A LEGEND 
 
 OF 
 
 NORTH DEVON. 
 
LONDON .* PRINTED BY 
 
 SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., 'NEW-STREET SQUARE 
 AND PARLIAMENT STREET 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2016 
 
 https://archive.org/details/hartlandforestleOObray 
 
THE SEPARATION. 
 
HARTLAND FOREST 
 
 A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON. 
 
 BY 
 
 MRS. BRAY, 
 
 AUTHOR OF ‘THE REVOLT OF THE CEVENNES,' ‘ THE GOOD ST. LOUIS,’ 
 ‘THE WHITE HOODS,’ ‘trials OF THE HEART,’ 
 ‘BORDERS OF THE TAMAR AND THE TAVY,’ 
 
 ‘ LIFE OF STOTHARD,’ ETC. 
 
 ‘ You have heard of such a spirit ; and well you know 
 The superstitious idle-headed eld 
 Received, and did deliver to our age 
 This tale for truth.’ Shakespeare. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, 
 
 1871. 
 
 AND CO. 
 
I 
 
R, K. JOHNSON 
 
 eab -t. 
 
 Hartland Forest. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 He that with injury is grieved, 
 
 And goes to law to be relieved, 
 
 Is sillier than a sottish chouse, 
 
 Who, when a thief has robb’d his house, 
 
 Applies himself to cunning men, 
 
 To help him to his goods again. 
 
 Butler's ‘ Hudibras. ’ 
 
 Old Sir Thomas Fairland, of Northleigh Hall, 
 near Exeter, in the county of Devon, and his neigh- 
 bour, both in land and residence, old Squire Goldburn, 
 
 of Southmead House, disputed, quarrelled, and went 
 
 c 
 
 to law about a hedge, a gate, and a cartway between 
 their estates, which, unhappily for themselves, and 
 
 jQ 
 
 most happily for the gentlemen of the profession, 
 attorneys, solicitors, and barristers, were contiguous, 
 o' The contact, like many a one of a much higher 
 nature, was too close for peace ; and after more than 
 
2 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST : 
 
 seven years’ disputation, removals from sessions to 
 sessions and court to court, after contesting every 
 point and splitting every straw of the contest with 
 the most delicate tact of quibble, shift, and quirk, 
 after some hundreds spent on both sides, with, at 
 the end of the time, just as near an approach to 
 the termination of the cause as there was at the 
 beginning, the principals began to weary of that most 
 tedious of all wars — a war of the gown instead of the 
 sword. 
 
 Whilst both were thus heartily sick of John Doe 
 and Richard Roe and all the costly fictions of the 
 law, fortune did them a good turn ; she sent them a 
 journey to London together in the same rumbling 
 vehicle, at the time of which we write (a.D. 1720) one 
 of the earliest and oldest stage-coaches in England. 
 It was nothing less than one of a celebrated set 
 which were thus described and advertised in ‘ The 
 Evening Post ’ of the period : — 
 
 ‘ London, Bath, and Bristol stage-coaches performed by 
 Thomas Baldwin, citizen and cooper of London, living now at 
 the Crown Inn, at Slough, near Windsor, being the Bowling 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON 
 
 3 
 
 Green House; goes from the Saracen's Head in Friday Street, 
 and from the One Bell Inn behind the New Church near 
 the Maypole in the Strand, and Mr. John Tillies in Swan 
 Yard at the Coach and Horses over against Somerset House, 
 for the White Hart Inn near the Town’s End in Bristol, and 
 at the White Hart Inn near the King’s Bath in Bath, for 
 London; and for the better accommodation and conveniency 
 for travellers to and from the places above said, on Monday 
 the 28th instant April 1720, begins FLYING from the above 
 said places every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, 
 and Saturday during the FLYING SEASON, which is a 
 performance never before done. Likewise a THREE 
 DAYS’ COACH. Note the same coachman goes through 
 to Bath and from Bath to London.’* 
 
 The above-named worthies set off together on 
 the same day, and in the same coach, which, not- 
 withstanding all its boasted rapidity, did not get 
 on quite so fast as the speed of a modern railway. 
 Sir Thomas Fairland and old Squire Goldburn, 
 after arranging their legs with much courtesy so 
 as to sit without inconvenience opposite to each other, 
 somehow or other conceived the bright idea that, 
 as neither of them needed their attorney to settle 
 
 Copied from the original advertisement. 
 
4 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST : 
 
 their amicable adjustment of a footing in the stage- 
 coach, even so might they manage to settle their 
 other difficulty without further interference on the 
 part of the gentlemen of the long robe and still 
 longer bills. 
 
 Sir Thomas, who was a bit of a humorist, at least 
 so considered at the Bowling Green Club, said some- 
 thing to that effect to his neighbour Goldburn. As 
 the latter worthy answered, with an encouraging 
 allusion to the old fable (and thus used by him it 
 was a gracious simile), that whilst two dogs were 
 quarrelling for a bone, a mongrel intruder often 
 managed to step in and run away with it, their 
 friendly intercourse improved more rapidly than did 
 the pace of the flying coach ; and that day, when they 
 dined together on the road (ample time was then 
 given for such a refection to the traveller), over a 
 social bowl of punch they positively once and for 
 ever made up the dispute. The following were the 
 terms of agreement, viz., that as Sir Thomas Fairland 
 had an only child, a son, and Squire Goldburn an 
 only child, a daughter, these children should inter- 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON. 
 
 5 
 
 marry, and thus, by a union of interests, make one 
 hereafter of their estates, and so settle all difficulties. 
 
 The thing was decided ; they shook hands upon it 
 over an extra bowl of punch ; and old Mr. Goldburn 
 undertook to have his daughter Sarah home from 
 school, and Sir Thomas Fairland promised to write 
 forthwith to his son John, who was at Oxford, to 
 bid him come down into the country with all speed. 
 The lawyers were to be relieved of their present 
 labours and to have a pleasanter job for all parties 
 given them, though a far less profitable one for them- 
 selves, in drawing the marriage articles for a speedy 
 wedding. Sir Thomas fulfilled his promise in the 
 following epistle, which for the benefit of such of 
 our readers as may be desirous to inspect docu- 
 ments of this description, we give just as it came 
 into our own hands. 
 
 To Mr. John Fairland, Batchelor of Arts, Exon College, Oxford ’ 
 
 May 31st, 1720. 
 
 Son John, — I have yours of the 25th instant, which is soe 
 hastely wrote, soe full of blots and blurrs, that I could 
 hardly read it Had I not formerly received from you some 
 
6 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST: 
 
 of the same complexion, I should have believed it writ by a 
 school boy rather than by a Univarsity scholar and a Batchelor 
 of Arts ; and that not to a father, but to the most ignorant of 
 inferiors. The reasun of my not answering your former 
 letter and sending you a bill, is your neglecting to give me a 
 full and partickler account how you have disposed of the 
 Thirty-seven pounds three shillings and sixpence which I 
 have supplied you with since the ioth day of Febuarry last, 
 which methinks you should have thought yourself obliged 
 for to do in point both of duty and interest. Thirty-seven 
 pounds three shillings and sixpence out of my pocket in 
 four months time I find to be a very greate sum of money, 
 and what I am a long time a getting together; and lastly, it is 
 but reasunable I should know how it has been applied. 
 Not only you, but many other things — such as making the 
 new cart roade, my law suits, and the new pound at Goose 
 Green — have been very expensive, and tenants don’t pay and 
 farms don’t lett as they yused to do ; and oats and Hay are 
 rose high since Christmas; and my law bills have come iii 
 heavy. But I have hit upon a way to put a stop to them. 
 For Squire Goldburn and I, happening to travil together in 
 the Flying Coach, settled the matter between us, which will 
 be a greate saveing of time and money to both parties — pitty 
 we didn’t think of it before; but better late than never is an 
 old and a true saying. And I must say Squire Goldburn 
 behaved neighbourly and like a man of sense, who saw his 
 own interest when clearly put before him. Soe we agreed 
 to end law and make a match of it, and by uniting the 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON 
 
 7 
 
 estates hereafter in proper settlements to put an end to all 
 difficulty about the subject of our disputes. 
 
 I am to pull down the hedge, he consents to give up the 
 gate, and the old cart way is to be common between us 
 both ; I to be allowed the expence incurred in cutting the 
 new one. 
 
 You must come home as soon as you can on receipt of 
 this to be married. Noland is drawing the settlements. 
 You may order wedden clothes and new liveries, if you like 
 it, in London ; for I’ve my reasuns for not wishing to be 
 shabby on the occasion. Don't forget to jog Simmon's 
 memory about my South Sea stock. Tell Jenkins, if you see 
 him (and he goes up with cattle to Smithfield Fair at this 
 time every year), to send me down the sides of Hampshire 
 bacon as yusual. 
 
 You may buy the wedden ring at Wergman’s in St. James's 
 Street, and any jim crack you may think proper on the 
 occasion for Miss, not to exceed five pounds for the cost 
 of the same. Say when you'll come. I do herewith inclose 
 a bill for fifty pounds, though I was angry with you, as just 
 cause was, when I begunn this letter. Soe no more at 
 present from your father, 
 
 Thqs. Fairland. 
 
 Northleigh Hall, ended this June 1st, 172 0. 
 
 The above elegant and fatherly epistle was duly 
 sealed and sent ; and about three weeks after, 
 by the then weekly post, Sir Thomas received 
 
8 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST: 
 
 the following affectionate and dutiful reply from his 
 son : — 
 
 -M 
 
 To Sir Thomas Fair land , Bart ., these . 
 
 Exeter College, Oxon. 
 
 Dear Father, — Many thanks for the Bill; it would, however, 
 have been more worth saying thank you for, if another of 
 the same amount had come along with it. I have no great 
 fancy for marrying ; but I’ll do it to oblige you. I never 
 saw old Goldburn’s daughter. Hope she’s pretty and has 
 some spirit in her. Can she dance, sit a horse well, and 
 leap a gate i But never mind that ; if she has money, the 
 thing will do very well. That’s what we want in the matter. 
 How black the lawyers will look when they find that you 
 and old Goldburn have made it up. I should like to have 
 enjoyed the fun of telling them the news; that would have been 
 a nut worth cracking. I’ll do all in London as you wish, 
 and will only stay there to see the new play at Lincoln’s Inn 
 Fields — The City Wife — and the great Bear bait about to 
 take place in Tothill fields, and will then come down and 
 be married as soon as you like. 
 
 Dear Father, 
 
 Your dutiful son, 
 
 John Fairland. 
 
 We thought it right to give our readers copies of 
 the above epistles, as they are highly characteristic of 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON. 
 
 9 
 
 both father and son. All was prepared as directed, 
 and in the month of July following on one fine 
 
 #c 
 
 morning early, there was a great stir and bustle 
 at Southmead House. Tables groaned with the 
 preparations for a grand dinner ; friends were arriving 
 from far and near ; tenants were collecting, and the 
 poor were astir ; they were to have a feast. All the 
 fiddles the country round could produce were engaged 
 for a ball in the evening ; and there were to be 
 bride-cakes, and scrambling for the wedding ring 
 in a pail of water, and throwing the stocking, and 
 all the other old English customs on the marriage 
 of Miss Sarah Goldburn with Mr. John Fairland, 
 as agreed upon between their worthy fathers. 
 
 It was said that the settlements were duly prepared, 
 and were to have been signed ere the parties set out 
 for church. All this was said ; but whether truly or 
 falsely we cannot at this distance of time possibly 
 determine. Certain it is that one settlement took 
 place on that day which, though final,, was little 
 expected, and least of all by the party most con- 
 cerned in it. This arose from the sudden presence of 
 
10 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST: 
 
 a guest by no means welcome, who stepped in unin- 
 vited and without more ceremony turned the house of 
 intended joy into one of mourning ; exactly reversing 
 what Hamlet says to Horatio, when he declares that 
 the baked meats of his father’s funeral did coldly 
 furnish forth his mother’s marriage board. For here 
 the good cheer, roast or baked, prepared for the 
 marriage feast, did indeed serve for a funeral one, and 
 for that of no less a person than he at whose cost it 
 had been so amply prepared. To drop all figure, the 
 fact was this : old Mr. Goldburn was found dead 
 in his bed on the very morning he had intended to 
 give away his only daughter in the proposed union 
 with the son of Sir Thomas Fairland. 
 
 It is almost unnecessary to say that the wedding 
 could not take place ; and during the time appro- 
 priated for that mourning which natural affection, 
 decency, and the settlement of the old gentleman’s 
 affairs required, some very strange and, as they 
 eventually turned out, very unfortunate circumstances 
 occurred. 
 
 Mr. Goldburn had made his will some years before 
 he had any thoughts of marrying his daughter, and 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON 
 
 ii 
 
 in it, with the exception of a handsome life annuity 
 to his wife, left his only child Sarah sole heiress to 
 all his property, real and personal, and committed 
 her to the hands of a very worthy upright man, 
 Mr. Sheriff (a well-known lawyer in the west of 
 England), as her guardian. 
 
 Mr. Sheriff found Mr. Goldburn’s affairs not quite 
 so easily settled as he had at first imagined they 
 would be. There were no incumbrances, but time 
 was required to put many matters to rights ; and 
 circumstances had lately come to his knowledge in 
 the course of his legal practice which had given him 
 a very complete insight into the concerns of Sir 
 Thomas Fairland. He was convinced that the old 
 baronet’s affairs were in a bad plight ; that he 
 had completely deceived the late Squire Goldburn ; 
 and that his son, who passed with the world for 
 being only wild and thoughtless, was, in fact, very 
 cunning, and a party concerned in the knavish 
 designs of the father. In short, that both father and 
 son had formed a plot to possess themselves, as far 
 as they could do so, of Miss Goldburn’s fortune, in 
 order to clear their own embarrassed estates. 
 
12 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST: 
 
 Like an honest man and a faithful guardian, Mr. 
 Sheriff did all he could to delay the marriage (to 
 break it off was, of course, out of his power) till he 
 could effect the following object — namely, to put 
 the deceased Mr. Goldburn’s affairs in such a state 
 as that the marriage articles should secure the 
 immense fortune of Miss Sarah Goldburn, both in 
 land and money, to her and to her children, or, 
 failing issue, to the Goldburn family hereafter ; giving 
 the husband (whose motives in seeking her hand 
 were those of the most sordid nature) only a life- 
 interest in her property. To effect these most meri- 
 torious objects Mr. Sheriff set hard to work ; but 
 in the interval some very annoying circumstances 
 occurred. 
 
 Unhappily, the widow of old Mr. Goldburn and 
 mother of Sarah happened to be of the house of 
 Fairland. In fact, she had been a Miss Fairland, 
 and was a younger sister, on the father's side, of Sir 
 Thomas. She, like himself, was born at Northleigh 
 Hall ; and all her thoughts, feelings, and family 
 pride were centred in the grandeur of the resi- 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON 
 
 13 
 
 dence, and in the name of Fairland. Her husband, 
 the late Mr. Goldburn, though of very respectable 
 and wealthy parentage, had nevertheless sprung 
 from trade and commerce ; hence she held him and 
 his connections very cheap, and on all occasions was 
 ready to sacrifice his interests to those of her own 
 more aristocratic family. She was not without kind- 
 ness of heart and good intention ; but she was a 
 very weak woman — deficient in knowledge of human 
 nature, of strong prejudices, and wholly unsuspicious 
 of the villany and knavery of half mankind. With 
 such a character to work upon, her half-brother and 
 his son were able to defeat the prudent and upright 
 plans of Mr. Sheriff, and to make her the instrument 
 of injuring her own daughter. 
 
 They first persuaded her that the young lady’s guar- 
 dian, being a lawyer, never intended to settle the late 
 Mr. Goldburn’s affairs, but, by one delay and another, 
 to keep them in his own hands, for his own benefit. 
 Unhappily, they said, by the great power given 
 him by her late husband’s will, he could very 
 easily do so, to the serious prejudice or utter 
 
14 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST: 
 
 destruction of the young lady’s fortune. Almost 
 any steps, they argued, were therefore warrant- 
 able to counteract him in such designs. In fine, 
 so artfully did they prevail with the weak and 
 credulous mother, that she actually joined with 
 young Fairland in persuading her daughter to marry 
 him without her guardian’s consent — and this she did 
 only a few days after she came of age ! 
 
 This act of folly done (before Mr. Sheriff could 
 interfere in any way to protect the cruelly deceived 
 young woman, who thus married without any mar- 
 riage articles), on the very day after the ceremony 
 Sarah had a deed laid before her which she 
 was directed to sign, being told by her husband 
 and his father it was absolutely necessary in order 
 to enable them to take immediate steps in her behalf, 
 and rescue her property from the rapacious hands of 
 her guardian. In an evil hour poor Sarah complied. 
 The Deed was one of surrender or gift of all her real 
 estates to the husband she had just wedded ; and, as 
 no personal property was secured to her, all the rest 
 became likewise his own in right of his marriage. 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON. 
 
 15 
 
 Thus, then, the heiress of old Mr. Goldburn, who 
 was the mistress of thousands on the morning she 
 gave her hand at the altar, before the close of the 
 following day became completely dependent on 
 an unprincipled, extravagant, selfish husband, who 
 had used the advantages of a remarkably hand- 
 some person and a specious manner to win him- 
 self into her favour, and repaid the unlimited confi- 
 dence this amiable young creature had been led to 
 repose in him by an act of the most ungrateful deli- 
 berate villany to her and to her offspring yet unborn. 
 Her mother lived deeply to repent the folly into 
 which she had been drawn, and to know, too late, 
 the honour, probity, and prudence of her daughter’s 
 mistrusted and ill-used guardian. 
 
 Having narrated these circumstances at large, we 
 shall pass in silence much that is painful, and 
 briefly recount the events of several ensuing years. 
 The marriage so iniquitously brought about proved 
 an unhappy one to both parties. The husband 
 was dissatisfied and tyrannical, for he plainly 
 saw that he did not long retain a place in the affec- 
 
i6 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST : 
 
 tions of his wife. That wife was at once suffering 
 and patient. Three daughters, Nancy, Diana, and 
 Patty, were the fruit of the marriage. Their father 
 hated them all, and wished for a son ; yet from no 
 motive of tenderness, only because a man of an old 
 family with a good estate ought to have a son ; it 
 was usual, a thing looked for, and it ought to be. 
 
 The least remarkable events, and, indeed, the least 
 painful, because they were not contrary to nature, 
 that we have to record during this period, are the 
 deaths of the mother of the unhappy wife and of old 
 Sir Thomas Fairland. After a long and very suffer- 
 ing illness, the latter at last died suddenly, even 
 whilst giving instructions to his son how to get the 
 highest interest from a widow surrounded with a 
 numerous offspring, whose necessities had driven 
 her to have recourse to the ruinous system of mort- 
 gaging in order to meet some pressing claims on 
 account of her late husband’s debts. 
 
 His son dutifully attended his death-bed, and reve- 
 rently observed his father’s instructions, particularly 
 those about the mortgage. He saw the old gentle- 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON. 
 
 17 
 
 man breathe his last ; and his man-servant, Tom 
 Wakeum, who stood behind him, said very civilly, 
 as he turned away from the corpse, ‘ Sir, you 
 are now Sir John Fairland ; but, nevertheless, I’m 
 sorry for you, sir, that old master is gone. And, 
 dear me! to think that he should die just before 
 Lady-day ! He was always asking, in his illness, how 
 soon it would come ; thinking, no doubt, of the 
 rents and the tenants. I’m sorry for you, sir, that 
 your father is gone.’ 
 
 ‘ And yet, Tom,’ said the new baronet, with solemn 
 composure, ‘you know the saying: It is better to 
 have a fat sorrow than a lean one. All the Fairland 
 property comes clear now since my marriage. Send 
 for Shroud, the undertaker, and let every possible 
 respect be paid to my father’s memory in the funeral. 
 Bury in lead, Tom; hearse, horses, escutcheons, and 
 black plumes.’ 
 
 So saying, the son closed the bed-curtains on 
 the dead, and retired to his deceased father’s closet. 
 What were his contemplations there on the late 
 scene nobody knew. But the nurse who passed the 
 C 
 
i8 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST: 
 
 door, hearing a slight noise within the room, and 
 being very curious, listened at the keyhole, and said 
 that she heard distinctly a rumpling like the turning 
 over of parchments and papers. 
 
 A few days after, a pompous funeral train bore 
 the mortal remains of old Sir Thomas Fairland to their 
 last resting-place in the parish church. A still more 
 pompous epitaph, engraved on an enormous slab of 
 white marble, standing more than fifteen feet high, 
 on the walls of the church, with a full-cheeked 
 cherub at each corner, blowing a trumpet, recorded 
 his birth, his ancient family, and all his grand con- 
 nections ; his having served twice in Parliament and 
 once as sheriff of the county ; his many virtues, real 
 and imaginary, were not forgotten ; his strict integrity 
 was set forth ; and, as a last item of the account, the 
 tablet stated he had been a liberal benefactor to the 
 poor. This was a mistake ; it should have said to the 
 lawyers. 
 
 We have before stated that Sarah (whom we must 
 henceforth call Lady Fairland) was not happy in her 
 married life. As time glided on, experience taught 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON. 
 
 *9 
 
 her to reflect justly on the past. She was scarcely 
 surprised at the melancholy result of the connection 
 she had formed in so rash and imprudent a manner. 
 Too late did she find that, in seeking to win her 
 youthful heart, Sir John Fairland had been more 
 studious to please than to benefit her ; and that in 
 respect to advantage he had looked only to his own. 
 But, whatever may have been her disappointment, 
 she had of late years kept it much within her own 
 bosom. Well did she know that in a married life 
 there is little dignity in complaint, and that in cen- 
 suring a husband a woman in some measure reflects 
 upon herself. She was also aware that none but the 
 great events of life are those which arrest the eye of 
 the world. So long as a wife keeps her station, with- 
 out experiencing any violent ill-treatment or glaring 
 deprivation of her rights, those feelings of tenderness 
 wounded by the cold neglect, the slights, or the daily 
 unkindness of a husband in minor things, that render 
 her most unhappy, meet with no sympathy from 
 others. The common order of men and women are 
 wholly devoid of those finer feelings which constitute 
 
20 
 
 HARTLAND FORES 7 : 
 
 the principal source of happiness or misery with the 
 delicate and susceptible in mind. What, therefore, is 
 injury, insult, and even agony to the latter, would be 
 little understood by the former, or, if known, would 
 be treated by them only as themes for laughter and 
 contempt. 
 
 Our readers will not be surprised to learn that 
 on the death of her mother (which occurred within 
 six weeks after that of her father-in-law) Lady 
 Fairland found herself ill, low-spirited, lonely, and 
 incapable of taking the active part she could have 
 wished in the care of her family and children. A 
 very poor but beloved cousin (for whom she had 
 always intended to provide had she retained power 
 over her own fortune), who lived with her some 
 years as a companion, a friend, and a sister, had 
 lately married a young curate, and consequently left 
 her. The newly-made baronet was always out, either 
 hunting, shooting, or feasting with his boisterous and 
 not very reputable associates, and some said that he 
 was often found in worse company ; and as he had 
 either quarrelled with or given offence to all his most 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON 
 
 21 
 
 respectable neighbours of his own rank and standing, 
 very little company resorted to the house. To assist 
 her in her family cares, and somewhat to relieve her 
 loneliness, Lady Fairland sought for what was then 
 far more common for married ladies to seek than 
 it is at the present time — a female companion. 
 
 One was soon found, a gentlewoman about twenty- 
 one years old, well-looking, of more information 
 than such persons generally possess, insinuating in 
 her address, a shrewd observer, with a fluent and 
 plausible tongue, not at all scrupulous in any matter 
 where her own interests were concerned, and, as it 
 too soon proved, profoundly artful. Sir John Fair- 
 land could not have had a worse companion for his 
 wife than Miss Ellen Gilbard ; such was her name. 
 Lady Fairland, of an open, kind, and unsuspicious 
 nature, was but too easy a prey for artifice or cun- 
 ning ; whilst for Sir John the companion was a far 
 more dangerous associate, since he had none of the 
 armour of proof that high principle becomes to a 
 man in the familiar society of a woman who has 
 the power to please and the will to corrupt. 
 
22 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST : 
 
 Her first care was to gain a footing with Lady 
 Fairland ; and by being active, useful, and much dis- 
 posed to save her all trouble or exertion (an indolent 
 temper was her ladyship’s principal, if not only, fault), 
 she soon found herself in a position not to be 
 dismissed without great inconvenience to Lady Fair- 
 land, who could not do without her. This object 
 gained fast seated in her saddle/ as Tom Wakeum 
 used to say when he talked of Miss Gilbard), she 
 next turned her attention to the baronet, and opened 
 a masked battery upon him without further delay. 
 
 What first prompted her to do so we cannot 
 say ; possibly it might arise from the love of 
 intrigue, which is as meat and drink to some 
 persons, necessary to keep them alive ; or possibly 
 her hawk’s eye detected that Sir John Fairland was 
 more than indifferent towards his wife, and that Lady 
 Fairland’s constitution was gradually giving way under 
 the slow but sure effects of bitter disappointment 
 and secret sorrow. Possibly, if Lady Fairland died, 
 she, Miss Ellen Gilbard, who had perfect confidence 
 in the strength of her own bodily constitution, and no 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON 
 
 23 
 
 less in that of her woman’s wit, might step into 
 her place and herself become Lady Fairland. Who 
 could say it should not be so ? Many no better than 
 she was had married the widowed husbands of the 
 women to whom they had originally been companions ; 
 and as for her person and address ! — a look in the 
 glass, and a very free and unembarrassed chit-chat 
 which she held with the baronet on the very after- 
 noon of the day these thoughts first engaged her 
 attention, soon satisfied her that she had nothing to 
 fear. 
 
 When persons accustomed to plot and intrigue once 
 fix on a point to attack it they never rest till it is 
 carried, more especially where a motive of paramount 
 self-interest leads them on. Even so was it now. 
 Every whim, every little caprice of Sir John was 
 studied by Miss Ellen, in order to accommodate her- 
 self to his humour, his ease, his complacency ; whilst 
 her uncommon talent for amusing and furnishing sub- 
 jects for amusement was a perpetual source of relief 
 to him from what he had hitherto detested — his own 
 fire-side, and the tedium of wet days and unemployed 
 
24 
 
 HART LAND FOREST : 
 
 hours in the country. All this Miss Ellen saw, and 
 she played on his feelings to bring them into harmony 
 with her own. She understood the key-note by which 
 they were governed, and never touched them with a 
 discord. The perpetual sunshine of Miss Ellen’s 
 temper towards him, with her unwearied efforts to 
 please, formed, in his prejudiced view, a striking con- 
 trast to the manner and the conduct of his unfortunate 
 wife. 
 
 Lady Fairland could not conceal her unhappiness, 
 and that she considered herself a most ill-used 
 woman. To her repeated remonstrances that he 
 ought in honour and in justice to make a settlement 
 on her and on her children (knowing in what way he 
 had possessed himself of all her fortune), he would not 
 only turn a deaf ear, but in his hours of ill humour 
 would often threaten, as he had no son, to leave what- 
 ever he possessed to strangers ; or else he would cut 
 short her supplications and suddenly quit the room 
 with the most harsh and unmerited reproaches on his 
 lips. 
 
 The repetition of these injuries at last so wore her 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON 
 
 25 
 
 feelings and irritated her wounded spirit, that she 
 became peevish, at times even fretful, in her manner 
 towards Sir John ; and being powerless in those great 
 matters in which he refused her all justice, she grew 
 somewhat obdurate in little things, and in the hope 
 to move him, for the sake of her dear girls hereafter, 
 had recourse to the worst of all expedients — teazing 
 him by constant reproach and petty opposition. 
 
 Great was the excuse for her conduct, for great had 
 been its provocation ; but it was unwise in the ex- 
 treme. By so acting she laid herself open to the 
 attack of the serpent she had fostered in her bosom ; 
 and when she would indignantly have shaken it off, 
 before it inflicted the most deadly wound, she had no 
 longer the power to do so. Not only did Miss Ellen 
 Gilbard refuse to quit Lady Fairland’s service, 
 though engaged solely as her companion, but Sir 
 John threatened his wife that if she sent away the 
 only person who made his home pleasurable to him, 
 he would turn her and her children out of doors. 
 
 Stung to the very soul by these indignities, in the 
 passionate bitterness of her feelings Lady Fairland 
 
26 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST: 
 
 demanded a separation, and Sir John did not object 
 to it. Lawyer Noland was ordered to draw the 
 necessary articles. The day was fixed for their signa- 
 ture and the departure of the much-injured wife from 
 her home. But these are events that require another 
 chapter. 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON. 
 
 27 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Ah ! then and there was hurrying to and fro, 
 
 And gathering tears and tremblings of distress, 
 
 And cheeks all pale which but an hour ago 
 Blush’d at the praise of their own loveliness. 
 
 And there were sudden partings, such as press 
 The life from out young hearts, and choking sighs 
 Which ne’er might be repeated ; who could guess 
 If ever more should meet those mutual eyes, 
 
 Since upon nights so sweet such awful morn could rise. 
 
 Byron. 
 
 On the day appointed for the signing of the articles 
 of separation a very striking scene was presented in 
 the fine old hall of Northleigh. We would we could 
 give it to the reader as distinctly as it is impressed 
 on our own mind's eye ; but words have less power 
 than the pencil in sketches of such a nature. We 
 will, however, do our best to afford some faint idea of 
 its interest. 
 
 . The hall, large and gloomy, was of other and far 
 
28 
 
 HART 1 LAND FOREST: 
 
 distant days. The vaulted oak roof, the carved finials 
 and corbels, looked dark with age and the smoke of 
 many generations. The narrow arched windows, set 
 with small diamond panes of glass, were so over- 
 shadowed by some lofty elms which grew close 
 without, that even on the brightest summer day the 
 sun’s rays never found their way through them, ex- 
 cept here and there in a few luminous spots which 
 played upon and chequered the stone pavement 
 beneath. A huge old chimney (wide enough to hold 
 eight or ten persons within its ample sides when the 
 winter logs blazed merrily on the hearth), with a large 
 ornamental front, having the family arms cut deep into 
 the granite of which it was composed, stood opposite 
 the windows. Several doors opened into the hall, 
 and the largest led from it to the court before the 
 house. 
 
 Many a picture hung around ; many a portrait of 
 the Elizabethan and James I. fashion. Though some 
 of these Fairlands were of high note in their day, they 
 were now only remembered by those pale and time- 
 worn records of their features, or by tablets and 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON. 
 
 29 
 
 brasses in the church, which told how sons and 
 
 daughters of earth, once the inheritors of knightly 
 
 honours and great possessions, had passed away to 
 
 sleep with the meanest, till the last dread day of the 
 
 universal account. 
 
 Sceptre and crown must tumble down, 
 
 And in the earth be equal laid 
 
 With the poor crooked scythe and spade. 
 
