tjrm coyi:h k 13 121 80 2' .iT-^r^r Film I r WANDERINGS IN DEVON, i h * ** BY W. H. HAMILTON ROGERS. " The Past and Present here unite, Beneath Time's flowing tide, Like footsteps hidden by a brook, But seen on either side." Longfellow. SEATON : PRINTED BY JOHN NEWBERY, QUEEN STREET. MDCCCLXIX, CONTENTS. TAGK Beer and its Quarry, 1 Tue Nest of the Mohuns and Carews, ... 22 The Cradle of Marlborough, .... 43 The Founder of Wadham, 59 John Prince the Devonshire Biographer, . 79 Tovlady and his Devonshire Home, ... 99 The Great House, Colyton, and Who lived there, 113 Dunkeswell Abbey and its Founder, • . . 136 Colcombe, and the Devonshire Antiquary, . 157 AXMOUTH AND ITS LiANDSLir, * 182 WANDERINGS IN DEVON, oX«c Bill AM If S fif AMY. i I QQHE toun of Seton," saith Leland, who wrote about the middle of the sixteenth century, " is but a mene thing inhabited by fischar- men ; " but we trow, if the zealous old anti- quary could now once again open his eyes on the present attractions of this healthy, thriving watering- place, he would scarcely credit them ; such has been the influence of improvement here of late years. The short branch railroad runs us down to the mouth of the Axe as its terminus, and lands us on " the myghty barre and rigge of pible stones," that so often stops the ingress to the little harbour, but otherwise forms 2 WANDERINGS IN DEVON. the magnificent open beach for which Seaton is so famous. Before us rises the great red Haven Cliff, and the giant mass is reflected again in the glassy depths of the transparent Axe, that moves slowly along at its foot, pouring its limpid tribute, a few yards further on, at the "very smaul gut" of harbour — where now as of old "come in smaul fischar boats for socour" — into the great briny hand of Neptune. A leisurely stroll across the expanse of beach, a passing glance up the main street of Seaton, and we halt at the other extreme end, where the stupendous and beautiful White Cliff rears itself before us with a sort of implied question as to our further progress this way. Singularly handsome in outline, a very beau ideal of the famed English white cliffs, it is composed of dazzling lime-stone, rifted into large block -like masses, some fallen portions of which lie in huge debris of confusion at its base, where, about and between, the waves hiss and churn themselves impotently into spray, whiter than the barrier that challenges their progress. Overhead, a bevy of sooty choughs are darting out and in from numerous " coignes of van- tage" near the apex, chattering noisily, — while at some distance below, in mid-air, a solitary gull sweeps slowly on in grand and noiseless equipoise, his long wings glancing in the sunlight. A friendly winding stair reveals itself a short space off, and up this we carefully clamber, emerging at the top into the nar- row lane leading from Seaton to Beer. Here, the BEER AND ITS QUARRY. 3 road leads straight away up over the hill which forms the adjoining cliff, and is cut out of the solid rock, at a gradient literally as steep as the roof of a house. But another path invites our attention, threading along the extreme edge of the cliff, and we slowly and cautiously ascend, halting a few moments at the stile halfway up, to notice a quantity of scarlet poppies growing on a ledge in the face of the cliff, and look- ing like a band of glowing flame traversing the creamy limestone. On the top. What a glorious prospect. To the left lies Seaton, and beyond it stretches away for many a mile the fertile valley of the Axe. Below, the brown curve of beach extends across to Axmouth with its white church tower and the grand hill of Hochsdun rising behind it. In front, the mighty expanse of sea, studded here and there with stray sails, and the long grey mass of Portland reaching out in the distant horizon ; to the right, — " Cape after capo in endless range," down almost to the Start. Image of eternity, Thou boundless sea, That profferest heaven thy clear pellucid brow, Whero the golden sunbeams sleep, And the soft winds moan their ceaseless lulling vow, Far o'er thy bosom deep ! What a feeling of isolation and un-importance 4 WANDERINGS IN DEVON. creeps over the soul as we stand solitary and thought- ful on the verge of a high precipice, while around and about, far as the eye can reach, is laid out in stupen- dous, passionless, immutability, the vast panorama of Nature. On the glorious prospect is written in indelible characters the eternal prerogative of its Maker — a thousand years are but as yesterday. But where will be the handful of frail breathing dust that now contemplates its beauty and stability, when such a yesterday shall have passed over its destiny ? And yet:— " Dust thou art, to dust returnest, Was not spoken of the soul." " Fine a'aternoon, Zur," — said some one close behind me in full manly tones, "but zum-how or 'nother, thec plagey school of mack'el is gone out to zay again, wuss luck, and I've been watching 'um this dree hours, I'll warn't." Lost in our reverie on the scene before us, we were quite unconscious of the contiguity of the living being who had thus quietly approached and was standing a foot-pace at our rear. " True," we ejaculated with a half start, "but then my friend, you know that patience is the fisherman's chief virtue, — better luck to-morrow." " That's it, Maister," said our companion, who was a fine specimen of a representative race — the English sailor — and none finer are to be found on the indented British shore than those of Beer, from their BEER AND ITS QUARRY. 5 being accustomed to the deep sea fishery in their swift luggers — excellently trained, daring and intrepid, thorough seamen in every sense of the word, and as such eagerly sought after to man "Her Majesty's ships." A bronzed face, garnished round with iron- grey curly hair (over which shadowed the orthodox and comfortable sou- wester), red neckcloth, and long blue jersey, trousers dappled with tar, and rolled half way up the leg of a large pair of fishing boots. Such was the outward personnel of our companion, and discoursing briskly on marine matters and fishing prospects, with all things proper thereunto pertaining, we pleasantly wended our way down the circuitous path to Beer. The first view of the romantic village that we catch in our descent from White Cliff, shews us a long string of small-roofed houses, ranged along the base of a narrow gorge or valley, bounded on either side with steep, hilly acclivities, and stretching down to the little cove or bay. But the track winds rapidly down the face of the cliff, and in a few moments we land on a square platform or promontory, which leads out from the main street of the village, yet at considerable height from the beach below. There we found three or four old salts in quiet conversation with a smart preventive man, who looked in this ancient and redoubtable head-quarters of smuggling, like a marine Othello, with " his occupation gone." Possibly the venerable mariners were regaling his ears with some 6 WANDERINGS IN DEVON. of the stories of their youthful days, when the contra- band traffic was in its full glory and activity, — when Jack Rattenbury, the Rob Roy of the West, and his daring companions in this hazardous traffic, performed exploits whose recital now almost savours of romance. It was thought nothing of in those times to take a trip across the Channel in one of their open boats, bargain with Monsieur for a cargo of tubs, and back again to Beer, hoping for the chance of a favourable "run," — a piece of luck which was rarely denied them. Careless of danger, and relying on their own consummate knowledge of seamanship, few accidents befel these adventurous sailors, who seemed in their persons and habits a cross between a sea-god and a free-booter. This was the era for — " A wet sheet and a flowing sea, A wind that follows fast, And fills the white and rustling sail, And bends the gallant mast ; — The white waves heaving high, my lads, The good ship tight and free, The world of waters is our home, And merry men are we ! " Directly behind this platform is a delicious patch of green sward, where, to stretch ourselves at length, and quietly enjoy the scene, is but the work of an instant. Before us the little bay is circled like an ampitheatre. To the right the cliffs run out for a considerable distance, forming the head-land known BEER AND ITS QUARRY. 