more going into a strange land: for, though there is nothing new under
the sun, yet the eye is never satisfied with seeing.”
Wyatt had committed his adventures to paper before starting, and had
disposed of the MS. to a publisher. The book sold well, and the sixth
edition was called for in 1755, but in it no further particulars are
given of Wyatt, so that it must be assumed either that he was then dead
or that he was still abroad.
What strikes one in reading his Memoirs is the indefatigable energy and
the resourcefulness of the man. He could turn his hand to anything. He
kept his eyes open, and was ever eager to acquire information.
His _Life and Surprising Adventures_ has his portrait in copper plate
prefixed to it. He wears a wig, and a laced and embroidered waistcoat,
open at the breast to display his fine frilled shirt.
THE REV. W. DAVY
This is the story of the life of an able, versatile, and learned man,
neglected, and his “unregarded age in corners thrown.”
He was born 4 March, 1743, at Downhouse, in the parish of Tavistock,
of respectable parents. They moved whilst he was still an infant to a
farm belonging to them, Knighton, in the parish of Hennock. As a child
he was fond of mechanics, and amused himself with contriving various
pieces of machinery. When aged eight years he watched the construction
of a mill, and imitated it in small in wood, thoroughly grasping all
the points in the mechanism. After a while the workmen engaged on the
mill came to a difficulty, and the mill stopped, nor could they rectify
the fault. Little Will Davy pointed out the defects; they saw that he
was right, remedied the defects, and the mill ran “suently.”
He was educated at the Exeter Grammar School, and at the age of
eighteen matriculated at Balliol College, Oxford. Whilst there the idea
came into his head to produce a great work of divinity, a compendium of
evidence of the origin of the Christian Faith; but the idea lay dormant
for a few years.
On leaving college he was ordained to the curacy of Moreton Hampstead,
and married Sarah, daughter of a Mr. Gilbert, of Longabrook, near
Kingsbridge. When settled into his curacy he began to reduce to order
the plan he had devised of writing a _General System of Theology_, and
wrote twelve volumes of MS. on the subject.
Then he shifted to Drewsteignton. His preaching was complained of to
the Bishop of Exeter, who sent for him. He took his twelve volumes of
MS. with him and showed them to the Bishop, and bade him look through
them and mark any lapse from orthodoxy.
This was more than the Bishop was disposed to do; he ran his fingers
through the pages, he could do no more. “What the parishioners
objected to,” said Davy, “was not that I taught false doctrine, but
that I rebuke vicious habits that prevail.” Actually, doubtless,
it was his long-winded discourses on the evidence for a God, and
for the immortality of the soul, that the people objected to. They,
simple souls, no more needed these evidences than they did that they
themselves lived and talked and listened.
The Bishop was courteous, and promised Davy that he would give him any
living that fell vacant, and asked him if he had a preference for one.
Davy humbly replied that there was a certain benefice likely to be
vacated very shortly that would suit him exactly. The Bishop promised
to remember this, and of course forgot, and appointed some one else,
one more of a toady, or better connected.
Davy continued his mechanical work and executed several ingenious
pieces of machinery.
Then he was appointed to the curacy of Lustleigh at £40 per annum; but
from that sum was deducted £5 for the rent of the rectory in which he
had to live, the incumbent being non-resident.
Whilst at Lustleigh he published by subscription six volumes of sermons
and lost £100 by the transaction, as many of the subscribers failed to
pay for the books sent to them.
[Illustration:
Printed by W^m. Sharland. R. Cooper sculp.
REV. W. DAVY]
Then he took to farming, but he had no experience and lost money by it,
and had to abandon the farm.
The ambition of his life was to publish his _System of Divinity_, which
would utterly refute atheism, deism, and every _ism_ under the sun, and
establish the doctrine of the Church on a sound basis. But no publisher
or printer would undertake the mighty work unless sure of payment; and
the price asked was far beyond the means of Davy. Determined to bring
his great work before the world, he constructed his own printing press,
and bought type, but could not afford to purchase more than would
enable him to set up four pages of his book at a time.