 Here also were seen worthies of the time of 
 Charles I., with steel breast-plate, buff, and bando- 
 leer. As of the reign of William and Mary, and 
 Queen Anne, with full-bottomed wigs and high 
 toupee, down to the no less disguised beaux and 
 belles of the then present time. The former in gold- 
 laced coats and cut velvet waistcoats, three-cornered 
 hats in their hands and nosegays in their button-holes, 
 simpering and smiling vis-a-vis to the fair dames in 
 sacks, and hoops, and lappets, with all the grace that 
 numberless little black patches, then called sparks, 
 could add to the natural beauties of their complexions. 
 Some tapestry, though sadly faded and worn, still 
 covered the lower portions of the walls ; and a very 
 
30 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST: 
 
 large old table, with several oak chairs, stood in the 
 centre of the apartment. 
 
 At the head of that table sat a grave-looking man 
 dressed in a snuff-coloured suit, his buckles large and 
 of silver, and his shoes brushed to the brightness of 
 ebony. He had a brow that denoted thought, 
 features of a grave and fixed — a set character is the 
 better term ; they looked as if nothing could move 
 them from their business-like expression ; as if they 
 belonged to a man with whom all the events and 
 circumstances of life passed as matters of rule and 
 order, subject to set forms and determined laws ; 
 with whom whatever was spontaneous could have no 
 place, and who, by his own consent, would as soon be 
 carried away bodily by a whirlwind or a hurricane 
 as by any possible outbreak of his own passions or 
 feelings. 
 
 There he sat, the very model of order, with the ink- 
 horn then generally worn by gentlemen of the law 
 hanging from his button-hole, a pen ready cut and 
 nibbed by his side, and his grandfather’s great seal 
 ring upon the thumb of his right hand. He sat with 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON. 
 
 3 * 
 
 the open parchments before him, quite prepared for 
 business, only waiting the word. 
 
 A very different-looking man leaned with his elbows 
 against the granite slab of the chimney-piece, and his 
 back somewhat turned to the lawyer. He was richly 
 though carelessly dressed in a scarlet coat and waist- 
 coat deeply trimmed with gold lace ; the waistcoat 
 was buttoned in the wrong holes, and the blue 
 stockings hung loose about his ankles. There was 
 a pale and haggard look in his countenance ; he 
 seemed neither satisfied with the world nor with 
 himself ; his brows were knit, his air disconsolate ; yet 
 his features, though wearing so unhappy an expression, 
 were still handsome. His dark eye often settled on 
 the ground ; he stole a hasty and anxious glance 
 towards one of the doors which opened into the hall 
 from the interior of the house ; he seemed to watch it 
 with intense pain, and shrank and shuddered when it 
 moved. He turned, however, his head abruptly away 
 and looked down again upon the ground, but without 
 altering his position, when, on the opening of the 
 door, three lovely children came into the hall. 
 
32 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST : 
 
 The eldest, Nancy, was a very fine-grown girl of 
 nearly nine years old, with dark eyes, a rich brown 
 gipsy complexion, and glowing lips and cheeks. The 
 second girl was altogether different, being of a larger 
 make, a noble air, and, though so young, with some- 
 thing commanding in her step and demeanour ; she 
 might have sat for the portrait of an infant Juno. 
 Her features were perfectly formed, the complexion 
 of excessive fairness, though tinged with the deepest 
 blush of the rose, and her hair was as bright and as 
 rich as gold. She bore the name of a goddess ; but it 
 was Diana. 
 
 The third child, Patty, scarcely twenty months 
 old, was still in her nurse’s arms. These children, 
 and the maid-servant who conducted them, kept 
 somewhat back in the hall. They looked grave, and 
 were perfectly silent, as if they were brought there 
 for some serious purpose, like going to school, 
 though they could not exactly tell for what. The 
 servant looked afraid ; the only unembarrassed and 
 unconcerned living creature there present was the 
 child in its nurse’s arms, who smiled and looked 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON 
 
 33 
 
 about, and sucked her coral, or put her fingers in her 
 mouth, with the most perfect satisfaction. 
 
 A groom was seen without the hall-door, holding 
 a horse richly caparisoned, with a red velvet side- 
 saddle and silver mountings : his own horse, also, 
 was equipped for starting. Two or three gentlemen 
 were present in the hall ; but they kept together in 
 a small knot, somewhat apart from the table. No 
 one spoke; not even the entrance of the children 
 caused the utterance of a word. 
 
 At length the portentous door again moved ; 
 again did the leaning figure give a hurried glance, 
 and, shuddering as it opened, said in a low hollow 
 tone, as he turned towards the lawyer, ‘ Noland, she 
 is come.’ 
 
 ‘Yes, Sir John Fairland, I am come, and shall 
 soon be gone from your presence and from this 
 house for ever/ said Lady Fairland, as she entered, 
 and with a slow, decisive, and majestic air walked 
 into the very centre of the hall. All eyes were 
 turned upon her. She was still lovely, though in 
 pensive beauty, and wearing in her countenance that 
 
 D 
 
34 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST: 
 
 peculiar look, that delicate white, with a scarcely 
 natural tinge of bright red, often giving place to 
 an ashy paleness, which marks the future victims 
 of consumption even before there are any actual 
 symptoms of the disease. 
 
 Such was Lady Fairland. She was tall and of a 
 stately carriage ; her dress, a riding one of the day, 
 was of the highest fashion : a dark maroon-coloured 
 habit and a white satin waistcoat, both rich with gold 
 lace, the finest Flanders lace cravat, a white beaver 
 hat with a long plume, drooping over the shoulder 
 as low as the waist. 
 
 On reaching the middle of the hall (no one had 
 presence of mind enough to offer her a chair) she 
 stood quite still ; and seeing the sullen silence and the 
 inflexible look and manner which Sir John Fairland 
 maintained towards her, she cast on him a proud and 
 indignant glance, as her bosom seemed to swell, and 
 her attitude to become more firm and rigid from the 
 strength of her irritated feelings. A pleased and 
 gentle note, if we may use the word, like the cry 
 of a nestling at the coming of the parent bird, 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON 
 
 35 
 
 caught her ear, as it issued from the lips of the 
 infant in the arms of the nurse at the sight of the 
 mother. 
 
 Lady Fairland turned to the child. It stretched 
 forth its little arms towards her, as if to invite 
 her embrace. She could resist no longer ; all the 
 mother rose at once in her soul ; she rushed forward, 
 snatched the child from the servant, strained it to 
 her bosom with a feeling of agony, and burst into a 
 flood of tears as she said in a tone that pierced every 
 ear and touched every heart, 4 Oh, my poor babe, 
 my dear children, how can I bear to go away, to 
 part from you ! ’ 
 
 The two elder girls, seeing the tears, the pas- 
 sionate sorrow of their mother, and hearing her talk 
 of going away, went up to and clung around her, 
 and weeping bitterly for sympathy, yet not exactly 
 knowing why they wept, asked her what was the 
 matter, and why she talked of going away. 
 
 Lady Fairland kissed each with the warmest affec- 
 tion, but made no reply to their fond enquiries, and 
 once more restoring the infant to the nurse’s arms, 
 
3 6 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST: 
 
 wiped the big drops that still coursed each other down 
 her own cheeks, and made a strong effort to check 
 her tears, and to recover her self-possession. She 
 had a firm mind with all a woman’s tenderness 
 of heart, and now feeling herself equal to the task, 
 prepared with a calm and dignified composure to 
 complete it, and to go through the painful and neces- 
 sary duty of the day. 
 
 She approached the table. Mr. Noland rose 
 mechanically, for though incapable of being easily 
 moved to anything like sympathy or feeling, he was 
 awed by her presence and deportment : he felt at the 
 moment that a noble spirit, maintaining its native 
 simplicity and its sense of self-respect under the 
 most trying circumstances, carries with it a force 
 stronger than all forms and statutes. The moral 
 law asserted its own rights, and the native majesty 
 of truth acted upon him with an ascendency which 
 none but the dull in head and the hard in heart could 
 resist. 
 
 Noland could not. He offered the pen to Lady 
 Fairland to sign the deed of separation, scarcely 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON. 
 
 37 
 
 knowing what he did — for the husband ought to have 
 first signed it — but as he did so he gave an appealing 
 look at that husband, and pronounced with strong 
 emphasis the words ‘Sir John Fairland ! ’ — as if, in 
 thus suddenly and emphatically addressing him, he 
 would say, ‘ Can you thus let such a wife leave you 
 and your children for ever ? ’ 
 
 Sir John raised his head, like a man awakened 
 out of sleep, scarcely conscious of what he saw or 
 heard ; as if still under the influence of some dream 
 that had possessed his mind with images of doubt and 
 terror. He looked first at the lawyer, then at his 
 wife, and with a bitter glance at the children ; but he 
 neither moved nor spoke ; he was deadly pale. 
 
 Lady Fairland for a moment occupied the chair 
 which Noland had vacated, took the pen, signed her 
 name with the firmest hand and the utmost delibera- 
 tion, and then, not daring to trust herself with another 
 tender adieu to the children, purposely turned from 
 them, as she made some steps in advance towards the 
 hall-door, where the horses were waiting for her 
 without. Still she lingered, moved another step or 
 
38 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST: 
 
 two, and again paused. Those who closely observed 
 her thought they could detect the outward marks of 
 an inward struggle : a wish to say something more, 
 and yet an embarrassment, a feeling that made her 
 reluctant to speak out ; and she hesitated as she at 
 length said the words, ‘ Before I go ’ — then stopped — 
 a deep blush overspread her pale cheeks, and rose even 
 to her temples, as she murmured, ' It must be spoken ; 
 I will not shrink from the task / and turning directly 
 towards her husband, she resumed her natural dignity 
 of manner and deportment and thus addressed 
 him : 
 
 ' Sir John Fairland, there is one question which I 
 must ask you before I quit your presence and your 
 roof for ever. I ask it before these gentlemen here 
 assembled to witness our separation. Have you, Sir 
 John, any charge to make against my character since 
 I have been your wife ? * 
 
 'None, Madam/ replied Sir John, in a calm and 
 serious tone, and without the slightest hesitation. 
 
 ‘ Well, then, sir/ she continued, ' painful to me 
 as the subject is to mention in this company, yet 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON. 
 
 39 
 
 it is due to my own honour that it should not 
 be concealed. Sir John, I must tell you before all 
 here assembled that I am again likely to become a 
 mother. Do not defame me when I am gone ; this is 
 all I ask of you for myself. Be kind to my children, 
 be a father to our dear girls, when I am far away ; 
 and may God forgive you as fully as I do all your 
 past unkindness to me/ 
 
 Tears rose in her eyes ; she dashed them in- 
 dignantly off, as if vexed at her own weakness, 
 waved her hand, and turned to depart. But ere she 
 could reach the door Sir John Fairland sprang 
 forward, rushed between her and it, threw his arms 
 round her neck, burst into an agony of grief that 
 seemed to shake every nerve in his strong and manly 
 frame, as he exclaimed, ‘ Stay, Sarah ! — do not go. 
 Let it not be said that a child of mine was born out 
 of his father’s house ! Perhaps it may be a boy, and 
 all may yet be well.’ 
 
 Lady Fairland made no answer ; she stood irreso- 
 lute, neither returning nor yet offering to go forward. 
 The two eldest girls came up to her, took her hands 
 
40 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST: 
 
 in theirs, and, crying, said, ‘ Don’t go away, mamma ; 
 stay with papa and us. O ! don’t go away ! ’ 
 
 The gentlemen present gathered round and ventured, 
 though with some fear, to add their request that Lady 
 Fairland would not leave her family and her home, 
 but stay at the entreaty of her husband and children. 
 Still she lingered irresolute. 
 
 Lawyer Noland walked a turn or two about the 
 hall. He did not join the group of sorrowing and 
 entreating friends ; but he paused, took a pinch of 
 snuff, and considered for a minute or so, as he was 
 wont to do when about to give an opinion on a knotty 
 point in law. He next took off his spectacles, rubbed 
 the glasses, put them in their shagreen silver-mounted 
 case, and proceeded to rub his own eyes as he had 
 done his glasses — they had certainly been moistened 
 by a tear. His next movement was towards the 
 nurse-maid. Without saying a word he took the 
 infant gently from her, and carried it, not at all 
 awkwardly, across the hall, and there, taking Lady 
 Fairland by surprise, offered the child at once to her 
 arms. She could not let it drop on the ground ; she 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON 
 
 4i 
 
 accepted the precious charge, as he said, ‘ Madam, no 
 woman can leave her infant when entreated to stay 
 and take care of it; Lady Fairland least of all, for she 
 is the tenderest of mothers/ 
 
 The methodical attorney, having left the child in 
 such good hands, next walked deliberately towards 
 the table, and with the utmost coolness cancelled the 
 whole proceedings by throwing the articles of separa- 
 tion into the fire that was burning on the silver- 
 headed dogs. ‘Sir John/ he said, addressing the 
 astonished baronet, ‘ Sir John, I shall not make any 
 charge for them. No successful termination of an 
 appeal in any court of law ever gave me so much joy 
 as that which has this day resulted from mine to 
 Lady Fairland. Be a wise and a good husband 
 henceforth, and may God bless you both/ 
 
 Great indeed was the joy of that day’s reconcilia- 
 tion ; the children were made happy, the servants 
 had a butt of ale broached to drink health and long 
 life to their master and mistress. Mr. Noland took 
 more punch than he ever took before or after, 
 for the same honest purpose ; even Sir John was 
 
42 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST: 
 
 for once in his life, happy ; and Lady Fairland, 
 though pensive, was greatly touched and softened by 
 the events of the day ; whilst Miss Ellen Gilbard 
 observed a decorous and a well-pleased manner. For 
 a little while all went on well, even till the time 
 when Lady Fairland was delivered of a son. The 
 babe was pronounced by the nurses and the gossips 
 to be the finest child that ever was born, and as like 
 his father as one pea to another. 
 
 By the desire of his mother, Mr. Noland was 
 requested to stand godfather. The boy was named 
 Charles after him and John after his father, and the 
 bells of seven neighbouring parishes rang out their 
 merry peals for the joy of his birth. 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON. 
 
 43 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Thrift, thrift, Horatio ! the funeral bak’d meats 
 Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables. 
 
 Shakespeare . 
 
 ALTHOUGH Lady Fairland did well in her confine- 
 ment, it was the opinion of her old and most skilful 
 medical attendant that she carried in her bosom the 
 seeds of consumption, which in all probability would 
 spring up, and terminate in an early death. Though 
 sickly, she lived, however, much longer than the 
 doctors anticipated, even to see her son attain his 
 eighth year, and to experience a renewal of those 
 unkindnesses on the part of her husband which she 
 now accustomed herself to bear with a patient 
 and resigned spirit. Her love for her children was 
 great, and she desired to live, if it might be God's 
 will to spare her, for their sakes, feeling assured that 
 
44 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST : 
 
 when she was gone theirs would be a neglected and 
 a melancholy lot. 
 
 Had the feelings of Sir John Fairland been less 
 capricious towards his wife, both might have been 
 happy. But as not even right feelings can remain 
 such unless based on right principles, and on that 
 constancy which is not to be shaken by every wind, 
 he soon showed a fluctuating and changeable dis- 
 position towards her ; and she too soon saw that 
 in the moment of his awakened fears, when he 
 prevented her leaving him for ever, he had made a 
 false estimate of his own heart, and had mistaken 
 the outbreak of passion for a settled affection. 
 
 Yet, though Miss Ellen Gilbard still maintained 
 her station at Northleigh Hall, as the chosen favourite 
 of its master, and was often assuming, negligent, 
 or pert to its mistress, there were times when 
 Sir John, especially if in a good humour, let her 
 see that he had not lost all regard and consider- 
 ation for the mother of his children ; whilst in his 
 deportment to her as his wife, in the face of the 
 world, he preserved a very decent bearing — and was 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON 
 
 45 
 
 neither slighting nor disrespectful. In the view of 
 the public, therefore (the public, who generally form 
 their opinion from the surface of things, and who 
 neither pause to examine closely nor to reflect 
 deeply), he passed for a very good husband, and 
 Lady Fairland for a very happy wife, and Miss 
 Ellen Gilbard for a treasure to the whole family. 
 
 Another misery scarcely less hard or trying to 
 bear than the liaison between her husband and her 
 companion arose from his indulgence in an arbi- 
 trary violent temper. There are men who obtain 
 a sort of privilege and ascendency in their vices, of 
 which it is very difficult to say how it is gained, unless 
 by the most selfish indulgence on the one hand, and 
 by the mere habit of submission on the other. Be 
 this as it may, Lady Fairland’s life was one of 
 constant care and suffering. But passing in silence 
 those numberless little circumstances and feelings 
 which, as they preponderate for good or evil, make up 
 in the aggregate the happiness or misery of domestic 
 life, we proceed at once to the next prominent event 
 of our story, the last illness of Lady Fairland. 
 
46 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST: 
 
 Her dear boy had passed his eighth birthday ; he 
 was a beautiful, gifted, and most affectionate child, 
 with an intelligence and feeling far beyond his years. 
 Indeed, so acute was his sensibility that Lady Fair- 
 land felt very anxious about his future peace. The 
 lad was most fondly attached to his mother; and 
 though so young, from his natural shrewdness, he 
 could detect that his father was often cross to her, 
 and that Miss Ellen Gilbard was not kind. Lady 
 Fairland daily found herself growing weaker and 
 weaker ; and scarcely knowing where to turn for a 
 friend (so completely had her husband and her 
 companion kept away from her all persons they 
 disliked and surrounded her with their own crea- 
 tures), in the very despair of her situation she had 
 recourse to one who, in our days, would have been 
 held as of a grade far too inferior to be associated 
 with the wife of a baronet. 
 
 But in those days it was different. Adverse cir- 
 cumstances, poverty and lowly station, even when 
 engaged in a very humble way of life, were not 
 considered such impassable barriers to social inter- 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON. 
 
 47 
 
 course as they have become in more recent times. 
 Persons did not then remember to forget their old 
 connections, or endeavour to conceal the existence of 
 a near relative or a once loved and valued friend as a 
 subject of discredit to themselves or their more proud 
 and dignified kindred, because that friend was in 
 trade. Lady Fairland was not only free from this 
 folly, but from the weakness of head and the 
 unsoundness of heart which it is to be feared it too 
 often indicates. She had a relative, a very humble 
 one, whom she tenderly loved and esteemed. It was 
 to her she now turned in the great anxiety she felt 
 for the future welfare of her children. 
 
 We mentioned, in a former chapter, that there was 
 a poor cousin who, in the early years of her mar- 
 riage, lived as a companion with Lady Fairland, 
 and left her to marry a young curate as poor almost 
 as herself. He died, leaving her, with two infants, 
 destitute of all provision. In the extremity of her 
 distress, the Widow Morton — such was her name — • 
 found a patron in a then fashionable dressmaker, who 
 had the business of all the great ladies in the 
 
4 8 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST: 
 
 county, and who charitably gave the poor curate’s 
 widow, as she was clever in ornamental fancies and 
 embroidery, work enough, well paid, to keep herself 
 and her children from starving. Some time after, 
 on the death of her employer, she succeeded to the 
 business, and by the blessing of God on the exer- 
 tions of the widow and the fatherless she prospered. 
 
 At no period of her own past distresses had Lady 
 Fairland ever forgotten her poor cousin Morton ; and 
 had she been the mistress of her own fortune, she 
 would have done something more for her and her 
 babes than employ her to make or ornament her 
 dresses and her children’s frocks. But the allowance 
 she received from Sir John was most disproportion- 
 ate to the fortune she had brought him, and the 
 greater part of that scanty allowance she devoted to 
 deeds of charity in the parish. A devotional spirit, 
 acts of mercy and benevolence, and her care and 
 love for her children, were the best, indeed the only 
 consolations she had found in her sad and neglected 
 life. 
 
 It was to Mrs. Morton she now turned, and 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON. 
 
 49 
 
 implored her, when she herself should be no more, to 
 keep an eye on these children, and if ever they 
 needed it to aid them by her advice, or by any other 
 kindness, and that she would on any anxious 
 emergency interfere in their behalf. She also assured 
 her poor cousin, with the most perfect sincerity, that 
 she had the fullest confidence in her good sense, 
 her integrity, and her fearlessness in upholding a 
 righteous cause. 
 
 Mrs. Morton was much affected by Lady Fair- 
 land’s expressions of esteem and regard, and though, 
 as she candidly told her, from her humble station in 
 life, she could not hope to do much in any attempt 
 to serve the children of such a man as Sir John 
 Fairland, yet she would never forget the request of 
 their dear mother, and if ever an opportunity 
 occurred in which she could be useful it should not 
 be lost. With these assurances she took an affec- 
 tionate leave of her suffering friend, and never saw 
 her after. 
 
 Lady Fairland sank rapidly under her disorder. 
 
 E 
 
5o 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST: 
 
 When Sir John saw her danger, and that there was 
 no hope, he began to learn the value of the wife 
 he had hitherto so neglected ; and, as if his tardy 
 and unavailing affection could arrest the progress 
 of death, he now paid her every possible atten- 
 tion. He could not lengthen her days, but he 
 certainly soothed those which remained to her. 
 
 During the last fortnight of her illness she had 
 many interviews with her husband. What passed 
 was never known, though he was often much moved, 
 even to tears, on quitting her apartment. Mrs. 
 Morton, however, and even the children themselves, 
 well knew the feelings of Lady Fairland ; and there 
 cannot be a doubt that she had recommended them 
 in the most earnest manner to the care of their 
 father. Probably she had obtained a promise that he 
 would so order his affairs as, in case of his death, not 
 only to provide for his children, but to leave them 
 under the charge of proper guardians. The last act 
 of Lady Fairland’s life was one of charity; though 
 the story is very simple, it may be told. 
 
 There was a poor woman in the neighbourhood, 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON 
 
 5i 
 
 whose husband, idle and unthrifty, had deserted, 
 and left her and her helpless little ones in great 
 distress. Ill as she was, Lady Fairland ordered 
 everything necessary for their immediate relief, and 
 directed that Tom Wakeum should forthwith set out 
 on a horse laden with the supplies. On hearing the 
 trampling of the horse in the court below, she re- 
 quested to be raised from her bed, and placed in an 
 easy chair near the window, that she might have the 
 satisfaction of seeing Tom depart on the last act of 
 Christian charity it would ever be her lot to perform. 
 Her wish was complied with ; and as her two eldest 
 daughters were arranging the pillows in her chair, Sir 
 John came into the room. He expressed his surprise 
 to see her up, knowing how ill she was, and so near 
 her end. Nancy told him what had been her 
 mother’s orders. 
 
 ‘ Thank God/ said Lady Fairland, ‘that poor 
 woman and her children will now be saved. When I 
 am gone remember her ; for think what are the 
 anxieties of a mother for her offspring ! ’ She pressed 
 her hands together, and looked earnestly in the face 
 
 E 2 
 
 (*, Of 
 
52 
 
 HART LAND FOREST: 
 
 of her husband as she added, * My own heart tells me. 
 By it I have learnt to know what must be those of 
 that poor distressed woman. O ! Sir John Fairland, 
 you will remember your promise to me. Let not the 
 prayer of a dying wife be made to you in vain. 
 Bless your children with a father’s love. And you, 
 my children, love and be obedient to your father, 
 and the promise of blessing to those who honour 
 their earthly parents shall be yours. For myself, I 
 die in peace with all the world, praying God to be 
 forgiven, even as I forgive.’ % 
 
 She looked up imploringly as she spoke these last 
 words, took the hand of her husband and pressed 
 it to her lips, and then, placing her feeble hands on 
 the heads of her daughters, and solemnly pronounc- 
 ing a blessing on each as they kneeled at her feet, 
 she kissed them tenderly, and, wearied with the 
 efforts she had made, sank back in her chair. 
 
 Sir John Fairland was deeply affected ; he pressed 
 his lips on her pale forehead and cheeks, and re- 
 peatedly said in the most agitated manner, ‘ Sarah, 
 forgive me ; I hate myself ; forgive me, Sarah. I will 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON 
 
 53 
 
 love the children ; I am not the hard-hearted wretch 
 you take me for ; I will love them. But what will 
 they do, what shall we all do, without you ? ’ 
 
 Again and again did he renew these assurances of 
 feeling and affection ; and when Lady Fairland fell 
 back in her chair in a fainting fit, from which she was 
 never more restored to life and sense, his distress at 
 the death of the woman he had so injured, and who 
 in the midst of all truly loved him, was so great that 
 he gave himself up to a paroxysm of the most violent 
 sorrow. 
 
 Sir John was taken almost by force from the 
 chamber of death, and seemed for some days to find 
 no possible source of consolation but in ordering the 
 most expensive funeral that could be devised, and in 
 having the children with him, caressing and ordering 
 everything for them ; such being the first proofs 
 of the fatherly care he bestowed upon them in com- 
 pliance with his promise to their mother. 
 
 We shall not pause to give an account of the 
 funeral pomp ; the most touching part of the cere- 
 mony was that which was unhired ; for the tenants of 
 
54 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST: 
 
 Sir John and the poor of the neighbourhood, who 
 had so much cause to revere and love their late bene- 
 factress, of their own accord assembled and formed 
 themselves into a little procession of mourners, fob 
 lowing the remains of Lady Fairland from her late 
 residence to the parish church. 
 
 Sir John felt so much the loss he had sustained 
 that for a while not even Miss Ellen Gilbard dared 
 venture upon the least attempt at consolation be- 
 yond such sympathy as might be expressed by her 
 deep and fashionable mourning, a very long face, and 
 a most solemn demeanour. Had she behaved other- 
 wise, or had she attempted to resume the reins of 
 domestic government during the season of those first 
 and salutary impressions of honest sorrow in the 
 mind of Sir John, she felt assured he would at once 
 have turned her out of doors. But she knew her 
 man, and patiently bided her time. She knew that 
 the human mind, like the tide, has its ebbings and 
 flowings, and that she must wait for the turning of 
 it ere she could once more endeavour to float her 
 own bark of adventure on its cruise of good-fortune. 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON 
 
 55 
 
 She did not wait long ; for violent as had been the 
 grief of Sir John Fairland, it was but the sorrow of a 
 man ; and what is man ? So inconstant, so changing, 
 so ready to forget, and to return to his old follies or 
 old sins, so prone to form new ties and new connec- 
 tions, that we question whether, at the expiration 
 of six months, Sir John would have desired, had 
 it been possible, that the wife whose loss he had so 
 deeply regretted should be restored to him. We 
 question, also, whether he did not at the end of that 
 brief space think that all was for the best, and that 
 in Lady Fairland and her frequent reproaches about 
 his misappropriation of her fortune an obstacle to his 
 peace was now happily removed. Be this as it may, 
 certain it is that at the end of six months he one 
 day remarked to Mr. Noland, who came on a matter 
 of business to the hall, ‘ I think that Miss Ellen 
 Gilbard has the handsomest foot and the best-turned 
 ankle I ever saw in all my life. She is a very fine 
 woman, too, for thirty-five ; she does not look more 
 than five-and-twenty.’ 
 
 Mr. Noland answered only with an emphatic 
 
56 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST: 
 
 ‘ Hem/ and immediately after enquired concerning the 
 health of Sir John's children, noticing how much he 
 thought the eldest girl grew like her late lovely 
 mother, both in the beauty of her person and the 
 sweetness of her temper. 
 
 ‘ Do you think so, Noland ? ' was all the reply that 
 could be drawn from the baronet, and that was spoken 
 in a tone of the utmost indifference ; and then he at 
 once turned the discourse into another channel, and 
 asked Noland (whom he knew to be, like himself, a 
 thorough Jacobite) if there was any good news from 
 over the water, and how the people of Exeter were 
 disposed towards the Hanoverian king, and if there 
 was any reasonable hope of giving him a seat some- 
 thing lower than the throne. 
 
 Mr. Noland was at the moment too much interested 
 by the glimpse he had obtained of the politics and 
 intrigues that were going on at Northleigh Hall to 
 think much about those of St. Germain's or St. 
 James’s, or about the contests of King George and 
 the Pretender. And seeing he could render no service 
 just now for the children of Sir John, he bade him 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON 
 
 57 
 
 suddenly a good morning, and left him to his own 
 infatuated counsels and fancies. 
 
 The work of folly on the one hand and artifice on 
 the other was soon completed. We feel too much 
 disgust at this part of our story to dwell on parti- 
 culars ; we shall, therefore, hurry it over as briefly as 
 possible. 
 
 Exactly two months after Sir John Fairland had 
 communicated to his attorney the important discovery 
 he had made, that Miss Ellen Gilbard’s foot and 
 ankle were such models of grace and beauty, and that 
 a fat woman of thirty-five, fashionably dressed and 
 well rouged, might pass for one of five-and-twenty, 
 he, having full power to make ‘ any Joan a lady,’ con- 
 ferred that honour on his late wife’s housekeeper and 
 companion, and suffered her to assume an unlimited 
 and tyrannical sway over his house, his household, 
 his children, and himself. 
 
 How it happened that a man who had turned a 
 deaf ear to all the remonstrances by which a beau- 
 tiful and noble-minded woman strove to gain merely 
 justice for herself and children, should now surrender 
 
58 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST: 
 
 himself up to be ruled and henpecked (as Tom 
 Wakeum used to call it) by a woman infinitely her 
 inferior in person, mind, and character, and who 
 brought him nothing but a string of pauper relatives 
 to batten on his means — how all this happened we 
 cannot pretend to explain. Folly, art, infatuation, 
 might each have done something, and habit more. 
 But our own opinion is, that, as the old epitaph 
 expresses it on the tomb of the Devonshire knight,* 
 who slew another and afterwards fell on his own 
 sword, it was of Righteous Heaven the Retribution 
 Just . Most just that the woman whom Sir John 
 Fairland had suffered to become the persecutor of 
 his amiable wife, and the prime mover of all his 
 injustice to his children, should now make him pay 
 the penalty of his offences by sitting down by his 
 side the domestic tyrant and ‘she-wolf’ of all 
 his days to come. She had also the advantage of 
 a much stronger mind than Sir John possessed. 
 The ascendency of a strong mind where there is no 
 restraining principle, when brought into close contact 
 * Sir John Fitz, of Fitzford. 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON 
 
 59 
 
 with a weak one, is almost invariably irresistible. 
 History and biography are full of such examples ; and 
 never was there a more fearful one among the 
 stories of private life than that which we have under- 
 taken to record. 
 
 We pass in silence all the wily steps, the petty 
 innovations, the serpent-like windings, or the bold 
 springs made by this woman in her determination 
 to gain power ; we go at once to her great acts 
 of tyranny, and to the passive resistance of the un- 
 happy man she had so completely won and subdued 
 to her purpose. 
 
 One wet and wretched morning, when (as Tom 
 Wakeum said in commenting on the circumstance 
 many years after its occurrence) it was too bad to turn 
 out the dogs, that worthy was ordered to drive in an 
 old shabby coach, drawn by the two worst horses in 
 the stable, and in most homely trim, the three 
 daughters and the son of Sir John Fairland (the boy 
 not ten years old) from their father’s hall and their 
 birthplace to an old, ill-conditioned, ill-furnished 
 house of Sir John’s about three miles distant from 
 
6o 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST: 
 
 Northleigh, to which the stepmother had decreed 
 their banishment. She alleged that she could not live 
 with them, as she had found them already disposed 
 to be disobedient and insolent to her. An old man- 
 servant and a woman, both in the pay and the 
 interests of the new Lady Fairland, were appointed 
 as their sole attendants ; indeed, they had nothing 
 superfluous. 
 