7 as Beer Head ; inside which is accounted one of the few safe anchorages in this terrible bay of south- westerly gales and a lee-shore. On our left is the noble cliff from which we have just descended. Ere we arise, however, some beautiful flowers of a little vetch attract our notice, which are spread thickly over the green, and whose intensely rich golden-bossed blooms, look as if they had been shaken from the girdle of some fleeting fairy. We soon find our way down to the beach below, stopping for a moment to admire the little cataract that pours down the rock, some forty or fifty feet from the village above, and vanishes forthwith in the shingle beneath. A number of noted Beer trawlers are hauled up just above high-water mark, with sails, stores, and nets all aboard and in trim for the next day's venture. From one of these, as we pass, the clear tones of a fisher-boy, singing a popular refrain, catch our ear. We draw off a yard or two to get a glimpse of the joyous roysterer, and there he lies on his back, stretched at length on a pile of nets, with his sou- wester hat drawn over his eyes, to keep the sun off, and his legs and feet mounting up and down in the air, beating time to his song, while just below, a pair of ruddy arms, with hands clasped, lean on the gunwale, and on them rest a sweet face, surmounted with an unkempt profusion of bright fair hair, 'neath which a pair of mild blue eyes keep an unconstrained watch on the passers below. Surely, we thought, 8 WANDERINGS IN DEVON. here is the Laureate's happily conceived picture of a verity : — " well for the fisherman's boy That he shouts with his sister at play, well for the sailor lad That he sings in his boat in the bay." and as we looked at the merry lad, and then at the smiling sea, the inward prayer flashed across our heart, that another scene, described by the same powerful pen, may never be consummated in his fate — " Boy, though thou art young and proud, 1 see the place where thou wilt lie ; — The sands and yeasty surges mix, In caves about the dreary bay, And on thy ribs the limpet sticks, And in thy heart the scrawl shall play." God forbid ! said we, as we passed down to the tidal marge, where tiny wavelets are crisply curling along in unrestful glee. Here a true Beer incident was in store for us. A trawler had just made the shore, and a little knot of fishermen were busily unloading her finny treasure. Three or four were half-leg deep in the water by her side, landing the fish, one or two others on the beach sorting them over, and engaged in an animated wordy warfare with a couple of those amphibious-looking bipeds, known as " chouters," chaffering, gesticulating, and bargaining with great energy for the less valuable portion of the catch, the BEER AND ITS QUARRY. 9 best being carefully placed aside to be forthwith packed and consigned elsewhere by railway. Quietly, but interestedly watching the proceedings of the mar- keters, was a tidy, well-grown young woman, evidently the wife of one of the fishermen, which latter surmise was well attested by the vivacity of a chubby little boy, some two summers old, whom she was carrying, and who, guiltless of hat or shoe, was plunging and crowing, and with extended arms, endeavouring by every possible means to arrest the attention of a stal- wart figure in the boat. Another group a short dis- tance beyond completed the picture — three patient asses, nose to nose, with great panniers on their backs, stood lazily munching a small bundle of provender, and waiting the issue of the little trading venture, their large ears busily flapping away the plague of flies that continually tormented them. On the east side of the short beach, at the base of the limestone cliffs, there rushes out from a large fissure in the rock with considerable volume, one of the most beautifully clear springs of water it has ever been our fortune to witness. Making use of the first drinking cup probably ever invented by man, the hollow of our hand, we quaffed with delicious satisfac- tion a good draught of Nature's bright and generous supply, " Pure from the mountain urn ! " - The natural advantages of Beer have, we believe, 10 WANDERINGS IN DEVON. on several occasions suggested the feasibility of form- ing a harbour of refuge here; but nothing of late years seems to have been actually proceeded with, yet Leland speaks of such an attempt having been made before his time : — " At Brereword," he writes, "is an hamlet of fischar-men. There was begon a fair pere for socour of shippelettes at this Brereworde, but ther cam such a tempest a 3 yeres sins, as never in mynd - of men had before bene seene in that shore, and tare the peare in peces." About the beginning of the present century, Telford the engineer, surveyed the country between Beer and Watchet for the purpose of forming a canal, but the project was abandoned, and a railroad now traverses the district instead. The main street, through which we stroll, consists of a long line of true fisherman's cottages on either side, with here and there a house of larger size, and somewhat more pretentious character. Beside the pavement runs down a channel filled with the produce of another of those magnificent springs of water that take their rise in the rocks around ; and after supply- ing the place with a glorious plenteousness for culi- nary purposes, and the surplus acting as an invaluable sanitary commissioner, pours itself finally out over the rock at the beach. The "inhabiters" of Beer are a fine well-built race; the men exceedingly frank and manly, and the women remarkable to a proverb in this part of the country for comeliness of figure and smartness of attire. A BEER AND ITS QUARRY. 11 constant association with Nature in her various moods, exhibited to them in the vicissitudes and ventures of the fisherman's life, doubtless lends much of that innate nobleness of form and freedom of manner that distinguish them so notably in appearance from the pent-up city artizan, however skilful, who has always been inured to the sickly torpor and hot-house mono- tony of a town life. The morale of the village, too, is very satisfactory, notwithstanding the number of little " publics" dotted up and down the street, and the supreme treasure of religious feeling and experience is largely shared in many a cottage in the place — that true and blest kinship which identifies them in all parts of their calling with their holy predecessors of Galilee. Happy England, methought, whilst thou art guarded by a cordon of such hearts as these Beer fishermen ; they are of more importance to thee than a fleet of the most powerful iron-clads. Where —so defended — is the foe that would face thee ? — " They know not in their hate and pride What virtues with thy children bide, How true, how good thy graceful maids, Make bright liko flowers the valley shades, What generous men Spring like thine oaks from hill and glen. What cordial welcomes greet the guest, By thy lone rivers of the west ; — How faith is kept, and truth revered, And man is loved, and God is feared, In woodland homes, And whore the ocean border foams." 12 WANDERINGS IN DEVON. A look in at the strange little nondescript shaped church, which with our usual good fortune we find open ; but there is nothing worth remembrance except a memorial to W. Starre, who died " of the plague" in 1646. This fearful scourge, no perfect diagnosis of which has survived the period of its dreadful visit, appears to have decimated our western valleys with terrible mortality. In the neighbouring parish of Colyton, out of a population which at that time could not have exceeded a thousand souls, there died in the two years 1645-6, of "the sicknesse,"as the recording minister notifies in the margin of the grand old register, four hundred and fifty-eight persons. There is, however, one noticeable example deserv- ing record amid the congregation of small dwellings forming the village. This is the house of the Starres — an extinct, but once important family resident here, and joint lords of the manor with the Walronds. Their dwelling composed of stone, taken from the neighbouring rock, displays the picturesque peculiar- ities of the Tudor era, the front door having an arch of good proportions. Directing our eyes upward to the chimnies, we discern on one, the initials of the founder, " J. S." and on the other, his device or rebus, a star radiated of many points. There was also (alas it has recently shared the fate of almost all our antient buildings), to be seen on an eminence near John Starre's old residence, a mediaeval cruciform barn of large proportions. The walls were BEER AN© ITS QUARRY. 