From John O'Groats to Land's End Part 54

The Miller smil'd and doff'd his cap, "I earn my bread," quoth he; "I love my wife, I love my friend, I love my children three; I owe no penny I cannot pay; I thank the river Dee, That turns the mill that grinds the corn To feed my babes and me."

"Farewell," cried Hal, and sighed the while, "Farewell! and happy be-- But say no more, if thou'd be true, That no one envies thee; Thy mealy cap is worth my crown, Thy mill, my kingdom's fee; Such men as thou are England's boast, Oh Miller of the Dee."

[Ill.u.s.tration: MATTHEW THE MILLER AND HIS TWO SONS.]

We thought the old Guildhall even more interesting than the Cathedral, the old Icknield Way, which entered the city by the High Street, pa.s.sing close to it; and in fact, it seemed as if the Hall, which formed the centre of the civic life of the city, had encroached upon the street, as the four huge pillars which supported the front part were standing on the outside edge of the footpath. These four pillars had the appearance of great solidity and strength, as also had the building overhead which they supported, and which extended a considerable distance to the rear.

The ma.s.sive entrance door, dated 1593, thickly studded with large-headed nails, showed that the city fathers in former times had a lively sense of self-protection from troublesome visitors. But the only besiegers now were more apparent than real, as the covered footpath formed a substantial shelter from a pa.s.sing shower. Behind this a four-light window displayed the Arms of France as well as those of England; there were also emblazoned in stained gla.s.s the arms of the mayors, sheriffs, and recorders from 1835 to 1864.

The city arms were ratified in 1564, and in the Letters Patent of that date they are thus described:

Uppon a wreathe golde and sables, a demye-lyon gules, armed and langued azure crowned, supportinge a bale thereon a crosse botone golde, mantelled azure doubled argent, and for the supporters two paga.s.sis argent, their houes and mane golde, their winges waney of six argent and azure.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PRINCESS HENRIETTA. (_From the painting by Lely, in the Guildhall_.)]

The motto "Semper Fidelis" (ever faithful) had been bestowed on the city by Queen Elizabeth, and Exeter has ever since been described as "The Ever-Faithful City." There were a number of fine old paintings in the Hall, but the one which attracted the most attention was that of the Princess Henrietta by Sir Peter Lely. In the turret above was hung the old chapel bell, which served as an alarm in case of fire, and bore an inscription in Latin, "Celi Regina me protege queso ruina," or "O Queen of Heaven, protect me, I beseech thee, from harm." The insignia case in the Guildhall contained four maces, two swords of state, a cap of maintenance, a mayor's chain and badge, four chains for the sergeants-at-mace, a loving cup, and a salver. The mayor's chain dated from 1697. The older sword of the two was given to the city by Edward IV on the occasion of his visit in 1470, "to be carried before the mayor on all public occasions." The sheath is wrapped in c.r.a.pe, the sword having been put in mourning at the Restoration; it was annually carried in the procession to the cathedral on the anniversary of the death of Charles I until the year 1859, when the service in commemoration of his death was removed from the Prayer-Book. The other sword was given to the city by Henry VII on his visit in 1497, after his victory over Perkin Warbeck, when "he heartily thanked his citizens for their faithful and valuable service done against the rebels"--promised them the fullness of his favour and gave them a sword taken from his own side, and also a cap of maintenance, commanding that "for the future in all public places within the said city the same should be borne before the mayor, as for a like purpose his n.o.ble predecessor King Edward the Fourth had done." The cap of maintenance was formerly worn by the sword-bearer on ceremonial occasions, but was now carried on a cushion. The cap was made of black beaver, and was preserved inside the embroidered crimson velvet cover made in 1634. The sword of Edward IV was said to be the only existing sword of the early English monarchs.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE COMMON SEAL OF EXETER.]

The beautiful silver chains worn by the sergeants-at-mace with alternate links of X and R, standing for Exeter, date from about the year 1500, and were previously worn by the city waits. Exeter is the only city that has four mace-bearers, and the common seal of the city is one of the oldest in the kingdom, dating from 1170, and still in use.

