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_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_
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CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
LONDON: FETTER LANE, E.C. 4
C. F. CLAY, MANAGER
SMALL TALK
AT WREYLAND
SECOND SERIES
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
C. F. CLAY, MANAGER
LONDON: FETTER LANE, E. C. 4
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ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
SMALL TALK
AT WREYLAND
BY
CECIL TORR
SECOND SERIES
CAMBRIDGE
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
1921
CAMBRIDGE: PRINTED BY
J. B. PEACE, M.A.
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
PREFACE
In case this volume should be read by anyone who has not read its
predecessor, I am quoting these three paragraphs from that by way of
explanation.
And first, about the place itself,
_Wreyland is land by the Wrey, a little stream in Devonshire. The Wrey
flows into the Bovey, and the Bovey into the Teign, and the Teign flows
out into the sea at Teignmouth. The land is on the east side of the
Wrey, just opposite the village of Lustleigh. It forms a manor, and
gives its name to a hamlet of six houses, of which this is one._
Secondly, about my writing all these things,
_Down here, when any of the older natives die, I hear people lamenting
that so much local knowledge has died with them, and saying that they
should have written things down. Fearing that this might soon be said of
me, I got a book last Christmas--1916--and began to write things down. I
meant to keep to local matters, but have gone much further than I
meant._
Thirdly, about my publishing what I had written,
_I wrote this little book for private circulation; and it was actually
in type, and ready for printing, before its publication was suggested. I
feel some diffidence in inviting strangers to read what I intended only
for my personal friends. But it all seems to hang together, and I have
not omitted anything._
Since that was published I have gone on writing things down in the same
way as before. And now I find that I have written enough to make another
volume of the same extent; and I hope it is no worse.
CECIL TORR.
YONDER WREYLAND,
LUSTLEIGH,
DEVON.
SMALL TALK AT WREYLAND
II
This valley has seen another innovation since I last wrote things down.
An aeroplane passed over here, 9 September 1918. It was only a friendly
aeroplane, just out for exercise; but nothing of the kind had ever been
seen from here before, not even a balloon.
The first time that a motor-car was seen here (which was not so very
long ago) it stopped just opposite the cottage of an invalid old man. He
heard somethin’ there a-buzzin’ like a swarm o’ bees, and he went out to
look, although he had not been outside his door since Martinmas. It was
a big car, and he said that it was like a railway-carriage on wheels. I
can myself remember the first railway-train that came here--that was in
1866--and I knew old people who said that they remembered the first
cart. Before the days of carts, they carried things on horses with
pack-saddles.
These old people’s recollections are confirmed by Moore. His _History of
Devonshire_ came out in 1829, and he says there, vol. I, page
426--“Fifty years ago a pair of wheels was scarcely to be seen on a farm
in the county, and at present the use of pack-horses still prevails,
though on the decline.... Hay, corn, fuel, stones, dung, lime, etc., and
the produce of the fields, are all conveyed on horseback: sledges, or
sledge-carts, are also used in harvest time, drawn chiefly by oxen.” The
pack-saddles have vanished now, and the oxen also; but sledges may still
be seen at work on very steep fields.
Rights of way “with all manner of carriages” are mentioned in 1719 and
1729 in title-deeds of land here; but ‘carriages’ was then a word of
wider meaning, and would include all instruments of transport. I would
not even argue from those deeds that there were carriages of any kind
down here so long ago, any more than I would argue that hawking was
still practised here as late as 1752, merely because there is a deed of
that date reserving rights “to hunt, hawk, fish, or fowle.” A lawyer
will copy clauses into documents without considering whether they apply.
I know a lease that binds the tenant to maintain the thatching on a roof
which had its thatch replaced by slate quite thirty years ago, and
another one that binds the tenant to clear out the gutterings,
down-pipes, drains and gullies of buildings which have never had such
things at all.
The old pack-saddle roads were paved for a width of about two feet in
the middle, to give foothold for the horses, and then sloped up on
either side, just giving room enough for the packs but none to spare for
anyone to pass. One of these roads runs up the hill behind this house,
and is of some antiquity, as it leads past the remnants of a way-side
cross with the coat-of-arms of bishop Grandisson, who held the see of
Exeter from 1327 to 1369. In 1437, and perhaps a good deal earlier,
there was a King’s Highway passing through the end of Wreyland Manor at
Kelly, and thus coinciding with the present road from Newton up to
Moreton. On the Court Rolls of the Manor there are complaints that it
required repair, 11 October 1437 and many later dates. Possibly the
highway was not used for wheels until long after it was made. But the
old Roman Road would have been built to carry wheels.
There is a Roman milestone at Saint Hilary, about fifteen miles this
side of Land’s End, and there is another at Tintagel; and these, I
believe, are the only Roman milestones west of Exeter. The inscription
is clear enough on the Saint Hilary stone, and shows that it was erected
in the reign of Constantine. On the Tintagel stone there is not much
inscription left, but the name of Licinius is unmistakeable. He reigned
concurrently with Constantine from 307 to 323, and probably the road was
made then. In the Antonine Itinerary, which is a few years earlier,
there is no road west of Exeter.