13 very massive, •with occasional long narrow crenelated openings to admit light, and which also seemed to infer the building may have been intended for a tem- porary fortress, when " boes and arroes " decided the chances of war. In the front porch was a very high and wide pointed arch of sufficient size to admit the largest wain-loads of the husbandman, and it had left remaining a fine specimen of an open timber roof, almost entire. It was termed the " Court Barn " and probably in former times, was the general repository of the manorial harvest. As we saunter up the street our eyes unconsciously wander into the open cottage doorways, and just in- side, sits many a fisherman's daughter, with her lace pillow on her lap, busily and dexterously weaving the delicate and fragile fabric, so world-famed when linked with the singular misnomer of "Honiton" lace. The well recognised rustle and " click " of the " sticks " catch the sense, as "we pass on, and it may be that the tasteful " sprig " which the bright eyes and nimble fingers of the maiden are slowly elaborating, is des- tined to deck the robes of Royalty itself — no uncom- mon occurrence — as the lace made at Beer, is of the very finest quality, and held in great esteem by Her good Majesty of these realms, who used continually to employ it in the attractions of her attire on festal occasions, previous to these later and sadder da3 r s of her widowhood, and it still constantly graces the per- sons of her Royal daughters. This "glorious raiment 14 WANDERINGS IN DEVON. of needlework" is now as of old, the heritage of princesses — " The Daughter of the King Is glorious to behold ; Within her closet she doth sit All deckt with beaten gold ; — In robes well wrought with needle And many a pleasant thing ; With virgins fair on her to wait, She conieth to the King ! " The way to the Quarry leads on from the main street of the village, and huge boulders of rock jut out from the sides of the path, covered with moss and ferns, and hoary and worn with the attrition of ages. We pass the pretty row of comfortable alms-houses and school erected (as a memorial on them informs us) by Judith Maria Baroness Rolle, last representative of the ancient family of Walrond, of Bovey, the olden lords of Beer — a lady whose memory is embalmed in the grateful traditions of the place by this and other acts of beneficence. A group of the foundation boys are congregated at the school-room door, and their quaint dress attracts attention — a suit of true navy blue serge, with round cap, and on the breast of the jacket is embroidered a red pater-noster cross. A short distance further brings us to two or three quarriers' cottages, and on the left, close by, a large cavernous-looking arch in the rock tells us we have arrived at the entrance of the celebrated Beer Quarry. BEER AtfD ITS Qt/X&RY. 15 Provided with a pilot in the person of one of the quarry-men, and armed with lantern and candle, wo enter its gloomy looking precincts, and a strange sight await us. We are in a veritable mine, extending a considerable distance underground. Galleries or pas- sages, hollowed out of the solid rock, lead in various directions, some quite clear and others partially blocked up with the debris and refuse of adjoining excavations, and huge pillars support the roof. Few fossils aro found, but occasionally some beautiful crystallino for- mations occur between the interstices of the beds. The quarry we are in now is the new one, as it is called, but must have taken ages to excavate. Tho old one is to the right, and is said to occupy a large extent. What a sensation of awe and lonesomeness creeps over the mind, in finding itself thus so far under- ground, in the very bowels of the rock as it were— the damp cold feeling of the air, the oppressive silence, and intense Cimmerian darkness, all the more apparent from the imperfect red blink of the candle. Yet here, day after day the patient quarryman passes the long bright outside daj', the best part of his ex- istence, hewing and delving out the ponderous blocks, so that to him the quarry becomes a kind of second subterranean home. No stranger, we should presume, ventures into the labyrinthine maze of galleries with- out a guide — as no earthly aid could find the lost in such a place ; but many of the Beer men are well 16 WANDERINGS IN DEVON. acquainted with a large portion of the cave's ramifica- tions, and legendary lore speaks of it as having been a great storehouse and fastness for smuggling opera- tions in days gone by. Returning towards the mouth of the quarry, we are struck with the immense num- ber of the Pipistrelle family, which in all their varieties make these dark galleries their head quarters during the day, and are seen hung up by their hooked heels to the sides of the cavern, sallying forth in swarms in the evening twilight. Out once more into the daylight — ah ! how beauti- ful is the sun — even oppressively so just now, until our eyes are schooled afresh to his grateful radiance. The Quarry of Beer we take to be one of the celebrities of the county in its way, and is well worth a visit by the tourist who seeks to explore the remark- able places embraced in this interesting portion of Devon. Traces of the product of its dark recesses may be found in almost all the buildings of any size within a radius of many miles, and large quantities are annually exported. Geologically, we beliove, the bed which furnishes such large supplies at Beer, rises again at Widworthy, seven miles off, where it has been worked, and the noted quarries at Bath are but a continuance of the same stratum. The old quarry has been worked from eight hundred to a thousand years probably. Almost all the antient churches in the neighbourhood are partially con- structed of its product. Where are the sturdy hands BEER AND ITS QUARRY. 17 that through so many ages laboriously delved out its rocky contents, and the cunning fingers that subse- quently deftly carved and fashioned the rough blocks into delicately shaped foliage, fretwork, and finial ? The visitor who views with admiration the many-ribbed, bold, fan-like, groining of the roof of Exeter Cathe- dral — that noble conception of the munificent Quivil — those lengthening arcades poised so fairy-like aloft, yet withal seemingly imperishable in their beauty, — would scarcely imagine that it is composed of Beer stone. Such we believe is the case. And in our fancy's eye we can look back with admiration at the glorious perseverance that accomplished it, amid diffi- culties of such magnitude that nothing but the real influence of religious feeling, that most powerful of all incentives, could have surmounted them. Those were not the days of railroads, let us remember, with their wonderful facilities of celerity and easy transit — and Beer is distant some five and twenty miles from Exeter. Neither was it an age of roads of any sort, nor of wheeled carriages — the early dawn of the 1 4th century. No broad turnpike aided the heavily laden wain with its ponderous load, — nor was its humble coadjutor the parish highway threading its tortuous, well-rutted windings over hill and valley available, but only the narrow, obscure, and miry track- way or halter-path — and therefore the probability is, that the masses of stone were all carried to Exeter on pack- horses, and we oan easily picture the heavily-laden c 18 WANDERINGS IN DEVON. convoy slowly defiling through the green combes, accompanied by their drover churls, patiently plodding on till they reached the stupendous fane — still the chief ornament of our county — then slowly rising from the ground like a coral rock from the briny depths of the ocean. " From hence came buttress, shaft and stair Prom crypt and vaulting rising fair ; And all that slender steeple too, That like a fountain in the blue Rises exulting ; here the branch Of the great windows, dyed with blood Of martyrs that no time can stanch ; The altar and the by -gone rood ; The mullions, drip-stones, and the shrine ; The pavement, long since trod away ; And saints that in their long array Wait patient for the judgment day ; And angels that still gazing smile Upon the abbot in the aisle, Who on the flat tomb lies in prayer." Our return is by another route, and we pass Bovey, the ancestral seat of the Walronds, a cadet branch of the main house at Bradfield, whose last heiress was the Judith Maria of charitable memory, Baroness Rolle, and founder of the almshouses. Relative to this antient and reputable family, tho visitor will find in their chapel in the parish church at Seaton, the interesting memorial of an olden member thereof, with the effigies of the deceased clad in the half armour and trunk hose of the time of the Com- BEER AND ITS QUARRY. 