The civic ceremonies, and especially those on a.s.size Sunday, are very grand affairs. On that occasion the Judges and Corporation attend the cathedral in state. The Judges arrive in the state-coach attired in their robes and wigs, attended by the county sheriff in uniform, and escorted by trumpeters and a posse of police. The Corporation march from the Guildhall, the mayor in his sable robe and the sheriff in purple, attended by their chaplains and the chief city officials in their robes, and accompanied also by the magistrates, aldermen, and councillors. In front are borne the four maces, Henry VII's sword and the cap of maintenance, escorted by the city police. The Judges on their arrival at the great west door of the cathedral are met by the Bishop and other dignitaries of the Church in their robes and conducted to their official places in the choir, whilst the beautiful organ peals out the National Anthem.

On the third Tuesday in July a curious custom was observed, as on that day a large white stuffed glove decorated with flowers was hung in front of the Guildhall, the townspeople having been duly warned, to the sound of the drum and fife, that the great Lammas Fair, which lasted for three days, had begun; the glove was then hoisted for the term of the fair. Lammas Day falls on the first day of August, and was in Saxon times the Feast of First-fruits; sometimes a loaf of bread was given to the priest in lieu of first-fruit. It seems to have been a similar fair to that described at Honiton, but did not appear to carry with it freedom from arrest during the term of the fair, as was the case in that town.

The records or archives possessed by the city of Exeter are almost continuous from the time of Edward I, and have been written and compiled in the most careful manner. They are probably the most remarkable of those kept by the various towns or cities in the provinces. They include no less than forty-nine Royal Charters, the earliest existing being that granted by Henry II in the twelfth century, and attested by Thomas a-Becket. A herb (_Acorus calamus_ or sweet sage), which was found in the neighbourhood of Exeter, was highly prized in former times for its medicinal qualities, being used for diseases of the eye and in intermittent fevers. It had an aromatic scent, even when in a dried state, and its fragrant leaves were used for strewing the floors of churches. It was supposed to be the rush which was strewn over the floor of the apartments occupied by Thomas a-Becket, who was considered luxurious and extravagant because he insisted upon a clean supply daily; but this apparent extravagance was due to his visitors, who were at times so numerous that some of them were compelled to sit on the floors.

It was quite a common occurrence in olden times for corpses to be buried in churches, which caused a very offensive smell; and it might be to counteract this that the sweet-smelling sage was employed. We certainly knew of one large church in Lancashire within the walls of which it was computed that 6,000 persons had been buried.

It was astonishing how many underground pa.s.sages we had heard of on our journey. What strange imaginations they conjured up in our minds! As so few of them were now in existence, we concluded that many might have been more in the nature of trenches cut on the surface of the land and covered with timber or bushes; but there were old men in Exeter who were certain that there was a tunnel between the site of the old castle and the cathedral, and from there to other parts of the city, and they could remember some of them being broken into and others blocked up at the ends. We were also quite sure ourselves that such tunnels formerly existed, but the only one we had actually seen pa.s.sed between a church and a castle. It had just been found accidentally in making an excavation, and was only large enough for one man at a time to creep through comfortably.

There were a number of old inns in Exeter besides the old "Globe," which had been built on the Icknield Way in such a manner as to block that road, forming a terminus, as if to compel travellers to patronise the inn; and some of these houses were a.s.sociated with Charles d.i.c.kens when he came down from London to Exeter in 1835 to report on Lord John Russell's candidature for Parliament for the _Morning Observer_. The election was a very exciting one, and the great novelist, it was said, found food for one of his novels in the ever-famous Eatonswill, and the ultra-abusive editors. Four years afterwards d.i.c.kens leased a cottage at Alphington, a village about a mile and a half away from Exeter, for his father and mother, who resided there for three and a half years. d.i.c.kens frequently came to see them, and "Mr. Micawber," with his ample seals and air of importance, made a great impression on the people of the village. d.i.c.kens freely entered into the social life of Exeter, and he was a regular visitor on these occasions at the old "Turk's Head Inn,"

adjoining the Guildhall, where it was said he picked up the "Fat Boy" in _Pickwick_. Mrs. Lupin of the "Blue Dragon" appeared as a character in _Martin Chuzzlewit_, and "Pecksniff" was a local worthy whom he grossly and unpardonably caricatured.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "MILE END COTTAGE," ALPHINGTON.]

