphered, but which her companion dared 
 not read. 
 
 " Fair damsel," he began, but checked and crossed 
 himself again, " My dear daughter, somewhat strange hast 
 thou been to me of late, yet, believe me, thy weal is more 
 precious to me than mine own. May the Saints comfort 
 thee ! " 
 
 As he spoke he stepped forward, and took her liand. It 
 Avas partly concealed in her manche, or large falling sleeve; 
 and when he raised it, he saw that it contained a small 
 volume, bound in oaken boards, and fastened with a brazen 
 clasp. He kncAV it in a moment for what it was, " The 
 Evangile of our Lord Jesu Christ." It was a copy of 
 Tyndale and Coverdale's translation, then becoming current 
 among the people. 
 
 He looked upon it with melancholy, that had not in it 
 a shade of bitterness. It was too deep for that. It was a 
 shock, not unexpected indeed, but like the death of one we 
 love, not less terrible when at last it comes. All this while 
 Willmott never moved. By her fixed eye, and swelling 
 bosom, and marble brow, might be seen the conflict within, 
 but she neither moved, nor spake a word, nor showed a 
 consciousness of the soul gazing forth upon hers, save by 
 a nei-vous motion of the eyelid, as the long lashes trembled, jj' 
 and rose, and fell. ]| 
 
 He held the volume in his hand, and she knew, instinc- | 
 tively, that he wavered in what he thought liis duty. His I 
 irresolution gave her courage. For a brief moment she 
 glanced at his face. Their eyes met. How much was 
 spoken in that silent eloqiieuce ! The Priest was conquered. 
 
 1!)
 
 RAMBLES IN DEVONSHIRE. 
 
 *' Oil ! my child," lie said, in deep, hoarse accents, " is it 
 well done? Have I deserved this of any, and least of all, 
 fair daughter, from yon ? " Yet, as he conclnded, he wonld 
 have restored to her the forbidden book, but she pnt it 
 back. 
 
 " Father," she replied, " I am but a simple maiden, and 
 it beseemeth not me to gainsay a learned Clerk like you. I 
 lack not reverence for your office, yet oh! if this book be 
 God's, and given to man, wherefore should it be kept from 
 him? Pardon my ignorant boldness, and let me beseech 
 you to bear with me, and to read this volume. I have done 
 so, and am convinced. May God bless and convince joxi ! " 
 
 Ere he could stay her, she was gone, and he stood there, 
 fixed and motionless, with the Bible in his hand. He thrust 
 it hastily into his bosom, with an unaccustomed feeling of 
 guilt, and hurried home When alone, he opened it, almost 
 Avitli terror. He opened it at random. His eye fell upon a 
 passage, in the 20tli chapter of the first Book of Kings : — 
 " But y8 Kynge of Israel answered, and sayde, ' Tell him, 
 let not him y' putteth on y" harness, make his Imast, like 
 him y* hath put it of.' " * Alas ! how applicable did he nut 
 
 Wyclyf's words are yet more nervous and quaint, " And tlic Kyng 
 of Israel answeride, and seide, Seie ye to hym, a gird man ( that is, he 
 that goeth to batel) have not glorie, cvcnli as a man ungird. 
 
 But the spreit seith openli, that in the last tymes sum men schulcn 
 dcpai-te fro the feith, gyvynge tent to sprcitis of errour, and to tcchyngis 
 of develis. Forbcdinge to be wedded, to abstayne fru metis." 
 
 Compare this with our present version, and we shall find the change 
 cfFectcd in our language by two hundred years almost incredible. 
 Boccaccio laid the scene of his Decameron in 1348, and wrote his work 
 soon after. Alficri composed his immortal tragedies about the close 
 
 fc^^d|v3
 
 find the spirit of tliese words. He that had sustained a 
 fallen cause by his own strength, felt suddenly the ground 
 give way beneath him, kncAv his utter weakness, confessed 
 his infirmity, and was like one passing from light to darkness, 
 confused and stunned. 
 