19 monwealth, kneeling in prayer before aprie dieu — below is this quaint inscription, " composed " and k 'set vp " by his widow, who was a daughter of Sir William Pole, Knight, of Colcombe, tho county his- torian, and who thus seems to have inherited in some measure, a taste for her father's literary proclivities — "AN EPITAPH ON THE DEATH OF EDMOND WALROXD OF BOWE, WHO WAS BYRIED SEP. 10, ANNO DOMINI, 16-10, .ETAT SV.E 48 ; COMPOSED AND SET VP BY ANNE WALROND, HIS WIFE : HERE LIETII THE BODY OF MY HVSBAND DEARE, WHOM NEXT TO GOD I DID BOTH LOVE AND FEARB, OUR LOVES WERE SINGLE WE NEVER HAD BVT ONE, AND SO I'LL BEE ALTHOUGH THAT THOU ART GONE, AND YOU THAT SHALL THIS SAD INSCRIPTI : VIEW, REMEMBER ALWAIES THAT DEATHS YOVR DVE." Bovey House is a small, plain mansion, of Jacobean origin apparently, and a strange gloom of desolation seems to invest it. Polwhele gives a graphic picture of its last residents, on his visit there about a century ago : — " On visiting Bovey," (says he) " a few years since, I was pleased with the venerable appearance of the house and every object around it. It was then the residence of Mrs. Walrond. There was something unusually striking in the antique mansion, the old rookery behind it, the mossy pavement of the court, the raven in the porch, grey with years, and even the domestics hoary in service — they were all grown old together." As we came out at the end of tho short lane we 20 WANDERINGS IN DEVON. turned to take a last look at the old deserted manse, and the few scattered trees forming the remains of the ancient avenue. The sculptured forms of the rampant leopards still support the escutcheon of Walrond on the pillars of the gateway ; but where is the living representative of the name ? And where is the name of him who wedded the last green branch of this ancient stock, whose wealth and influence in his day and generation had from their vastness become an adage in the county ? Gone too, and a stranger com- paratively represents them both. Often thus, thought we, does the Supreme Disposer of events arrange it. The peer with broad acres boundless, and wealth untold, sighs in his state that no child of his love may place him in holy earth, or fill his honoured station — and shudders as he dreams of an extinct name and his time-hallowed heritage apportioned to an alien — while the cotter whose only fortune is his brawny arms, and his inheritance the sweat of his brow, sighs too, as he deposits his shining tools at the cottage door, and casts an anxious glance at the merry, careless phalanx bearing his name con- gregated on the path and step, and who straightway swarm round his knee in the little ingle corner, while the great brown loaf is frugally apportioned among them by his thrifty partner. The red rim of the rising moon is just up-wheeling behind the "brown shoulder' ' of the distant hill, and a single star is tremulously struggling for existence in BEER AND ITS QUARRY. 21 the long line of saffron sky. A great white owl has just floated stealthily round the corner, noiseless as a cloud, and, scared by our unlooked for presence, darted over the hedge with the celerity of magic. The grass- hopper is busily carolling at our feet : — " Singing himself to sleep Beneath some pleasant weed ; " and all flowers and forms are fast merging into one soft neutral hue. " Homeward the soul's strong wings are bent ! " Good night ! Til NEST OF TIE M8IINS ANB ttfxEWS. RIDE in the early train on the South-Western Railway, and a fine May morning. Fine we say — that is, bright and sunny to be sure, but with a chastened freshness in the air, and a bluish keen tint in the sky just over the distant hill- line, that tells us the rime-powed ambassador of Winter, John Frost, Esquire, of that Ilk, has not received his final passport from the warm hand of Summer as yet. Never mind, it is wise to make the best of all things, and though the morning air be a little unseasonable, it braces the muscles and exhila- rates the feelings, especially to one bound on a tramp- ing excursion. In a large roomy "third-class" of course, for your pedestrian antiquary has a careful eye to expense, and moreover rather likes the bustle and social fussy amenities of the people's Parliamen- tary coach, to the straightened state of a first-class (even if he could afford it), or tho too often would-be gentility of the second-rated vehicle. Carefully stowing away the striped " market return" and settling in a corner, we take stock of our com • THE MOHUNS AND CAEEWS. 23 panions — cheerful farmers, knowing cattle-dealers, and grey-clad, wise-browed millers, form the majority of the male portion, and their talk is alternately of oxen, of corn, of butter, of the hay prospect, with wise nods and knowing glances, enlivened now and then with a robust laugh. Two or three of the softer sex are interspersed — farmers' wives or daughters, evidently, with sober business faces, and fine well-flowered bonnets. On their knees capacious baskets, in whose vast depths the freshest butter and newest eggs are carefully freighted, while from one of the wickered receptacles the violent flutter of wings and scratching of feet, betray the fear of the frightened prisoners within, fat pullet or capon as the case may be ; yet the fierce struggles for liberty in no wise disturb the story of the sturdy dame who holds them — she is deep in butter- lore ; its probable price, and how much she shall make this coming season. One, a younger damsel, sits silent and alone in the carriage corner, and from behind the convenient cob- webby mazes of a thick veil, is coyly ogling a rather good-looking youth nearly opposite, whose semi-mili- tary air, moustache, and spruce garb, joined to the good-terms- with-himself he is evidently on, completely deaden tho influence of the furtive glances that dart from the bright-eyed battery opposite. Thus conning the apparent characters of our fellow passengers, we pass two or three little trim stations, 24 WANDERINGS IN DEVON. each of which contributes its quota to the living load, when suddenly we emerge from a deep cutting, and the broad fertile vale of Honiton stretches away before us. Facing the eye, the dense beetling woods of Tracey spread down the slope. To the right the grand pyramidal hill of Dumpdon sits like a monarch in the valley, his mighty brow crowned with trees, while the green fields that mantle his sides seem fas- tened together by the white building, which looks like a clasp on his capacious breast. Below, the ancient borough lengthens along, a line of slate roofs and chimneys, over which a haze of ghost-like smoke is passing. A glance out of the opposite window shows us the old church of St. Michael, whose massive towor seems to look with disdain on the slender Norman apology that shoots up amid the houses below. How we hug ourselves often on these imitations and restorations, save the mark ! destructions too often, we should have said. Compare the attenuated nineteenth century example at Honiton with the towers of Warlewast at Exeter. How real was their work : the reflex of their thoughts of Him for Whom they built, because " They dreamt not of a perishable home Who thus could build." " Ticket, sir," exclaimed a voice at our side as we were unconsciously marching out of the station door with the crowd, forgetful of delivering up the half of our necessary passport. "Eight," said we, recalling THE MOHUNS AND CARE WS. 25 ourselves back to the present, for our thoughts had been busily traversing the past in relationship to the places we anticipated visiting, joined with a running commentary of fancy on the probable appearance of the