On leaving Exeter we crossed the river by the Exe bridge and followed the course of that stream on our way to regain the sea-coast, entering the suburb of St. Thomas the Apostle, where at a church mentioned in 1222 as being "without the walls," we saw the tower from which the vicar was hanged for being concerned in the insurrection of 1549. At Alphington we had pointed out to us the "Mile End Cottage," formerly the residence of the parents of Charles d.i.c.kens, and then walked on to Exminster, expecting from its name to find something interesting, but we were doomed to disappointment. On the opposite side of the river, however, we could see the quaint-looking little town of Topsham, which appeared as if it had been imported from Holland, a country which my brother had visited seven years previously; we heard that the princ.i.p.al treasures stored in the houses there were Dutch tiles. Ships had formerly pa.s.sed this place on their way to Exeter, but about the year 1290 Isabella de-Fortibus, Countess of Exeter, having been offended by the people there, blocked up the river with rocks and stones, thereby completely obstructing the navigation and doing much damage to the trade of Exeter. At that time cloths and serges were woven from the wool for which the neighbourhood of Exeter was famous, and exported to the Continent, the ships returning with wines and other merchandise; hence Exeter was at that time the great wine-importing depot of the country.

The weir which thus blocked the river was still known as the "Countess Weir," and Topsham--which, by the way, unlike Exeter, absolutely belonged to the Earls of Devon--increased in importance, for ships had now to stop there instead of going through to Exeter. The distance between the two places is only about four miles, and the difficulty appeared to have been met in the first instance by the construction of a straight road from Exeter, to enable goods to be conveyed between that city and the new port. This arrangement continued for centuries, but in 1544 a ship ca.n.a.l was made to Topsham, which was extended and enlarged in 1678 and again in 1829, so that Exeter early recovered its former position, as is well brought out in the finely-written book of the _Exeter Guild of Merchant Adventurers_, still in existence. Its Charter was dated June 17th, 1599, and by it Queen Elizabeth incorporated certain merchants under the style of "The Governors Consuls, and Society of the Merchant Adventurers of the Citye and County of Exeter, traffiqueing the Realme of Fraunce and the Dominions of the French Kinge." The original ca.n.a.l was a small one and only adapted for boats carrying about fifteen tons: afterwards it was enlarged to a depth of fifteen feet of water--enough for the small ships of those days--for even down to Tudor times a hundred-ton boat const.i.tuted a man-of-war.

This ca.n.a.l made Exeter the fifth port in the kingdom in tonnage, and it claimed to be the first lock ca.n.a.l constructed in England. Its importance gradually declined after the introduction of railways and the demand for larger ships, and the same causes affected Topsham, its rival.

[Ill.u.s.tration: POWDERHAM CASTLE.]

Leaving Exminster, we had a delightful walk to Powderham, the ancient seat of the Courtenay family, the Earls of Devon, who were descended from Atho, the French crusader. The first of the three branches of this family became Emperors of the West before the taking of Constantinople by the Turks, the second intermarried with the royal family of France, and the third was Reginald Courtenay, who came to England in the twelfth century and received honours and lands from Henry II. His family have been for six centuries Earls of Devon, and rank as one of the most honoured in England.

We called to see the little church at Powderham, which stood quite near the river side, and which, like many others, was built of the dark red sandstone peculiar to the district. There were figures in it of Moses and Aaron, supposed originally to be placed to guard the two tablets containing the Ten Commandments; and there were the remains of an old screen, but the panels had suffered so severely that the figures and emblems could not be properly distinguished. There was also under an arch a very old monument, said to be that of the famous Isabella de-Fortibus, Countess of Devon, who died in 1293. She was the sister of the last Earl Baldwin de Redvers, and married William de-Fortibus, Earl of Albemarle, in 1282. Her feet rested on a dog, while on either side her head were two small child-angels, the dog and children being supposed to point to her as the heroine of a story recorded in a very old history of Exeter:

An inhabitant of the city being a very poor man and having many children, thought himself blessed too much in that kind, wherefore to avoid the charge that was likely to grow upon him in that way absented himself seven years together from his wife. But then returning, she within the s.p.a.ce of a year afterwards was delivered of seven male children at a birth, which made the poor man to think himself utterly undone, and thereby despairing put them all in a basket with full intent to have drowned them: but Divine Providence following him, occasioned a lady then within the said city coming at this instant of time in his way to demand of him what he carried in that basket, who replied that he had there whelps, which she desired to see, who, after view perceiving that they were children, compelled the poor man to acquaint her with the whole circ.u.mstances, whom, when she had sharply rebuked for such his humanity, presently commanded them all to be taken from him and put to nurse, then to school, and so to the university, and in process of time, being attained to man's estate and well qualified in learning, made means and procured benefices for every one of them.

The language used in this story was very quaint, and was probably the best tale related about Isabella, the Countess of Devon; but old "Isaacke," the ancient writer, in his history remarks that it "will hardly persuade credit."

We could not learn what became of William her husband; but Isabella seemed to have been an extremely strong-minded, determined woman, and rather spiteful, for it was she who blocked the river so that the people of Exeter, who had offended her, could have neither "fishing nor shipping" below the weir. On one occasion, when four important parishes had a dispute about their boundaries, she summoned all their princ.i.p.al men to meet her on the top of a swampy hill, and throwing her ring into the bog told them that where it lay was where the parishes met; the place is known to this day as "Ring-in-the-Mire."

We pa.s.sed by Powderham Castle, and saw some magnificent trees in the park, and on a wooded hill the Belvedere, erected in 1773. This was a triangular tower 60 feet high, with a hexagonal turret at each corner for sight-seeing, and from it a beautiful view over land and sea could be obtained.

With regard to the churches in this part of England, we learned that while Somerset was noted for towers and Cornwall for crosses, the churches in Devonshire were noted for screens, and nearly every church we visited had a screen or traces where one had existed, some of them being very beautiful, especially that in Kenton church, which we now went to inspect. Farther north the images and paintings on the screens, and even the woodwork, had been badly disfigured, but some of the old work in Devon had been well preserved. The screens had been intended to protect the chancel of the church from the nave, to teach people that on entering the chancel they were entering the most sacred part of the church, and images and paintings were placed along the screens. The same idea, but in another direction, was carried out on the outside of the churches; for there also the people, scarcely any of whom in those days could read or write, were taught, by means of images and horrible-looking gargoyles worked in stone placed on the outside of the church and steeple, that everything vile and wicked was in the world outside the church. The beautiful pictures and images inside the church were intended to show that everything pure and holy was to be found within: the image of the patron saint being generally placed over the doorway.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BELVEDERE TOWER.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: KENTON CHURCH.]

The village of Kenton was hidden in a small dell, and possessed a village green, in the centre of which were the remains of an old cross.

The church tower was one hundred feet high, surmounted by an unusually tall pinnacle at each corner, the figure of a saint appearing in a niche, presumably for protection. Kenton must have been a place of some importance in early times, for Henry III had granted it an annual fair on the feast of All Saints. The magnificent screen in the church not only reached across the chancel, but continued across the two transepts or chapels on either side, and rose in tiers of elaborate carving towards the top of the chancel arch. No less than forty of its panels retained their original pictures of saints and prophets, with scrolls of Latin inscriptions alternating with verses from the Old Testament and clauses from the Apostles' Creed. Most of the screen was fifteenth-century work, and it was one of the finest in the county; much of the work was Flemish. On it were images of saints, both male and female, and of some of the prophets, the saints being distinguishable by the nimbus or halo round their heads, and the prophets by caps and flowing robes after the style of the Jewish costumes in the Middle Ages.

There was also a magnificent pulpit of about the same date as the screen, and so richly designed as to equal any carved pulpit in Europe.

It was said to have been carved from the trunk of a single oak tree and ornamented in gilt and colours.