These milestones are not in their original places: one is built into the
lich-gate of Tintagel churchyard, and the other was built into Saint
Hilary church, and did not come to light until that was burnt down in
1853. Assuming that they were not fetched from any great distances,
there is a question of whether Tintagel was on the Land’s End road or on
a branch from it. In one case the road would probably go round the north
of Dartmoor and of Bodmin Moor, and in the other it would keep south of
them. The southern line seems more likely for a road from Exeter to
Land’s End; but it implies a branch road to Tintagel, and there was not
much to tempt the Romans there. No doubt, Tintagel was a strong
position; but it commanded nothing and could only be a base for a
retreating force, not a base for an invading force, as there was no
sufficient harbour. Possibly some Britons stood out against the Romans
there, and thus gave it importance.
There is a road from Exeter to Teignbridge that would lead on round the
south of Dartmoor, and parts of this are marked upon the Ordnance map as
Roman Road. I do not myself know of any clear proof that it was Roman,
or that Teignbridge was Roman either. The present bridge was built in
1815; and underneath the old bridge there were the remains of an older
bridge, built of red sandstone, and underneath this the remains of a
still older bridge, built of fine white freestone, but there were not
any Roman bricks or other things to show conclusively that it was Roman.
However that may be, the bridge itself and those pieces of the road from
Exeter are on a line that would just suit the Roman road to Land’s End.
There was a bridge there in 1086 at any rate: it comes into Domesday as
Taignebrige or Tanebrige. It is six or seven miles from here, below the
confluence of the Teign and Bovey; and within a mile of here, above the
confluence of the Bovey and Wrey, there is a bridge across the Bovey
carrying wheeled traffic. This appears as Drakeford bridge in documents,
but is known to everyone as New bridge. And there is an inscription on
it, showing how very new it is--“This bridg was repared 1684.” Some
other bridges in this district were ‘repared’ soon after this, and these
all take traffic on wheels.
There really must have been wheeled traffic hereabouts long before the
memory of the oldest folk I ever knew. When they said that they
remembered the first cart, I think they must have meant the first cart
used for farm-work on the fields. And in the passage I have quoted,
Moore only says that a pair of wheels was scarcely to be seen on a farm
in the county, not, scarcely to be seen on the roads. But so long as
farmers used pack-saddles on their fields, they would use them on the
roads as well; and in an agricultural district there would not be much
other traffic.
The ancient Britons had wagons of some sort in this part of England long
before the Romans came here. They used them for bringing down the ingots
from the tin mines to the coast, though these ingots went on pack-horses
across France to Marseilles. In narrating this, Diodoros says (v. 22)
that the ingots were cast in the shape of an astragalos; and an ingot of
about that shape was found in Falmouth harbour, and is now in the Museum
at Truro. It would hook on to a pack-saddle, and it weighs about 160
lbs., so that a pair would make a load.
A century ago a tramway was laid down for bringing granite from the
Haytor quarries to the head of the Teigngrace canal, where the granite
was transferred to barges and went on to Teignmouth to be shipped. The
quarries are about 1200 feet above the head of the canal, and the
distance is about six miles in a straight line: so the tramway goes
winding round upon an easier gradient, and thus comes within two miles
of here. The lines are formed of granite slabs of no fixed size, but
usually four or five feet long and one to two feet wide; and they are
put down lengthways, with nothing in between them to impede the horses.
Each slab has a level surface, about six inches wide, as a track for the
wheels, and an upright surface, two or three inches high, to prevent
their running off the track; but the remainder of the slab is rough. The
gauge is fifty inches between the out-sides of the upright surfaces, and
therefore fifty inches between the in-sides of the wheels. This tramway
was completed in 1820, and carried down granite for London Bridge, the
British Museum, the General Post Office, and other buildings of that
time. But it was abandoned when the quarries failed, and now its slabs
are used for building or broken up for mending roads.
The great roads over Dartmoor were not completed until about 150 years
ago. One of them runs north-eastward from Plymouth to Moreton, and so to
Exeter and London, and the other runs south-eastward from Tavistock to
Ashburton. They cross each other at Two Bridges in the middle of the
moor, and at some points they are nearly 1500 feet above the level of
the sea. About three miles out from Moreton on the Plymouth road there
is a road from Ashburton to Chagford; and at the crossing of these roads
the highwaymen were hanged in chains, when caught. At least, my father
and my grandfather both told me so; and such things might have happened
even in my father’s time, as hanging in chains was not abolished until
1834.
In the old days of practical joking it was one of the stock jokes to go
out to some cross-road in the middle of the night, dig up the sign-post,
turn it round a right-angle, and fix it down again with its arms all
pointing the wrong way. There were two men whom I remember very
well--old friends of my father’s--and he told me that these two did this
on Dartmoor several times, usually in snowstorms, as the snow soon
covered up all traces of their work. But he thought the best part of the
joke was in their going out on the bleak moorland in the snow to do a
thing like that.