terra incognita we were about to explore. Outside the official precincts, the old tower of St. Michael stood on the hill- before us, like a finger of old Time beckoning us to visit. Although not set down in the programme of our day's peregrinations, we could not resist the appeal: and, in less time than it takes to describe it, we were vigorously wending our way up the church hill, past the wicket-gate of the yard, and up to the great door, which we fancied was the merest trifle ajar, and to our intense delight moved open Avith a slow creak as we gave it a stealthy shove. AVe have noticed that we are often lucky, as we term it, in our visits to old churches — that is, some one is generally within the building, or near at hand. Either the village-clerk's wife, busily dusting the seats, creeps out like a ghost from some out-of-the- way corner, and after requiring with a curtsey (some- times), your business, makes you welcome, and follows your footsteps with a copious running fire of wordy in- formation on church and parish affairs; a small silver gratuity, and curtsey number two (sometimes), ter- minating the interview. Or else a dull and measured click salutes the ear from some distant part of the yard, sounding with strange evidence of lusty vitality amid the silent realms of the dead. Instinctively our 26 WANDERINGS IN DEVON. eyes have followed the direction of the sound, and amid the surging hillocks, close by a heap of new raised earth, we see a pair of sturdy arms and a frost-fringed head, surmounted by the poor crooked mattock, arise out of and descending into the ground at regular in- tervals, and an involuntary sigh seems to escape us as we watch the preparation for the last resting of some wearied soul, who has laid down for ever by the dusty roadside of this troublous life. The man starts as we walk over quietly and accost him with the usual query, if he has the key of the church with him. Eyeing us with a complacently inquisitive glance, he answers, in the affirmative — "Ees, sure, sur; you'll find en there, jist besides my tother tools;" where sure enough it appears, as large as an old-fashioned dragoon's pistol. Strange suggestive company, we think — the great church key and the grave diggers tools ; and we often reflect as we open the ponderous door, and hear the great hinges grate, how far distant is the time when they will turn on us, lastly and for ever ! We enter, and sit down in the cool calm to recover ourselves a minute ; but our eyes are all astare at the sight of the gorgeous screen that stretches across the chancel. Ah ! here again, is no modern sham, but real sturdy oak, carved into patterns of bewildering intricacy and richness — foliage, fruit, and flowers, groinwork, cusps and bosses : the cunning workman had no contract here ; no " trades-union " threat to THE MOHUNS AND CAREWS. 27 cramp his fingers or damp his ardour. He saw in his mental 0} r e the pattern his hands gave an enduring and tangible evidence of ; he felt the mysterious influ- ence of the Great Master for Whose honour he laboured. Aye, these old workmen — the spirit of the Cross stamped alike the dignity of their labour in the Sanc- tuary as truly as its hallowed symbol was impressed upon their silver wage. Railroads, steam-engines and telegraphs, seem to make us forget such things now- a-day, instead of helping us to expand and enrich them, as their improved means should. Over this elaborate band of carving, in place of the " Holye lloode Tree," with the semblance of Him Who was crucified for all, once displayed thereon — there now stands the gilded puffy diapasons of a modern organ — a nineteenth century embellishment of course. Through the skreen-door — what is the legend on the chancel pillars ? — " Ijpvai? for m £auls> oC Solm Carlull anfc Jonc Iris fotftc." Good old Jan and Joan Tackel ! — "Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord," — we answer to your ap- peal, — " for your works shall follow you." The almost unconscious benediction had scarcely parted from our lips when an old gravestone in the north aisle caught our eye, whose nearly obliterated ledger line after some careful search, revealed the 28 WANDERINGS IN DEVON. last resting place of the godly old Joan, then a widow — " Mc facet Joljana Eacfccll bttiua, que ofctt't ybi rsic Jultt anno ©mmnt fH©©©@W£f, cnfns ate pronmetur JUeus, 'Hmcu.** Taken altogether, however, there is much in the old church for the eye to dwell on with pleasure. It has not been tampered with as yet, and its old features thoroughly effaced by recent renovations. We have often a great horror of these modern resto- rations, where zeal, set on fire with a little money, energetically destroys everything within its reach, and some venerable old pile perchance comes out as from a band-box ; spick and span new, from the topmost pinnacle of the tower to the freshly added nose and moustache of the grim knight, who sleeps " stony sound" in the chancel, and whose mutilated limbs have been patched up to keep pace with the garish display of illumination blazing around. It won't do, believe us — your modern stone-mason's chisel destroys all charm of the past like the wand of a magician. A church should be a sort of kalendar of the past, where each succeeding century should be represented from its foundation, quite as much as a rallying point for the present. To break one link destroys the whole chain. In order therefore, to preserve and perpetuate THE MOHUNS AND CAREWS. 29 this sequence of regard, with a reverend and cautious spirit the elaborate Elizabethan and Jacobean monu- ments, with their be-ruffed figures, beard-a-peak or mob-cap, array of heraldry and ornate epitaphs, should be scrupulously cared for : — the " orate pro anima " of the old Catholic vicar of the fifteenth century in the chancel floor, and the equally interesting one to the ' reverend and jnous ' Puritan minister of the Com- monwealth, whose heretical dust is covered by the adjoining stone — all have alike their interest, and claim to our common respect. Aged 105 ! Who can this be? Let the quaint inscription on his tomb describe him — "HERE LIETH THE BODY OF THOMAS MARWOOD, GENT.; WHO PRACTISED PHYSICK AND CHIRURGERY ABOVE 75 YEARS, AND BEING ZEALOUS OF GOOD WORKS, GAVE CERTAIN HOUSES, AND BEQUEATHED BY HIS WILL TO THE POOR OF HONITON, 10 POUNDS, AND BEING AGED ABOVE 105 YEARS, DEPARTED IN THE CATHOLIC FAITH, SEPTEMBER YE 18TH, ANNO DOMINI, 1617." Ho was physician to Queen Elizabeth, and lived in a grand old house in Honiton, where he entertained the unfortunate Charles the First, while on one of his western journeys. The loyal and charitable old doctor seems to have well preserved his own life, whatever may have been his fortune with other people's. A word by the way about the descendants of this o 30 WANDERINGS IN DEVON. venerable court chirurgeon, who were lords of the adjoining parish of Widworthy; where two interesting old manses are found, Barton and Cookeshayes, their antient homes. In the parish church are several splendid memorials to these succeeding Marwoods — " eminent for piety , honesty, and good ceconomy." The last of the race died about fifty years since; the owner of such vast landed possessions that a saying was current with the country people to the effect that he had an estate for every day in the year — but sad and wondrous sequel— bereft of reason for many years before his death, he died the childless and unwitting possessor of almost boundless wealth. A number of other memorials cluster about the walls, the short title pages to past histories, but of no special import. We make our exit by the chancel door ; but stay, what have we here? A brass plate, covered with extraordinary orthography, tells us — " HERE LYETH YE BODY OP JAMES RODGE, OP HONINTON, IN YE COVNTY OF DEVONSHIRE, (BONE- LACE SILLER. HATH GIVEN VNTO THE POORE OP HONINTON PISHE THE BENYFITT OP £100 FOR EVER,) WHO DECEASED YE 27 OP JVLY, AO. DI. 1617, ^TATE, SV^E, 50. REMEMBER THE POORE." He was probably one of the early introducers of the manufacture of this elegant material from Holland, THE MOHUNS AND CAREWS. 