 All the neighbourhood was astonished and cried 
 ‘ Shame ; ’ but it was of no consequence. At first Sir 
 John drove nearly every day to see them, then his 
 visits were reduced to twice a week, then once a week, 
 till, tired out with the sight of his children's unhappi- 
 ness on the one hand, and the perpetual worry and 
 quarrelling these poor creatures were made the sub- 
 ject of by his wife on the other, Sir John reduced 
 his visits to once a month, and finally gave them up 
 altogether. 
 
 The first Lady Fairland had brought to Northleigh 
 Hall immense riches in her personal effects, such as 
 plate, jewels, tapestry, damasks, and a wardrobe of 
 silks, fine laces, and clothes. But the step-dame 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON 
 
 6 1 
 
 suffered none of these things to find their way to the 
 children, who were allowed only the very plainest 
 and meanest attire. 
 
 The sending off the young people was not the 
 only remove from Northleigh Hall : the old and 
 faithful housekeeper and every servant who would not 
 submit to the arbitrary rule of the new mistress were 
 paid and turned out of doors. Only Tom Wakeum 
 stayed and defied her, though with just sufficient 
 civility not to irritate her ill-humour beyond all 
 bounds. He was his master’s long-tried, rough, but 
 faithful servant ; neither with him nor with the equally 
 rough water-dog Jowler dared she meddle. 
 
 Now and then, at his own entreaty, she indulged 
 Sir John with inviting his terrified children to spend 
 a day at the hall ; but on these occasions the family 
 quarrels were so great that the visits were at last 
 given up. 
 
 In the course of two years after her marriage, Lady 
 Fairland became the mother of two children, a boy 
 and a girl, to whom the names of Abraham and 
 Elizabeth were given. It was soon apparent that 
 
62 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST : 
 
 the children of the former marriage were to be 
 entirely neglected and forgotten in the delight ex- 
 perienced on account of the second family. 
 
 Not many weeks after Sir John had altogether 
 ceased seeing his children in the old house, an 
 event occurred which, in the end, was productive 
 of very memorable consequences. It was the well- 
 known custom of the baronet, who was an early 
 riser, to take his walk, on the mornings he did 
 not go out hunting, in a meadow that lay at the 
 back of a small wood near his own mansion. A seat 
 under a very aged and spreading elm stood not far 
 from the entrance of the field, and there he would 
 repose himself, from time to time, during his walk. 
 
 On the morning of which we are now speaking 
 he was somewhat surprised by seeing a woman, 
 who had a small bundle by her side, seated under the 
 elm. The place and the hour were unusual for such 
 la visitant, and Sir John paused a moment ere he 
 advanced. 
 
 The woman rose, and on her turning towards him, to 
 his great surprise,, he recognised in the intruder on his 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DE VON. 
 
 6 3 
 
 privacy the humble friend and poor cousin of his first 
 wife. He knew that in former times Mrs. Morton 
 had been ardently attached to the deceased Lady 
 Fairland ; and though in the family disputes which 
 she had frequently witnessed she had never in any way 
 leaned towards Sir John Fairland in his exertion of 
 arbitrary power, yet she had never quarrelled with 
 him. Sir John, though he did not like her, had 
 always felt for her a degree of involuntary respect ; 
 she was, as he knew, through having of necessity 
 often been brought into close contact with her when 
 in the early years of his first marriage she lived 
 under his own roof, a good, well-principled woman. 
 She left it only to marry the poor curate whose death 
 had made her penniless. In those years she had been 
 a sort of restraint upon Sir John. She had made him 
 feel uncomfortable in her presence ; her uprightness, 
 her great spirit in the defence of whatever was true, 
 just, and honest, had often crossed his temper and his 
 will. She became disagreeable to him, and since the 
 new rule of things came in at Northleigh Hall, Mrs. 
 Morton kept aloof from it altogether. 
 
6 4 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST: 
 
 He thought it very strange she should now, as 
 it were, waylay him. She said at once, after 
 respectfully greeting him, that she had been there, 
 waiting for him, ever since six o’clock in the 
 morning. 
 
 ‘ Waiting for me ! ’ exclaimed Sir John. ‘ Pray may 
 I ask what may be the business which should occa- 
 sion it ? ’ 
 
 ‘ Certainly/ replied Mrs. Morton. ‘ Sir John, mine 
 is a business of no common kind.’ 
 
 ‘Pray, madam, resume your seat/ said Sir John. 
 ‘ Is there anything I can do to oblige you ? * 
 
 ‘ Much, very much/ answered Mrs. Morton, in an 
 agitated tone, as she sank down upon the seat, and 
 Sir John took his by her side. After a little while, in 
 which she made a strong effort to repress her dis- 
 turbed feelings, and to gain courage to speak the 
 full purpose of her mind, she continued : ‘ Sir John, I 
 do not come on my own account. I come for the 
 sake of the children of my lost and beloved bene- 
 factress, once your wife. Sir John, you do not, you 
 cannot know it ; your children are starving.’ 
 
A LEGEND OR NORTH DEVON 65 
 
 He started and changed colour ; his countenance 
 was indeed altered. 
 
 ‘Aye, Sir John, you may well start at hearing 
 such a word; for they are your children. But so 
 cruelly is all intercourse prevented between you and 
 them, that you have not the most distant idea of the 
 miserable condition to which they are reduced. O ! 
 Sir John, as you are a man, as you are a father, call 
 up your spirit, exercise your own legitimate author- 
 ity, and suffer no one, wife or no wife, thus to trample 
 on the natural claims of your own offspring by her 
 who was a wife to you indeed. Sir, you promised 
 Lady Fairland on her death-bed that you would be 
 a loving father to her children.' 
 
 ‘And pray wherein have I failed?’ he asked 
 sternly. 
 
 ‘ In giving up your own natural and rightful control 
 over them to another, who has not only exercised 
 but abused it ; who has employed it, if not for their 
 destruction, at least for their misery. Sir John,’ 
 she continued, tearing open the little parcel she had 
 brought with her — ‘ Sir John, is this bread (producing 
 
 F 
 
66 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST 
 
 the piece of a loaf coarse almost to blackness) fit for 
 Sarah Fairland’s children ? ’ She broke it before him ; 
 he took a portion from her hand, and kept it 
 
 ‘ I know/ she said, after a moments pause, * I know 
 that what I now do and say will procure me such ill 
 blood at Northleigh Hall that every means will be 
 tried were it possible to ruin me in revenge for it. 
 But I care not ; I will do what is right. I will 
 speak the truth in the face of all the world, though I 
 and my fatherless children should beg our bread 
 from door to door in requital for it. I fear not. Sir 
 John, do you, can you forget the dead ! the dead in 
 her who was once most dear to you ? ’ 
 
 ( No, woman, no/ said Sir John, much moved; 
 
 1 but wherefore these questions ? I do not forget 
 the dead. I have, perhaps, but too much cause for 
 remembering/ 
 
 'Think, then, O ! think, that in me, in the voice of 
 the living friend, you hear that of your lost wife, 
 who from her grave — the grave to which she was 
 hastened, I will not say by whose unkindness — 
 now pleads with you. Think you hear her calling 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON. 
 
 67 
 
 upon you, and saying : “ As you shall answer it to 
 God at the dread day of account, I bid you do 
 justice to my children.” Sir John, do you know 
 how they are kept, and to what indignities, what 
 hardships, what companionship they are exposed ? * 
 
 ‘I know nothing to their injury/ said Sir John. 
 
 4 Hear it then from me, and know the truth/ con- 
 tinued Mrs. Morton, with the same energetic manner 
 in which she had hitherto addressed him. * Their food 
 is often such as you would not give to the very 
 beggar at your gates. Their clothing is mean and 
 contemptible, their society that of any who will 
 come to their door and take compassion on them, 
 so as to supply them with some aid, some comfort. 
 You have daughters, sweet young creatures, ap- 
 proaching towards womanhood. I am assured that 
 many idle young men, of far inferior birth and 
 station, have sought to obtain a familiar footing with 
 them. Is this fitting company, think you, for the 
 daughters of Sir John Fairland ? Is this the way in 
 which they experience a father’s protection and a 
 father’s care? Sir John, look into your own heart, 
 
68 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST : 
 
 search there, and then answer to yourself, have you 
 fulfilled the promise that you made to the dying 
 saint your wife in respect to her children? In her 
 name, in God's name, I look for a reply.' 
 
 The uncommon spirit, the energetic manner, the 
 deep feeling which Mrs. Morton displayed as she thus 
 addressed Sir John Fairland, absolutely overcame him ; 
 he stood silent with awe before her. A poor widow, 
 who toiled for her daily bread, painfully, humbly, thus 
 had the power to confound and render dumb with 
 shame a rich baronet ; so great, so paramount is the 
 force of truth when urged by a brave and noble 
 spirit. He did not utter one word in reply ; for even 
 in this moment of strong emotion there was some- 
 thing of pride that led him to maintain an obdurate 
 reserve, a sullen silence, when he felt he could neither 
 condemn nor confute his accuser. 
 
 Both were now standing. Mrs. Morton looked him 
 in the face. ‘ What, not a word, Sir John? Give me 
 but one word of hope for your children. I ask it in 
 the name of her who loved them and loved you so 
 well. One word ; it is all I ask.’ 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON 
 
 69 
 
 ‘Well, then, take it/ said Sir John, sternly ; ‘ I will 
 do them right/ 
 
 He prepared to leave her. ‘ May God bless you/ 
 she said, ‘for that word. I see by your indignant 
 looks that the storm is up. May it fall on the right 
 head.’ 
 
 Sir John Fairland waved his hand, and they parted. 
 
70 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST : 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 They threat me ; I shall never come to bliss 
 Till all these mischiefs be returned again, 
 
 Even in their throats that have committed them. 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 SIR John returned home immediately, entered the 
 house by a private door towards the garden, spoke 
 to no one, and instantly sought Lady Fairland. 
 Without even the ceremony of knocking he opened 
 her dressing-room door. As she looked up from 
 her toilet she was surprised to observe his darkened 
 brow and the stern and angry expression of his 
 whole countenance, whilst he addressed her with a 
 short, abrupt manner, and enquired with passionate 
 earnestness, ‘whether she had of late visited his 
 children, and personally acquainted herself with their 
 condition V 
 
 1 No, Sir John,’ she replied. ‘ No, indeed ; I have not 
 personally sought them. But what means this rude 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON. 
 
 71 
 
 intrusion at the hour of my toilet, and these dark 
 looks ? It is not very likely, I think, that I should 
 seek your children, to expose myself to a repetition 
 of that disrespect with which they have invariably 
 treated me ever since my marriage with their father- - 
 for that was my offence — and which you, Sir John, 
 have but too much encouraged, by not checking 
 them in the first instance, and by not teaching them 
 their duty to your wife/ 
 
 ‘ I encourage my children to treat you with dis- 
 respect ? * said Sir John. ‘You know the charge is 
 false. It is but too probable that if they ever did 
 treat you, as you say they did, with disrespect, it 
 arose from your own exertion of an unwarrantable 
 tyranny over the offspring of my first marriage. They 
 had a tender mother ; but I need not point out to the 
 woman who, for so many years, experienced her 
 bounty as a mistress, what was her worth/ 
 
 ‘As a mistress! Your former wife my mistress, 
 indeed! You speak, Sir John, as if I had been the 
 servant, rather than the friend and companion, aye, 
 and the equal of your first wife/ 
 
7 2 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST : 
 
 4 Her equal you never were/ replied Sir John, pas- 
 sionately. 4 In you there was nothing either in birth 
 or manners to make you such. Her companion, it is 
 true, you were, for your own purposes — which I have 
 since learnt too well — and you were so far a friend 
 to her that, by breaking her heart, you helped her 
 to that heaven where she is now at peace.’ 
 
 4 What means all this ? ’ exclaimed Lady Fairland, 
 extremely astonished at a kind of language and a 
 bitterness of tone and manner such as in all their 
 quarrels, frequent as they were, she had never before 
 witnessed in Sir John. But he had been greatly 
 worked upon by the honest vehemence of Mrs. Morton 
 and by a full knowledge of the ill-treatment of his 
 children. Lady Fairland, with all her cunning, and 
 notwithstanding the ascendency she had so strangely 
 acquired over the mind of a weak, capricious husband, 
 had yet to learn that there are moments when, under 
 the influence of a strong passion, the weak and 
 usually pusillanimous will burst their trammels and 
 speak home-truths respecting the vices of the very 
 creatures by whom they have hitherto been most 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON. 
 
 73 
 
 commonly held in awe. Even so was it now. Sir 
 John Fairland was in a hot mood, and cared not 
 what he said, nor with what consequences. 
 
 Determined, however, to face it out, and if possible 
 to turn the current of the angry waters into another 
 channel, Lady Fairland now fiercely reproached him 
 for his injustice in charging her with the neglect of 
 his wilful and worthless offspring, for whom she had 
 cared even as for her own. 
 
 ‘What, madam T exclaimed Sir John, seizing her 
 arm and holding her firmly by it, as with the other 
 hand he held out before her the piece of bread he 
 'had received from Mrs. Morton. ‘ Is this such bread 
 as you would give to your own children? Yet this 
 you give to the children of Sarah Fairland. Look 
 at it, handle it, taste it ; for the very dogs that eat 
 from your hand have you better catered than for my 
 children.’ 
 
 Lady Fairland looked confounded ; she was for 
 the moment absolutely dumb from surprise. It was 
 evident that Sir John had become acquainted with the 
 truth ; he must have visited the children suddenly 
 
74 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST: 
 
 without her knowledge. She was preparing to meet 
 his accusations with an angry retort, when Sir John, 
 who by the violence of his passion had worked him- 
 self into boldness, cut short her purpose by making 
 known his pleasure in a manner that convinced her 
 he would be obeyed. 
 
 /Hark you, madam/ he said, 1 1 will no longer 
 suffer these indignities to be offered to me and 
 to my children. I have been weak, too easily led, 
 too much the slave of your will. But all things 
 have a limit, and your line is nearly run out. My 
 children shall henceforth live under my own roof, if it 
 like you or not. I shall not, however, immediately 
 bring them hither. For the present they shall be 
 cared for where they now are under my direction. I 
 shall think, at my leisure, where it will be best to fix 
 their future home. My eldest born, Sarah’s son, 
 shall be placed under proper care, and my daughters 
 shall be taught as Sarah would have had them, so 
 that in due time perchance they may resemble their 
 mother. Who shall say Nay to it? And I will find 
 $ome way in which to show my thankfulness to the 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON. 
 
 75 
 
 friend — the true friend — who had the courage to step 
 in and save a father from the shame and the misery 
 of being made the tool to destroy his own children. 
 * Now you know my pleasure. Do not reply. I want 
 not to quarrel with you ; but you know my will, and 
 as God shall judge between us, it shall be fulfilled. 
 Not a word in opposition ; I will hear nothing.’ 
 
 He rushed from Lady Fairland, who would have 
 detained him, and saw her no more that day. 
 
 The result of Mrs. Morton’s spirited conduct was, 
 that not only immediate and proper care was shown 
 to the children, but for some few years their condition 
 was much ameliorated. The boy Charles was sent 
 to a grammar school, where he made more than 
 ordinary progress under an excellent master. The 
 girls were also sent to a well-conducted school, the 
 mistress being the sister of Mrs. Morton’s deceased 
 husband, and they also benefited by instruction and 
 good example. 
 
 For Sir John, though his worthless wife had 
 been compelled at the moment to bend before the 
 storm that so fearfully burst upon her, yet by her 
 
76 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST: 
 
 artful demeanour and her knowledge of the man 
 with whom she had to deal, she soon regained that 
 ascendency which for a time had been shaken, but 
 not destroyed. Sir John was the slave of evil habits; 
 by the force of circumstances and strong passion, he 
 could now and then break through them, but he had 
 neither strength of mind nor perseverance sufficient 
 to shake them off altogether. It soon became 
 evident that, from supineness of temper and the love 
 of ease, rather than hold a perpetual domestic 
 warfare with Lady Fairland, he yielded to her almost 
 as absolutely as he did before their last bitter quarrel, 
 and bowed once more beneath the yoke which had 
 formerly so long galled him. He resumed it with 
 the most passive indifference, if that could be called 
 such, which in a great measure arose from the very 
 recklessness of despair. We must now speak of 
 other matters. 
 
 Notwithstanding a vast deal of pomp and display, 
 and many attempts to gain a character for hospi- 
 tality, the second Lady Fairland’s cruel conduct to 
 the offspring of the first marriage got wind, and was 
 
A LEGEND OE NORTH DEVON 
 
 77 
 
 so much, talked of, and Mrs. Morton so much 
 admired for the bold and fearless part she had 
 taken for their welfare, that the neighbourhood 
 began to be very distant towards the stepmother of 
 those innocents, and at last altogether shunned her 
 society. Northleigh Hall gradually became more 
 and more deserted ; and consequently the vicinity 
 became so very disagreeable both to its master and 
 mistress that they earnestly wished to remove else- 
 where. 
 
 Whilst they were considering what could be done 
 for the best at such a juncture, it was discovered 
 that a very considerable portion of the old house was 
 in a dangerous state. Sir John determined that to 
 rebuild would be cheaper in the end than to repair. 
 For this purpose another residence, at least for a 
 time, became absolutely necessary; and if he 
 should find himself more comfortable in his new 
 home than in his present neglected mansion, very 
 possibly he might continue there during the re- 
 mainder of his days. Neither Sir John nor his lady 
 were sorry to have so good an excuse for quitting 
 
78 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST: 
 
 Northleigh, as nobody could now say they had been 
 driven from it by what were so evident, the slights 
 and the daily increasing neglect of their neighbours. 
 
 Just at this crisis the proprietor of Hartland 
 Abbey (a lady and a minor) was in such delicate 
 health that it was deemed necessary for her recovery 
 she should reside in Italy for some years ; and 
 thither her guardian, who felt a paternal care for 
 her, proposed to conduct her with the least possible 
 delay. In Hartland Abbey she had never resided, 
 and it was to let. Singularly enough, about the same 
 period, Mr. Noland, on the death of an aged uncle, 
 came into possession of a small estate, together 
 with a good house and grounds, in the vicinity of 
 Hartland. Thither he at once retired, intending 
 for the future merely to carry on a part of his business ; 
 a practice sufficient to oblige a few of his old clients, 
 and to secure to himself some not very laborious 
 occupation. 
 
 Sir John Fairland knew all this, and not doubting 
 that his old attorney would still feel disposed to do 
 for him a friendly office, wrote to him without delay 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON. 
 
 79 
 
 on the affair he had so much at heart — namely, to 
 become the tenant of the Abbey. Mr. Noland 
 readily undertook the negotiation, and managed it 
 to the satisfaction of all parties. 
 
 On the Michaelmas Day, therefore, of that year 
 from which the lease was dated, did Sir John Fairland 
 remove, first his choicest pictures, his valuables, and 
 his household goods, and then himself, his lady, his 
 children, and the greater number of his domestics, to 
 the old monastic pile — Hartland Abbey. 
 
8o 
 
 HART LAND FOREST: 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 The mansion’s self was vast and venerable, 
 
 With more of the monastic than has been 
 Elsewhere preserved ; the cloisters still were stable, 
 
 The cells, too, and refectory, I ween : 
 
 An exquisite small chapel had been able, 
 
 Still unimpair’d, to decorate the scene ; 
 
 The rest had been reformed, replaced, or sunk, 
 
 And spoke more of the Baron than the monk. — Byron . 
 
 Of the first few years of Sir John Fairland’s resi- 
 dence at Hartland Abbey, we shall but notice one 
 circumstance which occurred soon after his removal 
 thither ; it was, that his wife recommended to his 
 notice and introduced into the family a young man, 
 a distant relation of her own, whom she called 
 cousin Richard, in the capacity of chief steward 
 and secretary to Sir John. 
 
 Mr. Richard Graves was expert in business, shrewd, 
 quick, and observing ; indeed, insinuating in his 
 manners, wherever it became worth his while to 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON. Si 
 
 please. He deemed himself philosophical ; and as 
 Lords Hervey, Bolingbroke, Chesterfield, and other 
 men of talent and eminence in their day, avowed 
 themselves free-thinkers, it became rather fashionable 
 with the pretenders to abstract science and other 
 coxcombs of the time to profess themselves free- 
 thinkers also ; and if, like Mr. Richard Graves, they 
 happened to be rogues to boot, it was very con- 
 venient thus to shake off the shackles of moral and 
 religious obligation. Graves, supported by the para- 
 mount influence of Lady Fairland, soon gained a 
 complete hold over the mind and affairs of Sir John, 
 and somehow contrived in so many instances to con- 
 fuse the one and complicate the other that he showed 
 as much dexterity in such achievements as if he 
 had been in the full practice of a pettifogging 
 attorney. He had indeed been trained in the office 
 of one with excellent skill ; his removal from the desk 
 of this exemplary master to the service of Sir John 
 was occasioned by the latter offering a more tempting 
 prospect to his future and long-sighted calculations. 
 He had, therefore, eagerly availed himself of his 
 
 G 
 
82 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST: 
 
 present position, and entered upon its profits (which 
 he called duties) as soon as they were chalked out 
 for him by his obliging cousin, the baronet’s lady. 
 
 Charles Fairland, the eldest son of the first 
 marriage, had now attained his twentieth year ; and 
 though knowing that the power of his father over his 
 own estates, and those which he held in right of his 
 former wife, was such that he could at any time cut 
 him off and his sisters also from all inheritance, and 
 give the whole to his second family, yet could Charles 
 never prevail with himself — for he was naturally of a 
 high spirit — to treat his stepmother with other than 
 distant and haughty respect. He longed for inde- 
 pendence, and had often entreated his father to 
 bring him up to some profession — the church, the 
 bar, the army, anything — rather than make him a 
 gentleman at large, with no certainty of any pro- 
 vision hereafter. But hitherto, in reply to all these 
 most urgent and rational entreaties, he had obtained 
 nothing more from his father than vague and in- 
 decisive answers. One step, however, all the children 
 of the first marriage had gained — they were suffered 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON 
 
 83 
 
 to live, though very unhappily, under the same roof 
 with their father at the Abbey. 
 
 One day Sir John was sitting in his own private 
 apartment, called the Abbot’s Chamber, when he 
 was surprised by the sudden entrance of his son 
 Charles, who came before him equipped for a journey. 
 At all times there was little cordiality between the 
 father and the son. The former had been strongly 
 prejudiced against his presumptive heir by the arts of 
 the woman who was his second wife ; and the latter, 
 who looked upon her as the cause of his own mother 
 dying of a broken heart, and of the long suffering, 
 the cruel neglect experienced by his sisters and him- 
 self in their childhood, did not feel that reverential 
 respect which it is to be wished every son should 
 entertain towards a father. 
 
 Hence had arisen great dissensions and much 
 misery between them. Domestic quarrels are always 
 the bitterest ; and if very near relatives do not love 
 each other, they seldom stop at indifference ; hatred 
 too often springs up from the ground that has been 
 fertilised and sown by self-interest, jealousy, and 
 
8 4 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST: 
 
 deceit on the one hand, and by injured rights 
 and irritated passions on the other. The estrange- 
 ment which of late had kept father and son aloof 
 from each other arose to such a degree that they 
 now seldom met, although dwelling under the same 
 roof ; and when they did so, it was only to exchange 
 angry words or complaining and reproachful expres- 
 sions. 
 
 Sir John was, therefore, the more surprised to see 
 his son Charles enter his apartment in a manner so 
 unceremonious, and all at once address him with a 
 bold, determined, and excited air, ‘ Sir, as a son, as 
 your eldest son, however deeply I may feel I have 
 been injured, I do not think it right to leave your 
 house for ever without acquainting you with my 
 purpose, and seeking from you some assistance to 
 further me in the enterprise I have now in view. 
 And, if it may be so, I would receive from you a 
 father’s blessing, should so much of natural feeling 
 still exist in your heart towards me as to allow you 
 to give it.’ 
 
 The voice of Charles Fairland faltered as he spoke 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON 
 
 8 
 
 these last words, he could not altogether conceal his 
 emotion, and the tears which rose in his eyes at the 
 moment he came to bid farewell showed that, how- 
 ever ill-used, he remembered that he was still a son. 
 
 Sir John did not at once send him from his pre- 
 sence in an angry tone, as of late he had been so much 
 accustomed to do. On the contrary, he bade him 
 speak out and tell his purpose ; and if it were such as 
 he could approve, perhaps Charles might find that he 
 would assist it more than he anticipated. There was 
 something so unusual both in the manner and the 
 looks of the baronet as he said this that his son was 
 struck by it. He felt assured that some change (he 
 could not guess from what cause) was working in his 
 father’s mind ; indeed, he had suspected it before. 
 He had seen, for the last fortnight, that Sir John 
 kept much alone, shunning the attentions even of 
 his wife. 
 
 ‘ Sir,’ continued Charles, in reply to his father’s 
 bidding, not unkindly intimated, 4 1 presume you 
 cannot be ignorant that the cause we have both 
 so much at heart needs all the support that can 
 
86 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST: 
 
 be given to it. Prince Charles Edward, with the 
 brave Highland chieftains, and the gallant army 
 of all ranks who have followed his fortunes, are now 
 on their way to the capital of England. The last 
 accounts that I have seen state that the Prince has 
 raised his standard at Derby, and invited all his 
 true friends to join him there in his meditated 
 march on London. Sir, I am about to obey this 
 summons. Give me, then, the means to depart, that 
 I may offer my services to the Prince, as becomes a 
 son of yours. Your name, your family, your influence 
 in the west will be certain to procure for your eldest 
 son a commission in the royal army. But if you 
 deny me aid, then farewell indeed. I shall still go, 
 but not as a beggared outcast from the house of my 
 father. I shall conceal my real name, throw myself 
 as a volunteer into the ranks of him whom the 
 usurping Hanoverians call the Pretender, and trust to 
 occasion and my own good sword to win a way to 
 honour. Now, sir, you know my purpose. I entreat 
 you, with all respect, to let me know yours. I 
 cannot anticipate any regret on my departure, or that 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON 
 
 87 
 
 the absence of your eldest son will be other than 
 welcome to yourself and Lady Fairland.* 
 
 Sir John heard his son with patience, though with 
 astonishment. He seemed moved. And if, as 
 philosophers have supposed, a man has two spirits 
 contending within him, the one for good the other 
 for evil, certain it is that the good spirit was the 
 most active in the breast of Sir John Fairland at 
 this moment. He was greatly disturbed, and with 
 feelings to which he had long been dead, fixing an 
 earnest and a grieved look upon his son, he said, 
 ‘ You do not know what you say, or how little cause 
 you have, with me at least, to suppose that your 
 absence is a thing to be desired. I — I am not well 
 pleased with some circumstances that have come to 
 light of late, and with others which at the present 
 moment are more than suspected by me. But this 
 is not the matter in question. It is impossible that 
 I should consent to your leaving the Abbey on so 
 wild an expedition. I have received private intelli- 
 gence. The Highland chiefs have refused to follow 
 their Prince in his determination to march on 
 
88 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST: 
 
 London ; and they are quarrelling among themselves. 
 They have, I am assured, already commenced their 
 retreat, and it cannot be doubted, that the ruin of 
 Charles Stuart’s cause will be the consequence. 
 Here are my letters (he handed them to his son as 
 he spoke). Would you wish to peril my head and 
 your own by bringing us both into suspicion ? Would 
 you wish to cause a forfeiture of my estate, and all 
 to no purpose ? Under such circumstances as you 
 will see stated in those letters it would be madness 
 to talk of joining the unfortunate man you .are so 
 desirous to serve/ 
 
 Charles Fairland was surprised and vexed to the 
 very soul. But he stood silent, not knowing what to 
 answer. 
 
 Sir John, after a short pause, resumed, ‘But come 
 now^; tell me, is not this sudden resolution to leave 
 your father’s house occasioned by this foolish love 
 affair that I hear you are engaged in ? Tell me 
 truth — is not Miss Isabella Fitzwarren at the bottom 
 of it ? ’ 
 
 * Sir,’ replied Charles, ‘ I will not deceive you. 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON. 
 
 89 
 
 Indeed, it is so unusual, and so gratifying, to have 
 you ask about anything in which my happiness is 
 concerned, that I rejoice to have it in my power to be 
 as explicit with you as you could desire on a subject 
 of vital interest to myself. It is true I love Miss 
 Fitzwarren.’ 
 
 'I know little about her/ said Sir John, ‘except 
 having sometimes seen her with the girls at the 
 Abbey. Whose daughter may she be ? who has the 
 care of her ? ’ 
 
 ‘ She is an orphan, sir ; her father was in the army, 
 and served under the Duke of Marlborough. He was 
 a very gallant officer, and lost his life in action. His 
 daughter lives with a widowed aunt, Mrs. Elford, who 
 considers her as her own child. Indeed, sir, Miss 
 Fitzwarren has very great merits.’ 
 
 ‘ Has she any money ? ’ enquired Sir John. 
 
 ‘ None, sir.’ 
 
 ‘ How then could you fall in love with her ? ’ said 
 Sir John, looking at his son, as if to have something 
 explained which he could not understand. 
 
 ‘ Sir,’ replied Charles, ‘ the eldest son of a man 
 
90 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST: 
 
 of such estates as you possess, both in your own 
 right and in that of my mother, might, I presume to 
 hope, be allowed to give his hand where his heart was 
 fixed without any prejudice to his family or to his 
 duty.’ 
 
 'You talk like an inexperienced boy/ said Sir 
 John. 'How are you to live if you marry without 
 money ? You have no profession, and are doing 
 nothing for yourself/ 
 
 ' Give me, then, the means, open to me a way, to 
 find employment for myself, and I will never burthen 
 you more. O, sir ! O, my dear father ! do not turn 
 a deaf ear to the solicitations of your son ; do not 
 condemn me to a state of perpetual dependence. 
 Finally, perhaps, some one may prevail with you to 
 cut me off when, from having no profession, time and 
 habit may have rendered me incapable of procuring 
 a maintenance. Do not thus deal by the child of 
 her who was your most faithful and devoted wife, 
 and the hope of whose birth — for so I have been told 
 — was the means of preventing the most disastrous 
 event that could have befallen you and me and my 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON 
 
 9i 
 
 sisters — a separation from our dear mother. If I 
 have no other claim on your affection, let me not 
 lose this.’ 
 
 Sir John Fairland was greatly agitated ; he looked 
 at his son, but did not immediately reply ; he paced 
 the apartment, knit his brows, and appeared to suffer 
 under his own reflections as much as he did under 
 the energetic remonstrances of his son. At length 
 he took Charles’s hand and wrung it in silence. The 
 youth saw that, if he had not convinced his father, he 
 had at least made some softening impression upon 
 him, for in what had passed both his voice and his 
 manner denoted sorrow more than anger. 
 
 ‘ Sir,’ he said, * I rejoice to see this ; suffer me 
 to open my heart to my father, and I have every 
 hope that you will not find any feeling there which 
 you would altogether condemn.’ He paused. 
 
 ‘Speak on,’ said Sir John; ‘I am not displeased 
 with your frankness.’ 
 