The number of screens in the churches near the sea-coast caused us to wonder whether some of them had been brought by sea from Flanders or France, as we remembered that our Cheshire hero, and a famous warrior, Sir Hugh de Calveley, who kept up the reputation of our county by eating a calf at one meal, and who died about the year 1400, had enriched his parish church with the spoils of France; but the lovely old oak furniture, with beautifully figured panels, some containing figures of saints finely painted, which he brought over, had at a recent "restoration" (?) been taken down and sold at two pounds per cartload!

We sincerely hoped that such would not be the fate of the beautiful work at Kenton.

We now came to Star Cross, a place where for centuries there had been a ferry across the River Exe, between the extreme west and east of Devon.

The rights of the ferry had formerly belonged to the abbots of Sherborne, who had surmounted the landing-place with a cross, which had now disappeared. The ferry leads by a rather tortuous pa.s.sage of two miles to Exmouth, a town we could see in the distance across the water; but troublesome banks of sand, one forming a rabbit warren, obstructed the mouth of the river. We also pa.s.sed through Cofton, a small village noted for its c.o.c.kles, which the women gathered along the sh.o.r.e in a costume that made them resemble a kind of mermaid, except that the lower half resembled that of a man rather than a fish. About two miles from Cofton was the village of Mamhead, with its obelisk built in 1742, one hundred feet high, on the top of a spur of the Great Haldon Hill. The rector of the church here at one time was William Johnson Temple, often mentioned in _Boswell's Life of Johnson_. He was the grandfather of Frederick Temple, Bishop of Exeter at the time we pa.s.sed through that city, afterwards Bishop of London, and finally Archbishop of Canterbury, to whose harsh voice and common sense we had once listened when he was addressing a public meeting in Manchester. In the churchyard at Mamhead was an enormous yew tree, over eight hundred years old. In 1775, when Boswell came to see Lord Lisburne at Mamhead Park, and stayed at the vicarage, he was so much impressed by the size and magnificence of this great tree, that he made a vow beneath its great branches "never to be drunk again"--a vow he soon forgot when he was out of sight of the tree.

We soon arrived at the pretty little town of Dawlish, and perhaps it was its unique appearance that gave us the impression that we had reached another of the prettiest places we had visited. There we halted for refreshments and for a hurried excursion in and about the town, as we were anxious to reach Torquay before night, where we had decided to stay until Monday morning. We walked towards the source of the water, which comes down from the higher lands in a series of pretty little waterfalls, spreading out occasionally into small lakes adorned at the sides with plots of gra.s.s and beds of flowers. The name Dawlish, we learned, came from two Cornish words meaning "deep stream," or, as some have it, "Devil's Water"; and behind the town on Haldon Hill was the "Devil's Punchbowl," from which descended the water that pa.s.sed through the town, but which is in much too pleasant a position, we thought, to be a.s.sociated with his satanic majesty.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE CONGER ROCK, DAWLISH]

Modern Dawlish (though "Doflisc" appears in early charters) only dated from the year 1810, when the course of a small stream was changed, and the pretty waterfalls made; rustic bridges were placed over it and houses built near the banks; this scheme, which was intended to make the fortunes of the prospectors and of the inhabitants generally, was completed at the beginning of November in that year. But, sad to relate, before nine o'clock on the morning of November 10th in that same year scarcely a vestige of the improvements remained, and in place of a small rippling stream came a great river, which swept away four houses with stables and other buildings and eight wooden bridges. It seemed almost as if the devil had been vexed with the prospectors for interfering with his water, and had caused this devastation to punish them for their audacity. But a great effort was made in 1818, and a more permanent scheme on similar lines was completed; and Dawlish as we saw it in 1871 was a delightful place suggestive of a quiet holiday or honeymoon resort. Elihu Burritt, in his _Walk from London to Land's End_, speaks well of Dawlish; and Barham, a local poet and a son of the renowned author of _Ingoldsby Legends_, in his legend "The Monk of Haldon," in the July number of _Temple Bar_ in 1867, wrote:

Then low at your feet, From this airy retreat, Reaching down where the fresh and the salt water meet, The roofs may be seen of an old-fashioned street; Half village, half town, it is--pleasant but smallish, And known where it happens to _be_ known, as Dawlish.