31 which now gives such "busy employ to the nimble- fingered maidens of the district. Very little lace, however, is now made at Honiton ; its fabrication has migrated towards the sea-coast, where the fishermen's wives and daughters, living in the villages that skirt the shore between Axmouth and Exmouth, produce it in abundance. "We saunter down the yard, catching a glance at the names on the head-stones as we pass. Ah ! what name is that ? Edwin Flood, the most gifted scion of a gifted family, a genuine musician ; among whose numerous beautiful productions not one bar of mean- ingless or careless music can be found. Only 24— just so — " Whom the God's love die young." The minor wail of the new church chime is tinkling in the valley bolow;- but another echo is ringing its sweet change on our inward ear at the sight of that name — the melody of the Sabbath Bells. Alas for earthly sabbaths, and those who sing of their hallowed associations, would they could have soothed " The dull cold ear of Death :— at least for a time, and this rare evanescence of genius been spared for many a year to delight and charm us ! Yet who would keep those fairy fingers here, that now make eloquent the seraph's golden harp, in the endless Sabbath of the Blessed. 82 WANDERINGS IN DEVON. Once more the thought of the old church door and its hinges recurs, aud recalls the words of the American poet, as we hurry away from the sacred enclosure : — " Again the hinges turn, and a youth, departing, throws A look of longing backward, and sorrowfully goes ; A blooming maid, unbinding the roses from her hair, Moves mournfully away from amidst the young and fair. Oh ! glory of our race that so suddenly decays ! Oh ! crimson flush of morning that darkens as we gaze ! Oh ! breath of summer blossoms that on the restless air Scattors a moment's sweetness and flios we know not where ! I grieve for life's bright promise, just shown and then with- drawn. But still tho sun shines round me, the evening bird sings on, And I again am soothed ; and beside the ancient gate, In this soft evening sunlight, I calmly stand and wait." Down over the hill at a canter, through New-street to the broad main thoroughfare of the town. All is a-stir ; here a blue-smocked butcher is toiling along beneath the heavy burthen of a well-fed porker; there a cheap Jack is getting ready his splendid bargains ; market gardeners display their vegetable stores : fish- mongers, hollow-turners, basket-makers, and agricul- tural craftsmen of all descriptions are getting ready their stock of wares ; for Honiton is par excellence a genuine specimen of a market town, for all " stand in the market," situate in High-street, to dispose of their commodities. THE MOHUNS AND CAREWS. 33 On the pavement a crowd of busy folks are hurrying along ; in the street a herd of red-coated Devons are slowly edging on their way, to the reiterated shout of the drover, the long white horns of the bullocks glancing up and down in the sunshine. Behind them a patient convoy of heavy fleeced " grand Devon " sheep are labouring along, to the incessant clatter of an aged sheep-dog, which barks like a machine behind the portly presence of an old ewe in the rear, who, evidently from long acquaintanceship, is supremely contemptuous of his presence and prowess. Follow- ing these, at a short interval, comes a troop of divers- coloured swine, with erect ears, quick eyes, and snouts pointed to the ground, ever ready for contraries and mischief j anon halting and grunting, till the sharp snap of a powerful whip sends them on at a gallop. Then, amid the wirling eddies of dust, ere we reach the turnpike on the Upottery-road, smart traps rattle along, knots of well-to-farmers amble leisurely by, with here and there the inevitable useful ass and low- wheeled cart, pattering steadily on, and drawing his cottage mistress to market, who sits in state upon a great maund of cabbages, that fill up the body of the little vehicle, while a bundle of neatly made besoms are lashed to the tailboard. At last we gain the turnpike, thankful to leave the bustle and dust of the crowded street behind. The sun has now broken out in full blaze, and we saunter steadily on, vaguely surmising the direction we have i) 34 WANDERINGS IN DEVON. to take, for our present stock of information ceases at a half mile plus the toll-bar. While we are thus cogitating, an eddy of dust at a turn of the road anticipates the approach of some- thing living, which soon resolves itself into the sem- blance of a stalwart farmer's lad, leading a heifer and calf to the market. The careful mother walks rest- lessly around, with soft loving low, her large eye anxiously glancing beneath her handsome creamy horns, as we stop the rustic leading her progeny, for further directions as to our future path : — " Which is the nearest way to Mohuns Ottery, my lad?" " Moons Awtrey you do mean, sir." " Yes." " Doo'e know where Munkkun Pown is, sir?" "Yes." " Well, when you comes there, turn down to the left, and vollec straight up auver the hill till you comes to a dree cross way, turn to the right, and that '11 lead right auver to Moons Awtrey." " Thank you, my lad; good morning." A few hundred yards of steady pace brought us to the un- mistakeable little walled enclosure, with wooden en- trance hatch referred to by our trusty informant, and we struck at once down the narrow lane leading off to the left. Eight pleasant is it to leave the hot broad dusty turnpike road and find ourselves in the shadows and THE MOHUNS AND CAREWS. 35 quietness of a true Devonshire lane, as this turn in our track proved itself. Over head the "Corinthian" elm spread her leafy skirts far and wide, or feathery foliaged ash, or strong-limbed oak, giving a welcome shade. Below in the hedge-sides, the wild flowers grew by myriads. Here a cluster of carmine- starred wake-robins started up, there a sweet honey-suckle trailed along, or fierce-armed dog-rose displayed his pale-pink blooms. Interspersed, were luscious butter- cups and pale silver-starred strawberry blossoms, while every now and then at intervals, the glorious fox-glove — that lover of ". the west countrie," as old Leland hath it, shot up his spire of bells. At the base of the hedge a bright rill sparkled along, fringed here and there with tufts of what in our ignorance of botanical nomenclature, we have ever known as water forget-me-nots, whose tiny quaterfoiis of matchless turquoise hue, make it the gem of Eng- lish wild flowers. Hovering over these, with dainty restlessness, was a troop of the smaller dragon flies, their gorgeous blue wings flashing like burnished armour in the sunlight. Great humble-bees bustled about on their busy errand; the birds were singing blythely, and crowds of gnats at intervals threaded their mazy dance under the shadow of some drooping branch. At the foot of the descent lay a stone bridge, span- ning one of those rivulets which arc almost constantly found flashing rapidly along the bottom of the narrow 36 WANDERINGS IN DEVON. green Devonshire combes. Erected apparently about a century since, with a tall arch which rendered the roadway over as steep as the roof of a house; its builders little dreamt of the unborn time of iron- girders and their level approaches. A rest for a few minutes on the parapet, and a look down the valley, could not be resisted. Below, the stream bounded through the narrow archway with a sparkling run, or " stickle " as it is locally defined, which a few yards further on became spent, and amplified itself into a tolerably sized pool, skirted with tall reeds, over which drooped the darkling alder. Here the still surface was from time to time broken by those well-known circles which betokened the wake- ful presence of the dappled trout, stealthily catering for his dinner from the quivering rout of flies that swarmed above him : — The speckled brigand of the stream, Moulded with beauty's line, Rich o'er whose breast of golden gleam The rays of Iris shine. Spirit of glorious old Isaac ! come forth and furnish us with our accustomed slender wat'ry store of pliant rod and yellow dun, that we may trap the quick-eyed rascal in his craftiness ; for the blood of Zebedee hath possessed us utterly ! Alas, for impossible wishes and impulsive intentions, they will not be gratified to-day. An old-fashioned[farmhouse, surmounted by a Tudor chimney, and a lane that stretches away up a steep THE MOHUNS AND CAREWS. 