 - ‘ While I live you shall never have cause to be so,’ 
 replied Charles, with warmth. ‘ Give me, then, my 
 dear father, either the means to support my station 
 
92 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST: 
 
 as your eldest son, who must hereafter maintain the 
 name and honour of your house, or by giving me 
 some profession, enable me to support myself with 
 Isabella the choice of my heart, and I will burthen 
 you no more.’ 
 
 ‘ This is folly,’ said Sir John Fairland ; but he did 
 not say it angrily. ‘You will find twenty girls that 
 will please your fancy quite as well as this, besides 
 having fortune to bring with them.’ 
 
 ‘ Indeed, sir, I shall not. Isabella is not one 
 whose place could be easily supplied ; her merit, like 
 her beauty, is of no common order, and it is no com- 
 mon affection that she has raised in my bosom. My 
 feelings are not to be changed. And even if they 
 were, I could not now, as a man of honour, desert 
 her, having, I acknowledge, won an interest in her 
 heart.’ 
 
 Sir John frowned. 
 
 ‘Nay, frown not, my dear father! Think how we 
 have been placed, I and my dear sisters. The unkind- 
 ness of our stepmother has often driven us from 
 your roof, and we have sought for kindness and 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON. 
 
 93 
 
 society under that of Mrs. Elford. Thus did our 
 intimacy with her and Isabella begin. Hence arose 
 those daily walks in the woods of Hartland, and all 
 that train of little circumstances by which young 
 hearts are drawn to each other before they are aware 
 of the chain by which they are bound. O, my father ! 
 give me but some assurance that I may believe you 
 will not hereafter cast off my sisters and myself from 
 your care, and I will pledge you the word of a son 
 that, although I can never cease to love Isabella, I 
 will never wed her unless I attain independence, or 
 without your consent.’ 
 
 Sir John seemed much touched by these earnest 
 remonstrances, and he gave his son a solemn promise 
 that he would never abandon him or his sisters, 
 would take into consideration all he had said, and 
 that after his death Charles should find he was 
 mistaken in thinking that he had disregarded the 
 children of their ever-regretted mother. 
 
 Charles knew that his father was of a fluctuating 
 mind, and that though when strongly touched in his 
 affections he would mean well to-day, he would, alas ! 
 
94 
 
 HART LAND FOREST: 
 
 be turned aside to-morrow by the woman who had 
 obtained so great an influence over him. He 
 dared scarcely rely on these promises, yet was he 
 rejoiced to find that the appeal he had so long 
 wished to make to his father’s feelings had been so 
 well received. 
 
 There was another point he desired to touch upon 
 — one of great delicacy — yet he knew not how to 
 advert to it till his father gave him the opportunity 
 by asking what it was that had caused him to more 
 than hint his fears about his sisters and himself in 
 time to come ; in plain terms, what it was he appre- 
 hended ? 
 
 ‘Our stepmother, Sir John/ Charles replied, in 
 a peculiar tone. ‘ My father, I do not like to wound 
 your feelings, more especially in this the first hour 
 of confidence between us ; yet there are things that 
 ought to be told.’ 
 
 Sir John Fairland looked surprised. 
 
 ‘ Sir,’ continued Charles, in a quick and agitated 
 manner, as if determined to get through a task 
 the most painful ; ‘ Sir, there are some who think 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON 
 
 95 
 
 that you are grievously abused, not merely by Lady 
 Fairland, but by another individual in close combina- 
 tion with her for what is neither good nor honest — 
 for what a son cannot name to a father.’ 
 
 Sir John started, turned deadly pale, and said 
 eagerly, ‘ Of whom do you speak ? ’ 
 
 ‘ Of Mr. Richard Graves, sir, your secretary.’ 
 
 Sir John Fairland absolutely gasped for breath on 
 hearing this, so sudden, so unexpected was it, from 
 the lips of his son. He dropped down in a chair 
 that stood near him. So great was the shock, so 
 strong the sense of injury within his bosom, that 
 he lost all power of self-command. All that distance 
 which he had hitherto observed in making his son a 
 stranger to his thoughts and fears, was in a moment 
 forgotten ; and clasping his hands as he wrung 
 them in the extremity of his passionate feelings, he 
 set his teeth together, looked upward, and at length 
 said, in the bitterness of his soul, ‘ Curse her ! ungrate- 
 ful woman. I had myself entertained some sus- 
 picions, but I thought I might be mistaken. I did 
 not dream that her infamy was so barefaced as to 
 
96 
 
 HART LAND FOREST: 
 
 have attracted the observation of others, and to 
 learn it from my own son. And the scoundrel 
 Graves ! I can now understand why I am so coun- 
 selled by Lady Fairland to — and to trust my children 
 to the care of Graves — honest Mr. Graves ! — if any- 
 thing should happen to me ! The villain ; he looks 
 to step into my place ! But I will deal with him 
 in a way he little thinks. Hark ye, Charles ; come 
 hither. I should never have told you of these matters, 
 but you glanced at them ; you spoke something, and 
 I have said too much now to draw back. Can I trust 
 you ? Will you forget the past, and be to me as a 
 son indeed ? ’ 
 
 ‘ Sir, I hope I have hitherto done nothing that 
 should cause you to doubt my sense of duty, and 
 that I may be trusted by my father/ 
 
 ‘ I believe it. You are a good youth. First, then, 
 know that Graves has, I fear, led me into a most 
 injurious money transaction with a fellow whom I 
 have only this day discovered to be a cheat — aye, a 
 villain. I cannot but suspect, from this and other 
 circumstances, that my steward, my secretary, as you 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON 
 
 97 
 
 call him, relying on the easy trust which, at the 
 instance of my wife, I have hitherto reposed in him, 
 has some deep design on my property, and may need 
 the help of a confederate.’ 
 
 < I am grieved, but not surprised to hear this,’ said 
 Charles ; ‘ but if this were the worst ’ — he paused, 
 and Sir John filled up the pause by saying — 
 
 1 It is not the worst. I am too much disturbed to 
 be capable of cool consideration. I will now only 
 say this. I have cause to suspect Graves and my 
 wife — the wife who, I will confess to you, has of 
 late made me the most miserable man alive. Yet 
 there are circumstances ; I am too much in her power. 
 I cannot, I dare not, do all I would do at this 
 moment, unless my worst suspicions are confirmed. 
 But I will take such measures that these wily serpents 
 shall not escape chastisement. Charles, say not a 
 word to any living creature, but watch closely ; keep 
 an eye on Graves, on them both, and tell me all you 
 hear, see, suspect. Let not a word, a half-spoken 
 word, escape you. In the interval I will lay a snare, 
 and the devil, whom they have long served, will not 
 
 H 
 
98 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST: 
 
 be slow to lead them into it. But time will be 
 required, some days at least, before my scheme 
 can be brought to bear. Yet it will not, I trust, 
 fail me. Remember, silence, caution, watchfulness. 
 Farewell/ 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON 
 
 99 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The image of a wicked, heinous fault 
 Lives in his eye ; that close aspect of his 
 Does show the mood of a much troubled breast. 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 WHEN Sir John Fairland dismissed Charles from his 
 presence he was in a state of mind such as his son, who 
 had seen him in many instances of passion, had never 
 before witnessed. He proceeded forthwith to sum- 
 mons his secretary to attend upon him. 
 
 As Graves entered the room he looked up ; he was 
 struck with the air of angry determination which at 
 the moment was strongly imprinted on every feature 
 of his hitherto complacent patron. Nor did he like 
 the abrupt manner in which Sir John addressed him, 
 saying — 
 
 ‘ So, Mr. Graves, I find by information I have this 
 day received, from one whose accuracy I have never 
 had cause to doubt, that it is known your friend, Mr. 
 
 H 2 
 
IOO 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST: 
 
 Sharp, has decamped ; and I also find that you, who 
 undertook to manage the whole affair, have, by your 
 negligence, let him finger the money before the 
 security was completed. This man, Mr. Graves, was 
 a money-borrower of your own recommending. You 
 pressed the fellow on my notice, and urged me to 
 supply him with the loan he wanted on his own terms, 
 and by which I risked and have sustained a great loss. 
 What have you to say to all this ? ’ 
 
 c Say, Sir John ? ’ replied Graves, somewhat abashed 
 by the suddenness of the charge and the determina- 
 tion with which it was made. ‘To say, Sir John ? 
 Why, I have this to say, that I am much surprised 
 you should doubt my zeal to serve you, when I have 
 toiled for you and made your affairs my own ever 
 since I have been in your service. Suspicions such 
 as these are most injurious to my character; I 
 feel them so much that I scarcely know what to 
 answer/ 
 
 ‘ I believe you/ said Sir John ; ‘ I believe you know 
 not how to evade the charge you cannot confute. I 
 doubt not you have made my affairs your own, but 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON 
 
 IOI 
 
 whether most for my interest or yours is a matter 
 that may admit some question. How came it, sir, that 
 the sum of money which, by your persuasion, I was 
 induced to lend this very good friend and relative of 
 yours, this Mr. Sharp, was taken from rents just re- 
 ceived by you in my absence, and paid over to him 
 before you had my sanction V 
 
 ‘ Sir John/ answered Graves, ‘ I did it by the 
 authority of one who well understands your concerns, 
 and who sanctioned the advance of the loan without 
 delay. Lady Fairland, sir, was my authority for what 
 I did/ 
 
 ‘O! was she so?’ said Sir John, biting his lip 
 with passion whilst he spoke ; and though he endea- 
 voured to suppress his jealous rage, he was too 
 strongly excited to keep it under. In spite of all his 
 more prudent resolves, in spite of those cautions he 
 had so lately enjoined on his son as necessary to 
 observe towards Graves, he now exclaimed, ‘ So, sir, 
 you and Lady Fairland, it seems, managed this affair 
 between you. I doubt it not by the result. Pray, sir, 
 are there any other affairs in which you feel yourself 
 
102 
 
 HART LAND FOREST: 
 
 authorised in my absence to step into my place with 
 Lady Fairland ? ’ 
 
 As Sir John uttered these rash words he looked 
 Graves full in the face with an expression of fierce- 
 ness in his own such as made the secretary tremble. 
 But Graves endeavoured to regain his self-possession, 
 as he said : 
 
 ‘ Sir John Fairland, your behaviour to me this 
 evening is unaccountable. I am willing, however, to 
 place the best construction upon it. Men are not 
 always in the same mood, even with their most 
 faithful friends. I am willing, therefore, to attribute 
 the strangeness of your present manner to some- 
 thing having vexed you without doors, which you 
 resent on me.’ 
 
 ‘ The strangeness of my manner, sir ! ’ exclaimed 
 Sir John ; ‘and you are willing to place the best con- 
 struction on what I say and do ! and this when I tell 
 you that I am no longer deceived by you ! This 
 insolence is past bearing. But this is neither time 
 nor place for such discussions. Look you, sir, to this 
 money-lending business you have taken in hand. 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON. 
 
 103 
 
 Look you find out this friend of yours who has 
 possessed himself of my property by your means, 
 or be the consequences on your own head. For, 
 if there be justice in Heaven or law on earth, 
 you shall pay dearly for your conduct. Look to 
 it And now, Mr. Graves, I hope we understand 
 each other/ 
 
 ‘We do, indeed, Sir John; and now I know what 
 thanks I am to expect in return for all the services 
 I have rendered you since I came under your roof.’ 
 
 ‘Talk of your services tome ! Talk rather of your 
 negligence. Where are the papers of so much conse- 
 quence in my suit concerning Gilbert’s mortgage ? 
 those papers, I mean, which you neglected to forward 
 to the Master in Chancery during the last term. The 
 court meets again in a week, and without them the 
 Master cannot make his report. Where are those 
 papers ? ’ 
 
 ‘Safe, Sir John; safe in my keeping. But with 
 such a multiplicity of business as your affairs bring on 
 me, I cannot always at a day’s notice lay my hands 
 on such documents & s you may require. The papers, 
 
104 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST: 
 
 however, to which you allude shall be produced in 
 good time for the court.’ 
 
 ‘ In good time for the court ! ’ said Sir John. ‘ Nay, 
 sir, to-night ; this very night shall they be produced. 
 I must despatch them to London early to-morrow, 
 and this night do I insist on their being placed in my 
 hands.’ 
 
 Sir John spoke this in a tone of the highest 
 displeasure ; for he had worked himself into a 
 vehement passion with his secretary. 
 
 * It is a late hour to demand of me such a search 
 as I must make to find the missing papers, Sir John,’ 
 replied Graves ; ‘ wait till the morning.’ 
 
 1 The missing papers ! is it so ? I guessed as much. 
 And wait till the morning ! But I will not wait till the 
 morning; this night, this night will I have them.’ 
 And ever contradictory and unstable in his resolves, 
 Sir John, now completely forgetful of all his precon- 
 certed prudence, seemed determined to pick a quarrel 
 with Graves rather than to keep the peace with him. 
 He continued, ‘In this matter I will wait no man’s: 
 pleasure but my own. Hark you, JMr. Graves ; either 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON 
 
 105 
 
 produce the papers this night, or quit my service 
 for ever to-morrow morning. Now, sir, you know 
 my mind, so make your choice.’ 
 
 Thus driven, Graves, who saw well enough from the 
 altered tone and determined demeanour of his patron 
 that he could not long hope to retain either favour or 
 office, quitted the chamber in the utmost confusion of 
 mind. Notwithstanding the time of night, he com- 
 plied with Sir John’s peremptory orders ; but in the 
 hurry of searching among the documents at such 
 an hour he unconsciously mixed up with those of Sir 
 John one or two private papers of his own (for Graves, 
 with all his roguery, was careless and slovenly in 
 matters of business) that were of a most curious and 
 important nature. More of this anon. 
 
 After placing the bundle of papers required on the 
 table, the secretary spoke only a few words, intimating 
 to Sir John that he felt certain he would find there 
 all he desired, though, from the hurried manner in 
 which he had been called on to produce them at such 
 a late hour, he had not had the opportunity of ex- 
 amining them or of arranging them in due order. He 
 
io6 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST: 
 
 then retired slowly and sulkily from the apartment, 
 lingering a moment at the door, as if he fancied that 
 after all Sir John might call him back to bid him good- 
 night, and so to soften matters between them, before 
 he retired to rest ; this had happened more than once, 
 for some few occasional quarrels had occurred between 
 Sir John and his secretary before now, and at their 
 close, partly by his own audacity, and partly by Lady 
 Fairland's interference, Graves had always come off 
 victor, and been fully reinstated in his patron's favour. 
 But it was not so in this instance ; and Sir John let him 
 go without offering a word to break the moody silence 
 in which they parted for the night. 
 
 After he was gone, Sir John turned to the papers. 
 They were really much wanted in Chancery, for among 
 the benefits procured for him by Graves's management 
 of his affairs was that of being always involved in law 
 with some one or other, and often was the matter of 
 contest worth neither the trouble nor the cost. 
 
 In taking up the papers a letter dropped from among 
 them — the handwriting was that of Graves. Sir John 
 Fairland saw at a glance it was one which in noway 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON 
 
 107 
 
 concerned his law affairs, and that the contents were 
 of a different nature. But the writer was Graves, and 
 convinced from an expression or two which caught 
 his eye, as he carelessly unfolded the sheet, that in 
 many respects it was one of importance to himself, 
 he rejoiced in having the means of detecting his 
 secretary in some new villany. He turned to the 
 back of the letter ; but there was no address. It 
 seemed to be a copy or rough draft of an epistle of 
 more than ordinary interest, most especially to 
 Sir John Fairland, and he began to read it. 
 
 He had not proceeded far when Tom Wakeum 
 entered the room unobserved. As soon as his pre- 
 sence was noticed he was ordered to withdraw, but not 
 before he had had time to perceive that his master's 
 countenance was deadly pale, and that he shook in 
 every limb. Tom felt alarmed, and lingered unper- 
 ceived near the door, and long after declared that as 
 Sir John read on the letter he seemed absolutely 
 frenzied from the force of his own indignant feelings. 
 At length he became a little more composed, and 
 refolding the paper the perusal of which had so 
 
io8 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST: 
 
 much shaken him, put it into his pocket, and for 
 some time paced slowly and thoughtfully up and 
 down the apartment He soon after quitted it for 
 his own chamber, where he said to Tom, who had 
 anxiously followed him, ‘ I have been dreadfully 
 deceived.’ 
 
 Lady Fairland had already retired for the night ; 
 indeed, she was in bed and sleeping. According to 
 the rumoured account of these circumstances, when 
 they afterwards became the theme of public discussion, 
 it was said that on suddenly awaking from her 
 sleep Lady Fairland saw her husband leaning over 
 the bed, with a lamp in his hand, and looking upon 
 her with so fearful an expression of countenance that 
 in the terror of the moment she screamed aloud. 
 He bade her be silent, as she valued her life, or it 
 would be worse for them both. It was further 
 said, that he then proceeded to question her 
 closely about Graves in a very vehement and strange 
 manner, asking if he had ever addressed any letters 
 to her ; and that she strongly denied ever having 
 received any from him, either whilst he was under 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON 
 
 109 
 
 the same roof with her, or in his occasional absence 
 from the Abbey. 
 
 Sir John, it was averred, seemed startled by the 
 earnestness of her denial ; yet he was not satisfied, 
 and he dropped some words which were sufficient to 
 let Lady Fairland know that his passions as well as 
 his suspicions were fearfully aroused. All at once 
 he seemed to recover his self possession, and, though 
 she urged him to it, he absolutely refused to be 
 more explicit, and finally retired to rest in another 
 chamber, leaving her in doubt whether or not his 
 intellects were disordered by the greatness of an 
 internal struggle, the cause of which she too justly 
 apprehended was jealousy awakened about herself. 
 
no 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 What damp hangs on me ? 
 
 These sprightly tuneful airs but skim along 
 The surface of my soul, not enter there ; 
 
 She does not dance to this enchanting sound ; 
 
 How, like a broken instrument beneath 
 The skilful touch, my joyless heart lies dead ! 
 
 Nor answers to the master’s hand divine ! Young. 
 
 The reader cannot have gone thus far without 
 observing that, with all his faults and follies, Sir 
 John Fairland was capable of strong impressions of 
 what was good and right ; of much natural affection 
 when called forth by circumstances, or by an extra- 
 ordinary appeal to his feelings. The great fault of 
 his character was a fluctuating, an inconstant temper, 
 arising from a want of steady principle. We need 
 not illustrate these remarks by any other reference 
 than to the scene in which we saw him act so 
 prominent a part, where his right feelings overcame 
 both his prejudices and his passions, so that he 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON. 
 
 in 
 
 recalled his first and suffering wife at the very 
 moment he was about to part from her for ever. 
 But it has also been seen how transient was the 
 impression ; he had not resolution enough to make 
 that recall a happy one, either to her or to himself. 
 On the whole, allowing for a defective education and 
 the want of a better example in early life, Sir John 
 might be said to be rather a very weak than a very 
 wicked man. It is, however, true that weakness 
 often becomes the abettor of wickedness by a spirit- 
 less non-resistance of evil on the part of those who 
 do not exert the authority they possess to check it 
 So had it been with Sir John Fairland. He had 
 never intended to become the enemy of his own 
 children ; but he was made such by the supine and 
 cowardly yielding up of his own legitimate authority 
 as a parent to the arbitrary power of his second 
 wife. We have seen how much he was moved by 
 the just remonstrances of his son; he had not been 
 so touched since Mrs. Morton, some years before, 
 had spoken to him in behalf of the children of his 
 first marriage. 
 
1 12 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST: 
 
 But the hoped-for effects of this memorable 
 interview with his son were in a great measure 
 neutralized by his own irresolution, his ungoverned 
 temper, and the vacillations of his conduct In vain 
 had he enjoined on that son wariness and caution, 
 when he observed neither himself, and by his own 
 folly might be said to have defeated his own plans. 
 There could not be a doubt that his jealousy had so 
 betrayed itself, that it put both Graves and Lady 
 Fairland on their guard. Even on the next morning 
 a very close observer might have seen a change in 
 their demeanour to each other and to all around 
 them. Lady Fairland showed some little acts of 
 kindness and attention to Charles and his sisters, and 
 Graves was civil to them, and did not meet any one 
 of the young ladies in the hall or in the galleries 
 of the old Abbey without affording them a smile and 
 a bow. 
 
 This complacent humour, hitherto so unusual, 
 lasted for the next two days ; and a party of 
 pleasure being proposed for the young people on the 
 third, no objections were started. It was that they 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON. 113 
 
 should go with Mrs. Elford and her niece to be 
 present at the sports of a harvest-home in the 
 neighbourhood. The farmer about to celebrate it 
 with all the Devonshire customs (then far more 
 numerous and generally observed than in the present 
 day) was a man of substance and great hospitality, 
 and had made known his purpose to entertain both 
 rich and poor on the occasion. 
 
 At the date of our tale there were few things 
 more joyous than a harvest-home in the west of 
 England. The spacious farm-house, the indications 
 of good cheer, the well-stocked barns, the ricks of 
 hay, and the animated farm-yard, where the very 
 poultry strutted, cackled, and crowed with a seeming 
 consciousness of their own importance among the 
 living subjects of so princely a domain, under the 
 absolute government of the opulent master, were 
 all objects of joy. But though few can look on 
 the sight of corn and plenty in their own country 
 without a feeling of thankfulness to a good Provi- 
 dence that has blessed their native land and made 
 it fruitful, it was not alone the sight of sheaves 
 
 I 
 
HART LAND FOREST : 
 
 1 14 
 
 and plenty which so much interested the young 
 party, more especially the lovers, Charles and 
 Isabella, on that day. 
 
 The scene around them was one of peculiar love- 
 liness ; it was pastoral, and truly English. The hills 
 were seen in gentle slopes, here and there animated 
 by flocks and herds ; the tender green of the 
 meadows was studded with the rich hues of summer 
 flowers ; and in the hedges, the foxglove, that grows 
 with such extraordinary luxuriance in Devon, was seen 
 in great abundance. Even the stubble fields, now 
 alive with men, women, and children of all ages, pre- 
 sented such a picture of rural life, and added such 
 cheerfulness to the scene, that many higher born might 
 have envied, did they form a more just estimate of 
 the distribution of human happiness than they are 
 wont to do. 
 
 Among the many young women with tanned 
 and glowing cheeks and laughing eyes, some pen- 
 sive Ruth might perhaps be seen gleaning for some 
 aged Naomi, whom years and infirmity kept at 
 home; and as the master of the land was neither 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON 115 
 
 niggardly nor selfish, he, like a second Boaz, had given 
 orders that a generous remainder might be left for the 
 gleaner’s hand. After the young party had strolled 
 from field to field, had chatted with the old folks, re- 
 turned the bows and curtsies made to them by the 
 young, and had given a good-natured word and a 
 pat on the head to the children, they proceeded to 
 witness the loading of the wains and the calling of the 
 neck . In their day the ceremony was a more striking 
 sight than it is at the present time, although still 
 kept up in some parts of the county. 
 
 The custom is thus observed. When the corn is 
 all reaped, towards evening the harvesters carefully 
 select some of the finest ears from the sheaves. 
 These are tied together, and form what is called 
 the nac , or the neck . This, ornamented with flowers 
 twisted in with the reed, has a gay and tasteful 
 appearance. The reapers then repair in a body to 
 some hill or elevation, and there call or holla the 
 neck. One of the men bears the offering, stands in 
 the midst, raises it, whilst all the other labourers 
 gather about him and form themselves into a ring. 
 
n6 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST : 
 
 Each man holds aloft his hook, and with one 
 accord they all shout, in the hearty endeavour which 
 can be loudest, ‘ Arnack, Arnack, Arnack ! We 
 ha’un, we ha’un, we ha’un ! ’ The shouts are several 
 times repeated, as between each, probably as their 
 way of libation, the firkin is handed round the circle. 
 When the evening is fine, various bands of reapers 
 may be heard for miles round, each stationed on 
 some height, and shouting, as if in answer to each 
 other. Women, girls, and children accompany the 
 men to the performance of this ceremony, and may 
 be seen, some with caps and bonnets decorated 
 with flowers, others carrying boughs, and many 
 dancing and singing, whilst the men practise the 
 above rites in a circle. This very curious custom is 
 considered by learned antiquaries to be derived from 
 the Druids, and to be nothing less than the offering of 
 the first and the best fruits of the earth to the God of 
 the harvest.* There is something peculiarly anima- 
 
 * This account of calling the neck at the end of the harvest 
 in Devonshire the writer has ventured to draw from her work, 
 The Borders of the Tamar and the Tavy . 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON. 117 
 
 ting in its observance as the echoes of their joyous 
 shouts reverberate from hill to hill. 
 
 The little party from the Abbey now continued 
 their walk, and passed in their way many of those 
 wild and romantic scenes which render the neigh- 
 bourhood of Hartland Abbey so peculiarly delightful. 
 Beautifully wooded ravines appeared among the 
 hills and extended close to the sea-shore ; whilst 
 the broken cliffs and rugged precipices that over- 
 hung the rocks or beach below afforded a striking 
 contrast to the bright verdure and the pastoral 
 repose of the inland scene, more especially to the 
 valley, above whose thick and venerable woods arose 
 the dark and antiquated towers of the Abbey — for at 
 the time of our narrative the hand of destruction had 
 not been laid upon it. In this valley were seen ‘the 
 dappled deer/ some enjoying the shade of over- 
 arching boughs, and others on the banks of the 
 clear stream slaking their thirst in its refreshing 
 waters, whose murmurs, like the instrumental part of 
 a concert, seemed to accompany the songs of the 
 blackbird, the linnet, and the thrush, the only 
 
1 1 8 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST: 
 
 choristers then remaining within the holy vale, where 
 once the chant of sacred melodies daily resounded 
 to the praise of God, and of saints consecrated by 
 the Church of Rome to prayer and worship. 
 
 If the eye turned from this charming valley 
 towards the sea, the wooded heights on either side 
 served like a rich framework to a picture, enhancing 
 the beauty of the object within it. On this day it 
 was one of grandeur and repose. The golden rays of 
 the sun, almost too dazzling for sight, rested upon 
 the waters in a long line of light, whilst many vessels 
 with sails spread before the breeze, and many boats, 
 like dark floating spots, were seen to glide over the 
 calm and gleaming waves with a gentle and undula- 
 ting motion. 
 
 When thus viewed under the repose of a day so 
 still, so undisturbed by wind or tempest, there was 
 in the valley of Hartland something sweetly sooth- 
 ing, friendly to meditation, and calculated to lull into 
 tranquillity the disturbed passions of the soul. Its 
 effects were not lost on Charles and Isabella. They 
 had, if not long, yet dearly loved each other ; they 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON 119 
 
 had felt all the pain arising from their uncertain 
 prospects ; and though Charles, with all the ardour of 
 a lover's mind, was willing to hope the best, and 
 to think it would not be long ere his father would 
 make some provision for him, and enable him to 
 call Isabella his own, yet had he recently seen too 
 much of Sir John's changeable disposition and of 
 his stepmother's rancour entirely to indulge such 
 hopes. Now and then the tremor cordis would come 
 over him ; and although walking by the side of 
 Isabella, her sylph-like form supported by his arm, 
 and reading in her eyes that love the expression of 
 which not even the maiden bashfulness of seventeen 
 could conceal, he did not feel altogether happy. 
 
 Yet angry with himself, and vexed that on a day 
 set apart for rejoicing he should thus be assailed 
 by doubts and depression, he said playfully, trying to 
 force himself into cheerfulness (the most certain way 
 to remain sad) — 
 
 ‘ Let us, Isabella, return and seek my sisters ; they 
 must be somewhere on the beach, and then we will 
 once more join the harvest-home party. I will 
 
120 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST: 
 
 hope — but I cannot tell how it is ; never before this 
 day did I look with such melancholy forebodings 
 on the Abbey yonder. It seems to me, as it stands 
 there encompassed by the dark woods, as if it were 
 an abode fit neither for the peace of holy monks nor 
 for domestic enjoyment.’ 
 
 ‘ Nonsense/ said Isabella, laughing. i You are think- 
 ing of your mother-in-law, as if she were the only 
 inhabitant of those old weather-beaten towers ; but 
 she is not so fearful a personage as your fancy would 
 represent her. Let us seek your sisters ; the dear 
 girls are far more cheerful than yourself. Do shake 
 off this melancholy mood.' 
 
 Charles promised to endeavour to be cheerful, and 
 they set off to seek his sisters on the beach. 
 
 It was towards evening when these young persons 
 once more joined the festive scene. Many of the 
 neighbouring gentry, most of the opulent farmers, a 
 few of the clergy, and a host of youths and maidens, 
 formed the upper ranks now assembled, who were 
 to partake, at a separate table, of a very excellent 
 supper ; whilst one of great abundance and no less 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON 
 
 121 
 
 merit in its way was to be served up in the huge 
 old kitchen and in one of the barns, not only for the 
 labourers, and servants, male and female, but for 
 fathers, mothers, and grandfathers, who either worked 
 now or formerly had worked on the farm or in the 
 neighbourhood ; for all were welcome on this joyous 
 night. 
 
 The evening was lovely. The wains, laden with 
 corn and surmounted by the reapers, brought home 
 the harvest with great noise and shoutings. No- 
 thing could exceed the boisterous joy of the whole 
 assembly, both within and without the house. A 
 cask of the best cider was set a-broach to drink a 
 good luck to the harvesters. A dewy coolness was in 
 the air, the more refreshing as the day had been 
 intensely hot, and one of those showers, which often 
 fall suddenly in the more hilly parts of Devon, 
 especially near the sea, where they attract every 
 wandering cloud, fell in large drops, and rendered 
 the atmosphere fragrant. The fields and meadows 
 around the house sent forth a delicious perfume 
 of wild thyme and sweet herbs. Everyone seemed 
 
122 
 
 HART LAND FOREST: 
 
 to welcome the shower as peculiarly refreshing 
 after the heats and labours of the day, for all had 
 laboured ; even those who came only for pleasure 
 found that, too, was not unmingled with toil. 
 
 And now came the hour when the rough but open- 
 hearted master of the feast bade all his guests, from 
 the highest to the lowest, be seated at the several 
 tables, with a hearty welcome to such fare as he had 
 to set before them. Ere anyone ventured to take 
 his seat, a blessing was invoked upon the board by 
 good Parson Turnbull, who invariably made it a rule 
 to act as voluntary chaplain to all the harvest-home 
 suppers for as many miles round as his little fat 
 ambling cob could contrive to carry him. 
 
 The guests were seated, the dishes uncovered, the 
 viands smoked ; but all were silent. The knives and 
 forks had all the noise to themselves, for at no period, 
 either in town or country, were the English, especially 
 of the humbler class, ever a talkative people over good 
 cheer. But this discussed, and the ale, cider, and punch 
 set flowing, it was altogether another thing. Toasts 
 were given, healths were drunk and huzzaed again and 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON. 
 
 123 
 
 again, bowls were filled, emptied, and replenished ; 
 songs were sung, mirth was at its height, and laughter 
 was re-echoed in roaring peals from the hall to the 
 kitchen and the kitchen to the barn. Fiddles were 
 set going, and pipe and tabor ; and the young and 
 gay were soon footing it in little parties, according 
 to their rank or their fancy, upon the turf in front 
 of the house, and lighted by no other lamps than 
 those the glowworm with her fairy taper might supply 
 and the sweetly silvered orb of a rising moon. All 
 were animated, all happy ; even Charles had forgotten 
 his fears and his low spirits, and was dancing with 
 all his might, and glancing sweet looks at his lively 
 partner, the fair Isabella. 
 