 Then he read again, yet not by chance, for he was 
 guided to the Chapter beginning, " The Sprete sj)eaketh 
 evidently, that in the latter tymes, some slial departe fro 
 the faith, and shal give hede luito spretes of eiToure, and 
 develish doctrine, forbiddinge to marry, and commandynge 
 to abstayne fro meates." He had often perused these words, 
 but he only felt them now. He had, at his fingers ends, all 
 the knowledge and casuistry of the schools, but he had 
 now within him, that which bookmen could not impart, 
 the spirit of understanding, which makes us wise. And 
 so he read on, through the long hours, renewing his lamp 
 from time to time; and when morning dawned, and the 
 sun rose fully, he was unconscious of the change, bending 
 over the book, and only, when he paused, pouring forth 
 his thoughts in prayer. 
 
 of the last century ; Between the era of the great Prose-writer, and 
 that of the great Poet, there elapsed, consequently, four hundred and 
 fifty years, or naore than double the tune that separated the two 
 English versions. Yet the alteration, which we detect in the marvel- 
 lous periods of Italy, is opposed to all our experience in other tongues. 
 Most languages, — Spanish, Latin, French, even English, — degenerate, 
 and become diffuse. On the contrary, the sweet and flowing delicacy 
 of the Italian gained fire and strength, with that conciseness which is 
 itself sublimity. The genius of Alfieri reversed Nature's otherwise 
 invariable rule. His spirit lived back six centuries, and amid the 
 classic feebleness of INIetastasio and MafTei, forced his country with him ; 
 creating a national literature, and a national mind to appreciate it.
 
 r 
 
 It must not be supposed tliat a change in Ids opinions 
 was effected at once. An acute theologian, a faithful 
 servant of his Church, in Avhich he had hitherto rested, 
 peacefully and undoubtingly, an observer of men, and of 
 many a distant land, he had, in all these different points, 
 an obstacle to siirmount. Those who fall from our Church, 
 to that of Eome, generally tremble for a -while on the very 
 verge of iitter unljelief; while others, who come to us, liaA-e 
 no intermediate halting-place, but pass over at once. The 
 converted Protestant goes, after his pause, to the Avildest 
 extreme of superstition ; Avhile the converted Catholic goes 
 no further than his awakened intellect leads him. The one 
 takes an impulsive plunge : the other ponders and judges, 
 and so decides on the reason of the hope that is in him. The 
 lonely Priest Avas left to this fearful task. He had — that 
 hai'dest of achievements — the instinct of belief to overcome ; 
 to doubt all that he had been taught to honour; to connnit 
 what, in his eyes, had been the rash and profane act of 
 asserting his own right of thought, in matters wdiere hitherto 
 he had been an obedient follower, and a submissive agent, 
 alone. And there he sat and read, day after day, weary 
 night after night, one of his flock only knowing aught of 
 his contest, and yearning to share the struggle with him. 
 Outwardly he showed no sign of the strife within, lie 
 went about his duties as usual. His broAV grew more pale, 
 and his manner Avas a shade colder, and more absti'ac ted, and 
 men looked upon him, Avith the respect always paid to one 
 Avho is fearless amid dangers, stern enough to blanch tlie 
 boldest cheek. 'i'hey honoured him for his very scorn 
 of hfe. 
 
 ^sii^
 
 Of course a contest like tliis could ucitlier be very brief, 
 nor could it be long protracted. Tlie intensity of the 
 feelings put in play forbade its continuance. He 'wlio 
 dwells upon one absorbing idea, unless some change affords 
 him relief, becomes in the end a monomaniac. But this is 
 the case only -with a low order of minds. That of the Priest 
 of Stoke was capable of a nobler flight. It was opposed 
 to a great question, and met it well. The intellect was 
 j| worthy of the task, for there can be no more glorious weapon 
 than man's clear, cultivated spirit, nor a hoher aim than 
 the seai'ch for Truth. 
 