It certainly was no joke riding out at night with a pair of lanterns
fixed on underneath your stirrups to guide you in the dark. But
travelling by coach was not so very much better. In his diary down here,
Friday 5 February 1836, my father notes--“snow up the country, so that
the Tuesday coaches could not come in until Thursday.” Writing to him
from London after a journey up, 7 April 1839, an old friend of his
exclaims--“Oh that Salisbury Plain, thirty-five miles of a wet windy
night outside a coach, by god, sir, ’tis no joke.” The same friend
writes to him from Sidmouth, 11 January 1841, after coming from
Southampton to Honiton by coach--“We had six horses nearly all the way,
and soon after passing Ringwood (I believe it was) our road was covered
with and cut thro’ snow which was at least four feet deep on each
side.... We got capsized into a high bank on descending one hill, but it
was managed so very quietly that we were not thrown off and were able to
dismount quietly and get the coach properly on her legs again.”
On the London and Exeter coaches the tips came to about a quarter of the
fare: one to the guard, three to the drivers--drivers being changed at
the supper and breakfast stops--and two to the ostlers at each end. On
the 14 July 1839 my father writes to my grandfather that railway fares
are comparatively low and no ‘fees,’ that is, tips: also that the ‘first
rate’ carriages are good.
My father notes in his diary, 3 May 1840--“Yesterday in London I could
scarcely get credited when I said that twenty-four hours previously I
was in Brussels. Having steam the whole way, it is a very quick
journey.” He left Brussels by rail at 4.15, reached Ostend at 9.0, left
by steamer at midnight, and at 1.0 next afternoon “made fast at Tower
Stairs.”
Crossing by Dover and Calais in 1843, he writes on 15 July--“Started at
4.0 by the new railway from London Bridge to Folkestone, arriving at the
latter at ½ p. 8: coaches waiting to take on to Dover. They were more
than an hour in loading and getting the passengers. Reached Dover at ½
p. 10.” Next morning, “the tide being low, the English mail steamer had
left the harbour and was riding at anchor in the roadstead, waiting for
the mail. I put out in a boat at 6, but it was more than ½ p. 7 before
we started, the letter bags being only that instant sent on board. We
arrived off Calais at ½ p. 10; but, the tide being low, the steamer
anchored in the roads, and the passengers were landed in the boats which
took the mail bags.” Returning on 13 October, he found the tide high but
the sea rough, and the crossing took close upon four hours: then, coach
to Folkestone, and on to London by the train.
A friend writes to him from Exeter, 8 April 1844--“Our railway will be
sufficiently complete for an engine to travel here tomorrow, and I
suppose will be completed about the first week in May.” It was opened on
1 May, and another friend writes on 17 September--“From Bristol to
Exeter we experienced the shaking of the carriages exceedingly, and were
really obliged, as I have before said, to hold by the side of the
carriage to endeavour to steady ourselves.” Yet this line was on the
broad gauge, and that was much less jerky than the narrow. I remember
people saying that they would never go up by the South Western, as the
Great Western shook them less.
My grandmother writes to my father, 13 September 1845--“When in Exeter
four weeks since, I went to see the trains go off for London: the first
time of my seeing anything of the kind.” My grandfather writes to him,
16 May 1852--“I hope we shall have a fine day, as your mother never was
at Torquay, and I not for near thirty years.” He was sixty-three then,
and she was seventy. Torquay is fifteen miles from here, and neither of
them had ever lived more than thirty miles away.
Such immobility seemed strange to me not many years ago, but now I have
come down to it myself. I have not been out of Devon since 1914, or
rather, I have not been out of Devon ’ceptin’ Axter town, as people used
to say. Henry the Eighth took Exeter out of Devon and made it a county
by itself. In old conveyances of land in Devon, e.g. of part of Lower
Wreyland in 1728, the covenant for Further Assurance often has the words
“so as for the doing thereof the persons comprehended within this
covenant be not compelled or compellable to travel out of the county of
Devon unless it be to the citie of Exon.”
When my grandfather went anywhere, it was to London or abroad. Like
everybody else, he went up for the Great Exhibition and thoroughly
enjoyed it, but he had grave doubts beforehand. He writes to my father,
3 April 1851--“I see both Houses of Parliament are rather uneasy about
so many foreigners being in London. They appear to be of the very worst
stamp.... Hope all will go off well, but to my mind an ill-judged thing
and not likely to answer any good purpose, this Great Exhibition.” There
was plenty of such talk just then, and some little reason for it.
England was sheltering a good many foreigners who had rebelled against
their governments in 1848, and some of these foreigners had a notion of
paying for their shelter by organising a rebellion here, beginning with
assassinations at the opening of the Exhibition on May Day. With the
wisdom that comes after the event, _Punch_ made fun of it, 10 May, but
was not so very sure of it three weeks before.