Accordingly he did this, struck off forty copies, broke up the type
and printed four more, and so on. He taught his servant, Mary Hole, to
compose type, and these two worked together, and at last completed the
work in twenty-six volumes, each of nearly five hundred pages. When
the first volume was completed he sent copies to the Bishop, the Dean
and Chapter, the Archdeacon, the Universities, and other persons of
repute for learning. But he received no encouragement. Some of those to
whom he sent his book did not trouble to acknowledge having received
it. When the vast work was complete in twenty-six volumes, he sent a
copy to his diocesan, Dr. Fisher, who ungraciously said to Davy, when
he called at the Palace, “I cannot be supposed to be able to notice
every trifle that appears in print.” To this Davy replied, “If your
Lordship considers twenty-six volumes 8vo, the labour of fifty years in
collecting, compiling, and printing, to be a trifle, I most certainly
cannot allow myself to expect from your Lordship either approbation or
encouragement.”
At last he retired from the parsonage of Lustleigh, discountenanced
and discouraged, to a small farm of his own, called Willmead. His
curacy was now advanced to £60, and he had not to keep up the large
rectory. At Willmead he amused his leisure hours with gardening. He
moved the granite boulders, arranged terraces among the rocks, and
formed a herbaceous garden, in which he took the liveliest interest.
Whilst here he invented a diving-bell, and prepared his contrivance for
use to raise the guns and other property lost in the _Royal George_
(1782), but he had not the means to cause a model of his machine to be
made, and his idea was taken up and carried out by others. But Davy was
by no means the first inventor of the diving-bell, Dr. Halley had made
one in or about 1720; it was of wood covered with lead, and air was
supplied through barrels attached to it. But the plan proposed by Davy
was far in advance of this, and was, in fact, practically that of the
diving-bell as now in use. It was not till 1817 that the _Royal George_
was surveyed by means of a diving-bell, and portions of the cargo, the
guns, etc., were not raised till 1839-42. At length, at the age of
eighty-two, Davy was presented in 1825 to the vicarage of Winkleigh,
and that not by either the Bishop or the Dean and Chapter.
But this preferment coming so late in life was rather a cruelty to him
than a favour granted. It removed him from his garden, in which he had
spent such happy hours, and which was crowded with his collections
of rare plants procured with difficulty and from distances, from all
his little contrivances, and from the comforts of his own residence.
He had to shift quarters in December, caught a chill in the raw damp
vicarage to which he removed, and after holding the benefice for five
months, expired there on 13 June, 1826, and was laid in the chancel of
Winkleigh.
After his death three volumes of extracts from his _System of Divinity_
were published, together with a Memoir, by the Rev. C. Davy, Exeter,
1827, and fell as flat as had the twenty-six volumes from which
these withered arguments were culled, and no man--not a theologian
even--would think it worth his while now to read a dozen pages of the
work. But the intention was good--he was persistent in carrying it out,
he had the honour and glory of God before his eyes, and he worked for
that, and certainly will receive the commendation, “Well done, good and
faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord,” though bishops
and deans and archdeacons and the well-beneficed clergy, “bene nati,
bene vestiti et moderate docti,” showed him the cold shoulder here
below.
But one cannot fail to regret that, placed where he had been, at
Moreton, at Drewsteignton, at Lustleigh, his active mind had not been
turned to more profitable pursuits. What might he not have gleaned,
then, among the traditions of the people! What stores of ballads might
he not have collected! What careful plans and descriptions he might
have made of the prehistoric relics that then abounded around him, then
almost intact, now to such a large extent wrecked and swept away.
At Drewsteignton there was a most remarkable collection of stone
circles and avenues and menhirs, and all have gone, not one is now
left, only the dolmen of Shilstone remains. One accurate plan drawn
by Davy, and draw and plan he could, would have been worth all his
twenty-six volumes of _System of Divinity_.
THE GREY WOMAN
The following curious story is from the pen of the lady whose
experience is recorded. I know both her and the localities; also a good
many of the particulars, and all the names; but for good reasons it has
been thought advisable to disguise both the name of the place and of
the persons mentioned. Every particular is absolutely true, excepting
the names that are fictitious.