37 hill, are before us. We mount leisurely, noting the beautiful ferns that clothe the hedge banks. Now glancing at the tiny serrated fronds of the maidenhair nestling at the foot of a huge stump, or the large, long, leathery leaves of the hart's tongue drooping from its summit, or stopping an instant to admire a grand tuft of the common fern, with its beautiful fringes, until at last we reach the " three-cross- way," described to us by our informant driving the cow. Following on the lane to the right as directed, for a short distance, some grand old trees made their appearance at a sweep in the road, the advanced post as it were, of the manorial precincts. These trees from their large size, dwarfed the surrounding repre- sentatives of their kind in the neighbouring hedges, and were evidently of great age ; while their ample foliage almost completely hid a small farmhouse from sight. Not far from this, still pursuing our way, a large gate stretching across the lane, and the remains appa- rently of an avenue, tokened the near approach of Mohuns-Ottery — which a slight turn at a few paces further distance revealed at once. Mohun ! what a " strange, eventful " history is attached to that name. A cradlehood of glory — an exit of shame. The grand old Norman sire of the race lived in his castle of Dunster, and from thence his knightly lineage descended by divers strains in 38 WANDERINGS IN DEVON. Cornwall, Devon, and Somerset. The Devonshire Mohuns were famous for their pious beneficence —the abbey of Newenham being founded by them ; soon after which it should seem the old coat armour of the family — a sleeved arm, the hand holding a fieur-de-lys — was exchanged for the noble device adopted by the abbots of Newenham — a great gold cross on a sable field. The family lingered on to the days of Charles I., when the then head of the house was ennobled by the title of Baron Mohun, of Okehampton; but a sad extinction awaited its last representative, Charles, the fifth Viscount; who, after being twice tried for murder, found a bloody death in a duel with the Duke of Hamil- ton, when both antagonists were killed. The name yet lingers among the Devonshire yeomanry, derived possibly from some stray branch from the main stirpe, changed to the homely but celestial patronymic of Moon. From the Mohuns the estate passed to the Carews, another noted Devonian race — f; a right noble family," to use the words of Prince, the lustre of whose antient fame as soldiers and civilians stands out in marvellous relief, and is still bright and undimmed as ever. A short account of these worthies will be excusable, and we trow acceptable Sir John Carew, the first of the race, settled here, having married the heiress of Mohun. He was a famous soldier, and fought at Cressy, dying in 1363. THE MOHUNS AND CAREWS, 39 The tomb in the chancel of Luppit church probably marks the sepulchre of this knight; a portion of the cusped arch remains, but the canopy it forms is tenantless of its former effigy — not to be wondered at, we think, as we glance at the lime and sand floor of the chancel, and desolate churchyard. After Sir John came Thomas, his son, a valiant knight also, who was with the dauntless Henry V. at Agincourt. Another Carew, Baron Nicholas, great at the court of Edward IV., is, with his wife, sepulchred in the regal precincts of Westminster Abbey. John Carew was a daring seaman, under Henry VIII., and while commanding The Regent " engaged a French carrick of great force ; they entered her, which, when her gunner saw, he desperately sate fire to the powder, and blew them both up, together with Sir John and 700 men." Thomas Carew, an equally bold soldier, was the English knight who at the field of Flodden took up the gage of the valorous Scottish knight, Andrew Barton, before the battle began, and van- quished him — a presage of the fate of the encounter that followed. Others were famous men in the stirring times of Queen Elizabeth. George, the most celebrated, served his Royal mistress well in Ireland, who wrote to him as her " Faithful George, " telling him that his services " should neither be unremembered nor unrewarded ; while, believe my help nor prayers shall never fail you ; — your sovereign that best regards you — E. R." 40 WANDERINGS TN DEVON. James I. created him Baron Clopton and Earl of Totness ; and to quote farther from the pages of the gossipping Prince, he was " a faithful subject, a valiant and prudent commander, a honest councillor, a gentile scholar, a lover of antiquities, and a great patron of learning." His dust, under a stately monument, finds a resting place beneath the same roof that enshrines the peerless Shakespeare. Gawen, a distinguished courtier ; Peter, a great soldier ; and George, a learned divine, added their quota of brilliancy to the galaxy of chivalry and. learning that distinguished the remark- able reign of the virgin Queen. But it is time to bid adieu to the past and think of the present, for here we are before the " Nest " of all these knightly worthies. The large array of evidently new slate roofs gives the worst anticipations of what we shall find on a nearer approach — that the old house has given place to a new one. Such indeed is the case. AVhile we were inwardly lamenting, however, all at once we were surprised to find ourselves before a fine old arched gateway, through which as we looked, at a short distance behind, was another such arch, while further again beyond appeared, the deeply-moulded and hooded arch of the front door, inside which was again another curved doorway, forming a strikingly beautiful gradation of distances j and which, with a living figure or two, would have formed a glorious stereograph. Clusters of roses huug from the wall- THE MOHUNS AND CAREWS. 41 * sides, interspersed with myrtles and jasmines, while tufts of great Whitsun gilliflowers, and other old- fashioned sweet blooms, rose in profusion from the border that lined the passage. A knock at the door soon brought out the worthy occupant, with an invitation to rest, and the Devon- shire farmer's welcome of a glass of sweet sparkling cider. " A new house, my friend,'' said we, looking about — " have you lived here long? " " More than fifty years," replied he ; and to our other query, " it is a new house ; the old one, a fine old place, with large stone windows, was burnt down about twenty years since ; when nothing was left but the front porch and the old arches of the gateway." Refreshed with our rest, we sallied forth to scruti- nise the few ancient remains left. At the rear of the building we found 'one of those immense fire-places, yet left remaining in our antient baronial residences, (notable similar examples to which also exist at old Shute House and Colcombe), whose enormous ingle corners stretch from one side of the room to the other, and are literally big enough to roast an ox in, if required. Over the front door are the initials " p. C." beiug those of the Elizabethan soldier before referred to, and in the spandrils of the front arch, amid a profusion of elegant scroll-work and foliage, with their proper supporters, on the one side are the arms of Carew, 42 WANDERINGS IN DEVON. * whose three lions passant guardant, seem to challenge the royal ensigns for distinction; and on the other side the early maunch of Mohun, bearing the fleur-de-lys. Not far from the house is the site of what was probably once a fish-pond, or reservoir, of large dimen- sions and great depth. On one side are the remains . of a strong flint masonried culvert for carrying off , the superfluous water ; the place is now all overgrown with trees and coppice wood. Ere we returned, the loan of a chair and our sketch-book gave us a half-hour's pleasant occupa- tion, to the intense curiosity of two plough-boys, who were keenly eyeing our proceedings, one mounted on the top-most bar of a gate at our rear, and the other from the crest of the gateway before us, whither he had clambered and sat himself down, peeping out from the dense mass of ivy, like Minerva's bird of wisdom. Til OABiE OF MAlilfllltl, KEEN, cold morning-, a veritable winter one — quiet and undisturbed — when the air holds a kind of constrained stillness, as if frost-bound. The hard turnpike road reverberates under the tread, as if it "were composed of one continuous piece of granite, stratified with threadings of iron, indicated by the dark stripes of water congealed in the wheel- tracks. Twig, branch, and briar are white with the wondrously beautiful frost rime, and