A place I'd suggest As one of the best For a man breaking down who needs absolute rest, Especially too if he's weak in the chest; Torquay may be gayer, But as for the air It really can not for a moment compare With snug little Dawlish--at least so they say there.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ON THE COAST NEAR DAWLISH.]

The light-coloured cliffs of Dorsetshire had now given place to the dark red sandstone cliffs of Devonshire, a change referred to by Barham in "The Monk of Haldon," for he wrote:

'Tis certainly odd that this part of the coast, While neighbouring Dorset gleams white as a ghost, Should look like anchovy sauce spread upon toast.

We were now bound for Teignmouth, our next stage; and our road for a short distance ran alongside, but above, the seash.o.r.e. The change in the colour of the cliffs along the sea-coast reminded my brother of an incident that occurred when he was going by sea to London, about nine years before our present journey. He had started from Liverpool in a tramp steamboat, which stopped at different points on the coast to load and unload cargo; and the rocks on the coast-line as far as he had seen--for the boat travelled and called at places in the night as well as day--had all been of a dark colour until, in the light of a fine day, the ship came quite near Beachy Head, where the rocks were white and rose three or four hundred feet above the sea. He had formed the acquaintance of a young gentleman on board who was noting every object of interest in a diary, and who, like my brother, was greatly surprised at the white cliffs with the clear blue sky overhead. Presently the captain came along, and the young man asked him why the rocks were white. "Well, sir," said the captain, "the sea is as deep there as the rocks are high, and they are so dangerous to ships in the dark that the Government has ordered them to be whitewashed once a month to prevent shipwreck." Out came the pocket-book, and as the captain watched the pa.s.senger write it down, my brother looked hard in the captain's face, who never moved a muscle, but a slight twinkle in one of his eyes showed that he did not want to be asked any questions!

The Devon red sandstone was not very durable, and the action of the sea had worn the outlying rocks into strange shapes. Before reaching Teignmouth we had some good views of the rocks named "the Parson and the Clerk," the history of which was by no means modern, the legend being told in slightly different ways:

A great many years ago the vicar of Dawlish and his clerk had been to Teignmouth to collect t.i.thes, and were riding home along the cliffs on a dark wet night when they lost their way. Suddenly they came to a house that they did not remember having seen before. The windows were bright and light, and they could hear the shouts and laughter of a very merry company within; they were just wishing themselves inside when a window was thrown open and they were invited to come in, an invitation they very willingly accepted, and they soon began to enjoy themselves, drinking deeply and waxing merrier every moment, the parson singing songs that were quite unfit for a priest, entirely forgetting the sanct.i.ty of his calling, while the clerk followed his master's example.

They stayed long, and when, with giddy heads and unsteady legs, they rose to depart, the parson said he was sure he could not find the way, and he must have a guide, even if it were the devil himself. The man who had invited them into the house said he would put them on the right way for Dawlish, and led them to the top of the road, and telling them to go straight on, immediately disappeared. When they had gone a little way, they thought the tide uncommonly high, as it reached their feet, although a minute before they were sure they were on dry land; and the more they attempted to ride away the faster rose the water! Boisterous laughter now echoed around, and they shouted for help, and a bright flash of lightning revealed the figure of their guide, who was none other than the devil himself, jeering and pointing over the black stormy sea into which they had ridden. Morning came, and their horses were found quietly straying on the sands, but neither the parson nor his clerk were ever seen again: but meantime two isolated rocks, in which were seen their images, had risen in the sea as a warning to their brethren of future generations to have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness.

From the Teignmouth side the Parson appeared seated in a pulpit the back of which was attached to the cliff, while under him was an arch just like the entrance to a cave, through which the sea appeared on both sides; while the poor Clerk was some distance farther out at sea and much lower down. We thought it was a shame that the parson should be sitting up there, watching the poor clerk with the waves dashing over him, as if perfectly helpless to save himself from drowning. Still, that was the arrangement of the three-decker pulpit so common in the churches of a hundred years ago--the clerk below, the parson above.

Our road terminated on the beach at Teignmouth, and near St. Michael's Church, where on a tablet appeared the figure of a ship, and underneath the following words:

SACRED TO THE MEMORY