“On the 1st August, 1904, we heard that we had succeeded by the death
of an aunt of my husband to a considerable property in South Devon, and
as bad luck would have it, the mansion on the estate had been let just
two months before on a short lease. It was our duty to make Devonshire
our home at once and for the future, and the wearying undertaking was
before us of looking out for a suitable house.
“A few days after this I had a dream remarkably distinct and
impressive, so impressive was it that on awaking every particular
therein was stamped indelibly on my mind.
“I thought that I was looking over a large empty house, and I was
conscious at the time that it was in Devonshire. A man was showing me
through it, and we had just reached the top of the front and principal
staircase, and stood on a broad landing, with many bedroom doors
opening on to it. I observed one short narrow passage that led down to
a door, and in that doorway, at the end of the passage, I saw a tall
handsome woman in grey, deadly pale, with clean-cut features, carrying
a little child of about two years of age or under upon her arm. The
thought struck me, ‘Who can she be?’ But I almost immediately said to
myself, ‘What can it matter to me who she is?’
“The caretaker of the house immediately, and without noticing her, led
me to that very room, and went past her without a word or turning his
head towards her. I followed, and in so doing brushed past the Grey
Woman, also without a word.
“On entering the room I saw that in it was a second door in the same
end wall in which was that by which I had come in, and that between
these two doors was a broad space. I at once decided that this should
be my bedchamber, and that I would place my bed between the two doors,
as most convenient for the light and for the fireplace.
“Then, suddenly, without awaking, my dream shifted, and I thought that
I was in that identical room, and in my own bed, placed where I had
designed to place it; that all my belongings were about me.
“Next, the second door, that by which I had not entered, was opened,
and again I saw the Grey Woman come in, with the little one toddling
before her pushing before it a round wheel-toy with coloured beads on
the spokes. I nudged my husband and said, ‘Alex, there is a nurse with
a child in the room.’ True to life he answered, ‘_Bosh!_’ Nevertheless,
I repeated, ‘Alex, look there--a nurse and child really are in the
room.’
By this time the pair had walked round the foot of the bed, almost to
his side. He raised himself on one arm, and exclaimed, ‘Good Lord! so
there is.’ Then I said, ‘And they have both been dead long years ago.’
“After that I remember nothing further till I awoke in the morning.
“The dream had made such an impression on me, that at breakfast I told
my daughter, and in the afternoon some friends came in to tea, and I
again repeated my story, provoking great interest in the sweet ghost
babe--much more so than in the nurse.
“I forgot to state that in my dream I felt quite aware that the doorway
through which the Grey Woman and the child had passed did not open out
of another bedroom, but communicated with the back part of the house.
“Weeks went by, and the dream, without being forgotten in any single
particular, passed from my thoughts, now occupied with more practical
matters--considering the lists of houses sent to us by various agents.
One of these gentry had forwarded to us a special notice of a house
that read like the description of a palace. We, having no ambition that
way, put it down, without considering it for a moment.
“Some days later I called on the agent, and then put down the palatial
notice on his table, with the remark that this was not at all the sort
of mansion that we required.
“Towards the end of September we made another expedition to Devon to
see a particular house near B----. I took the train to the station and
visited this house, but in ten minutes satisfied myself that it would
not do. We had about five hours on hand before the train was due that
would take us back to Exeter, and we were at a loss how to spend the
time. Suddenly the thought struck me that the impossible house was
somewhere in the neighbourhood, and rather than spend hours dawdling on
the railway platform, I proposed to my daughter that we should go and
see it. The driver of the carriage we had hired said that the distance
was seven miles, but that he could very well take us there and back so
as to catch the up train. We thought so too--but speedily discovered
that his horse was extremely leisurely in its movements, and that we
should not be able to spend much time in viewing the house. The day was
beautiful, the sun was bright, the sky blue, and the trees just touched
with autumn frost, and turning every colour.
“We traversed a maze of lanes and finally reached a lonely house, shut
up, and standing in something of a jungle, trees all round it. A farm
was near by, and we sent to ask if the keys were kept there. They were,
and we were soon inside. We were delighted, and said at once, ‘This is
just what we want; the very house to suit us.’ We returned full of it,
but it must be admitted after a very hurried run through the inside.