As a small boy I read _Punch_ diligently, and thereby stocked my memory
with facts that history-books ignore. My brother had read it more
diligently still; but my grandfather did not see the value of it,
though my father did. In a letter of 12 June 1853 my grandfather
explains--“My object in giving him the Bible was to get rid of _Punch_
out of his head. _Punch_ may be well enough for grown people, but surely
very improper as a foundation for a young child.” But he found that a
young child asked more embarrassing questions after studying the Bible
than after studying _Punch_.
In a letter of 17 July 1852 he mentions that my sister had just received
a present of a doll “nicely dressed in the Bloomer fashion,” that is,
short skirts with trousers underneath, and other male things to match.
Without those caricatures of it in _Punch_ few people now would know
what Bloomerism was.
Somebody made me a present of an air-ball when I was very young. This
was at a house near town; and, as the drawing-room was empty, I took it
in there, and was playing with it on the hearth-rug, when a draught
caught it away from me and carried it up the chimney. I went out to
watch the chimney-top, but was very soon fetched in again to be
introduced to some old ladies who had come to call. They found the room
a little draughty, so a door was shut, and thereupon the air-ball came
down from the chimney, with a layer of soot all over it. It alighted on
the hearth-rug, rose again, and made a series of jumps, each lower and
shorter than the last, but all in a straight line towards one of those
old ladies. I was just reckoning that two more jumps would land it in
her lap, when she gave a shriek, upset her chair, and retreated
backwards to the draughty door, forgetting that it had been shut. And
she came up against the door so hard that she sat down upon the floor,
with that little black devil still jumping on towards her.
Another old lady whom we knew, had heaps of very nice lace; and she wore
dresses that would make the most of it. Seated in a bergère chair before
her drawing-room fire, she was a sight to see. One day she was not in
her accustomed place, and she told us what had happened. Her next-door
neighbours had not had their kitchen-chimney swept, and it caught fire
most alarmingly. It was next to her drawing-room chimney; and in the
clouds of smoke the firemen mistook the two, and poured their buckets
down hers. A torrent of sooty water burst forth from the fire-place and
overwhelmed her in her chair.
I never saw the chimney-sweeping boys go up the chimneys here, though my
brother had seen them going up; but he was here a great deal more than I
was. There was never any difficulty or danger in going up the chimneys
here, as they are big enough for full-grown men: when the Hall House was
being renovated seven years ago, some passers-by were much surprised by
a mason putting his head out of a chimney-top and asking them to take a
message to the village for him. The chimneys are built of unsquared
stones held together by cement: the modern sweeping-brushes often bring
down bits of the cement, leaving crannies that fill up with soot: some
day the soot bursts into flame, and sets fire to the woodwork near the
chimney; and that is why so many old houses have been burnt in recent
years.
Writing from here on 3 February 1845, my grandfather tells my father
that “Mr ***** came on Saturday, his two little dogs with him, which so
worried little Gracey that she ran under the clock, and on the dogs
approaching, she ran up the chain as far as the works and stopped the
clock.” (When the mouse ran up the clock, it probably went up the chain,
as Gracey did, not up outside the case, as shown in certain
picture-books.) “On taking away the dogs, I opened the door of the
clock, and she jumped out and away and would not come near the house for
some time.” It was a ‘grandfather’ clock, and Gracey was a cat. There
was always a cat called Gracey here. My brother made a pedigree of
Gracies, showing the descent in female line with the collateral
branches; and this ‘little’ Gracey comes in there as ‘Peter’s niece.’
My sister writes to my grandmother, 29 January 1851, “Brother Henry and
I went to a party on Tuesday evening. We danced and saw a magic lantern,
and there was a German tree, and many nice things to eat. We enjoyed it
all very much, and did not get ill after it.” At that date a Christmas
tree was still a novelty, and was called a German tree, as the fashion
came from Germany.
Christmas also brought snapdragons; and, after seeing the Blue Grotto at
Capri, my brother described it as “a large hollow in one of the cliffs,
with about a quarter of an acre of water of the colour of a snapdragon
fire.” And that, I think, is really quite a good description of it,
though I have never seen it described in similar terms elsewhere.
There were immense plum puddings here at Christmas and also on all
birthdays. My grandfather usually mentions them in his letters to my
father. Thus, 26 December 1858, “The men were here yesterday: goose and
plum pudding as usual. Bob had the key of the cider cellar and was
butler; so, depend on it, there was no lack of cider. However, they all
left in good order.” Again, 4 January 1846, “They were invited in
yesterday on a famous piece of roasted pork and plum pudding, and drank
the little creature’s good health. I believe they would be glad if
Baby’s birthday came every month.” And again, 3 January 1869, “Plum
puddings have followed pretty quick of late, but there will be a
cessation till April, if my life is spared till that time: if not, of
course, no pudding.”