124 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST: 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 O ! treacherous night ! 
 
 Thou lend’st thy ready veil to ev’ry treason, 
 
 And teeming mischiefs thrive beneath thy shade. 
 
 Hill . 
 
 Farewell ! — God knows when we shall meet again ; 
 
 I have a faint cold fear thrills through my veins 
 That almost freezes up the heat of life. Shakespeare. 
 
 On a bench beneath a spreading beech, opposite to 
 where the young party from the Abbey were tripping 
 it away to pipe and tabor, sat Tom Wakeum and 
 an old man who was a hind in the service of the 
 farmer. Tom had his eyes fixed on his young master 
 with a thoughtful and even anxious expression, not 
 at all in harmony either with the place or the hour. 
 His neighbour on the bench remarked his manner, 
 and observing to Tom that he thought he was a peg 
 too low, asked him if he would take a cup of spiced 
 ale or a pottle of cider. 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON. 
 
 125 
 
 Tom shook his head to the invitation, and pro- 
 ceeded thus to open his mind to his friend : 
 
 ‘Til tell you what it is, John Raikes. I’m in a 
 molloncholly sort of a way to-night ; for I don’t like 
 to see young master a dancing and jigging it away 
 there so merrily, when I believe the devil is a warm- 
 ing the porridge for him at home. I heard our helly- 
 cat madam say this morning, with my own ears, to 
 that proud, sly rascal Mr. Secretary, as she calls him, 
 when neither him nor her knew that I was within ear- 
 shot ; I heard her say, says she : “ Til be even with 
 him yet, and Master Charles shall learn to his cost that 
 he shall not complain of me, nor of you either, Mr. 
 Graves, to his father, without having a score to settle 
 with me for it.” I heard no more ; but I don’t like 
 it; 
 
 4 Think no more of it, then/ said old Raikes ; ‘ I’ll 
 go and get the ale to drink confusion both to madam 
 and her man with all my heart.’ 
 
 So saying Raikes set off for the purpose, and left 
 his friend sitting alone upon the bench. On his 
 return he observed that Tom Wakeum looked, as he 
 
126 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST: 
 
 expressed it, ‘ he could not tell how/ ‘ Why, now, 
 what’s this ? ’ he enquired ; ‘ you look, Tom, as if you 
 had seen Satan in his own proper person/ 
 
 1 Hush !’ replied Tom. ‘ I don’t know but I have 
 heard him since you left me just now; and yet, 
 now I think about it, it can hardly be an evil spirit. 
 The strangest thing has happened that ever you 
 heard tell in all your life, and yet as true as the 
 Bible. Do you know, John Raikes, you were hardly 
 gone off this seat, when I heard a voice behind me say 
 distinctly, “ Go home, Tom Wakeum ; go home.” “ Go 
 home ! ” said I, turning about to see the voice behind 
 me ; “ for what should I go home ? Old Master dines 
 out at Squire Cornew’s, and mistress has her maidens 
 with her ; what should I go home for ? ” Never trust 
 me more, John Raikes, if a voice that couldn’t be 
 seen didn’t make answer and say, “ No matter for 
 that ; go home.” “ I won’t go home,” says I, stoutly. 
 “ I’m not wanted by old master, and I won’t go home 
 for any on’em else.” And now, my good friend, I’m 
 glad you are come, for I’ll take a cup of ale ; and 
 there’s going to be another song, and so, let Satan 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON 
 
 127 
 
 tempt me how he will, he shan’t get me to stir till I 
 please.’ 
 
 Tom took a cup of ale; and tried to be merry. 
 But in every pause between mirth and song again 
 and again did he aver the warning voice seemed 
 to say to him, ‘Tom, go home.’ At length Tom 
 became so exceedingly uneasy that he started up 
 from his seat, and exclaimed, with a vehement oath 
 which we will not repeat, ‘ I will go home.’ 
 
 ‘ Better wait for the rest of you, for your fellow- 
 servants that be here. All will be returning to the 
 Abbey by-and-by ; better wait than go all alone by 
 yourself,’ said his friend Raikes. 
 
 ‘ Why wait for any one ? ’ replied Tom. ‘ There is 
 something more in this queer thing than I can 
 understand. Over and over again I’m solemnly 
 told to go home, and go I will. Why should I be 
 afeard to go ? ’ 
 
 ‘ Because it may be the tempter that bids you go/ 
 replied Raikes. 
 
 ‘ I don’t care. I will go home, even though I be to 
 meet the devil himself in the way.’ 
 
128 
 
 HART LAND FOREST: 
 
 ‘You may meet as bad a thing,’ said old Raikes. 
 He looked round, put his head close to Tom Wakeum’s 
 ear, and seemed as if afraid of his own voice as he 
 added : ‘You may meet the Spectre Horseman in 
 your road.’ 
 
 ‘ The what ? ’ enquired Tom, with a look of amaze- 
 ment. 
 
 ‘ The Spectre Horseman.’ 
 
 ‘What’s he?’ 
 
 ‘ I don’t know ; Heaven only knows. But— but — 
 come a little nearer.’ 
 
 Tom drew close up beside his friend. 
 
 ‘ Have you lived so long at yon old Abbey and 
 have never heard tell the tale of blood concerning it 
 and the Abbot’s Oak ? ’ 
 
 ‘No,’ said Tom ; ‘forwhen the maidens and the old 
 folk tell over the fire about such matters, I never give 
 ear to their idle stories.’ 
 
 ‘ Idle stories,’ exclaimed his friend. ‘ Why, man, I 
 tell you ’tis the real true cause, people say, why the 
 heiress of the Abbey lives so far away from it over 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON 
 
 129 
 
 seas, and so lets it out to your master as tenant. It’s 
 a fearful thing for men to say/ 
 
 1 What’s fearful for men to say ? * enquired Tom, 
 with impatience. 
 
 ‘ Why, that so long agone as in the days of Bishop 
 Brantingham, when the old monks at the Abbey 
 were called canons — but I never could tell why they 
 were called so — men do say that a man, one of they 
 grim old monks, had a spite against his abbot, who 
 was called William Beaumont, and so, watching his 
 opportunity, one fine moonlight night, just such a 
 night as it is now, maybe, he managed to waylay 
 the abbot as he was a riding back home from a 
 neighbouring lord’s feast, and murdered him under 
 the old oak tree, the tree that is called the oak of 
 blood, or by some the Abbot’s Oak, in the forest. 
 By what tokens I cannot tell you ; but the tale 
 goes that the murderer was penitent for his wicked- 
 ness, and that after doing some great penance as 
 they call it, he had his pardon from the bishop. 
 But here comes the terrible part of the story. 
 It seems Abbot Beaumont’s ghost was not well 
 
 K 
 
130 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST: 
 
 pleased that his murderer should thus have escaped 
 the hanging he deserved ; as from the time the bishop 
 gave the murderer’s pardon, the spirit of the murdered 
 man could never rest. Men do say that about the 
 full of the moon, a spectre horseman still keeps the 
 path between the Oak of Blood and the old Abbey, 
 and that no man may go by that way unarmed. This 
 is all I know, and it’s enough. None of our people 
 hereabouts can tell if the story be true by their 
 own seeing^ for not a mother’s son of them would 
 enter upon that way near the full of the moon 
 were it to win King George’s crown, or the Pre- 
 tender’s hope to get it. But when I was a boy, 
 I heard my father say that his father had seen 
 the spectre in the forest. You see it was in this 
 way — ’ 
 
 ‘ I will not hear it,’ said Tom, manfully; ‘man, 
 devil, spectre, shall not stay me ; for even while you 
 were a speaking your very last words did the voice 
 tell me again solemnly to go home. I will saddle my 
 horse and soon be there ; and, if all goes well, John 
 Raikes, I’ll be back again in less than half an hour, and 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON. 131 
 
 I’ll tell you what the spectre had to say to me this 
 night in Hartland Forest.' 
 
 Old Raikes shook his head. ‘ It's no good,' he 
 remarked, ‘to jest on such matters. But I’ll lend you 
 a helping hand to saddle and mount ; 9 and he added, 
 in a tone that seemed very much to imply that he 
 expected nothing less than the reverse of his good 
 wishes, ‘ I pray you may come back again as safe as 
 you go. 5 
 
 The horse was soon bridled and saddled with 
 care. Tom furnished himself with a stout cudgel, in- 
 stead of a whip, buttoned up close to his chin, refused 
 another drop of ale lest he should not be quite 
 self-possessed, and, bidding good-night to Raikes, 
 set off on his homeward-bound course, as his friend 
 pronounced a benediction for his safety. 
 
 For some time his way was pleasant enough ; the 
 light of a fine moon gave though a solemn, yet not a 
 cheerless, character to the landscape which lay as it 
 were sleeping in silence around : a silence that was 
 alone broken by the sounds of the fiddles and the pipe 
 and tabor, with the mirthful voices of the harvest- 
 
732 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST : 
 
 home revellers. These sounds, however, gradually 
 died away as Tom Wakeum distanced them by as 
 quick a pace as he could prevail with the heavy and 
 aged horse he rode to put on. At length he drew 
 near the entrance of the Hartland domain, where he 
 must of necessity pass the ill-omened wood, and that 
 tree of terror. 
 
 There was something solemn and awe-inspiring in 
 the valley at such an hour and under such circum- 
 stances : the profound repose, only broken by the stir 
 of the boughs and leaves of the trees, the gentle plash- 
 ings of the stream that ran along near his path, or the 
 low and regular break of the surge, as the tide was 
 flowing in, on the adjacent shore. The moon had now 
 risen high in the heavens, and slowly and majestically 
 glided on her way through the region of unnumbered 
 stars, as the topmost boughs of the woods and every 
 open space looked clear, bright, and silvery in all 
 that calm and mystic beauty which no other hour 
 and no other light can convey. The mournful sweet- 
 ness of the night breeze stole along the forest, and 
 more especially harmonised with those portions of 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON 
 
 133 
 
 the scene where, from the thickness of the trees, 
 nothing but a mass of dark foliage could be seen. 
 
 Full before him rose loftily, even above the wood 
 tops, the towers of Hartland Abbey. Towards 
 the north end they stood high in shade, showing 
 only the grandeur of their outline in that broad 
 dark bulk, which is ever so impressive in buildings, 
 more especially when viewed during the obscurity of 
 night. The front of the Abbey, where it was seen in 
 the light of the moon, appeared cold, white, marble- 
 like and solemn, giving no indication of inhabitation, 
 except that through one of the latticed windows the 
 far-spreading rays of a taper might be descried, burn- 
 ing like a twinkling star. Beyond the edifice, in the 
 pale gleam which touched with exquisite beauty the 
 wooded slopes of the hills, appeared the far-receding 
 vale of Hartland. Above the whole swept the broad 
 arch of heaven, now radiant and sublime. 
 
 Directly in front of the path which the determined 
 rider was pursuing, in spite of traditionary terrors 
 and his own secret fears, arose in fine contrast with 
 the scene we have attempted to depict a rugged and 
 
134 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST: 
 
 venerable oak, far gone in years and decay, hollow in 
 its trunk, bald at the top, and giving forth from 
 its many shattered branches a melancholy sound to 
 every breeze that wandered by. Some more vigorous 
 and lofty trees which stood near, so completely 
 intercepted the light of the moon, that the oak lay 
 before the path of the rider in deep shadow. Nothing 
 but the outline of its vast and gnarled body could be 
 seen ; a mass of darkness. To the eye of a terrified 
 fancy it might seem dike the genius of the forest 
 guarding the pathway that led from the Abbey 
 through the most deep and lonely recesses of the 
 wood. This was the Oak of Blood. 
 
 Tom Wakeum, resolute as he was, and not at 
 all subject to imaginary fears, could not approach 
 the spot without shuddering. But Tom was an 
 honest fellow ; he had a conscience at ease, and 
 might therefore very well defy any spectre, whether 
 mounted or on foot. He was determined not to give 
 way to his fears, and so, wishing to cheer up his 
 spirits by the sound of a human voice, and not liking 
 the dismal sighing and moaning made by the boughs 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON. 
 
 135 
 
 of the old oak, he disturbed the silence around by- 
 whistling the then prohibited Jacobite air of ‘ Over 
 the water to Charlie ; ’ a thing more creditable to his 
 courage than to his loyalty to King George. His 
 whistling, however, was soon stopped. 
 
 In the very height of his tune, he all at once heard 
 a violent rush, as if something darted forward from 
 another path that issued from an opposite point of 
 Hartland valley, and passed under the oak. But who 
 shall speak his feelings when in another instant he 
 beheld in that part of the way beyond the oak which 
 lay in the full light of an unclouded moon, a figure, 
 tall and cloaked, mounted on a horse that bore his 
 rider with fury towards the Abbey gates ? 
 
 Now, whether it was that Tom Wakeum, who was 
 really as bold as a lion in any moment of real danger, 
 urged on his own steed to overtake the other, or 
 whether, as is often the case, the one horse in violent 
 motion excited the other to set off, in emulation of 
 his pace, we cannot say ; but certain it is, Tom’s old 
 sluggish hunter did no sooner see the other animal 
 dash on before him than he followed with like 
 
136 
 
 HART LAND FOREST: 
 
 speed, and came up to the Abbey just as the first 
 runaway horse stopped before the gates and his rider 
 fell from his back, as if spent and totally helpless. 
 
 Tom Wakeum leapt off his horse, ran to the 
 assistance of the fallen man, and, as he bent over 
 him, heard him exclaim* in a low voice of inward 
 agony, ‘The Lord have mercy on my soul!’ He 
 looked at the fallen rider more closely, and ex- 
 amined his face* as the moon shone direct upon it. 
 
 ‘Good heavens ! 9 exclaimed Tom, ‘ it is my master ! 
 Oh ! sir, what has happened ? Are you hurt ? ’ 
 
 No answer was given. Tom left Sir John Fairland 
 for a moment on the ground, flew to the gates, 
 roused the house within, and in a few minutes his 
 master was carried into the Abbey hall. 
 
A LEGEND fo NORTH DEVON. 
 
 137 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Thus o’er the dying lamp th’ unsteady flame 
 Hangs quivering on the point, leaps off by fits, 
 
 And falls again, as loth to quit its hold. — Addison. 
 
 SIR John FAIRLAND was removed from the hall to 
 his own chamber, and laid gently on the bed. He 
 was not dead, though speechless. A servant, mounted 
 on the swiftest horse, was instantly despatched to 
 summon the attendance of Mr. Tournequet, a young 
 surgeon, who lived not very far off in the adjoining 
 parish. In about half an hour he arrived. 
 
 It appeared that Sir John had received a wound in 
 the breast from a pistol shot, and in his paralytic habit 
 (for not very long before he had had a slight seizure), 
 either by the exhaustion arising from internal flow of 
 blood, or from the shock the nerves had sustained, 
 probably in some struggle, before he had been fired 
 at in the forest, loss of speech was the consequence. 
 
138 
 
 IIARTLAND FOREST: 
 
 Mr. Tournequet extracted the ball, and a part of 
 the wadding which stuck in the waistcoat, and had 
 not penetrated the skin. Both the ball and the 
 wadding the surgeon wrapped up with care, and 
 put them into his own pocket, without making the 
 slightest remark to any one present. He next 
 desired to speak with Lady Fairland. 
 
 Her demonstrations of grief and anxiety were loud 
 and excessive to such a degree that she would scarcely 
 hear a word the surgeon had to say. Nevertheless, 
 he compelled her to understand him, when he told 
 her that no time should be lost in sending for the 
 children of Sir John, who, the servants had informed 
 him, were absent ; for so great was the internal flow 
 of blood, that the danger was imminent. He had 
 done — he would do — all he could ; but it was 
 impossible he could say how long Sir John might 
 survive ; perhaps till the morning, perhaps not to the 
 end of the present hour. 
 
 Lady Fairland having heard all he had to say, 
 directed Tom Wakeum to go off in search of the 
 party who were at the harvest home. But Tom 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON 
 
 139 
 
 resolutely, sturdily refused to leave his master, 
 declaring that Heaven itself had called upon him 
 that night to go home ; and that home he would 
 not quit so long as his master should be alive. Lady 
 Fairland knew well how impracticable a person Tom 
 Wakeum was, and that it was in vain to argue a point 
 with him when he had once made up his mind, she 
 therefore despatched another servant. 
 
 Sir John Fairland retained his senses perfectly, and 
 by the motion of his head and hands, as well as by 
 his earnest and expressive looks, made himself 
 tolerably well understood. On his wife saying to 
 him, in a cheering tone, that she was sure he would 
 recover, and that he knew how distressed she felt on 
 his account, he shook his head, and, as well as he 
 could, motioned her to leave him. He then looked 
 imploringly at the surgeon, as much as to say, ‘ Take 
 her away from me/ 
 
 The surgeon urgently recommended Lady Fairland 
 to retire, and leave Sir John to his care, and that of 
 his faithful servant. But her ladyship, in a haughty 
 and indignant manner, refused to quit the room, and, 
 
140 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST: 
 
 turning to Sir John, resumed the whining tone, and 
 said, as she adjusted his pillows (for he had risen up in 
 the bed with the help of Tom Wakeum), ‘ I am sure, 
 my dear Sir John, if he could speak, would not have 
 me leave him for all the world. And, indeed, I could 
 not do so, for when he was in health I made him 
 promise me, and I promised him, if either of us was 
 taken ill, the one should never leave the other for a 
 moment ; and I certainly shall not think of breaking 
 my word. You would not wish me — I know you 
 would not wish me — to leave you, my dear husband ; 
 indeed, I cannot go ! ' 
 
 Sir John turned away his head, as if in disgust, and 
 fixed his eyes with an expression of great earnestness 
 on the face of Tom Wakeum. 
 
 4 What would you have, Sir John — what can I do 
 for you, my dear master?' enquired Tom. ‘Only 
 make me to know what you want and I'll get it, though 
 it be at the risk of my life. I have long loved and 
 served you ; you have always been a good master to 
 me, and I won't desert you now at anybody's bidding, 
 be it who it may.' In speaking the last words with 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON. 141 
 
 his accustomed bluntness, he looked Lady Fairland 
 directly in the face. 
 
 Sir John took Tom’s hand, and by a feeble pres- 
 sure seemed to acknowledge" how sensibly he felt his 
 fidelity, and his affectionate zeal. He then looked 
 straight forward, and pointed to his escritoire that 
 stood opposite the foot of his bed. 
 
 ‘ Master wants something out of his scritoire,’ said 
 Tom Wakeum, ‘ I’m sure he does. Don’t you, Sir 
 John ? ’ 
 
 Sir John moved his head, as if in assent to the 
 question. 
 
 ‘ Nonsense,’ said Lady Fairland ; ‘ to think of 
 disturbing a dying man about the contents of his 
 escritoire ! ’ 
 
 ‘ But I would suggest, Madam,’ said the surgeon, 
 i that there may be papers in it of the highest import- 
 ance. These Sir John Fairland may wish to place in 
 some trusty hands for the benefit of his children. I 
 would strongly advise the escritoire being opened, and 
 every drawer in it also, till Sir John makes a sign 
 which drawer he would have brought to him.’ 
 
142 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST : 
 
 Sir John bowed his head, as if in approval of what 
 the surgeon had said. 
 
 ‘ Nonsense!' again exclaimed Lady Fairland. 
 ‘You will kill my husband with thus disturbing him. 
 I will not have the escritoire touched.' 
 
 ‘ But it shall be touched though and by me,' 
 said Tom Wakeum, seeing the earnest and im- 
 ploring manner in which, with hands and eyes, Sir 
 John motioned and looked towards the escritoire. 
 In the extremity of his anxiety he even made 
 an effort to get out of bed ; but he fell back in 
 the struggle, as Lady Fairland, with an affectation 
 of kindness, placed her hands upon him to keep 
 him in. 
 
 Tom flew to the escritoire — Sir John watched his 
 movements with looks of intense interest. Tom 
 made effort on effort to force it open ; he even shook 
 it till every drawer within rattled ; but the locks were 
 too firmly set ; they defied him. He then declared 
 that he would break it open, and ran to the chimney 
 to take up the poker, when the door of the apartment 
 was thrown open, and in stalked Graves. He looked 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON 
 
 143 
 
 pale, but cool and undismayed by the shocking scene 
 before him. 
 
 No sooner did Sir John set his eyes on Graves than 
 his features worked convulsively : and he made the 
 most dreadful contortions in the vain effort to speak. 
 His looks, his gestures, were expressive of the utmost 
 horror ; they seemed even to indicate a disordered 
 state of mind ; and once more he would, if he could, 
 have started from his bed. Tom Wakeum and the 
 surgeon exchanged looks. 
 
 Tom quitted the escritoire ; one thought now alone 
 possessed him. ‘ Oh ! sir,’ he exclaimed, i speak ! — 
 speak but one word, if you can — or make some sign 
 by which, we may understand you. Who is your 
 murderer ? Is that the man ? ’ 
 
 * Scoundrel ! ’ cried Graves, ‘ leave this chamber — 
 instantly leave it — or I will drag you from it by 
 the throat.’ 
 
 4 Two must go to that,’ said Tom, coolly,— ‘you 
 to do it, and me to let you do it. But you ben’t 
 worth my notice now. Oh ! Sir John (turning again 
 to his master), do make something like a sign that we 
 
144 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST: 
 
 may know the man, and as there be a God above, I 
 swear I will see justice done for the deed, though I 
 should spend my last drop of blood to get it. Make 
 but some sign !’ 
 
 Sir John Fairland, who from extreme weakness had 
 sunk back on his pillows, endeavoured to raise him- 
 self once more^ but he could not. He next tried to 
 raise his hand : it dropt like lead upon the bed- 
 clothes. Overcome by agony of mind and by the 
 exertions he had made at the sight of Graves, his last 
 moments were hurried on. The death-rattle seized 
 him, his countenance changed to a dull white ; he 
 glared with an expression of horror on Graves, and in 
 a few seconds the last struggles were over, and he 
 sunk into the arms of death. 
 
 ‘ Close down his eyes/ said Lady Fairland, who 
 was bending over him — ‘ how they glare ! I cannot 
 bear it.’ And she instantly quitted the chamber. 
 
 Scarcely had Sir John Fairland breathed his last 
 when his son Charles and his sisters returned to the 
 Abbey, in a state of the utmost dismay. They had 
 arrived too late to have the consolation of seeing their 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON 145 
 
 unfortunate father once more alive ; and the dreadful 
 nature of his death, with the circumstances of his last 
 moments, every particular of which was related either 
 by Tom Wakeum or the surgeon, aggravated their 
 distress almost to distraction. 
 
 By the advice of the surgeon, a sensible and spirited 
 young man, who had seen much and suspected more, 
 Charles put his seal on the lock of the escritoire before 
 he left the apartment. 
 
 He gazed affectionately on his poor father’s remains, 
 and after his sisters had done the same and kissed the 
 cold lips of their unfortunate parent, he caused them 
 to be removed scarcely in a state of consciousness 
 from the chamber of death. So fearfully sudden had 
 been the event, that they could hardly yet realise that 
 their father had been murdered. 
 
 On the next day the first step taken by the son was 
 to obtain an inquest. The coroner, the jury, (com- 
 posed of the first gentlemen the country round could 
 produce), and many others from far and near, crowded 
 to the Abbey with offers of service to the young 
 
 L 
 
146 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST: 
 
 baronet, now Sir Charles Fairland, on an occasion of 
 such deep public as well as private interest. 
 
 Many witnesses were called, and the inquest was 
 ably conducted by an acute and upright coroner. 
 So minute and searching was the examination that 
 it occupied three successive days. 
 
 The escritoire was opened by order of the coroner, 
 and carefully searched. Nothing was found in it of 
 any importance, except five hundred pounds, which it 
 seemed Sir John had received not long before on 
 account of the arrears of interest on some mortgage, 
 and of his midsummer rents, as many of his tenants 
 paid quarterly. 
 
 Mr. Richard Graves was very closely examined, and 
 even Lady Fairland did not escape the shrewd cross- 
 questioning of the coroner. But nothing appeared 
 against either. Nor did anything come out in 
 evidence to throw any light upon the mystery, except 
 that there had been in the neighbourhood a des- 
 perate gang of smugglers, who had hitherto carried 
 on their nefarious traffic with great daring and success. 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON 147 
 
 They had been known to run their boats and conceal 
 cargoes in Hartland Cove, close in shore, and not 
 very far from the Abbey. Some kegs of brandy had 
 been left behind them when disturbed on some occa- 
 sions by the revenue officers ; and these had been 
 found among the rocks by Sir John Fairland’s people 
 about a fortnight before. 
 
 Since that discovery, the late Sir John having 
 lost some heads of deer, issued warrants, as a magis- 
 trate, for the detention of three or four men strongly 
 suspected as belonging to the gang of smugglers and 
 deer-stalkers. They usually dwelt in huts near the 
 sea-shore, and passed only for poor fishermen. Many 
 persons were brought forward who deposed to various 
 little circumstances (such as one of these men having 
 been heard to say with an oath that he would send 
 out a warrant for Sir John Fairland before Sir John 
 could catch him), which when put together led to the 
 vers/- probable suspicion, that these daring men (and 
 none were more cruel or reckless than the smugglers 
 and wreckers on the North Coast) had waylaid Sir 
 
148 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST: 
 
 John when returning unattended from the house of 
 a friend. The jury long deliberated, and at last 
 brought in a verdict, in consequence of which 
 warrants were issued for the apprehension of James 
 Wilson, Robert Williams, and Thomas Brent, on 
 suspicion of being concerned in the murder of Sir 
 John Fairland. 
 
 After the inquest was concluded, Sir Charles 
 waited on his stepmother concerning the funeral. 
 He was much astonished on being told that, by a 
 will the old baronet had some time since executed, 
 herself and Mr. Richard Graves were appointed his 
 executors. After the interment, she said, his family 
 should hear the will. All things considered, and 
 to avoid that crowd which the great publicity of 
 his death was likely to attract, she had determined 
 to bury the deceased in the old chapel attached to 
 Hartland Abbey ; and not to remove the body so 
 far away as to the family vault in the church of 
 the parish of Northleigh. 
 
 Sir Charles was, indeed, surprised ; but all remon- 
 strance proved vain ; not a word he said was heeded, 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON. 
 
 149 
 
 and from that day till the hour arrived in which, as 
 chief mourner, he was to follow his father’s remains 
 to the chapel, he neither saw nor sought his step- 
 mother or her fellow executor, but purposely kept 
 apart from them, devoting himself to the consolation 
 of his afflicted sisters. 
 
 One piece of advice, which was thus given by Tom 
 Wakeum, he most strictly adopted : ‘ Sir, I don’t 
 believe the scritoire of old master is half searched yet. 
 
 I do think there were some gimcracks of holes and 
 drawers in it that the crowner and the gentlemen 
 of the jury didn’t go deep enough to find out, for 
 I don’t believe one bit that it was the five hundred 
 pounds, as madam makes out, found in the scritoire, 
 tho’ a heavy sum, that made poor dear master so 
 cruel disturbed to get at his scritoire when he was on 
 his death-bed. But you had better let my lady and 
 her chum think you are satisfied it was so. How- 
 somever, do you seal it up again, and one day when 
 you are all alone by yourself have a hunt over it, and 
 see carefully if all the drawers have been opened and 
 examined ; and as it is a delicate sort of a piece of 
 
HART LAND FOREST : 
 
 x 5° 
 
 furniture, if you can't easily get at ’um, take the 
 poker.' 
 
 Sir Charles Fairland took his seal ring from his 
 hand, and very carefully sealed up again every lock 
 of the escritoire. 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON 
 
 I5i 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 A glorious remnant of the Gothic pile 
 
 (While yet the church was Rome’s) stood half apart 
 * * * * * 
 
 But in the noontide of the moon, and when 
 The wind is winged from one point of Heaven, 
 
 There moans a strange unearthly sound, which then 
 Is musical — a dying accent driven 
 Through the huge arch, which soars and sinks again ; . 
 
 Some deem it but the distant echo given 
 Back to the night wind by the waterfall, 
 
 And harmonized by the old choral wall. — Byron . 
 
 The last painful scene was still to be gone through. 
 Sir Charles Fairland prepared to meet it with seem- 
 ing fortitude ; as on the day of the funeral, he had 
 not only his own spirits, but those of his sisters* 
 to support ; for at the date of our narrative it was 
 the inconsiderate, if not the unfeeling, custom to 
 expect the attendance of the nearest female relatives 
 as well as the male on such an occasion. The 
 
152 
 
 HART LAND FOREST : 
 
 daughters of the deceased, therefore, were to be 
 present in the* chapel. 
 
 The circumstances of Sir John Fairland’s death 
 had excited so much interest in the neighbourhood, 
 and were so much the public talk, that it was appre- 
 hended a very great concourse of people — notwith- 
 standing the comparative privacy of burying in the 
 chapel — would be collected to witness the ceremony. 
 As a further means of insuring privacy, therefore, 
 the two executors changed the hour of interment, and 
 directed that it should take place at night with no 
 more state than was absolutely indispensable. 
 
 The evening of the appointed time set in with 
 a melancholy presage. The ocean was in gloom, 
 gleams of a pale, cold light were seen upon it, and the 
 gathering clouds begun to lower. The sun had set 
 over the valley of Hartland, and the woods gradually 
 darkened around, as the tenants and the few persons 
 invited to attend the solemnity arrived at the Abbey, 
 habited in long cloaks and scarves of black. 
 
 It was between the hours of nine and ten in the 
 evening, when the mourning train issued from the 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON 
 
 153 
 
 gates to cross the court that led to the ancient chapel 
 within whose consecrated precincts the interment was 
 to take place. The procession was certainly im- 
 pressive. The servants of the household walked 
 first, two and two, each bearing a lighted torch. Next 
 came the officials of the ceremony, with banners and 
 achievements. The coffin followed, covered with a 
 black velvet pall that was supported by eight neigh- 
 bouring gentlemen. Immediately after walked Sir 
 Charles Fairland, as chief mourner, followed by such 
 other male mourners as were akin to the deceased. 
 The deeply-afflicted daughters came next, with the 
 females of the household. Lady Fairland, however, 
 was not present ; she was said to be greatly indis- 
 posed. The tenants and inferior servants closed the 
 train. Such was the pomp of the time, that this, 
 though including more than seventy persons in 
 attendance, was deemed a very small funeral for a 
 man of Sir John Fairland’s rank and fortune. 
 
 There was something peculiarly solemn and im- 
 pressive in the ceremony and its accompaniments. 
 The chapel had been neglected for many years. An 
 
154 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST: 
 
 interment had not, perhaps, taken place in it since 
 the dissolution of the Abbey at the Reformation. 
 From time and disuse the walls were damp, and in 
 some places moss-grown. The roof was in bad con- 
 dition ; the clustered columns that supported it, and 
 formed the division of the aisles, were here and there 
 twisted with ivy, and many of the capitals broken 
 and partially fallen from want of repair ; whilst the 
 vaulted and richly fretted roof itself had afforded a 
 shelter to the bats and the night birds, which, now 
 disturbed in their ‘ solitary reign/ darted from their 
 abode, and flew about on agitated wings above the 
 heads of the mourning train. Many of the windows 
 were without glass, or retained it only in fragments. 
 The great east window, however, was tolerably perfect, 
 and still exhibited by day those deep and glowing 
 hues that were once the pride of Gothic art in build- 
 ings sacred to Christian devotion. 
 