There was an entrance hall, thence led a staircase to a broad landing,
out of which opened many bedroom doors, and there was a passage leading
a short way to another room. But that all this was precisely like my
dream did not occur to me at the time. We were in a hurry, afraid to
miss our train, and my mind was occupied with house-hunting and the
dream was temporarily forgotten. In my dream, it must be remembered,
I had _not_ seen the exterior of the house in which appeared the Grey
Woman.
“On our return to Exeter we made a full report to my husband of what we
had seen and decided; he had been kept from accompanying us by illness.
“We now entered into negotiations, and speedily all was settled. The
drains had all to be looked to and put in order before we could take
possession, which was not till the first week in December.
“About a fortnight before we moved into the house, after it had been
repainted and furnished, my daughter rushed to my room one morning
exclaiming, ‘Mother--you have after all taken the Ghost-dream House,’
and so it was in every particular, and I had chosen the very room for
mine and arranged to place my bed in the very position I had determined
on in my dream.
“At last the move was made, I feeling sure that the Grey Nurse and
Little Child were part and parcel of the house.
“In coming into the property an astonishing number of old deeds in
many chests had been handed over to us, and demanded sorting and
investigation. A large number of them pertained to the estates that
my husband owned, some of them going back five hundred years and
impossible for those inexperienced in court-hand and legal documents
full of contractions to decipher. But there were others that did not
belong to our property, that had come into the hands of a collateral
great-great-uncle, a noted lawyer, who had taken the remainder of a
lease for ninety-nine years of manors and estates, and which manors
and estates on the termination of the lease had reverted to the
proprietors; nevertheless, the deeds had been retained relative to this
particular lease.
“Whilst I was engaged along with an upholsterer daily in hanging
curtains, arranging carpets, choosing wall-papers, hanging pictures and
the like, my husband and daughter occupied themselves in wading through
and cataloguing and assorting the vast accumulation of deeds, to the
best of their ability.
“At the end of a fortnight they both came to me in great excitement,
to inform me that they had come across all the papers, deeds, and
parchments for generations back concerning the very house we had just
rented, and into which we had settled. This was strange indeed. Till
this moment we had entertained not the smallest suspicion that this
particular house and manor had ever in any way belonged to one of the
family from which my husband had inherited his estate.
“The deeds showed that in 1747, the great-great-uncle--if he may be so
termed, there being no blood-relationship--had taken this particular
house and property along with another much larger for the rest of the
term of ninety-nine years, i.e. for the remaining eighty-eight years.
The lease had terminated in 1835. The old parchments had been locked up
and probably had never been looked at since.
“A week later, a new surprise. My husband and daughter in overhauling
these deeds had come, as they declared, on the nurse. On the margin of
an old deed were written these words:--
“‘Anna Maria Welland, daughter of John Welland, married Mr. Cresford
in 1771, and died in 1772, having only been married fourteen months.
She left an only child, born March 8th, 1772, died the following year.
Mrs. Lock, of Old Bond Street, took the body in a box to Barclay, in
Gloucestershire; Mrs. Runt, who nursed the child that died, had two
herself by Mr. Cresford, one of whom she substituted for the dead
child of Anna Maria, the wife of Mr. Cresford. Harkett, a servant of
Mr. Cresford, on a search being made about two years ago at Barclay,
admitted in the presence of the Hon. Mr. Maxwell and others, the fact
of the child having been placed there for that purpose, and then went
to the spot under Mr. Cresford’s [word illegible] room, and found the
box which is now in London. Mrs. Runt (the nurse) died in 1826. She
married a miller named Harris, and she admitted to Miss Birdwood (who
is now living) that she had bastard children, and that one of such was
Mrs. Francis.’”
This substituted child grew up and inherited the Welland property and
married a Mr. Francis, to whom the estate went after her death. There
were no children. Here is the pedigree:--
Samuel Welland,
_d._ 1735.
|
+------------------------------+-+----------------+
| | |
Walter, John=... Richard=...