the" grass, covered with the silvery crystallisation, crackles crisply beneath the foot. It is hard times with the smaller birds, who scarcely care to move' out of one's way; and a great grey thrush, with plumage ruffled up and a very mendicantish look, has just brushed over the hedge, scarce a dozen feet in front of us — let us trust he may soon recover his minstrel suit and sweet voice,' with the advent of bee and cuckoo. Such was the general appearance of things on the short stretch of road lying between the little rural village of Whitford in Shute, and the handsome skew arch of the railway at Woodhayne. There our route 44 WANDERINGS IN DEVON. diverged from the turnpike : and, crossing the Axe on a narrow wooden plank, the path lay over the meadows. The Axe ! bright, sparkling, many-curved Axe, queen of these eastern streams, how many delight- some associations conjure themselves into being within the busy brain at the sight of thy murmuring tide ! Of olden time, when the royal Athelstan and his armed legions waded thy waters in surging conflict with the invader's host, crimsoning thy pure bosom with the carnage, — of the minster founded on thy bank in memory thereof, by the same regal mind, and whose grey tower, now peering down the valley through the clear morning air, preaches to us still the eternal purpose of the founder — and makes the thou- sand years that have passed since that tower was first upraised, appear even to our finite minds, but compa- ratively as yesterday. A succeeding age witnessed two small companies of serge-clad, shoonless monks, halt upon thy marge, meeting there the belted nobles of the district, and with solemn ceremony, together laying the foundation stones — cross-graven — of two noble abbeys. Again, after a dozen fleeting generations had passed, didst thou see the successors of those holy men, with heavy, grief-bowed hearts, hand over these grand fanes, the refuges of piety and learning, and reared in honour of the Chief Corner Stone, to the mercenary and greedy favourites of a lawless, remorseless king. The THE CRADLE OF MARLBOROUGH. 45 mocking shadow of one still exists to attest its high- born origin — the other, long since razed to its founda- tions, is now the home only of the mole and the bat. The Royalist, the Roundhead, and eke the hapless partizan of Monmouth, have, in turn, alternately forded thy shallows, till now of late the iron -road hath spanned thy lisping marge, and the snorting monster, with his cohort of living freight, whirls with savage energy along thy babbling precincts. Yet, gentle river, shall thy sweet silvery sparkle out-run them aU — " For men may come, and men may go, But you go on for ever." And — ever sacred — for thine own blest natural delights, glad stream, how prized art thou — thy rich- tinted flags and rustling reeds, thy swallows and daisy-sprent banks, thy mirrored reaches, and thy bounding stickles — " With here and there a lusty trout, And here and there a grayling." Pleasant and healthful is it (for mind and body alike) to pursue the ^contemplative recreation" of the grand old Isaac on thy banks, drinking rich draughts of Nature's sweet communion, lost in delicious dreams and tranced reveries — (nervously disturbed, however, now and then at intervals by a vigorous twitch at your furthermost blue upright) — and during a live- long afternoon, follow quietly thy convolutions, revel- 46 WANDERINGS IN DEVON. ling onward as it were reluctantly through the dappled meadows, till the retreating golden sunlight of evening blushes its last farewell. Splash ! splash ! whirr ! whirr ! whirr ! — Ah ! there they go ; a magnificent mallard towering up, and a couple of ducks after him. Look at his gor- geous green glossy neck, iridescent in the sunlight, and otherwise splendid plumage, contrasting with the ruddy breasts and sober colours of the ducks. Up, up, up, — and now away with vast speed down the valley to their ocean fastness, lessening even already to three dark specks in the cool ether. "Drat it, Maister," said a voice in pure vernacular, from a fustain coat and shapeless wide-awake creep- ing out from a corner of a hedge, " I wish 'ee hadden a come on for half a minnit, I should a had a couple of 'em, HI bet a ginnea." "Never care, my man," said we, "they are happier where they are ; and, you may have another chance this evening." " Perhaps," we continued sot to voce, and inwardly hoped he might, as we eyed our sporting companion's " fowling piece " — an antique sj)ecimen that had evidently been carefully treasured as the heir loom of the cottage dynasty for generations, and had probably made the peaceful echoes of this valley reverberate every winter with due regularity for the past half century. Thus, fair birds, this morning we have been the THE CRADLE OF MARLBOROUGH. 47 unconscious agents of your safety — the bearers of your reprieve it may be from death, or your lustrous wings from ghastly maims — a gracious errand that ye wot little of, as ye bask securely 'neath the crest of the curling billows. To day at least — i; Vainly the fowler's eye Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong, — As darkly painted on the crimson sky Thy figure floats along. Thou'rt gone, — the abyss of heaven Hath swallowed up thy form ; — yet on my heart Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given, And shall not soon depart. He who from zone to zone, Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight, In the long way that I must tread alone, Will lead my steps aright." But stay, here we are in a large park-like field, aptly enough named Vernal in the sweet spring-tide approaching ; and there is Ashe House, beneath whose roof, so peacefully situate in these sylvan solitudes, one of the mightiest and most successful of English soldiers first saw the light. The family of Drake of Ashe, from whom mater- nally, Marlborough was descended, is of considerable antiquity; and the first of that name located here, migrated from the parent stock at Spratshays, near Exmouth, about the beginning of the sixteenth cen- 48 WANDERINGS IN DEVON. tury. This John Drake, among other offices, held that of steward of the conventual estates of the abbey of Newenham, under abbot Gyll, at the time of the dissolution of these religious institutions, and doubtless had his share of the plunder. A few descents from the aforesaid John, came Bernard, a distinguished seaman of a noted epoch, rich in fruit of these old Devonian sea-lions, and associated with Hawkins, Gilbert, Raleigh, and others. Prince relates a characteristic story of this sturdy sailor : — " There fell out (says he) a contest between Sir Bernard and the immortal Sir Francis Drake, chiefly occasioned by Sir Francis — his assuming Sir Bernard's coat of arms ; not being able to make out his descent from his (Sir Bernard's) family ; a matter in those days, when the court of honour was in more honour, not so easily digested. The feud hereupon increased to that degree, that Sir Bernard a person of a high spirit, gave Sir Francis a box on the ear, and that within the verge of the court. For which offence he incurred her Majesty's displeasure, who bestowed upon Sir Francis a new coat of everlasting honour to himself and posterity for evor. And what is more, his crest is, — a ship on a globe under ruff, held bij a cable rope with a hand out of the clouds; in the rigging whereof, is hung up by the heels, a wivern gules, Sir Bernard's arms ; but in no great honour we may think to that knight, though so designed to Sir Francis. Unto all which Sir Bernard boldly replied : — ' That THE CRADLE OF MARLBOROUGH. 49 though her Majesty could give him a nobler, yet she could not give an antienter coat than his.' " Very boldly and very pluckily replied, too, think we, in those critical times of the headsman's block, and an imperious woman's resentment, so significantly implied by the disgraced wyyern. The irate Master Bernard soon found, or rather fought his way back into her Grace's favour, " who revolving in her Royal breast the many good services he had also done her," knighted him in 1585. But poor Sir Bernard ! a sad end awaited him — a sequel illustrative of this age of chivalry and inhumanity. He was the unconscious author of his own death, and in a most singular manner. Sir Bernard, in one of his buccaneering expedi- tions, took a