My grandfather writes to my father, 18 March 1844, “I remember going to
see old ***** of Crediton about some business, and was sitting down by
the fire talking with him, when a great coarse country maid came in and
disturbed us. The old man was quite in a rage to see the maid tumbling
everything over, and asked what she wanted. She said, ‘Why, us have lost
the pudding-cloth six weeks, and as the gentleman is going to dine here,
I suppose us shall have a pudding now.’ Turning round to me, the old man
said corn was so dear, he could not afford to have puddings. He was a
rich old man, grandfather of ***** and *****. I once asked him What news
(as he was reading a paper) and he replied, ‘Oh, I don’t know: my paper
is a fortnight old: I get it for a ha’penny then’.”
Speaking of people nearer home, he says, 25 January 1846, “Very strange
that Mr ***** never takes in a paper, though glad to get one gratis, Mr
***** takes none, so they must trust all to hearsay. Like the rest of
the farmers, they are not much of politicians: they see or know but
little beyond their own and parish affairs, and seldom go beyond their
market towns, where they assemble and talk of the price of cattle and
corn and advise each other how to cut down their little tradesmen and
labourers. Government may do what it likes to oppress any other class,
so as they are not meddled with.... Their cry hitherto has been Church
and State, but at the Kingsbridge meeting they seemed to be grieved, and
said the tithe was an exclusive burden on them. The parsons hitherto
have congregated at those meetings, to support Protection for their own
interest. Depend on it, it will not be long before the farmers will be
the greatest enemies of the parsons. However, they will never get rid of
the tithe. I cannot believe there ever will be a government that will
take it off the land, and pay it out of the Consolidated Fund, as they
expect.”
There were farmers of another sort, and he finds fault with them as
well, 3 June 1843, “They are now apeing the gentleman with their gigs
and fine hackneys, and all the household and labourers pinched and
begrudged.” But while he blamed both sorts of them for skimping
labourers, he only paid the current wage himself. I see from his
accounts for 1840 that he was paying 1_s._ 6_d._ a day to casual hands,
and 10_s._ 6_d._ a week to regular hands, for agricultural work. The
cost of living went down; and he writes to my father then, 7 February
1850, “No one has dropt the wages in this neighbourhood yet; but it is
all very natural that wages should be dropt, if the labourer can live
for about half what he has hitherto required.... I have no doubt that
wages will come back to the old standard of 1_s._ 2_d._ and 1_s._ 4_d._
instead of 1_s._ 6_d._”
My grandmother writes to my father, 6 January 1846, “I was at Moreton
yesterday morning, and visited the poor and sick in order to distribute
your alms; and many poor objects did I find who thankfully received the
trifle I gave them. A shilling to them appeared so large a sum that they
scarcely knew how to express their gratitude.”
Shillings and pence were of more value then. My grandfather writes on 12
June 1847, “Animal food is from 7 to 8_d._ the pound, which is thought
high here,” and on 10 December 1848, “The butcher is now selling me
saddles and haunches for 6½_d._ the pound.” And it was the same with
other things.
Within the last twenty years I have seen an account set out between a
blacksmith and a farmer without any reference at all to money. On one
side there were horseshoes, ploughshares, etc., and on the other side,
pork, butter, geese, etc. And both parties reckoned the items up, and
saw that the totals balanced. They seemed to have some weights and
measures in their mind that are not found in books, say, 4 horseshoes
make 1 duck.
Before the railway brought outsiders in, there was hardly anybody in the
place who did not own land or rent it or work on it, and nobody at all
who did not talk of it. And naturally my grandfather had a good deal to
say about it in the letters that he wrote from here.
He writes on 9 March 1845, “This weather for March is I should say
unprecedented. (I am not like the old woman who had known hundreds of
Lammas Fairs, but I have known many.) Until within the last twenty years
our winters were much colder than since, but I never knew such hard
freezing as this: it has been intense. I have sheep in turnips, and
these are so frozen that they can only just eat enough to keep them
alive.... I should say the farmers must now see the necessity of
cultivating the turnip. I have heard many say it was not worth the
expense, and now they are running and riding in all directions for keep
for cattle, and in all probability will lose more than they will get by
cattle for three years to come.”
In the next few years there was a change. He writes on 24 January 1850,
“On the old system wheat was generally tilled on fallow land and summer
worked and manured, so that they had two years rent and an immense deal
of labour for one crop. Now the plan is to till turnips in June or July,
fold them down with cattle, the soil of which leaves ample for a good
crop of wheat: then the wheat goes in for about 5_s._ per acre for
labour, and without further manuring.” Again on 24 December 1848, “Wheat
tilling now is so different from what it used to be, from so many
turnips being tilled. They now till wheat up to March, having the
different sorts of seed to suit--not like it was some thirty years ago
when all must go into the ground at a particular time, merely two or
three sorts. Now there is no end of the sorts, so that neither millers
nor farmers can tell one from other in grain, and not half of them in
stalk.”
On 29 October 1843 he writes, “They must leave off meddling by Acts of
Parliament with agricultural produce.... I fear great distress will show
itself hereabout amongst the farmers this winter: corn a low figure, and
in all probability will be lower, for I see the Canada Corn Bill came
into operation the 10th of this month, and many arrivals, and a vast
quantity expected: the Americans of course will take advantage of it
and smuggle over to Canada. Will the League carry their point next
Session? Hope they will, that things may be settled and let people know
what they have to trust to: now everything is uncertain.”