 The whole of the interior looked dark and dreary, 
 and as the torches threw strong but partial gleams of 
 light on pillar, vault, and arch, they did but render 
 more distinct the ruin and neglect into which the 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON 
 
 155 
 
 chapel had been suffered to fall, and increased the awe 
 that accompanied its decay. Through the broken 
 windows might be both seen and heard the lofty and 
 aged trees that grew without, waving in the night 
 breeze, and murmuring dirge-like sounds, as if to add 
 their voice of wailing to the circumstances and solem- 
 nity of the hour. 
 
 As Sir Charles Fairland passed under the Gothic 
 portal that gave entrance to the chapel, he shuddered. 
 The gloom before him, not yet dispelled by the 
 slowly advancing torch-bearers, had in it something 
 of mystery apt to raise in the mind presages akin to 
 superstitious fear. Such a scene of obscurity, and 
 desolation, struck him to the heart, and the thought 
 arose in him that it was a fit resting-place for the 
 murdered — a murdered father, whose destroyer was 
 yet undetected, and his blood unavenged. The grave 
 was to the left, beneath the east window, and near 
 the altar of the chapel. Immediately above the 
 excavated spot, within a niche of the wall, stood 
 the ancient carved figure of St. Nectan, the Martyr, 
 to whom the chapel was dedicated. The martyr, in 
 
156 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST: 
 
 the attitude of expiring by a violent death, with 
 raised head and hands, seemed to be calling on 
 Heaven to witness and avenge his murder. 
 
 The figure, the attitude, the coincidence, was not 
 lost on Sir Charles Fairland ; he felt a chill of horror 
 run through his veins, as he again and again thought 
 of his father’s fate ; and as the words, ‘ Ashes to 
 ashes, dust to dust/ were being pronounced whilst 
 the corpse was lowered into the ground, he breathed 
 a secret and impassioned vow that he would leave 
 no means unattempted to bring the murderer to 
 justice. 
 
 All was ended ; he cast one look of deep interest 
 upon the coffin ere the earth covered it for ever, and 
 then retreated from the scene in silence and in fear, 
 supporting his weeping sisters, and vainly endeavouring 
 to appear calm, lest he should aggravate their afflic- 
 tion ; nor would he that night hear the will which 
 was offered to be read to him. He could do no more 
 than request the friends who had come far and late to 
 pay the last sad duty of respect to his father, to 
 refresh themselves and remain till the morning at the 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON. 
 
 157 
 
 Abbey. Few, however, accepted the invitation, and 
 the old house was soon left to a darkness and a 
 silence like that of the tomb. 
 
 We will not trouble the reader with a full recital of 
 the will of Sir John Fairland. It was such as might 
 have been expected from the date it bore ; it was 
 made at the time when the two executors, Lady 
 Fairland and Graves, were at the height of their ill- 
 gotten ascendency over the mind of Sir John, and 
 whilst using their utmost art and malice, and the 
 most cruel system of falsehood, to poison his mind 
 against the children of his first marriage ; more 
 especially his eldest son Charles. 
 
 There is nothing more easy than by telling a 
 true tale falsely, distorting some facts, and passing 
 over others unnoticed, to make the innocent appear 
 the guilty to a prejudiced mind ; and this was the 
 
 course which the conspirators — for such they were 
 
 had adopted in their misrepresentations about his 
 children with Sir John Fairland. It is almost need- 
 less to add, that the circumstances to which we 
 have alluded occurred some time previous to that 
 
HARTLAND FORKS'! : 
 
 i 5 3 
 
 eventful interview between father and son, which 
 ended in a manner so satisfactory to both, as far as 
 their feelings and convictions for each other were 
 concerned. 
 
 The principal points in the will were these : — Only 
 five hundred pounds were bequeathed to each of the 
 three daughters of the first marriage. All the most 
 valuable estates (none being entailed) were left to 
 Abraham, then a boy at school, the son of the second 
 marriage. To his sister Elizabeth was given three 
 thousand pounds, and to Mr. Richard Graves, for his 
 trouble as executor, one thousand pounds ; to Lady 
 Fairland, ten thousand pounds, with (this was, 
 perhaps, one of the most extraordinary clauses ever 
 heard of in a will) all the personal effects of ‘ what- 
 soever kind or description ’ that might happen to be 
 contained in Lady Fairland’s chamber, commonly 
 called the Watchet Chamber, at the time of the 
 testator’s decease. And to Charles John Fairland, 
 the eldest son, was left all the remainder of the estate, 
 both real and personal, as the residuary legatee. 
 
 This sounded well ; but, on examination, it was 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON. 
 
 159 
 
 apparent that the bequest had been made merely for 
 the sake of appearance in the eye of the world ; for 
 the residue proved to be nothing more than the 
 worst of all the landed estates, a very small, poor 
 farm, and about fifteen hundred pounds in money, 
 with all the old pictures, worm-eaten books, tables, 
 and chairs, and beds, that had been removed to 
 Hartland Abbey, and did not happen to be placed 
 in Lady Fairland’s chamber at the time of Sir John’s 
 decease. 
 
 All comments on such a will are needless ; the 
 whole country cried shame, and some of Sir Charles’s 
 friends advised him to dispute it, in a court of law. 
 But honest Lawyer Noland shook his head at this 
 piece of advice, and told Sir Charles that, unjust as 
 the will might be, it was legally drawn and without a 
 flaw. Abraham, though a younger son, was legiti- 
 mate, and as Sir John was in his perfect senses, and 
 in sound health in every way at the date of the 
 instrument ; as he had also been heard to threaten 
 with disinheritance his eldest in favour of his second 
 son, he feared nothing but the loss of the little 
 
160 HART LAND FOREST: 
 
 property Sir Charles might possess, in an expensive 
 lawsuit, would be the result of an appeal to a court 
 for justice. Counsel's opinion was taken, and being 
 given to the same effect, all thoughts of any legal 
 steps to set aside the will were abandoned. 
 
 The unfortunate young baronet, half broken- 
 hearted at the sense of the injury he had sustained, 
 remained fully convinced that after the memorable 
 interview he had with his father but just before his 
 death, had he not died so suddenly and by such foul 
 means, the discoveries he had made about his wife 
 and Graves would have caused him to make another 
 will, and one of a very different nature. He deter- 
 mined, in the bitterness of his disappointment, to sell 
 the paltry estate left to him, to remove what might 
 be his by his residuary legateeship, to demand the 
 payment of the five hundred pounds for each of his 
 sisters, and the fifteen hundred for himself, and then 
 with as little delay as possible to quit Hartland 
 Abbey for ever. 
 
 He also consented, as it was their wish, to leave 
 his sisters under the care of Mrs. Elford, with whose 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON. 161 
 
 small means they desired to unite their own, and so 
 to live altogether under the same roof, at least for 
 the present. For Sir Charles himself, as his beloved 
 Isabella was willing to share with him his broken 
 fortunes, he proposed that they should unite their 
 hands in marriage, leave England, and retire to an 
 obscure part of the Continent till such time as he 
 could enter upon some honourable employment, in 
 the hope by his own exertions to raise those means 
 which were denied him in right of his family, his 
 birth, and his expectations. 
 
 This plan Sir Charles attempted putting into 
 practice ; but obstacles and delays were still thrown 
 in his way by his father’s executors, and it was whilst 
 smarting under these vexations, that the following 
 scene occurred at Hartland. 
 
 ‘ Mr. Graves,’ said Sir Charles, with warmth, ‘ I am 
 glad I have encountered you, in order to repeat that 
 demand which my solicitor, Mr. Noland, has already 
 made in my name and in the names of my sisters, 
 the payment of the paltry pittance which you and 
 our stepmother suffered my father to bequeath to 
 
 M 
 
HARTLAND FOREST: 
 
 162 
 
 us. We wish for immediate payment ; and, sir, it 
 will be your interest to comply with our request, as 
 we shall then trouble you no more. I ask this with 
 temper ; do not drive me to extremities, to force 
 from you a compliance with our just demands/ 
 
 ‘ Sir Charles/ said Graves, ‘ this is very strange 
 language. Lady Fairland is an executor as well as 
 myself, and she must be consulted. The law allows 
 an executor more time ; we cannot be hurried/ 
 
 ‘ Do not talk to me of what the law allows/ replied 
 Sir Charles, indignantly; Tor if justice had its 
 course, where would you stand at this hour ? where 
 the woman who is at once your confederate and 
 your destined prey ? ’ 
 
 Sir Charles looked Graves full in the face as he 
 spoke this in a high and impassioned tone. The 
 villain quailed before the searching eye of the 
 injured son, as truth in the accents of irritated feeling 
 burst from his lips. Graves trembled, for a moment 
 the colour left his cheeks, and his whole countenance 
 turned to an ashy whiteness as he stammered forth : 
 f Sir Charles Fairland, I do not understand behaviour 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON 163 
 
 such as this. If we delay paying you and your 
 sisters your fortune, it is for your benefit, and for 
 that of the young ladies. We find that you are 
 about to enter into a very imprudent marriage as 
 soon as you are paid ; and as for your sisters, 
 Lady Fairland thinks that for the present they 
 will be much better under our protection than 
 any other/ 
 
 6 Do not/ exclaimed Sir Charles, ‘ do not profane 
 the name of my injured sisters by even hinting at 
 such guardianship for them as that of yourself and 
 Lady Fairland. I can read your purpose ; you 
 grudge even the paltry bequest that is made to them. 
 You protect them ! Lady Fairland protect them ! 
 As soon would I commit their innocence to the 
 keeping of the vilest wretch, who makes a traffic 
 of the innocent, as I would leave them in such foul 
 and guilty hands as those of yourself and your 
 paramour, the widow of my poor deceived father ! ’ 
 
 ‘ Sir/ said Graves ; ‘ sir, this is beyond endurance. 
 I — I shall demand satisfaction for such slanders cast 
 on me and on my honourable mistress/ 
 
164 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST: 
 
 ( Demand it, and take it/ replied Sir Charles ; ‘ the 
 satisfaction of facing me in a court of justice, where 
 slander may be traced to its true source. But think 
 not that, in defiance of the laws of God and man, I 
 would peril my life to fight with a low-born villain. 
 Sir, I am a gentleman by birth and education, 
 though you, by your arts, have scarcely left me the 
 means to be such in fortune. Nor would I do my 
 poor sisters so great an injury as to hazard my own 
 life, and thus to leave them exposed to your and 
 Lady Fairland’s protection [—protection that would 
 be such as the fiends give their victims, whom they 
 serve only to destroy. But I will no longer bandy 
 words with you, who have neither honour nor shame. 
 Answer me this — Will you, or will you not, comply 
 with my demand ? 9 
 
 ‘ Do you first answer me, Sir Charles/ said Graves, 
 with an impertinent air, ‘and tell me by what 
 authority your servant, that insolent Tom Wakeum, 
 has this morning been directing, aiding, and abetting 
 the loading of sundry carts with some of the old 
 family portraits and other matters belonging to the 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON 165 
 
 late Sir John Fairland, and removing the same from 
 this Abbey to the house of your attorney ? * 
 
 ‘ I remove these matters/ said Sir Charles, ‘ be- 
 cause I have a right to them and a respect for them. 
 They are principally the portraits of my forefathers ; 
 and you and Lady Fairland have left me little else 
 to show that I am well descended. And more than 
 this, I would preserve even the very shades of my 
 ancestors from keeping house with those who have 
 combined to bring ruin, as far as they could do it, on 
 the elder-born descendant of their blood. My friend, 
 Mr. Noland, will receive and hold them for me in safe 
 keeping for the present ; they are mine by right/ 
 
 ‘ By right, Sir Charles/ said Graves, scarcely 
 knowing what he said, ‘ how by right ? ’ 
 
 * Oh ! Mr. Graves, by the right of that residuary 
 legateeship which you and my stepmother so kindly 
 permitted my father to bestow on me/ 
 
 ‘ Sir Charles/ said Graves, in his confusion contra- 
 dicting himself, ‘you do me great injustice. I do 
 not dispute the right of that residue, which you so 
 much despise, and by which all the personalities of 
 
i66 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST: 
 
 this Abbey will be yours, all except the contents of 
 one chamber/ 
 
 ‘Oh! sir, I know it; all except the contents of 
 the Watchet Chamber ; and as Lady Fairland there 
 keeps all the plate and jewels, and whatever is of 
 most value, I am most exceedingly obliged by the 
 exception. I had not forgotten that part of the 
 plot’ 
 
 ‘Nor have I forgotten, Sir Charles,’ said Graves, 
 boldly, ‘that when I passed your door just now I 
 heard your servant, Tom Wakeum, giving orders to 
 some of your people to remove the escritoire that 
 was Sir John Fairland’s; that, Sir Charles, belonged 
 to the Watchet Chamber. It was only moved out of 
 it, by the request of Sir John, a week or so before 
 his death ; it may, therefore, be considered as belong- 
 ing to it. I, as executor, shall detain the escritoire.’ 
 
 ‘ At your peril do so ; at your peril lay but a 
 finger upon it. That escritoire was in my father’s 
 own apartment at the time of his death ; it is now 
 mine, and I will keep it. I shall remove it from this 
 house, and no man shall hinder me.’ 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON. 
 
 167 
 
 < We will see how that matter goes/ said Graves. 
 
 ‘ Sir Charles, this is a fresh injury to the widow of 
 your father.' 
 
 ‘Talk not of my injuring the widow of my father/ 
 said Sir Charles, passionately. ‘ Oh ! too well did he 
 know the fatal truth ; too late did he learn to know 
 the woman who had been as the blight and the 
 deadly blast to the fair promise of his children, till, 
 grown bold and confident in sin, she brought beneath 
 his roof a villain worse, were it possible, even than 
 herself, to destroy the peace, the sanctity, the security 
 of his home ! And now that villain dares to brave 
 his eldest son, the heir of little more than his 
 injuries and his name.' 
 
 Graves stood riveted to the spot, unable either to 
 answer or to retreat from these impassioned re- 
 proaches. For although Sir Charles was of a gene- 
 rous and forgiving nature, yet, when smarting under 
 the stings of such insolent treatment, his mind became 
 inflexible, and he resolved at every risk to accomplish 
 the objects he had in view. 
 
 Graves had made a great mistake in his estimate 
 
HART LAND FOREST: 
 
 1 68 
 
 of the young baronet’s character when he fancied, 
 because he had seen him little more than passive 
 under the most cruel neglect, that the ease and good- 
 nature of his disposition indicated weakness of mind. 
 The truth now flashed upon him, and he felt how 
 unequal he was to cope with so spirited an adver- 
 sary. But Graves was hardened in iniquity, and 
 every just, reproachful word cast upon him did but 
 provoke his malice, till at length, maddened by the 
 scorn and the taunts of Sir Charles, and angry with 
 himself that he knew not how to retort, he stood 
 trembling with impotent rage, as his eye glanced 
 upon his opponent with fiendish vindictiveness. 
 
 ‘ My father knew you both,’ continued Sir Charles ; 
 ‘aye, both, though unhappily not long before his 
 death. He knew your wiles, detected your machina- 
 tions, and that between you you had made his 
 honour your sport. He knew this. But my own sus- 
 picions are of more fearful import. Most vehemently 
 do I suspect that you obtained some knowledge of the 
 discoveries he had made and of his purpose to discard 
 the false wife from his bosom and the false steward from 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON. 
 
 169 
 
 his house, and that you anticipated his just resentment, 
 and prevented it. Aye, sir, scowl upon me, raise the 
 hand and clench it ; I care not. Truth is great, and 
 will at last prevail. I do suspect that my father had 
 foul play, and by your means! If I am wrong 
 in my suspicions, may my sin be forgiven in the 
 greatness of the provocation ; but if right, may God 
 yet bring the hidden thing to light ! And may the 
 murderer of my father quail before the eye of public 
 justice, as you, sir, aye you, now quail before mine/ 
 Sir Charles Fairland turned away as he spoke, and 
 left Graves fixed on the spot with the characters of 
 terror impressed on every feature of his face. 
 
170 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST: 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 But soft, behold ! lo, where it comes again ! 
 
 I’ll cross it, though it blast me~-stay, illusion; 
 
 If thou hast any sound or use of voice, 
 
 Speak to me ! Shakespeare. 
 
 i VERY foolish/ said Lawyer Noland, as Sir Charles 
 Fairland related to him, almost immediately after it 
 had taken place, the particulars of this stormy inter- 
 view with Graves. ‘Very foolish, indeed, on your 
 part, to let your angry passions thus run away with 
 you. My dear boy, you should have preserved the 
 utmost calmness with Graves ; you should have been 
 civil to him. I fear that by your vehemence — even 
 as you tell me was the case with your poor father 
 in his scheme to detect Graves — I fear you will 
 spoil all, spoil the snare that I am spreading to 
 catch the villain ; and that he may be off, instead of 
 walking into it. My plot works capitally; I have 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON 171 
 
 my men on the look-out everywhere. The revenue 
 officers are also in my interest ; they hate Graves 
 for having certainly protected some of those des- 
 perate smugglers, and, as it is reported, for having 
 supplied them with powder and shot to make that 
 bold stand when one of the revenue men was killed 
 the other day in the fray on the beach.* Strong 
 motives must a man of Mr. Graves’ position and 
 expectations have — for all men say he boasts that 
 he is to marry your Lady Fairland — strong must 
 be his motives for protecting a gang of smugglers 
 so desperate as these ; but more of this anon. That 
 escritoire must be moved to-night. I must have the 
 searching of that myself, with your leave.’ 
 
 ‘ I fear Graves will gain possession of it/ replied 
 Sir Charles. ‘ I am most desirous that it should 
 be searched by you. How must it be moved ? ’ 
 
 ‘ I will tell you/ said Noland ; ‘ I will send one 
 of my own people ; he shall go for it with my 
 
 * At the date of this tale the nefarious traffic of smuggling 
 was carried on, both on the coasts of Devon and Cornwall, with 
 the most extraordinary daring. 
 
172 
 
 HART LAND FOREST: 
 
 cart. That will take Graves by surprise, and Tom 
 Wakeum can help to remove it. No time must 
 be lost ; for, like you, I think there is something 
 suspicious in Graves so insisting on retaining it, 
 and your father’s anxiety to come at it in his dying 
 moments confirms the suspicion. There must be 
 something of vast importance connected with that 
 old escritoire.’ 
 
 ‘Yet I can assure you,’ replied Sir Charles, ‘that 
 except the five hundred pounds, which the coroner 
 handed over to the executors after the inquest, there 
 was nothing of any value in it.’ 
 
 ‘ Nevertheless,’ said Mr. Noland, ‘ I advise its being 
 secured and searched. I will give orders about it 
 forthwith ; the men and the cart shall go off for 
 it directly. The portraits are all safely arrived ; a 
 goodly set of grandfathers. Come with me, my dear 
 fellow, and I’ll show you where I’ve stowed them*; 
 and then you shall go with me to my closet, where I 
 will lay before you some notes that I have made of 
 this affair of the smugglers — they contain a few curious 
 discoveries ; and the plan I have drawn out for our 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON. 
 
 173 
 
 further proceedings ; that is, unless you have marred 
 all by this foolish quarrel, and, as I said but now, 
 the scoundrel sets off before I can catch him. But, 
 after all, I think the bait up at the Abbey — the 
 widow and the gold — is too strong to be lost sight of 
 by such a shark.' 
 
 ‘ I know not what to think,' said Sir Charles, 
 musing, as if engaged more with his own thoughts 
 than with the plans of his friend. 
 
 ‘ What to think ! ’ said the lawyer, taking up his 
 last words in a cheerful tone ; ‘ why, Sir Charles, 
 always think the best and hope the best. But come, 
 cheer up ; you are in low spirits. Never mind the 
 dark hour of fortune ; it will be bright by-and-by. 
 You must stay and cut your mutton with me to-day ; 
 a delicate leg of Okehampton with a bottle of old 
 Tokay to give it a relish, and we will drink a health 
 to the fair Miss Isabella and better times to us all. 
 I shall never forget the day when I first heard of 
 your being thought of before you were born from the 
 lips of your poor distressed mother, and how on that 
 day I helped to make the peace and to prevent a 
 
174 
 
 IIARTLAND FOREST: 
 
 separation. But now do I earnestly hope I may, at 
 last, effect a divorce between your father's lands and 
 his second wife's children. But no more of this now ; 
 come along with me. I have hope. But if all goes 
 wrong, and things come to the worst, we must even 
 take patience to help us.' 
 
 So saying, Mr. Noland led the way. Long and 
 deep was the conference. Sir Charles and his adviser 
 were closeted for more than three hours, and finally 
 called in to their counsels a very intelligent officer of 
 the revenue, who was to play an important part in 
 their proposed measures. In the interval we will, in 
 a few words, tell the result of Mr. Noland’s scheme 
 for the removal of the escritoire. 
 
 A rascally footman, a well-paid tool of Graves, 
 soon made his master acquainted with the arrival of 
 a cart and only one man with it, who with the 
 assistance of Tom Wakeum had placed the escritoire 
 safe in the same cart, adding that Tom had after- 
 wards set off with a letter which Sir Charles strictly 
 charged him to deliver himself into the hands of 
 Miss Fitzwarren. 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON. 
 
 175 
 
 Graves thus ascertained that the man and the cart 
 were ready for departure, and that Tom Wakeum 
 was off his post. Now it so happened that Mr. 
 Graves, for purposes of his own, was removing some of 
 his personal effects to a small house he had recently 
 taken in the neighbourhood. Some said he did this 
 for appearance, that he might not live under the same 
 roof with Lady Fairland till his marriage entitled 
 him so to do. Be this as it may, he bethought 
 himself of a scheme to obtain possession of the escri- 
 toire ; for he, like Sir Charles, entertained a strong 
 suspicion that it must be something of more import- 
 ance than the 500/. deposited therein, which had so 
 disturbed the dying moments of his late patron. He 
 was therefore quite as anxious as Lawyer Noland 
 himself, though from a very different motive, to 
 enter on a search. Determined to take decisive 
 steps in the affair, he gave instructions to his in- 
 former to invite the man, who had the charge of 
 the cart, to drink before he departed with his load, 
 and vowed, that if his emissary did not make the 
 fellow drunk on the spot, he would discharge 
 
176 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST : 
 
 him for a bungler before the next morning. The 
 rogue went willingly enough to do his master’s 
 bidding ; whilst Graves lost no time in summoning 
 to his secret counsels another of his agents, and one 
 of a suspicious kind, who was in attendance at the 
 moment. What was then the nature of the con- 
 ference it is not here necessary to relate ; it will be 
 known in due time and place ; but for the present we 
 must turn to a scene of a very different description in 
 the progress of our narrative. 
 
 Towards the evening of the same day in which 
 these matters occurred, a man of a short, stout 
 figure, a steady and determined countenance, plainly 
 habited in a thick grey surtout, was seen lingering 
 about the coast near Hartland rocks. Every now 
 and then he applied to his eye a telescope, such 
 as are frequently carried by naval officers when 
 walking the deck of their vessels. He was evidently 
 on the look-out. After a while he proceeded to 
 Hartland Point, that bold projection of headland 
 which, as we have before noticed, was called by 
 Ptolemy The Promontory of Hercules . The ascent to 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON. 
 
 177 
 
 it, like that of Tintagel in Cornwall, is by a very narrow 
 pass, extremely steep and rugged. The wind was 
 violent as the person we have named ascended ; 
 but after he had with much difficulty reached the 
 summit, he found it calm on the point.* On this spot 
 was already laid a quantity of wood and dried furze, 
 as if ready to be lighted for a beacon. 
 
 This great and bold promontory of the north 
 coast stretches itself into the sea, and is united to 
 the land by a causeway, narrow, broken, and so 
 steep, in parts as to be almost perpendicular. The 
 angry and reverberating waves beat on either side, 
 close to its very base. It is at once an object of 
 terror and sublimity ; to a depth that makes the 
 brain dizzy, the eye looks down upon splintered 
 
 * c This calm on the summit of the point is occasioned by the 
 wind striking against it being thrown upwards, so as to form an 
 arch overhead, defending it, as it were, from the horizontal 
 current. This was proved by our throwing over some chips 
 which happened to be on the spot, and which, instead of 
 descending, though thrown with strength, ascended with a 
 rotatory motion above our heads in the form of a curve/ — From 
 MS. notes of a tour on the North coast of Devon and Cornwall 
 by the late Reverend E. A. Bray. 
 
 N 
 
I 7 S 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST : 
 
 and sharp points of rocks that rise up below like 
 spear-heads. 
 
 The coast around is of the noblest character : long 
 and far-extending, composed of cliffs of the wildest 
 and most romantic forms, and here and there interr 
 sected with many a nook and cove ; in some places 
 lines of low black rock, and the surge breaking over 
 or covering them with sheets of foam, as the tide 
 rolls in with irresistible force, produces a striking 
 effect both on the eye and ear. 
 
 The ocean, when seen from this headland, is an ob- 
 ject of extraordinary grandeur, the horizon having the 
 appearance of great elevation, the whole sweep of the 
 mighty belt so simple, yet so sublime in its simplicity, 
 an image of power living and moving and full of awe. 
 On the evening of which we speak it was silvered by 
 partial lights, and here and there overcast by the deep- 
 est shadows. On the ledges of the surrounding cliffs, 
 perched on their points, were many of those wild birds 
 which, cradled in the rocks and nursed amid the 
 storms, become familiarised with the ocean. Others 
 soared high, and presented their white and airy forms 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON 
 
 179 
 
 with outspread wings in contrast to the dark and 
 angry clouds, ‘ fast gathering round both sea and 
 shore/ 
 
 The man with the telescope stopped on the summit 
 of Hartland Point, and took a careful survey in every 
 direction, and then closed the instrument. Indeed, 
 the gathering twilight would not have allowed it 
 to be of use much longer. Somewhat distant from 
 the shore appeared a small vessel whose white and 
 swelling sail was labouring to waft her through a 
 turbulent and rolling sea. 
 
 No sooner did the man on the look-out perceive 
 her than he took flint and steel from his pocket, and 
 ere the rain which threatened could fall to prevent his 
 purpose struck a light and fired the beacon. The 
 flame rose brightly without being even in the slight- 
 est degree blown from its upward direction, for not 
 a breath of the wind, that was rushing violently above, 
 touched it. 
 
 A faint cry arose from the vessel below, and was 
 heard by the man who fired the beacon in a momen- 
 tary pause of the blast. The cry seemed to be taken 
 
i8o 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST: 
 
 for an answer to his signal ; he at once commenced 
 his retreat, and with a slow and labouring step, often 
 compelled to stand still till some sudden gust had 
 passed and allowed him to go forward, he made his 
 way over the narrow causeway which unites the pro- 
 montory with the mainland. 
 
 The sun now set, and the twilight of a summer sky 
 was rendered dull and heavy by the gathering storm. 
 The edges of the clouds, tinged with reflected 
 light, were of a fiery red, the ocean became every 
 moment more and more agitated, and the breakers 
 made all the shore one sheet of boiling foam. The 
 high and impending cliffs, darkened by the sombrous 
 clouds, sent forth hollow moans or shrill sounds from 
 the force of the winds among them, whilst the lofty 
 woods of Hartland and the deep and rocky recesses 
 that lay around the valley were half hidden in the 
 obscurity of the hour. 
 
 This was succeeded by a night of rapid and strik- 
 ing change. At one moment all was total dark- 
 ness, and the next , as the fast-scudding clouds 
 passed away from the moon’s disc and left her 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON. 
 
 181 
 
 unclouded in her majestic course, her light sil- 
 vered the tops of the forest trees, and showed dis- 
 tinctly the antiquated and clustered towers of the 
 Abbey standing loftily above them, in some parts 
 illumined with partial splendour, in others wrapped 
 in night and gloom. 
 
 Such was the scene and the hour, when there 
 passed through the forest two men, the one mounted 
 and the other on foot, leading by the head a horse 
 which drew a small cart laden with something of 
 bulk. For a while they continued their course in 
 silence. They made a pause, however, as a deep 
 and low peal of thunder rolled hollowly in the dis- 
 tance, indicating that the threatened storm was at 
 length come. There was a momentary calm : this 
 was followed by a strong and loud rush of the 
 wind, as it swept along the woods and tossed high 
 in the air the boughs and branches of the trees ; 
 whilst the open spaces that lay around became 
 visible as the first vivid flash of lightning gleamed 
 upon the ground. 
 
 i I do not like this, James Wilson,’ said one 
 
182 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST: 
 
 of the men to his companion, ‘nor the place we 
 have to find, nor the errand we go upon. It's an 
 awkward job if we are interrupted, and our men 
 may want us, and wonder what keeps us away 
 when there’s a cargo to be run ; they may want 
 hands/ 
 
 ‘ And a pretty night they have for running it in/ 
 said the other ; ‘ unless the boats are hove up in the 
 cove, I would not give a button for the cargo ; it will 
 all go down to Davie Jones’s locker. Our men will 
 have a hard pull, I fancy, against wind, tide, and sea, 
 to make the cove. I doubt if all goes well ; but 
 be it how it may, I wish I was with them ; for I tell 
 you, Bob, thof I’m no land-lubber, I don’t like the 
 place we have to pass — don’t like it at all, nor the 
 stories about it that go round the country. I wonder 
 why I agreed to do to-night that fellow Graves’ 
 errand/ 
 
 ‘ Why, because you could not let it alone; that’s 
 all,’ said the other man to whom he thus freely spoke 
 his doubts and fears. ‘ Graves out with his purse and 
 showed you the chinkers, and that did the business. 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON. 
 
 183 
 
 Don’t you grumble for the job, for you’ve had your 
 pay before hand ; I’ve had only promises.’ 
 
 ‘ But he’s always a crossing your palm with some- 
 thing better than coppers, Bob,’ replied his associate. 
 ‘You’re his man in constant pay, I’m not; and I 
 don’t like such a job as this we are upon when we 
 have to pass near that infernal oak in the forest.’ 
 ‘Hush, hush!’ said his companion; ‘the Abbot’s 
 Oak, you mean. Don’t call it infernal, or the 
 Evil One himself may come up to let you know he’s 
 ready to take what you call his.’ 
 
 ‘ I had rather see him there than what I hear tell 
 of,’ said James Wilson. 
 
 ‘ The Spectre Horseman, you mean,’ said Bob 
 Williams. ‘ Why, man, that is because you are 
 chicken-hearted, and a greenhorn. The Spectre 
 Horseman is the best friend we have in the forest. 
 He has stood guard over my kegs, I will warrant 
 you, many a night, when we have left them in 
 these woods, under the old oak tree ; well knowing, 
 as we did, that not a mother’s son of them, all the 
 neighbourhood round, would dare go near the place 
 
384 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST: 
 
 for their very lives. Not even a revenue man would 
 go near it ; he’d shake in his shoes like a man at 
 the foot of the gallows if he did but come within 
 pistol shot of the Abbot’s Oak. But as for the thing 
 itself, don’t be afraid of it ; the story’s of no good 
 whatever but, as I said before, to protect our kegs 
 and contrabands.’ 
 