_d._ 1742. _d._ 1746. | |
| |
+--------------------+ |
| |
Anna Maria=S. Cresford =...Runt. Samuel,
_d._ 1772. | _d._ 1823.: _d._ 1826. _d._ 1780.
| :
+-----------+ :.......
| :
Anna, Anna=Thos. Francis.
_b._ 1772, (substituted child),
_d._ 1773. _d._ 1811.
In the above account and in the pedigree all the names are fictitious
except those of Mrs. Runt and the servant, Harkett.
Now, was Mr. Cresford in the plot? Did Mrs. Runt make away with Anna,
the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Cresford? That he should have connived
at the murder of his child is improbable. When he heard that Anna was
dead, did he agree to have the body smuggled away in a box to his own
family seat in Gloucestershire, and hidden under the floor in his room?
That is not so unlikely. That he was an utterly unprincipled man is
clear. At the same time that he married the heiress of the Wellands, he
was carrying on an intrigue with Mrs. Runt, and he had a daughter by
her of the same age--or thereabouts--as his legitimate daughter by his
wife.
It may be suspected with some probability that Mrs. Runt did purposely
make away with the little heiress, and then, having told Mr. Cresford
that it had died a natural death, induced him to agree to the
substitution of his bastard daughter for his legitimate child who was
dead, so that this bastard might inherit the Welland estate.
The stay of the lady who wrote the above, and her husband and daughter,
at this Welland House was short. Unexpectedly their own mansion became
vacant, and they moved at once to it. But during the time they were at
Welland she never saw the Grey Woman.
ROBERT LYDE AND THE “FRIEND’S ADVENTURE”
“A True and Exact Account of the Retaking a ship, called the _Friend’s
Adventure_ of Topsham, from the French; after She had been taken six
days, and they were upon the Coasts of France with it four days. When
one Englishman and a Boy set upon seven Frenchmen, killed two of them,
took the other Five prisoners, and brought the said Ship and them safe
to England. Their Majesties’ Customs of the said Ship amounted to £1000
and upwards. Performed and written by Robert Lyde, Mate of the same
ship.” London, 1693.
In February, 1689, Robert Lyde, of Topsham, shipped on board a pink
of the same port, eighty tons, Isaac Stoneham, master, bound for
Virginia, and on 18 May following arrived there, took in a lading, and
set sail in company with a hundred merchantmen for home under convoy
of two men-of-war. A fortnight after, storms separated the Topsham
boat from the convoy, so that she had to make the best of her way home
alone, and on 19 October came up with two Plymouth vessels of the
fleet about forty leagues west of Scilly, the wind easterly. On the
21st the crew saw four other ships to leeward which they took to be
some of their consorts, but which proved to be French privateers. They
managed to escape them, but were captured by a privateer of St. Malo,
of twenty-two guns and over a hundred men, on 24 October, and were
taken to St. Malo as prisoners, where they were detained and treated
with gross inhumanity, during seventeen days. Lyde says: “If we had
been taken by Turks, we could not have been used worse. For bread we
had 6 lbs. and one cheek of a Bullock for every 25 men for a day; and
it fell out that he that had half a Bullock’s eye for his lot, had the
greatest share.” After seventeen days they were all removed to Dinan,
where were many other English prisoners confined in the cramped tower
of the fortification that is still standing, with its small cells. Here
they were herded together in a place not fit to contain one quarter of
the number, and there they were retained for three months and ten days.
“Our allowance was 3 lb. of old Cow-Beef without any Salt to flavour
it, for seven men a day; but I think we had 2 lbs. of Bread for each
Man, but it was so bad that Dogs would not eat it, neither could we eat
but very little, and that that we did eat did us more hurt than good,
for ’twas more Orts than Bread, so we gave some of it to the Hogs, and
made Pillows of the rest to lay our Heads on, for they allowed us fresh
Straw but once every five weeks, so that we bred such swarms of lice
in our Rags that one Man had a great Hole eaten through his Throat by
them, which was not perceived till after his Death, and I myself was so
weak that it was 14 weeks after my releasement before I recovered any
tolerable strength in me.