In the summer of 1845 the Potato Disease reached England from abroad. He
writes, 31 August, “All those beautiful green fields of potatoes around
me, that were so pleasing to the sight in my little walks, have lost all
their green and turned a regular brown. It makes things so dreary, and
brings to mind the misery it will create, particularly with the little
renting farmers.” He writes on 18 August 1852, “A renting farmer
generally requires three or four years to recover a bad harvest or a
blight, from want of capital; and the small owners are not much better
off.”
He writes on 23 May 1847, “Everything is very dear, and all owing to the
failure of the potato: no potatoes is the cause of the advance and
scarcity of corn: no potatoes no pork, consequently an advance in beef
and mutton.” His reasoning is obscured by brevity, but really comes to
this--if people cannot get potatoes, they will want more bread, and will
want more beef and mutton, if they cannot get any pork; and there cannot
be much pork unless there are potatoes, as potatoes are the staple food
of fatted pigs.
A friend at Moreton writes to him, 11 January 1846, “The poor will
suffer much from the high price of corn and no potatoes. The farmers
never had such times. Cattle and sheep are at enormous prices--a farmer
told me his stock was worth £1300 more than last year.” He writes again,
30 September 1849, “Farmers are down in the mouth: cattle selling very
low, and there is a complete panic. All the little farmers will be
ruined.”
The same friend writes him, 5 July 1846, “I had a man here yesterday who
has just £300 a year in land, and he thinks that corn will during the
next fourteen years be very little (if at all) lower than during the
last fourteen. [That was so.] The increase of population and the demand
for labour thro’ the extension of trade and making of railroads will, he
thinks, tend to keep up the price. He says we are only now beginning to
expand.”
My grandfather touched on many subjects in his letters, and often wrote
things that read rather strangely now. Thus, on 23 February 1845,
“Taking off the duty on glass will be a great thing for all, for we
shall soon have the greater portion of our earthenware changed for
glass, tea-sets, etc. etc.” On 20 June 1842, “Government ought to recall
the sovereigns, and let the loss be born by the State generally not
individually,” and on 25 December 1843, “What a fuss about the light
sovereign: no silver to be got, everyone wanting, and none will say they
have any.”
He writes on 15 January 1858, “I have thought for a long time past that
building houses has been carried on to too great an extent in many
places. There is great depreciation of house property in Exeter. That
fine brick-built house on the site of the old Bridwell in St. Thomas was
sold a short time since for £450, gardens and all, and the house alone
cost £2000. The auctioneer said, if I was inclined to purchase, he would
obtain for me fourscore houses in Mount Radford for what the land cost,
to say nothing of the erection.” After a visit from a friend from
Guernsey, he writes on 26 March 1854, “There are now over seven hundred
houses vacant in Guernsey, some from emigration and some from half-pay
officers leaving, as since Free Trade they can live in England as cheap
as there, excepting spirits and wine.”
On 17 November 1850 he writes, “We hear very little of Protection now:
the No Popery cry has superseded it.” On 7 December 1850 a friend in
London writes, “Had not honest John Bull been frightened out of his wits
by the Cholera last year, as he has by the Pope this, he would never
have submitted to these domiciliary visits to his Castle. I consider the
powers of the Commissioners of Sewers most despotic and inquisitorial.”
There was need enough of sanitation. He writes on 23 September 1849,
“Newton market is greatly affected by the cholera at Torquay: people
leaving as fast as they can: many deaths last week. Mr *****’s daughter
was taken and dead in twelve hours.” On 27 September 1849, “I was at
Moreton on Tuesday: small-pox, scarlatina and typhus now raging there.”
On 22 February 1852, “I hear children are dying by scores at Plymouth in
small-pox and measles.”
There are letters of 13 and 17 August 1843 about some forks and spoons
and other silver things that he was sending to my father: they have been
packed into a carpet bag, and this is being rolled up in the middle of
two feather beds, and the package will be sent by carrier’s wagon--“how
long it will be going up, I am not aware.” It was sent to Moreton, and
one carrier took it on to Exeter, another to Wellington, and so on.
Seventy years afterwards I brought this silver back: 200 miles within 5
hours, house to house.
He writes on 13 February 1852, “Tho’ no snow in Plymouth, the wagons
supplying provisions for Dartmoor could not go far upon their way, so it
must be deep on the moor. Well, the convicts must go on short allowance.
I do not know a better punishment for them.” Convicts were not sent to
Dartmoor until 1850, and the natives did not welcome them.