 As his views became enlarged, and the grasp of his reason 
 more tenacious, so was his soul calmed and tranquillised. 
 There is no unrest, no trouble, in conviction; it is but 
 during the course of distrust, of hesitation, or of dreaded 
 error, that we suffer from the uncertainty in which we 
 Avalk. "NYhen once the mind is made up, it acquires not 
 only peace, but strength; it plants its foot upon the soil of 
 freedom, and loses the folse shame, which is the portion 
 of ignorance, or of partial knowledge. So it was with the 
 Priest. He was silent, biding his time, until he had chosen 
 his course. AYhen he was convinced, then he Avas converted ; 
 then he spake alond and boldly, not to fair Willmott only, 
 but openly, as he deemed it his duty to speak, in the face 
 of God and man. 
 
 To those who loved him, and to her whom he loved, 
 happy Avere the tidings of his change. It was, indeed, high 
 time. Those in power were jealous even of the slightest 
 opposition to their imperious edicts. Humble as Avas the 
 Priest of Stoke, yet even he was marked out for vengeance.
 
 RAMBLES IN DEVONSHIRE. 
 
 181 
 
 A Commission, for an inquiry into his conduct, was issued, 
 and was believed to be even now on the road. This indeed, 
 to a character less independent, would have involved a 
 bitter trial, for he Avould tliereby seem to recoil before 
 violence, rather than to be convinced by reason. But he 
 was a man incapable of yielding to such vulgar motives, 
 or to fears of what others might think or say. As long as 
 he saw his duty plainly before him, he was ready to do it, 
 and to treat with indifference the imputations which malice 
 or ill-will might attach to him, for the course he took. One 
 thing only he judged it not well to do. He did not think 
 it consonant with his honour to serve, for the present, in 
 the Eeformed Church. He had left the Church of Eome 
 conscientiously; but a keen sense of delicacy told him that 
 he should avoid the ajipearance of a conversion too sudden, 
 at that time, and liable, from its very abruptness, to have 
 its sincerity luijustly questioned. So, after a few days 
 further delay, lie dejiarted from the little Manse, and took 
 up his abode in the house of one of his humble flock. The 
 Zion of his former life was no longer his, and he withdrew 
 from her communion by no transfer of his allegiance, by 
 no act which would have degraded him in his own eyes. 
 The ritual of Rome fell with him, and was abolished. The 
 simpler rites established in her place, as she passed away, 
 met with no opposition and no protest. Among the wor- 
 shippers in the ancient Chui-ch of St. Gabriel, thei'c was 
 none more sincere, nor more devoted, than its former Priest, 
 though he officiated no longer there. 
 
 And so time passed on, healing the wounds in his spirit, 
 and bringing him a blessed and an unworldly peace. He
 
 Lad 8ai(l " help tliou mine unbelief," and he had been heard. 
 He could now point to the reason of his great hope, and 
 teach others to learn where he had gained knowledge 
 himself. And his look grew less careworn, and his step 
 lighter, and his carriage as erect and lofty as erst it 
 had been. He was bound no more in trammels against 
 which his mind chafed and struggled, but he felt himself 
 once again free, once again a man among men. 
 
 His hand had dealt a heavy blow at the supi'emacy of 
 Eome. The next was aimed at her heart. 
 
 One glorious morning in Spring, a gay bridal party was 
 gathered together beneath the noble yew-tree that then, 
 as now, overshadowed the Church-yard. There was no 
 parade, but there was, Avhat is far better, much earnest 
 aifection, nuich tranquil happiness. The thoughtfid man, 
 and the fair woman, who led the procession, as it entered 
 the Church, were those whose simple tale has just been 
 told. They stood before the altar, and they plighted their 
 troth, each to other, more than three hundred years ago, as 
 may be seen, in the antique characters of the register, where 
 it is Avritten thus, 
 
 " d)£ tl)h"0 mtk in i^Ian, (n tijc ijcarc 1540, 3iol)n \13rctcr tons 
 i^arric"D." 
 
 Such was the first Protestant wedding in the Church of 
 Stoke St. Gabriel.
 
 iLiA»RCHER, from thy qulvur grey, 
 ' /I W* Tlioii hast shot a shaft to-day 
 -'^ "Winged witli many an anxious tear, 
 
 Joy and anguish, liope and fe-ar, 
 
 ^~^' Bright with rapture, black Avith crime, 
 
 Iloary Archer, conquering Time. 
 