 * Well, so you say,’ replied Wilson ; ‘ but that don’t 
 satisfy me.’ 
 
 ‘ Well, then, your own eyes will soon,’ said Robert 
 Williams, ' for we shall be at the Abbot’s Oak in less 
 than ten minutes, if the animal ffiere will but put a 
 better leg forward ; he’s got no such great weight to 
 draw, to be so sluggish. But what a cruel night is 
 this for our people ! ’ 
 
 Again was the scene around involved in darkness, 
 the clouds driving thickly before the face of the moon. 
 With great difficulty the men made their way among 
 broken and fallen branches, tall grass and brambles, 
 and the high knotted roots of the trees that encum- 
 bered the narrow and little frequented path they 
 were pursuing. Once the cart was nearly overturned, 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON. 185 
 
 and twice they paused, thinking they heard some one 
 near at hand. At length the thunder, ‘ that deep and 
 dreadful organ pipe,’ burst over the forest in a peal so 
 tremendous that it seemed to shake the very earth 
 beneath their feet. The lightning gleamed, and then 
 utter darkness fell again like a pall over the woods. 
 The winds moaned in strong and awful cadence ; again 
 and again did the heavens seem to open to send forth 
 a stream of fire, and forked flashes quivered along 
 the ground. 
 
 There was something very fearful in this rapid 
 interchange of light and darkness. The men paused, 
 as if overcome with awe by that sublime fury 
 of the elements which is as ‘a token of God 
 directing His world.' Once more they endeavoured 
 to make their way through the intricate path that 
 was before them ; and slowly they drew near the 
 decaying lord of the forest, the oak, which stood in 
 sombre mystery, half seen and half obscured, as the 
 stern and watchful guardian of the woods. 
 
 At this moment the moon was more in mist than 
 in shadow ; a succession of thin vapoury clouds like a 
 
HART LAND FOREST: 
 
 1 86 
 
 veil, through which her orb could be distinctly seen, 
 were scudding before her; there was obscurity, but 
 not darkness. And whilst surrounding objects thus 
 appeared somewhat in mist, the men — the one who 
 led the horse by the head, and the other who rode 
 near — were much startled by the led animal standing 
 stock-still, shaking in every limb, as if in the agony 
 of fear ; whilst the other horse started with so much 
 violence that he nearly threw his rider, then reared, 
 then backed as much as he could from the pathway, 
 and shook and foamed with terror. 
 
 Before the men could interchange a word, a figure 
 seemingly taller than of human height, mounted 
 on a horse of due proportion, passed rapidly before 
 the oak ; neither form nor feature could be distinctly 
 seen. He wore a hat that appeared to be slouched 
 over the face, which was turned towards them. He 
 seemed to each of the men as if about to rush upon 
 him, yet they were some distance apart from one 
 another. 
 
 Wilson had resolution enough to speak ; no answer 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON 
 
 i87 
 
 was returned, and in another second the phantom 
 rider shot by the oak like an arrow from a bow. 
 
 ‘ Where is he gone ? ’ exclaimed Wilson. 
 
 ' To hell, from where he came,’ replied his ruffianly 
 companion, ' for not a living creature is now to be 
 seen in the pathway down which he rode. Yet I 
 could not see which way he turned ; did you ? ’ 
 
 ‘ No ; I did not.’ 
 
 'It must be the Spectre Horseman,’ said Williams. 
 ‘ But what noise was that ? ’ 
 
 They paused and listened. A low but shrill whistle 
 was heard in an opposite quarter of the forest to 
 where the mysterious horseman had appeared and 
 disappeared. 
 
 * We are trapped,’ said Williams ; ‘ those are the 
 revenue men, or I am much mistaken. They are on 
 the look-out. Here, Wilson, mount behind me ; leave 
 the horse and cart. The officers will fancy that the 
 old lumbering piece of furniture it contains is a cargo 
 of contrabands, they will fasten on it, and we shall 
 gain time to get off. Here, give me your hand ; mount 
 
1 88 
 
 HART LAND FOREST: 
 
 quickly, for we shall have an old score to settle if we 
 are caught. Mount and away.’ 
 
 Wilson forthwith jumped up behind his friend ; and 
 they set off at as hard a pace as the animal could be 
 urged to by the repeated blows and kicks laid into 
 his sides. Whilst the thunder and rain rolled and 
 rattled above their heads a few of the revenue men 
 (stationed that night on the look-out purposely to 
 intercept any of the smugglers passing through the 
 forest) reached the fatal oak ; not, however, in time to 
 secure the rogues for whom they were in search, but 
 soon enough to take possession of the cart and the 
 luggage it contained. This they did at once; and 
 how they disposed of it will be seen in the next 
 chapter. 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON. 
 
 189 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Thou’ st done an evil deed, 
 
 For sin is of the soul, and thine is tainted. Maturin. 
 
 Like our old friend harlequin, who in our childhood 
 used so to raise our wonder and delight in the panto- 
 mimic scene, when by the wave of his marvellous wand 
 he changed land and houses into sea and ships, we 
 must claim a privilege no less fanciful, and at once 
 transport our readers to an old house, not one so 
 ancient or so picturesque as Hartland Abbey, yet 
 quite old and curious enough for railroad tourists and 
 sketching young ladies to visit and ‘ take off,’ as the 
 Devonians say, if it be still in being. 
 
 This house was the property of Charles Noland, 
 Esq., attorney-at-law, and a very honest man. Mr. 
 Noland, as we now introduce him, in its most spacious 
 apartment, was seated in somewhat of that state in 
 which we once before saw him on the expected 
 separation between Sir John Fairland and his lady. 
 
HART-LAND FOREST: 
 
 190 
 
 On the present occasion there was a solemnity about 
 his manner and deportment that argued a case of 
 high importance was in hand. Sir Charles Fairland, 
 with three or four county magistrates, and several 
 other gentlemen, were there assembled. The much- 
 talked-of escritoire was there also, and the ancestors 
 of Sir Charles, moved only a few days before to 
 the custody of Mr. Noland, stood, some in armour 
 and others in full-bottomed wigs, leaning in their 
 frames against the wall, there having yet been no time 
 nor place found to hang them : they seemed on this 
 day to have met together to be the silent witnesses 
 of a cause of the utmost importance to the last eldest- 
 born heir of their honoured line. 
 
 The beadle and constable of the parish (both offices 
 being filled by one and the same man) was present, 
 several of the revenue people likewise, and others of 
 less note. Certain men in custody were held apart 
 in an outer chamber, and others ready to be produced 
 in evidence before the magistrates as the circum- 
 stances of the enquiry might demand. 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON igi 
 
 Mr. Noland rose and opened the case. His speech 
 was long and weighty, every word and every sentence 
 duly considered ; and whilst he addressed the magis- 
 trates, he every now and then assisted both his 
 memory and his eloquence by reference to certain 
 notes he had made for the purpose. The opening of 
 the case occupied a full hour ; we shall only give 
 the pith of it. 
 
 Mr. Noland began by stating that, in consequence 
 of a certain deadly fray which took place on the 
 beach near Hartland Cove, about six weeks before, in 
 which a man named Robert Williams (assisted by 
 others) had feloniously slain one of His Majesty’s 
 revenue officers, a warrant had been issued by the late 
 Sir John Fairland to apprehend these persons, who 
 were likewise suspected of being deer-stalkers, and of 
 having killed many head of deer in Hartland Forest. 
 Now it appeared by credible evidence that the afore- 
 said Robert Williams, whilst somewhat off his guard, 
 through the effects of drink, had dropped threaten- 
 ing words, intimating that he would despatch the late 
 
IIARTLAND FOREST: 
 
 192 
 
 Sir John Fairland ere he should be apprehended 
 under the warrant which Sir John had issued for his 
 detention. 
 
 Here Mr. Noland paused, and then, with a more 
 solemn aspect than he had yet assumed, proceeded to 
 say that it had pleased God, who bringeth every 
 secret work into judgment, to make known the cir- 
 cumstances just related, yet but as the beginning of 
 certain discoveries that had rapidly followed. He need 
 not remind the magistrates present of what had taken 
 place before the coroner on the inquest of the late 
 lamented baronet, inasmuch as the documents of 
 the whole of those proceedings were before them. 
 He would only say — and here the worthy attorney 
 paused and took snuff, to assist his modesty in 
 sustaining the little compliment he was about to pay 
 to himself — he would only add that ever since he had 
 been employed on that memorable occasion he had 
 used his most unremitting and zealous efforts to dis- 
 cover the perpetrators of the murder. Day and night 
 had he thought with intense anxiety upon the most 
 likely means of detection ; and he was both proud 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON 
 
 193 
 
 and happy in being able to state that the measures he 
 adopted met with the approbation of the magistrates, 
 also the thanks of Sir Charles, and the attestation of 
 his own conscience ; for he assured the gentlemen 
 there present, that though for more than thirty years 
 hackneyed in the ways of the law, he still possessed 
 a conscience — it had been his best reward. 
 
 Again Mr. Noland paused ; and now he changed 
 his attitude, and stood with the right leg a little 
 forward, the left drawn back, his head raised, his notes 
 in his left hand, and his right gracefully stuck in the 
 bosom of his cut velvet waistcoat, between the top 
 button-hole and the third from it — an attitude in 
 which he had seen the celebrated Lord Chester- 
 field stand, in the House of Peers, as he uttered 
 his famous tirade against Sir Robert Walpole when 
 he seceded from his party. Ever since Mr. Noland 
 had adopted the attitude in question when he wished 
 to give peculiar force and effect to what he said. 
 
 He then proceeded to say that he had received in- 
 formation from an individual in his employ that a 
 very large cargo of contraband spirits and goods was 
 
 O 
 
194 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST: 
 
 to be landed at Hartland Cove, on the first stormy 
 night, when it was considered the officers of the 
 revenue would be less alert ; that a certain signal 
 was agreed upon to give notice of the precise time 
 when this could be done with the greatest safety. 
 For this purpose, a quantity of wood was to be set 
 on fire on Hartland Point. This intelligence Mr. 
 Noland ascertained to be correct, and deemed it of 
 such importance that he lost no time in communi- 
 cating with the officers of the revenue, and agreed 
 with them to set a trap for the smugglers. 
 
 It was arranged on the first tempestuous day to 
 withdraw all the revenue men from their posts, on 
 the pretext that in such weather no smuggling boats 
 would venture to run a cargo into the cove. Mr. 
 Noland’s informant gave him the hint that a good 
 portion of the contrabands was to be taken to the 
 Abbey for the service of Lady Fairland and Mr. 
 Graves, who were long-established patrons of these 
 men ; having by their means drunk their claret and 
 worn their foreign velvets and silks duty free. 
 
 In consequence of this information, and a well- 
 
A LEGEND OE NORTH DEVON . 
 
 195 
 
 arranged plan of the revenue officers, on the even- 
 ing of the previous day, the weather continuing to be 
 stormy, the spy in their employ had been sent 
 to light the beacon. The smugglers fell into the snare, 
 landed the cargo, and were surprised in the very 
 act of doing so by a strong armed force concealed 
 amongst the rocks and hollows near the shore. 
 
 Further, in order to detect any persons of the 
 said gang who might be in connection with anyone 
 at the Abbey, it was arranged that a small party 
 should be stationed at a certain point in the forest 
 near the track that led to and from the coast. There 
 the officers, in the first instance, failed in their plan, for 
 two men belonging to the gang escaped ; but a cart 
 and horse, and something they were feloniously re- 
 moving — the same being the property of Sir Charles 
 Fairland — had been secured, and the two fugitives, 
 not knowing their associates were captured at the cove, 
 and having gone forward to join them, fell into the 
 hands of the revenue officers, and were now also in 
 custody. 
 
 One of these, James Wilson, seeing how des- 
 
196 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST: 
 
 perate matters stood with him, on the assurance 
 that his life would be spared, offered to turn King’s 
 evidence respecting a very serious matter. In conse- 
 quence of his deposition, taken before a magistrate, 
 a warrant had been issued to arrest a certain person, 
 whom he (Mr. Noland) now directed the constable 
 to bring before the bench. 
 
 The worthy attorney sat down, took his hand from 
 his bosom, wiped his face with his handkerchief, 
 and seemed somewhat exhausted by the length and 
 earnestness of his speech. A murmur of approbation 
 ran through the room. All present seemed wrought 
 to a high pitch of curiosity and expectation, that 
 sank into the silence of astonishment, not unmixed 
 with fear, when, the door being opened, Graves was 
 brought in a prisoner, between the constable and two 
 or three armed men who had assisted in the arrest. 
 
 On entering, Graves looked round him with an 
 insolent and hardened air, as if determined to put a 
 bold face on the matter and to brave it out. He 
 walked at once up to the table at which were seated 
 Sir Charles Fairland and the other gentlemen, and 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON 
 
 197 
 
 with a high tone and haughty demeanour asked how 
 they had dared issue a warrant to arrest him, who 
 was their equal in rank and character, and what they 
 had to lay to his charge. 
 
 The presiding magistrate, a formal old gentleman, 
 very coolly replied : ‘ Pray, Mr. Graves, do not 
 give way to angry feeling. Pray do not be thus 
 excited. You will have a full and dispassionate 
 hearing by-and-by. Pray, sir, be seated. We are 
 gentlemen, and would wish to treat you as such. 
 Sir, the laws of England consider every man as 
 innocent till he is proved guilty. Do not, therefore, 
 fancy we would anticipate justice. You are entitled to 
 the full benefit of such laws ; and these worthy and 
 upright magistrates here assembled, and representing 
 His Majesty’s person, would wish you to receive not 
 only the advantage of those laws but the courtesy 
 of the bench. Gentlemen (turning to the bench), do 
 I not speak your feelings ? ’ 
 
 The magistrates, one and all, gave their assent by 
 words and tokens of approbation ; a most singular 
 method of proceeding, but at the date of our narra- 
 
198 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST : 
 
 tive the irregularity of a bench of country gentlemen 
 was notorious. But the courtesy shown to Graves 
 did not induce Mr. Noland to flinch one iota from 
 the severity of his examination, nor from bringing 
 forward the evidence which he had collected with 
 great shrewdness and unwearied zeal. We go at once 
 to the more serious and important part of the charge. 
 
 ‘Gentlemen/ said Mr. Noland, solemnly, ‘believe me, 
 it is with unfeigned concern on Mr. Graves’ account, 
 as well as on account of the feelings of Sir Charles 
 Fairland and all here present, that I am about to 
 adduce evidence and examine the same on a most 
 fearful, most awful charge against the gentleman 
 in custody. He is suspected of having devised and 
 caused to be carried into effect the murder of the 
 late Sir John Fairland.’ 
 
 Graves did not raise his eyes to meet those of Mr. 
 Noland, but he turned pale. He retained, however, 
 his self-command, and said, in a quiet manner, 
 ‘ Suspicion is no proof ; a charge so dreadful as this 
 must be made good, or must altogether fail.’ 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON 
 
 199 
 
 ‘ It must be so, indeed/ replied Mr. Noland, 4 and I 
 am glad that Mr. Graves at once takes it in its true 
 light. He may be sure he will have justice. Pray, 
 Mr. Tapum,’ he added, turning to the constable/ pray 
 give me the green bag which lies yonder on the side- 
 table.’ 
 
 The constable handed it over, and Mr. Noland 
 fumbled in it for a few minutes. At length he 
 produced a very handsome silver-mounted pistol. 
 On seeing it, Graves exclaimed with fury, ‘ Who has 
 dared to seize my property ? That pistol was at my 
 bed’s head but yesterday ! ’ 
 
 ‘ It was not seized without a magistrate’s warrant,’ 
 said Mr. Noland, 'enabling the officers to search 
 Hartland Abbey, and to lay their hands on whatever 
 might be deemed necessary towards investigating 
 the charge in question. This pistol is known to be 
 Mr. Graves’s ; Sir Charles Fairland and others can 
 depose to its being such. I must not put any 
 questions that it might be injurious for Mr. Graves 
 to answer in respect to his own case. I must not 
 
200 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST: 
 
 ask him where is the fellow of that pistol. I have 
 it in this bag/ 
 
 Mr. Noland opened it again, and now produced a 
 second pistol, silver-mounted, and exactly correspond- 
 ing in the maker’s name and every other particular 
 with the one already exhibited, differing only in this, 
 ♦ that whereas the first was bright and in high order, 
 the last produced was covered with rust, and looked 
 as if its beautiful workmanship had been defaced by 
 damp and ill-usage. 
 
 ‘ Gentlemen/ said the attorney, ‘ one of my officers 
 found this pistol in the bottom of an old pond, which 
 I caused to be dragged, situated not very far from the 
 Abbot’s Oak in Hartland Forest. This pistol is the 
 companion of the one known to be that of Graves. I 
 have two witnesses belonging to the household of the 
 Abbey who will prove that both pistols were seen in his 
 chamber a day or two previous to the murder of Sir 
 John Fairland, and only one of them has been there 
 seen since that fatal event. Tapum, call forward Mr. 
 Tournequet, the surgeon who attended Sir John 
 Fairland in his last hours . 5 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON 
 
 201 
 
 The surgeon deposed to the wound by which Sir 
 John met his death being one from a pistol shot. He 
 then produced the ball he extracted, and showed that 
 it exactly fitted the pistol taken from the pond. He 
 next produced the piece of wadding which? had stuck 
 in the waistcoat of the deceased, and had not passed 
 into the body with the ball. 
 
 Most carefully did Mr. Noland unfold this, and 
 lay it open on the table before the magistrates. 
 ‘ Gentlemen/ he said, ‘ I must now call your atten- 
 tion to a most important piece of evidence. I must 
 beg the closest attention to the circumstance about 
 to be adduced/ 
 
 Once more did Mr. Noland resort to the green 
 bag, and produced a packet very carefully tied with 
 pink tape and sealed. He directed the constable 
 to take it and break the seals. This ceremony 
 was accordingly performed by Mr. Tapum in solemn 
 silence. 
 
 ‘ Gentlemen, the papers now about to be produced,’ 
 continued Mr. Noland, ‘were taken by the officers 
 from a private drawer in Mr. Graves’s bureau, which 
 
202 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST: 
 
 stands in the closet adjoining his chamber at the 
 Abbey.’ 
 
 Graves frowned, but said nothing, knowing that 
 all remonstrance concerning such seizure of his goods 
 and papers would be fruitless. 
 
 ‘ Gentlemen,’ continued Mr. Noland, ‘ the first 
 thing that I produce is an old newspaper, “ The 
 London Mercury” of the twentieth of April of the 
 current year. Gentlemen, you perceive that a piece 
 has been carelessly torn off from the corner of this 
 newspaper. You will also perceive that the fragment 
 which formed the wadding of the ball that shot Sir 
 John Fairland exactly corresponds with the tear.’ 
 Mr. Noland then placed the two pieces together ; their 
 union was perfect, wanting only a very small portion. 
 
 Graves became exceedingly agitated, and ex- 
 claimed with fierceness that his pistol had been 
 stolen from his chamber, and must have been thrown 
 into the pond by the thief. It was injustice, it was 
 madness, to suppose him to be answerable for a 
 piece of an old newspaper, which he declared he did 
 not so much as know was in his possession. 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON 
 
 203 
 
 One of the magistrates advised him not to enter 
 on particulars, but to reserve his defence either in 
 reply to the present charge when concluded before 
 the magistrates, or for a higher court, when the case 
 would be in the hands of his counsel. 
 
 The pistols, the ball, and the wadding were once 
 more carefully restored to the green bag, as matters 
 of evidence. And now Mr. Noland called on Sir 
 Charles Fairland to come forward. 
 
 Sir Charles rose from his seat ; strong emotion 
 appeared in every line of his fine and expressive 
 features as he looked on Graves with a feeling of 
 horror that was almost sickening. 
 
 ‘ Mr. Graves/ he said, ‘ I know that in addressing 
 you I am acting somewhat irregularly ; but I wish to 
 assure you that, whatever may be my own thoughts 
 or sufferings at the sight of one who stands accused 
 of having cut short the days of my father, I will 
 endeavour to restrain myself. I will endeavour to 
 follow the example of my friend Mr. Noland, and 
 in seeking justice to seek it calmly and temperately. 
 These papers which Mr. Noland but now handed 
 
204 
 
 HART LAND FOREST: 
 
 over to me, I understand, were found by him in 
 making a more particular search than had hitherto 
 been made in my lamented father’s escritoire. Mr. 
 Noland discovered certain private drawers, so 
 closely constructed that none but a man of his nice 
 observation would have detected them.’ 
 
 ‘Pardon me, gentlemen/ said the old lawyer; ‘I 
 do not know that I should have detected them any 
 more than Sir Charles had I not remembered a certain 
 escritoire that was once the property of my great 
 uncle. It came from abroad, and was of curious con- 
 struction. I had often, when young, seen its secrets 
 disclosed. On the death of the original possessor 
 his widow sold many of his choice pictures and rare 
 pieces of foreign furniture, among them this very 
 escritoire, which must have been purchased by Sir 
 Charles’s grandfather, old Sir Thomas Fairland. The 
 moment it came into my charge I suspected, and at 
 length recognised, it as the acquaintance of my youth. 
 A very little time and care in the examination of 
 it brought to my remembrance the secrets of its 
 curious construction. The papers Sir Charles now 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON 
 
 205 
 
 holds in his hand were the first fruits of my 
 search.' 
 
 ‘ Those papers,' said Sir Charles, ‘ must have been 
 deposited in the secret drawers of this escritoire by 
 my father himself. How he came by them he could 
 alone have told ; that they produced the strongest 
 effects on his mind may be traced in the few but 
 impassioned remarks that he wrote in pencil on 
 more than one of them. They are letters addressed by 
 Mr. Graves to my stepmother. Their contents show 
 the existence of a most extraordinary confederacy 
 with her, and that it was of some standing. In these 
 papers Graves also glances at the hope he entertains 
 of one day becoming her husband, should death take 
 the old baronet, as he calls him, out of the way. He 
 also tells her his fears that, in consequence of my 
 father beginning to think better and more kindly of 
 me and my sisters than heretofore, he may be led 
 to make another will ; and unless this can be pre- 
 vented, it will be a hard matter for her, and her two 
 children, as well as for Mr. Graves himself. In 
 another letter he speaks in terms of hatred and 
 
206 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST: 
 
 contempt of my father — and wishes him out of the 
 world. I will not offer even a remark on such in- 
 gratitude, such baseness. To God and to the laws 
 of his country do I leave Mr. Graves, certain that 
 an all-seeing and all-righteous Judge who vindicates 
 His truth even here will never pass crimes such as 
 the«e unavenged/ 
 
 Sir Charles sat down, greatly moved. He returned 
 the letters to Mr. Noland, who, according to their 
 dates, read them aloud to the magistrates, together 
 with the comments of the late Sir John Fairland. 
 The papers were then placed in the green bag, as 
 evidence for a future day. 
 
 Graves, who had some talent but far more 
 effrontery, with a hardened brow and resolute air, 
 observed that there was nothing in those letters that 
 could support the capital charge made against him. 
 In alluding to the death of Sir John Fairland (a man 
 getting up in years, and somewhat paralytic) his 
 meaning was obvious — that, in case such death 
 occurred, he should have no objection to marry the 
 widow, who was likely to be a woman of good pos- 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON 
 
 207 
 
 sessions. He then, with the utmost coolness, asked 
 if Mr. Noland had done with him, or if he had any- 
 thing more to bring forward. 
 
 ‘ Only one other witness/ replied Mr. Noland, and 
 calling the constable aside, he whispered in his ear. 
 The official left the room, and soon returned, 
 bringing with him a man of a very rude aspect, his 
 beard and hair black and matted ; he was dressed in 
 seaman’s clothes, worn and tattered ; altogether he 
 had a wild and disordered appearance. His cap was 
 in his hand, and he walked directly to the end of 
 the table. 
 
 w 
 
 ‘James Wilson, your Worship,’ said the constable. 
 
 At hearing this man named, Graves, who hitherto 
 had sat with looks cast on the ground, raised his 
 head and started as his eyes met those of Wilson, 
 who now turned towards him with a dogged air, as 
 a sort of inward exultation seemed to express itself 
 in a play of the features the most sinister and 
 insulting. It was the more striking as, under ordi- 
 nary circumstances, the countenance of Wilson was 
 stern and immovable in its fierceness. Graves turned 
 
208 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST: 
 
 pale as death at the sight of this man, his eyelids 
 quivered, a tremor passed over his whole frame, and 
 a slight involuntary motion of the lips showed how 
 strong was the shock he had experienced. In the 
 surprise of the moment he ejaculated his name — 
 ‘James Wilson!’ but after that maintained a silence 
 which seemed to result from his confusion of mind, not 
 knowing where to turn or what to do at so unlooked 
 for a crisis. He composed himself, however, to hear 
 with almost breathless attention every word that 
 followed during the examination of this witness. 
 
 Wilson was far more the master of himself, and 
 seemed perfectly indifferent as to who questioned him, 
 his chief care being his own safety. All preliminaries 
 past, he proceeded to give his evidence in a clear 
 and consistent manner, and said nothing that laid 
 him open to any very close cross-examination. He 
 admitted he had belonged to a gang of smugglers, 
 and that he was present at the fray on the beach 
 when the revenue officer was killed, but declared that 
 he had no hand in taking his life. As to the business 
 of Sir John Fairland, it was altogether another thing. 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON 
 
 209 
 
 ‘You knew, then, that an attempt was to be made 
 on the life of Sir John Fairland V said Mr. Noland ; 
 
 ‘ how did you know it ? * 
 
 ‘ Mr. Graves there first spoke to me on the matter ; 
 but I didn’t like the job, and so he gave me a 
 guinea, sent me away, and said I was to think no 
 more about it, and he should do the same.’ 
 
 ‘And how did you know that Mr. Graves after- 
 wards proposed it to Robert Williams, as you last 
 night declared he did ? ’ 
 
 ‘ Robert Williams/ continued the witness, ‘ often 
 takes a cup too much, and when he does so he is apt 
 to talk. He told me that Graves had told him of the 
 warrant which Sir John Fairland had issued to take 
 him on the score of killing the revenue man with his 
 cutlass ; and, moreover, that Sir John swore he would 
 never let the matter rest till he had Williams hanged 
 for the business. He said that Mr. Graves had worked 
 up his blood against Sir John, and advised him to be 
 even with him before he should be taken, and could 
 not help himself ; and that he gave him five guineas, 
 and bade him waylay Sir John Fairland _in the 
 
 P 
 
210 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST: 
 
 forest, and shoot him. When Williams made answer 
 that the lock of his own pistol was broke, Graves 
 offered him one of his, so he would but do the job 
 out of hand ; and told him to make all safe after the 
 hing was done, he had best throw away the pistol in 
 the deep pond.' 
 
 It may seem strange, indeed, that hearsay evidence 
 such as the above should for a moment have been 
 admitted. We think it right, therefore, to state 
 more fully than we have already done that at the 
 date of our narrative country magistrates were, 
 generally speaking, very different to what they are at 
 the present time ; not only hearsay evidence, but 
 even the most irrelevant was frequently received 
 before them with the utmost attention, and as matter 
 of no less importance than testimony bearing directly 
 upon the subject of investigation. 
 
 All the circumstances, therefore, which James 
 Wilson declared he heard from Robert Williams 
 were noted down with the utmost alacrity. All 
 eyes turned on Graves, who, hardened as he was, 
 evidently quailed at the perilous position in which he 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON 
 
 211 
 
 stood, as evidence on evidence rose up against him 
 with all the force of truth. Nevertheless, he still 
 preserved an unbroken silence, probably thinking it 
 best to do so after the hint Mr. Noland had given 
 him not unadvisedly to betray himself. 
 
 The magistrates and Mr. Noland continued their 
 enquiry. One old gentleman, who deemed himself 
 particularly skilful in such business as the present, 
 asked Wilson to declare openly what motives had in- 
 duced him to come forward as a witness. Wilson 
 replied that his principal motive was his own safety, 
 which he knew would be secured by turning King's 
 evidence. But he admitted he had a grudge against 
 Graves, who paid him, he said, 'like a niggard for 
 some fine Genoese velvets, and for some of the best 
 claret wine he ever got on shore, which he had run at 
 the hazard of his life.' He allowed he had no reason 
 to wish Graves should be spared, yet repeated that 
 was not the cause of his now coming forward against 
 him. 
 
 On being further questioned very closely, he let fall 
 some expressions by which it appeared that his 
 
212 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST: 
 
 suspicions of Graves and Robert Williams being the 
 murderers of Sir John Fairland had preyed on his 
 mind ; but what had decided him to come forward and 
 tell all he knew was a thing he did not like to speak 
 about. He felt sure something not of this world had 
 crossed him in the forest ; he was certain it had come 
 upon him because he had such a secret in his keeping. 
 Ever since the hour that terrible thing, be it what it 
 might, had crossed him in the forest he had made 
 up his mind to speak out, let the consequences be 
 what they would. 
 
 All this was drawn from Wilson with some difficulty, 
 so great was his reluctance. He seemed half afraid 
 and half ashamed to confess that a strong super- 
 stitious feeling possessed his mind. The chief, there- 
 fore, though not the only, cause of the voluntary 
 deposition of James Wilson was that he had seen, 
 or fancied he had seen, the Spectre Horseman. 
 
 The evidence closed. Mr. Noland again rose from 
 his seat, and intimated that he had another and most 
 important subject to bring forward, which he thought 
 bore collaterally upon the case. At all events, 
 
A LEGEND OE NORTH DEVON. 
 
 213 
 
 whether it did so or not, he could no longer keep it 
 back, as it was one he could wish should be publicly 
 known, and he felt assured that all there assembled 
 would receive the communication with heartfelt satis- 
 faction. 
 
 ‘ Sir Charles Fairland/ he said, addressing the 
 young baronet, ‘ allow me, in the presence of God 
 and of these honourable men, to place in your hands a 
 document which I also discovered in the secret drawer 
 of that escritoire so much the object of investigation. 
 It is a WILL, a very short one, but clearly drawn and 
 duly executed ; it is in the handwriting of your father. 
 The instrument is dated but a few days before his 
 death. He states in brief but strong terms that he has 
 discovered the truth — the plots and machinations by 
 which his wife and Mr. Graves raised in his mind 
 such prejudices against the children of his first 
 marriage as induced him to well nigh disinherit them. 
 He says that, in case anything should happen to him 
 before he could make a more full and formal will, 
 he writes the present with his own hand. In it he 
 gives everything, land, money, plate, jewels, all to you, 
 
214 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST: 
 
 his eldest son, Charles John Fairland, with a request 
 that you will provide for your own sisters, and as you 
 may think fit for the offspring of the second marriage. 
 Lady Fairland is not even named amongst those to be 
 provided for at your discretion. All here present will, 
 I am confident, unite with me in rejoicing that the 
 eldest son of the house of Fairland has thus been put 
 in possession of his rights, and that with the title and 
 honours he will inherit the estates of his forefathers/ 
 
 The magistrates and all the gentlemen assembled, 
 with the warmest expressions of sympathy, con- 
 gratulated Sir Charles on the discovery of the will. 
 