In a letter of 17 July 1839 he describes a thunderstorm that caught him
and a friend of his between this house and Kelly Cross. It shattered a
great oak tree by the roadside just after they had passed. “The clouds
appeared almost down upon us, and we were quite encircled in lightning:
our umbrella was always full of it.” He writes about another storm, 26
June 1844, “It hung over us for near two hours: I think, the loudest
thunder I ever heard. The rush of fire into water was so very distinct,
and then followed the rapping and rolling--precisely as when a
blacksmith inserts a large piece of iron into his trough full of water:
the rush at first and then the rumbling which exactly resembles thunder.
But I never before heard that rush: it was really very awfull.” He adds,
“I remember Lustleigh tower being greatly damaged by lightning many
years ago.”
He writes on 21 November 1852, “When you were here in the spring, you
saw a rainbow in a field. Well, over in the Barleyparkes I saw a
rainbow, both ends there. It literally lay on the ground: only the arch
was erect and made a bend from the straight lines [he draws a capital U
upside down] but both ends lay on the ground, and the ground sloped from
me. I came within a yard of the ends of it, the arch not ten yards from
me; but it receded as I approached. I walked it out of the field, and
drove it before me to the Meadow, where I left it with both ends in the
brook.”
Most people here lived patriarchally beneath their fig trees and their
vines, and many of them found that ripe figs were like venison in
tasting best with port. The older fig trees are usually on the sheltered
sides of houses--the fig tree here is on the south side of the house,
with its trunk close by the chimney and its roots in underneath the
hearth--but of late years several have been planted on the sunny sides
of some of the big rocks. The rock gives shelter, and also radiates the
heat, so that the figs are ripened on both sides at once.
There has always been a vine on the west side of this house. My
grandfather writes to my father, 7 November 1859, “Our grapes have
turned out admirably this autumn, very large, equal to hothouse grapes
in size and flavour. I only wonder that your mother has not been ill
with them.” He writes on 1 July 1859, “Raspberries and strawberries in
abundance, and I fear your aunt Ann has made too free with them, as she
is ailing this morning.” My grandmother was 78 and her sister Ann was
80; but neither had learned wisdom yet. He writes on 4 January 1852, “I
have been amused watching a nut-hatch. I see him go to the stock of the
pear tree, take a nut from his little store and perch on another tree
and knock away until he breaks it and eats the kernel. One nut appears
to satisfy him at a time. Very provident it appears: a good lesson for
man.” In two months time the lesson had been forgotten. He writes on 8
March 1852, “I see plainly that the malady was caused by my appetite
being too good for my digestive powers.”
Writing about a dinner in London at which my father had made a speech,
he says on 26 May 1858, “Too much of the old Corporation gluttony, I am
sorry to see.... I should like to attend, to hear good speeches, but a
slice of good cold beef would content me, with a glass of real French
brandy.” In fact, plain living and high thinking: but not without
Cognac.
He believed in brandy as a cure for everything, recommended it to
everyone, and thought doctors ought to do the same. He writes, 24
January 1860, “I should say a little brandy would be beneficial, but
doctors (you know) do not generally recommend what is easy to be got at
by patients.” Of course, he could not recommend poor people to take
brandy unless he gave them some to take. His advice was sought by many;
and I have been told that when he died, there was quarts o’ tears
a-shedded by the poor for he.
When he had a cider-press built here in the autumn of 1842, he had
another one (exactly like it) built by the same man at an outlying farm.
After his death the press here was neglected, and it finally was taken
down; but I have now brought over the other press from the farm, and put
it in the place of the press that he put here. In 1919 I made some cider
with it, to compare it with the modern press that I put up in 1901. It
requires about ten per cent. more apples and considerably more labour to
produce the same amount of cider. And the cider is not quite the same,
as the apples have to be packed in with straw, and the straw affects the
colour and the taste.
Casks take up much more space upon a floor, when they are lying on their
sides than when standing up on end. If a cask is full, both ends will be
wet, when it is lying down; but, when a cask is standing up, the top end
will be dry, and then will shrink and let the air in. (The ends are not
as air-tight as the sides, as the cooper takes an end out when he
scrapes a cask inside.) A little air soon spoils a cask of cider; and
some of the big cider-growers have thought it worth their while to
reconstruct their cellars and provide the extra space for casks to lie
down on their sides instead of standing up. They might have saved all
this by doing a very simple thing that I do here. When a cask is
standing up, there is a shallow pan on top formed by the top end of the
cask and the surrounding chine. Keep this pan filled with water, and
that will keep the top end wet, so that it does not shrink and let the
air in.
My grandfather writes, 16 November 1841, “I have heard of many who have
sent their friends in London casks of prime cider, and not worth
anything when arrived: frequently from the tricks of the sailors, but I
am told that the Custom House officers open every cask that is sent.
Therefore the merchants attend at the opening and see it well secured,
otherwise it would be spoiled.”
My brother’s copybooks sometimes throw light on things that are ignored
in our grandparent’s letters. In a book that he was using when he had
just turned ten, the greater part is occupied by sentiments that they
dictated--e.g. “the elegant poems of this amiable divine have ever been
highly admired”--but in the vacant spaces there are compositions of his
own. Thus, “when Therza came, a cunning jade, | a laughing
mischief-making maid, | who laughed at Jane and scouted Grace, | and in
the kitchen took her place, | Wreyland, which was always quiet, | now
was turned into great riot.” This is followed by what appears to be a
verbatim report of an altercation between Grace and Therza, ending
“Well, I tell ’e what, Therza, you know nart tall about it.”