 Slayer of the deadly bow. 
 Champion with the locks of snow. 
 Strewn before thy steps are seen 
 Maid and warrior, serf and queen, 
 Strewn before thy steps of pride. 
 Spoils of Time, the homicide. 
 
 Lo! thy aged hand to-day, 
 
 Shot another shaft awa3\ 
 
 Months have borne their burden by, 
 
 Months have laid them down to die ; 
 
 So the coursers of llie sun 
 
 Speed, until their task be done. 
 
 <oi»y3S5
 
 184 
 
 RAMBLES IN DEVONSHIRE. 
 
 Strong of arm, and stern of will, 
 Slow to spare, and swift to kill, 
 There shall come a change, a sign 
 Of a mightier Power than thine ; 
 Where shall then thy triumph be, 
 Where, oh Time, thy victory? 
 
 Throned as Judge, as Saviour cro^\^led, 
 Christ shall bid the clarion sound ; 
 As through space the echo flies, 
 Christ shall bid his Saints arise ; 
 Time, that hour thy knell shall be, 
 Christ hath won the victory !
 
 JU™ 
 
 Cniirln.ainn, 
 
 Y task is draAving to a close. Nor could I 
 part from it at an hour more appropriate, 
 for the knell of the departing year is tolling 
 its farewell ; and that, which was so lately 
 a portion of oiir hereafter, is now mingled 
 with the lights and shades of memory. 
 
 I feel that I have not done justice to my 
 subject, which indeed is one of no common 
 diificulty. Like Italy, Devonshire possesses 
 ''the fatal gift of beauty;" and the heart has no language 
 in Avhich to embody its devotion. Beyond Torquay the 
 windings of the coast are full of charms. Sometimes the sea 
 hides itself in little coves, as at Watcombe and Babbicombc. 
 Sometimes there is a memory of Genoa, in marble terraces, 
 like those of Bishopstowe. And Teignmouth, and Dawlish, 
 and Powderham, and the Cathedral toAvers in the valley of 
 the Exe, and Sidmouth, and Exmouth, and even, far aAvay, 
 the blue shadow of Portland, i)lead each, tlieir own cause, 
 to hearts that confess their claims. There are nuns, too, 
 for the Antiquarian ; and " Kent's Hole " has a voice from 
 the primeval Past.
 
 lil 186 RAMBLES IN DEVONSHIKE. 
 
 i 
 
 Yet in these things dwells and lingers a spirit and a 
 mystery, not always felt, but dependent on the sense within. 
 It Avas well said that the Squire in Cervantes, wandered amid 
 Sierras, and moonlit forests, and glided on the beautiful 
 stream of the Ebro, without for a moment forgetting the 
 hope of pelf that had drawn him from his village. So we 
 are compelled to offer an apology for romance, although 
 the imagination kindles aixdd scenes so fair. It is no sign 
 of weakness to be so moved. In the poetry of Nature, in 
 the associations of old times, in the legendary tale, there 
 is an interest common to all. Listen to Avhat Plato says. 
 " You must not oblige me to show, that the things, Avhich 
 I produce in discourse, are actually matters of fact." So 
 Schlegel affirmed of the Spanish ballads, " Eeligion and 
 fiction, trath and poetry, are not made to stand at variance 
 Avith each other, but are all united in the most harmonious 
 beauty." The highest order of intellects best comprehends 
 this great fact. Even in ancient days, St. Bernard said, 
 " You Avill find more in the Avoods than in books; the forests 
 and the rocks Avill teach you Avhat you cannot learn of the 
 greatest masters : " and in this fairy land of the West there 
 is enjoyment and admiration, and profit also, for the thought- 
 ful and the pious heart. 
 
 The tales, Avhich I have introduced, are not AvhoUy Avorks 
 of fiction, but are founded on so much of truth as may be 
 gathered from local traditions. The descriptive parts must 
 speak for themselves, and I only wish they were more 
 Avorthy of a country, from the dwellers in Avhich — coming 
 among them as a stranger, — I have received kindness I 
 never can repay.
 