 He was much affected as he thanked them, and 
 added : ‘ Indeed, Mr. Noland, grateful as I am to 
 Providence for this good turn of fortune, I feel not the 
 value of the thing itself half so much as I do the 
 proof that my father gave at the last of his revived 
 affection, not only for me, but for the memory of my 
 dear mother. It is this which must plead my excuse 
 for the strong feelings that at the present moment un- 
 man me ’ — he turned aside and wiped the tears from 
 his eyes as he spoke. 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON 
 
 215 
 
 Mr. Noland resumed : ‘ I do not imagine that Mr. 
 Graves knew of the existence of this document ; but 
 his own letters addressed to Lady Fairland, and dis- 
 covered by Sir John, show that he feared the execution 
 of some such will. And as Thomas Wakeum has 
 deposed that Mr. Graves knew as well as he did 
 that Sir John was much engaged at his escritoire for 
 several days previous to his death, Mr. Graves might 
 fear that a will contrary to his own wishes was de- 
 posited somewhere therein. To no other circum- 
 stance can Mr. Graves’ determination to retain the 
 escritoire be ascribed.’ 
 
 Here the case closed. Graves was called upon to 
 state anything he might have to say in his defence. 
 But probably finding the evidence too clear against 
 him for his own unskilful comments to shake it, he 
 only replied that he should put the cause of an inno- 
 cent man into better hands than his own to defend 
 it, and sank again into sullen silence, and so was 
 committed to take his trial for life or death. 
 
 What remains may be briefly told. Justice was not 
 robbed of her due. Robert Williams being secured on 
 
21 6 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST : 
 
 the day of the examination, he, with Richard Graves, 
 was tried and capitally convicted ; but only he 
 suffered the last penalty of the law, for. the wretched 
 Graves anticipated his just award, being found dead 
 in his cell the day after conviction, with every 
 evidence of poison. No one knew, nor was it ever 
 ascertained, by what means he became possessed of 
 the drug which destroyed him. Thus, indeed, was 
 the murder of Sir John Fairland most fearfully 
 avenged. 
 
 Sir Charles, with that warmth and generosity which 
 had ever marked his character in all the trials of his 
 past life, bestowed on each of his own sisters a very 
 handsome portion ; he also provided liberally for 
 the brother and sister of the half-blood ; and by 
 placing them under the care of qualified persons 
 to give them a good education, and far removed from 
 the pernicious example of their guilty mother, did 
 more for them in the end than he had previously done 
 by the gifts of worldly fortune. 
 
 Lady Fairland, no longer young and attractive, 
 and with none of those virtues or that intelligence 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON. 
 
 217 
 
 which render age amiable, or even respectable, dis- 
 appointed in all her hopes and schemes, and struck 
 with a late -and ineffectual remorse, found her life 
 a burthen almost too heavy to be borne. Sunk 
 in her own eyes, pointed at by the finger of scorn, 
 and hated by all the world, she wished only for 
 the grave wherein to hide her dishonoured head, and 
 yet feared that last rest of the miserable because of 
 an hereafter, which her own conscience presented to 
 her in a terrible light. 
 
 In this state she became more an object of pity 
 than of anger with Sir Charles Fairland. The 
 generous never bruise the broken reed nor quench 
 the smoking flax. He sought her, settled upon 
 her an annuity sufficient for comfort and inde- 
 pendence, and gave her good counsel, together 
 with his father’s copy of the Holy Scriptures. Soon 
 after this he sent a worthy clergyman, a particular 
 friend of his own, to talk with her, in the hope to 
 lead her mind in the right way, and induce her to 
 seek better prospects with better feelings than she 
 had known in the days of her pride and prosperity. 
 
2l8 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST: 
 
 Sir Charles likewise promised that, whensoever he 
 could feel assured that her repentance was confirmed 
 by a consistent life in the paths of virtue and religion, 
 he would allow her the comfort of occasionally seeing 
 her children. 
 
 For Sir Charles Fairland himself, as soon as his 
 affairs were settled, and he had returned to and 
 taken possession of Northleigh Hall, he wrote in 
 affectionate terms to Mrs. Elford, and solicited her 
 consent to his union with her niece. With a reply 
 from the good aunt, he received also a letter 
 from his beloved Isabella, confirming by the 
 promise of a speedy gift of her hand the hap- 
 piness he had already known in the possession of 
 her heart. 
 
 Mr. Noland proceeded to draw the settlements 
 according to his instructions with his accustomed 
 precision. Feeling very uncomfortable at the pros- 
 pect of living so far apart from his godson and 
 friend (whose worldly welfare had been so much 
 his own work), he considered the subject well, and 
 bethought him whether he could not in a way of 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON 
 
 219 
 
 his own become a member to the family, and once 
 more return to the neighbourhood of Northleigh Hall. 
 Mrs. Elford, the aunt of the fair Isabella, was very 
 good-looking, fat, pleasant, and not too old, a 
 person of much sense and an excellent manager, 
 making the penny go far and well. She was a 
 widow, Mr. Noland was a widower ; neither of them 
 had any children. The old lawyer took a week to 
 consider the several points of the case. Whether or 
 not he consulted his favourite authority, Judge Black- 
 stone, on the occasion we cannot say ; but certain 
 it is, he bought a new wig, got his coat and shoes well 
 brushed, and attired himself with more than his usual 
 care. Then, taking in his hand his late fathers gold- 
 headed cane — a thing he so respected that he never 
 used it except on state occasions — he clapt on his 
 laced three-cornered hat, and sallied forth to pay his 
 duty to Mrs. Elford. She happened to be at home 
 and alone. 
 
 What passed at that meeting has not come down 
 to us. But as Mrs. Morton, who was still alive and 
 well (and by a good legacy from a wealthy relative in 
 
220 
 
 HARTLAND FOREST: 
 
 much improved circumstances), was consulted about a 
 wedding suit for Mrs. Elford, second only in the rich- 
 ness of the brocade and the elegance of the trimming 
 to that undergoing the process of the fashioning and 
 the decorating for her niece, Miss Isabella Fitzwarren, 
 suspicions, conjectures, and reports began to circulate 
 very freely. Some of the old maids, and of the 
 young ones, too, who envied the prosperity of the fair 
 Isabella, went so far as to say that Sir Charles had 
 changed his mind, and was going to take the aunt 
 instead of the niece to wife. 
 
 At length, however, the whole truth became 
 apparent, when on the same day, in which Sir Charles 
 Fairland led to the altar his youthful and lovely bride, 
 Mr. Noland conducted his comely and somewhat 
 more staid lady to the same sacred place of meeting. 
 Both were married, and both were well pleased with 
 the objects of their choice. On that grand day, also, 
 Mrs. Morton, who was growing old, and who had 
 been persuaded to let the wedding dresses be the last 
 produced under her superintendence in the way of 
 business, entered on the honoured and important duties 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON 
 
 221 
 
 of housekeeper and family friend to Sir Charles and 
 Lady Fairland. 
 
 Tom Wakeum, seeing that marrying made his 
 young master and his old counsellor look so very 
 happy, thought he would try it as well as his betters, 
 and so he looked about him for a wife. There was a 
 good-humoured cook at Northleigh Hall — and very 
 good-humoured must the woman be who would keep 
 her temper cool and unchanged when exposed to the 
 daily roasting of herself, like her joints, before such a 
 fire as that which blazed in the kitchens of Northleigh 
 Hall a hundred and more years ago. Well, on this 
 worthy person Tom Wakeum cast an eye of favour, 
 and one day asked her, very civilly, would she take 
 him for better or for worse. The mistress of the spit 
 and ladle did not say no ; and therefore, without more 
 courting or ceremony, on that same day he put in 
 the bans, and his marriage was followed by his own 
 elevation to the dignity of house steward. 
 
 Of the superstition concerning the Spectre Horse- 
 man, whose marvellous appearance, it was reported, 
 helped to bring such mighty things to pass, we can 
 
222 
 
 IJARTLAND FOREST: 
 
 give a less clear account, or rather no account at all 
 that will be deemed satisfactory. Some amongst the 
 more knowing said that he was a human and a living 
 being, who, connected with the lawless, only assumed 
 the character of the supernatural in order to keep the 
 path in the forest (consecrated by a wild tale of tradi- 
 tion) clear at night for the service of the smugglers. 
 But most men, and among them certain of the grave 
 and learned of the time, were of a very different 
 opinion. 
 
 In short, the appearance, of whatever kind or order 
 it might be, was held by the generality not to be of 
 earth, but of something far below it or beyond it ; 
 even of the unseen and mysterious abode of the 
 departed whose shadowy forms, man cannot tell 
 wherefore, are occasionally, though rarely, per- 
 mitted to revisit the earth, yet never to reveal the 
 secrets of their awful and impenetrable abode. Be 
 this as it may, that such a spectre did haunt the 
 woods of Hartland near the old Abbey, one of whose 
 superiors had there met with a violent death in 
 the days of monastic rule, was a superstition, 
 
A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON 223 
 
 devoutly credited even in the early part of the last 
 century. No wonder, therefore, that in those days 
 many among the peasantry, and some of the more 
 educated classes, were so impressed with the appre- 
 hension of it, that not for their lives would they have 
 passed the Abbot’s Oak after dark, for fear of 
 meeting the Spectre Horseman. 
 
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INDEX 
 
 Acton’s Modern Cookery 
 
 Alcock’s Residence in Japan 
 
 Allen’S Four Discourses of Chrysostom . . 
 Allies on F ormation of Christendom .... 
 
 Alpine Guide (The) • • 
 
 Althatjs on Medical Electricity 
 
 Arnold’s Manual of English Literature .. 
 
 Arnott’s Elements of Physics 
 
 Arundines 
 
 Autumn Holidays of a Country Parson .... 
 Ayre’s Treasury of Bible Knowledge 
 
 Bacon’s Essays, by Whately 
 
 Life and Letters, by Sped ding .. 
 
 Works, edited by Spedding 
 
 Bain’s Logic, Deductive and Inductive .... 
 
 Mental and Moral Science 
 
 on the Senses and Intellect 
 
 Ball’s Alpine Guide 
 
 Bayldon’s Rents and Tillages 
 
 Beaten Tracks 
 
 Becker’s Charicles and Gallus 
 
 Benfey’S Sanskrit Dictionary 
 
 Bernard on British Neutrality 
 
 Black’s Treatise on Brewing 
 
 Blackley’s German-Englieh Dictionary . . 
 
 Blaine’s Rural Sports 
 
 Veterinary Art 
 
 Booth’s Saint-Simon 
 
 Boultbee on 39 Articles 
 
 Bourne on Screw Propeller 
 
 Bourne’s Catechism of the Steam Engine . 
 
 Handbook of Steam Engine .... 
 
 Improvements in the Steam 
 
 Engine 
 
 Treatise on the Steam Engine . . 
 
 Examples of Modern Engines .. 
 
 Bowdler’s Family Shakspeare 
 
 Boyd’s Reminiscences 
 
 Bramley-Moore’s Six Sisters of the 
 
 Valleys 
 
 Brande’s Dictionary of Science, Litera- 
 ture, and Art 
 
 Bray’s (C.) Education of the Feelings .... 
 
 Philosophy of Necessity 
 
 on Force 
 
 Browne’s Exposition of the 39 Articles.... 
 
 Brunel’s Life of Brunel 
 
 Buckle’s History of Civilization 
 
 Bull’s nints to Mothers 
 
 Maternal Management of Children 
 
 Bunsen’s God in History 
 
 Prayers 
 
 Burke’s Vicissitudes of Families 
 
 Burton’s Christian Church 
 
 Cabinet Lawyer 
 
 Campbell’s Norway 
 
 Carnota’s Memoirs of Pombal 4 
 
 Cates’s Biographical Dictionary 5 
 
 Cats’ and Farlie’s Moral Emblems 18 
 
 Changed Aspects of Unchanged Truths .... 9 
 
 Chesney’s Indian Polity 3 
 
 Waterloo Campaign 2 
 
 and Reeve’S Military Essays .. 2 
 
 Chorale Book for England 16 
 
 Clough’s Lives from Plutarch 2 
 
 Colenso (Bishop) on Pentateuch 21 
 
 Commonplace Philosopher 8 
 
 Conington’s Translation of the JZneid. ... 28 
 CONTANSE AU ’S French-EnglishDiction aries 8 
 
 Conybeare and Howson’s St. Paul 20 
 
 Cotton’s (Bishop) Life 5 
 
 Cooper’s Surgical Dictionary 15 
 
 Copland’s Dictionary of Practical Medicine 15 
 Counsel and Comfort from a City Pulpit. ... 9 
 
 Cox’S Aryan Mythology 3 
 
 Manual of Mythology 25 
 
 Tale of the Great Persian War 2 
 
 Tales of Ancient Greece 25 
 
 Cresy’s Encyclopaedia of Civil Engineering 18 
 
 Critical Essays of a Country Parson 8 
 
 Crookes on Beet-Root Sugar 15 
 
 ’S Chemical Analysis 14 
 
 Culley’s Handbook of Telegraphy 18 
 
 Cusack’s History of Ireland 3 
 
 D’Aubigne’s History of the Reformation 
 
 in the time of Calvin 2 
 
 Davidson’s Introduction to New Testament 20 
 
 Dead Shot (The), by Marksman 27 
 
 De la Rive's Treatise on Electricity 12 
 
 Denison’s Vice-Regal Life 1 
 
 De Tocqueville’s Democracy in America 2 
 
 Disraeli’S Lothair 24 
 
 Novels and Tales 24 
 
 Dobell’s Medical Reports 15 
 
 Dobson on the Ox 27 
 
 Dove on Storms n 
 
 Doyle’s Fairyland 16 
 
 Dyer’s City of Rome 2 
 
 Eastlake’s Hints on Household Taste .... 17 
 
 History of Oil Painting 16 
 
 Gothic Revival 17 
 
 Life of Gibson 16 
 
 Elements of Botany 13 
 
 Ellicott on the Revision of the English 
 
 New Testament 19 
 
 Commentary on Ephesians .... 20 
 
 Commentary on Galatians .... 20 
 
 Pastoral Epist. 20 
 
 Philippians, &c. [20 
 
 Thessalonians 20 
 
 I Lectures on the Life of Christ. . 20 
 
 28 
 
 23 
 
 22 
 
 21 
 
 23 
 
 14 
 
 7 
 
 11 
 
 26 
 
 8 
 
 20 
 
 6 
 
 5 
 
 6 
 
 10 
 
 10 
 
 10 
 
 23 
 
 19 
 
 23 
 
 25 
 
 8 
 
 1 
 
 28 
 
 8 
 
 26 
 
 27 
 
 3 
 
 19 
 
 18 
 
 18 
 
 18 
 
 18 
 
 18 
 
 26 
 
 4 
 
 24 
 
 13 
 
 10 
 
 10 
 
 10 
 
 19 
 
 4 
 
 3 
 
 28 
 
 28 
 
 3 
 
 19 
 
 5 
 
 4 
 
 , 28 
 
 . 22 
 
30 
 
 NEW WORKS published BY LONGMANS and CO. 
 
 Essays and Contributions of A. K. H. B 
 
 Ewald’s History of Israel 
 
 FAIRBAIRN on Iron Shipbuilding 
 
 ’S Applications of Iron 
 
 Information for Engineers . . 
 
 _____ — — Mills and Mill work 
 
 Faraday’s Life and Letters 
 
 Farrar’s Families of Speech 
 
 Chapters on Language 
 
 Felkin on Hosiery and Lace Manufactures 
 
 Fennell’s Book of the Roach 
 
 Ffoulkes’s Christendom’s Divisions 
 
 Fitzwygram on Horses and Stables 
 
 Fowler’s Collieries and Colliers 
 
 Francis’s Fishing Book 
 
 Freshfield’S Travels in the Caucasus.... 
 
 Froude’s History of England 
 
 Short Studies on Great Subjects 
 
 Ganot’s Elementary Physics . 
 
 Gilbert’s Cadore, or Titian’s Country .... 
 Gilbert and Churchill’s Dolomites .... 
 
 GiRDLESTONE’S Bible Synonymes 
 
 Gledstone’s Life of Whitefield 
 
 Goddard’s Wonderful Stories 
 
 Goldsmith’s Poems, Illustrated 
 
 Graham’s View of Literature and Art .... 
 
 Grant’s Home Politics 
 
 Ethics of Aristotle 
 
 Graver Thoughts of a Country Parson 
 
 Gray’s Anatomy 
 
 Greenhow on Bronchitis 
 
 Griffith’s Fundamentals 
 
 Grove on Correlation of Physical Forces .. 
 Gurney’s Chapters of French History .... 
 Gwilt’s Encyclopaedia of Architecture .... 
 
 Hampden’s (Bishop) Memorials 
 
 Hare on Election of Representatives 
 
 Hartwig’s Harmonies of Nature 
 
 Polar World 
 
 Sea and its Living Wonders .. 
 
 Subterranean World 
 
 Tropical World 
 
 Haughton’s Manual of Geology 
 
 Herschel’s Outlines of Astronomy 
 
 Hewitt on Diseases of Women 
 
 Hodgson’s Theory of Practice 
 
 Time and Space 
 
 Holmes’s System of Surgery 
 
 Surgical Diseases of Infancy .... 
 
 Home (The) at Heatherbrae 
 
 Horne’s Introduction to the Scriptures.... 
 
 Compendium of ditto 
 
 How we Spent the Summer 
 
 Howitt’s Australian Discovery 
 
 Mad War Planet 
 
 Northern Heights of London.... 
 
 Rural Life of England 
 
 Visits to Remarkable Places. . . . 
 
 Hubner’s Memoir of Sixtus V 2 
 
 Hughes’s (W.) Manual of Geography .... 11 
 
 Hume’s Essays 10 
 
 Treatise on Human Nature 10 
 
 Ihne’s Roman History 2 
 
 Ingelow’s Poems 26 
 
 Story of Doom 26 
 
 Mopsa 26 
 
 Jameson’s Saints and Martyrs 17 
 
 ■ Legends of the Madonna 17 
 
 Monastic Orders 17 
 
 Jameson and Eastlake’s Saviour 17 
 
 J ohn Jerningham’s J ournal 26 
 
 J ohnston’s Geographical Dictionary 11 
 
 Kalisch’s Commentary on the Bible 7 
 
 Hebrew Grammar 7 
 
 Keith on Fulfilment of Prophecy 20 
 
 Destiny of the World 20 
 
 Kerl’s Metallurgy is 
 
 Rohrig 18 
 
 Kirby and Spence’s Entomology 13 
 
 Latham’s English Dictionary 
 
 Lawlor’s Pilgrimages in the Pyrenees .... 24 
 
 Lecky’s History of European Morals 3 
 
 Rationalism 3 
 
 Leisure Hours in Town 9 
 
 Lessons of Middle Age 9 
 
 Lewes’ History of Philosophy 3 
 
 Liddell and Scott’s Two Lexicons 8 
 
 Life of Man Symbolised 16 
 
 Lindley and MOORE’S Treasury of Botany 13 
 
 Longman’s Edward the Third 2 
 
 Lectures on the History of Eng- 
 land 2 
 
 Chess Openings 28 
 
 Loudon’s Agriculture 19 
 
 Gardening 19 
 
 Plants 13 
 
 Lowndes’s Engineer’s Handbook 17 
 
 Lubbock on Origin of Civilisation 12 
 
 Lyra Eucharistica 22 
 
 Germanica 16,21 
 
 Messianica 22 
 
 Mystica 22 
 
 Macaulay’s (Lord) Essays 3 
 
 History of England .. 1 
 
 Lays of Ancient Rome 25 
 
 MiscellaneousWritings 9 
 
 Speeches 7 
 
 Complete Works 1 
 
 Macfarren’s Lectures on Harmony 16 
 
 Macleod’s Elements of Political Economy 7 
 Dictionary of Political Eco- 
 nomy 7 
 
 Theory and Practice of Banking 27 
 
 McCulloch’s Dictionary of Commerce.... 28 
 
 8 
 
 , 20 
 
 18 
 
 18 
 
 18 
 
 18 
 
 4 
 
 9 
 
 7 
 
 18 
 
 27 
 
 21 
 
 27 
 
 28 
 
 27 
 
 23 
 
 9 
 
 11 
 
 22 
 
 23 
 
 19 
 
 5 
 
 25 
 
 26 
 
 3 
 
 3 
 
 6 
 
 8 
 
 15 
 
 15 
 
 19 
 
 12 
 
 2 
 
 17 
 
 4 
 
 7 
 
 13 
 
 13 
 
 13 
 
 13 
 
 13 
 
 12 
 
 10 
 
 14 
 
 10 
 
 10 
 
 14 
 
 14 
 
 24 
 
 20 
 
 20 
 
 23 
 
 23 
 
 26 
 
 23 
 
 24 
 
 24 
 
NEW WORKS published by LONGMANS and CO. 
 
 31 
 
 Maguire’s Life of Father Mathew 5 
 
 Pope Pius IX 5 
 
 Malet’s Overthrow of the Germanic Con- 
 federation by Prussia 2 
 
 Manning’s England and Christendom .... 21 
 
 Marcet on the Larynx 15 
 
 Marshall’s Canadian Dominion 1 1 
 
 Physiology 15 
 
 MARSHMAN’S Life of Havelock 5 
 
 History of India 3 
 
 MARTINEAU’S Christian Life 22 
 
 Massingberd’s History of the Reformation 4 
 
 Maunder’s Biographical Treasury 5 
 
 Geographical Treasury 11 
 
 Historical Treasury 4 
 
 Scientific and Literary Trea- 
 sury 13 
 
 Treasury of Knowledge 28 
 
 Treasury of Natural History 13 
 
 May’s Constitutional History of England. . 1 
 
 Melville’s Novels and Tales 24 & 25 
 
 Mendelssohn’s Letters 5 
 
 Merivale’s Fall of the Roman Republic. . 3 
 
 Romans under the Empire 3 
 
 Merrifield and Ever’s Navigation .... 11 
 Miles on Horse’s Foot and Horseshoeing . . 27 
 
 Horses’ Teeth and Stables 27 
 
 Mill (J.) on the Mind 9 
 
 Mill (J. S.) on Liberty 6 
 
 on Representative Government 6 
 
 on Utilitarianism 6 
 
 Mill’s (J. S.) Dissertations and Discussions 6 
 
 Political Economy 6 
 
 System of Logic 6 
 
 Hamilton’s Philosophy 6 
 
 Inaugural Address 7 
 
 Subjection of Women 6 
 
 Miller’s Elements of Chemistry 14 
 
 Hymn-Writers 21 
 
 Mitchell’s Manual of Architecture 17 
 
 Manual of Assaying 18 
 
 Monsell’s Beatitudes 22 
 
 His Presence not his Memory 22 
 
 ‘ Spiritual Songs’ 22 
 
 Moore’s Irish Melodies 25 
 
 Lalla Rookh 25 
 
 Poetical Works 25 
 
 Morell’s Elements of Psychology 9 
 
 Mental Philosophy 9 
 
 Muller’s (Max) Chips from a German 
 
 Workshop 9 
 
 Lectures on Language 7 
 
 (K. O.) Literature of Ancient 
 
 Greece 2 
 
 Murchison on Liver Complaints 15 
 
 Mure’s Language and Literature of Greece 2 
 
 Nash’s Compendium of the Prayer Book. . 19 
 
 New Testament, Illustrated Edition 16 
 
 Newman’s History of his Religious Opinions 5 
 
 Nightingale’s Notes on Hospitals 28 
 
 Lying-In Insti- 
 tutions 28 
 
 Nilsson’s Scandinavia 12 
 
 Northcott’s Lathes and Turning 17 
 
 Odling’S Animal Chemistry 14 
 
 Course of Practical Chemistry.. 14 
 
 Manual of Chemistry 14 
 
 Lectures on Carbon 14 
 
 Outlines of Chemistry 14 
 
 O’Driscoll’s Memoirs of Maclise 4 
 
 O’Flanagan’s Irish Chancellors 5 
 
 Our Children’s Story 25 
 
 Owen’s Lectures on the Invertebrata 12 
 
 Comparative Anatomy and Physio- 
 logy of Vertebrate Animals .... 12 
 
 Packe’s Guide to the Pyrenees 23 
 
 Paget’s Lectures on Surgical Pathology .. 15 
 Pereira’s Manual of Materia Medica .... 16 
 Perkin’s Italian and Tuscan Sculptors.... 17 
 
 Perring’s Churches and Creeds 19 
 
 Pewtner’s Comprehensive Specifier 28 
 
 Pictures in Tyrol 23 
 
 Piesse’s Art of Perfumery 19 
 
 Natural Magic 19 
 
 Ponton’s Beginning 12 
 
 Pratt’s Law of Building Societies 28 
 
 Prendergast’s Mastery of Languages.... 8 
 
 Prescott’s Scripture Difficulties 21 
 
 Present-Day Thoughts 9 
 
 Proctor on Plurality of Worlds 10 
 
 Saturn and its System 10 
 
 The Sun 10 
 
 ’S Scientific Essays 12 
 
 Public Schools Atlas (The) 11 
 
 Rae’s Westward by Rail 23 
 
 Recreations of a Country Parson 8 
 
 Reichel’s See of Rome 20 
 
 Reilly’s Map of Mont Blanc 23 
 
 Reimann on Aniline Dyes 15 
 
 Rivers’ Rose Amateur’s Guide 13 
 
 Robbins’s Cavalry Catechism 27 
 
 Rogers’s Correspondence of Greyson 9 
 
 Eclipse of Faith 9 
 
 Defence of ditto 9 
 
 Roget’s English Words and Phrases 7 
 
 Ronald’s Fly-Fisher’s Entomology 27 
 
 Rose’s Ignatius Loyola 2 
 
 Rothschild’s Israelites 20 
 
 Rowton’s Debater 7 
 
 Russell’s Pau and the Pyrenees 22 
 
 San dars’s Justinian’s Institutes 5 
 
 Savile on the Truth of the Bible 19 
 
 Schallen’s Spectrum Analysis 11 
 
 Scott’s Lectures on the Fine Arts 16 
 
 Albert Durer 16 
 
 Seebohm’s Oxford Reformers of 1498 2 
 
 Sewell’s After Life 24 
 
 Amy Herbert 24 
 
 Cleve Hall 24 
 
 Earl’s Daughter 24 
 
 Examination for Confirmation .. 21 
 
32 
 
 NEW WORKS published by LONGMANS and CO. 
 
 Sewell’s Experience of Lite 24 
 
 Gertrude 24 
 
 Giant 25 
 
 Glimpse of the World 24 
 
 History of the Early Church .... 2 
 
 Ivors 24 
 
 ____ J ournal of a Home Life 24 
 
 Katharine Ashton 24 
 
 Laneton Parsonage 24 
 
 Margaret Percival 24 
 
 Passing Thoughts on Religion .. 21 
 
 Poems of Bygone Years 26 
 
 Preparations for Communion .... 21 
 
 Principles of Education 21 
 
 Readings for Confirmation 21 
 
 Readings for Lent 21 
 
 Tales and Stories 21 
 
 Thoughts for the Age 21 
 
 Ursula 24 
 
 Thoughts for the Holy Week — 21 
 
 Shipley’s Pour Cardinal Virtues 21 
 
 Invocation of Saints 22 
 
 Short’s Church History 4 
 
 Smart’s Walker’s Dictionary 8 
 
 Smith’s (V.) Bible and Popular Theology 19 
 
 (Sydney) Miscellaneous Works.. 9 
 
 Wit and Wisdom 9 
 
 Life and Letters 4 
 
 Southey’s Doctor 7 
 
 Poetical Works 25 
 
 Stanley’s History of British Birds 13 
 
 STATHAM’S Eucharis 26 
 
 Stebbing’s Analysis of Mill’s Logic 6 
 
 Stephen’s Ecclesiastical Biography 5 
 
 Playground of E urope 22 
 
 Stirling’s Secret of Hegel 9 
 
 Sir William Hamilton 10 
 
 Stonehenge on the Dog 27 
 
 on the Greyhound 27 
 
 Strickland’s Queens of England 5 
 
 Sunday Afternoons at the Parish Church of 
 a Scottish University City (St. Andrews). . 8 
 
 Taylor’s History of India 3 
 
 (Jeremy) Works, edited by Eden 22 
 
 Thirl wall’s History of Greece — 2 
 
 Thompson s (Archbishop) Laws of Thought 6 
 
 —(A. T.) Conspectus 16 
 
 Todd (A.) on Parliamentary Government 1 
 Todd and Bowman’s Anatomy and Phy- 
 siology of Man 15 
 
 Trench’s Ierne, a Tale 24 
 
 Trench’s Realities of Irish Life 3 
 
 Trollope’s Barchester Towers 24 
 
 Warden 24 
 
 Twiss’s Law of Nations 28 
 
 Tyndall on Diamagnetism 11 
 
 Electricity 12 
 
 Tyndall on Heat ... u 
 
 Imagination in Science 12 
 
 Sound ii 
 
 ’S Faraday as a Discoverer 4 
 
 Fragments of Science 12 
 
 Hours of Exercise in the Alps.. 22 
 
 Lectures on Light 12 
 
 Ueberweg’s System of Logic 9 
 
 Uncle Peter’s Fairy Tale 24 
 
 Ure’s Arts, Manufactures, and Mines 17 
 
 Van Der Hoeven’s Handbook of Zoology 12 
 
 Vereker’s Sunny South 22 
 
 Visit to my Discontented Cousin 25 
 
 Warburton’s Hunting Songs 26 
 
 Watson’s Principles and Practice of Physic 14 
 
 Watts’s Dictionary of Chemistry 14 
 
 Webb’s Objects for Common Telescopes .. 11 
 Webster and Wilkinson’s Greek Testa- 
 ment 21 
 
 Wellington’s Life, by Gleig 5 
 
 West on Children’s Diseases 14 
 
 N ursing S ick Children 28 
 
 ’S Lumleian Lectures 14 
 
 Whately’s English Synonymes 6 
 
 Logic 6 
 
 Rhetoric 6 
 
 Whately on a Future State 21 
 
 Truth of Christianity 2 
 
 White’s Latin-English Dictionaries 7 
 
 Wilcock’s Sea Fisherman 27 
 
 Williams’s Aristotle’s Ethics 6 
 
 Williams on Climate of South of France 15 
 
 Consumption 15 
 
 Willich’s Popular Tables 28 
 
 Willis’s Principles of Mechanism 17 
 
 Winslow on Light 12 
 
 Wood’s Bible Animals 12 
 
 Homes without Hands 13 
 
 Insects at Home 13 
 
 Strange Dwellings 13 
 
 Woodward and Cates’s Encyclopedia. . 4 
 
 Yardley’S Poetical Works 26 
 
 Yonge’s English-Greek Lexicons 8 
 
 Two Editions of Horace 26 
 
 History of England 1 
 
 You att on the Dog 27 
 
 on the Horse 27 
 
 Zeller’s Socrates 6 
 
 Stoics, Epicureans, and Sceptics. . 6 
 
 Zigzagging amongst Dolomites 23 
 
 Spottiswoode & Co., Printers, Neic-slreet Square, London , 
 
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