He had an extraordinary memory--I see that it was noticed, 25 November
1849, when he had only just turned three. He could repeat whole
conversations word for word, and would repeat them to the very people
who were not meant to hear them. My grandfather writes to my father
about it, 30 November 1857, “I tell them, tho’ he appears to take notice
of everything, he cannot at all times be depended on in relating facts,
for he often misconstrues things.” But people saw that he was telling
them exactly what was said, even if he did not fully grasp the meaning.
When he was six, he was writing letters of such precocity that his
elders were suspected of getting him to say things that they could not
very well say themselves. My grandfather writes to my father, 20 July
1853, “I fancied by Mr *****’s letter that the boy had written something
offensive. You may assure Mr ***** that no one here dictated anything to
him, nor can do, for (if attempted) he would sure write contrary.”--I
put one of his letters in my former _Small Talk_, page 105.
My grandfather’s letters have all sorts of words and phrases. After some
heavy rains, 9 January 1860, “The waters have been very stiff, but not
landed yet,” meaning that the Wrey was high, but had not overflowed its
banks. Whilst the railway was being made here, 30 April 1865, “There is
a stagnation among the navvies about wages.” He says that my brother
“has a little hoarse,” 12 June 1854, and habitually speaks of “having a
hoarse” like “having a cough.” He says that one of his neighbours “is
confined in the chest,” 18 February 1859, that is, confined to his house
by a cold in his chest, and another one “is confined in the same
complaint.” Another neighbour was unsystematic in her housekeeping, and
he says that “she keeps a disorderly house,” 14 January 1848. Somebody
left a letter of his unanswered, 2 February 1859, and he calls this “a
very unhandsome thing.”
I am Victorian enough myself to think it rather vulgar to call an
omnibus a ’bus, but never had qualms in saying ’van for caravan or ’wig
for periwig, that is, peruke. People habitually say You for Ye, yet
snigger at our saying Us for We. What they call “a chapter of accidents”
is “a proper old pedigree” here. That is etymologically right, as a
pedigree is a thing that goes on step by step. Etymologically there is
not much difference between a junket and a jonquil, or porcelain and
pigs, or venerable and venereal; but a Venerable Archdeacon got quite
cross when I applied the other adjective to him. Down here we soften
‘immodest’ into ‘vulgar’ and ‘immoral’ into ‘rough’; and a stranger may
give great offence, when only meaning ‘rough’ and ‘vulgar’ in the usual
sense.
There is an old word ‘vair,’ still used in heraldry for ‘fur.’ This
probably gave Cinderella her slipper of glass (verre) and certainly
makes Pharisees into weasels. The word includes all furry things as well
as fur--I imagine that the Fairies were once a furry tribe--but now it
is restricted to one furry thing, the weasel, just as ‘cider’ and
‘thatch’ and ‘deer’ include all manner of strong drinks and roofs and
beasts, but are now restricted to one sort of each. We have reduplicated
plurals here, ‘posteses’ for ‘posts,’ and so on, including ‘vaireses’
for ‘vairs’; and naturally the children say that weasels be the only
Pharisees they ever see’d.
Weasels were common in my early days, and rabbits comparatively scarce,
though now sent off in thousands to the Midland towns. Until the
trapping began, the weasels kept them down; but the weasels mostly
perished in the traps, and after that the rabbits multiplied.
Devonshire hedges are inordinately large, and take up a great deal of
ground. In my early days people used to say they could increase their
acreage quite ten per cent. by doing away with hedges. But when they
tried it, they generally found that they lost more in shelter than they
gained in space: their fields were swept by every wind that blew. They
might have learnt a lesson from the Scilly Islands, where people were
putting in hedges then, to cut their fields up into little squares for
growing things in shelter. Three of my fields here are eight fields on
the Tithe Map, dated 1841. Five hedges have gone: three of them merely
wasted space, but the other two gave shelter that is wanted now.
Here in Wreyland Manor there were many more hedges than in most places
of this size. They were not put here for the sake of shelter, but from
four people’s perversity four centuries ago. On the death of the last
Lord Dynham in 1501, his property went to his four sisters and their
heirs, as he left no children of his own. Apart from Wreyland, he had
many manors in different parts of England. Instead of arranging his
manors in four groups and taking one group each, they each took a fourth
part of each manor and of each tenement in each manor; and by sales and
marriages these fractions of the tenements passed into many different
owners’ hands. And whenever a tenement was divided, each fraction had to
be equipped with a fair share of every sort of land--garden, orchard,
meadow, arable, pasture, wood and heath--so that it generally was formed
of several patches of ground some way apart. Each of these patches had
to be enclosed, and was enclosed in the usual Devonshire way with very
big hedges.