 EAJIBLES IN DEVONSHIRE. 
 
 A tale of chivalry, a mysterious legend, a spirit of love 
 for Nature, and a memory of the times when religion was 
 linked -with fearful trials, excite no ungentle • thoughts. 
 They may seem alien to this sordid and utilitarian age, but 
 nothing is useless which elevates the mind, and leads 
 it, as an ancient Father says happily " through vanity to 
 truth." Even so Sir Thomas Maleor simply and beautifully 
 commends his romance, and thus concludes his preface. 
 
 " Me semyth, by the oft redyng thereof, ye shal grctely 
 desii'e to custome yourself in foUo'wynge these gracious 
 dedes : that is to saye, to drede God, and to love ryght- 
 wiseness, and the more that God hath given you the 
 triumphall honour, the meker ye oughte to be.'' 
 
 Stoke Gabriel, December 31st, 1853. 
 

 
 iOb 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 Santa Barbara 
 
 THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE 
 STAMPED BELOW. 
 
 Series 9482
 
 VIA THE G.W.R. 
 
 THE CHURCH THE DEVIL STOLE. 
 
 Most travellers to the West know queei 
 little Bveut Tor, that isolated church -crowned 
 peak that stands up defiantly a mile or two 
 fi'om Lydford, seeming, as it were, a sentry 
 watching the West for grim Dartmoor that 
 rises twice its height behind it. Burnt Tor, 
 they say, was the old name of this peak, 
 because, seen from a distance, the brave little 
 mountain resembles a flame bursting upwards 
 from the earth. Others — with less imagina- 
 tion and perhaps more knowledge — would have 
 us believ ■! tiiat Brent Tor was once a volcano, 
 and thai it really did burn in ages long since. 
 But the old folk of the neiglibourhood care less 
 for the name of their Tor than for the strange 
 ss'^.jry ot the church that crowns its summit. 
 Ever so long ago, they will tell you, the good 
 folk of the lower lands around the foot of th» 
 hill decided to build themselves a church. 
 They had long needed one ; so long that the 
 Devil, who roamed about Dartmoor, had begun 
 to consider that such an irreligious community 
 was surely marked down for his own. That is 
 why, when he came upon tlie people one daj- 
 setting to work to build a church, he was over- 
 come with fury. But he seems to have thought 
 it all out carefully, and to have decided to let 
 them go on for ii Avhile, and so, week after 
 week, at the foot of Brent Tor, the little 
 ehurch grew. At last it was finished, and the 
 good folk were preparing great festivities for 
 its dedication when, during one dark autumn 
 night, the church disappeared. 
 
 In the greatest distress they bemoaned their 
 sad plight, but they Avere quick to attribute 
 the evil action to the Prince of Darkness, and 
 to show him that they were not to be intimi- 
 dated they decided to begin at once to biiild 
 anothor church. Throughout the day they 
 made their plans, and retired to rest that night 
 determined to start on their pious work next 
 morning. But when they woke in the morning, 
 they saw with amazement their own church 
 perched high on the hill above them. The 
 Devil had stolen it, and to mock the villagers 
 had replaced it on the hill top where he 
 thought, having dominion over the powers of 
 the air, he would bo able to defeat their 
 designs. The people, however, thought bther- 
 wise. They sent in haste foi* the nearest 
 bishop, and Avith h im proceeded to the top of 
 B/^»y" -■ -^"-^1 since St. Michael looks after 
 
 ^^'i}» 8[%9 
 
 9^.1 •o?«'eiioos;d%r?nv."'°''j 8p«ojojd p 
 
 -•lepjsnoQ 
 
 
 flO, 
 
 pun 
 
 P9^«p9p -BjfaHtne^ 
 
 '•TV pBJnpoj'jTi 
 
 ^TJ, OflcTo efftp 
 
 
 205 01489 6094
 
 
 ,' / ' 
 
 -•:■/ 
 
 ■;/'■'' 
 
 ' J>