_Monday, November 13th._
From time immemorial Torbay had been a favourite landing-place both for
friends and foes, and it was supposed that the Roman Emperors Vespasian,
Titus, and Adrian, when on their way to the camp on Milber Downs, had
each landed near the place where Brixham now stands. Brixham was the
best landing-place in the Bay, and the nearest to the open sea. It was a
fishing-place of some importance when Torquay, its neighbour, was little
known, except perhaps as a rendezvous of smugglers and pirates. Leland,
in his famous _Itinerary_ written in the sixteenth century, after
describing the Bay of Torre as being about four miles across the
entrance and "ten miles or more in compace," says: "The Fishermen hath
divers tymes taken up with theyr nettes yn Torre-bay mussons of harts,
whereby men judge that in tymes paste it hath been forest grounds."
Clearly much of England has been washed away or has sunk beneath the
ocean. Is not this part of the "Lyonesse" of the poets--the country of
romance--the land of the fairies?
[Illustration: BRIXHAM HARBOUR]
In 1588, when the Spanish Armada appeared outside the Bay, there was
great excitement in the neighbourhood of Torbay, which grew into frenzy
when the first capture was towed in. The _Rosario_, or, to give her the
full name, _Nuestra Señora del Rosario_, was a fine galleon manned by
450 men and many gallant officers. She was the _capitana_, or flagship,
of the squadron commanded by Don Pedro de Valdez, who had seen much
service in the West Indies and who, because of his special knowledge of
the English Channel, was of great importance in the council of the
Armada. He was a bold, skilful leader, very different from the
Commander-in-Chief, and as his ship formed one of the rearguard he took
an early part in the fight with the pursuing English. He was badly
mauled, losing his foremast and suffering worse by fouling two ships,
one of his own squadron, the other a Biscayan; all three were damaged.
He demanded assistance of Medina Sidonia, but the weather was rough and
the Duke refused. In the darkness the _Rosario_ drove off one or two
English attempts to cut her off, but Drake himself in the famous
_Revenge_ lay alongside and called upon Valdez to surrender. His reply
was a demand for honourable terms, to which Drake answered that he had
no time for parley--the Spanish commander must come aboard at once or he
would rake her. The name of Drake (El Draque, the Dragon) was enough for
the Spaniard, and Valdez, in handing over his sword, took credit to
himself that he yielded to the most famous captain of his day. Drake in
reply promised good treatment and all the lives of the crew, a thing by
no means usual, as can be guessed by the remark of the disgusted
Sheriff, when so many prisoners were handed over at Torbay; he wished
"the Spaniards had been made into water-spaniels." Drake sent the
_Roebuck_ to see the ship safely into Torbay, where she was left in
charge of the Brixham fishermen, her powder being secured at once and
sent by the quickest of the fishing-boats to our own ships, at that
moment badly in need of it. The prisoners were taken round to Torbay,
where they were lodged in a building ever afterwards known as the
"Spanish barn."
[Illustration: STATUE OF WILLIAM, PRINCE OF ORANGE, BRIXHAM, ERECTED ON
THE SPOT WHERE HE LANDED.]
In 1601 the first squadron organised by the East India Company sailed
from Torbay, and in 1667 the Dutch fleet, commanded by De Ruyter, paid
the Bay a brief but not a friendly visit, doing some damage. In 1688
another fleet appeared--this time a friendly one, for it brought
William, Prince of Orange, who had been invited to occupy the English
throne abdicated by James II. We were informed that when his ship
approached the shore he spoke to the people assembled there in broken
English--very broken--saying, "Mine goot people, mine goot people, I
mean you goot; I am come here for your goot, for your goots," and
suggested that if they were willing to welcome him they should come and
fetch him ashore; whereupon one Peter Varwell ran into the sea, and
carried the new King to the shore, gaining much renown for doing so.
This happened on November 5th, the date for landing doubtless having
been arranged to coincide with the anniversary of the attempt of Guy
Fawkes to blow up the Houses of Parliament with gunpowder eighty-three
years before, so that bonfire day served afterwards to celebrate the two
occasions. The house where William stayed that night was still pointed
out in Brixham.
In 1690 James II, who had been dethroned and exiled to France, told
Tourville, the French Admiral, that if he would take his fleet to the
South of England he would find all the people there ready to receive him
back again, so he brought his ships off Torbay. Instead of a friendly
reception here, he found the people decidedly hostile to James's cause,
so he detached two or three of his galleys to Teignmouth, quite a
defenceless place, where they committed great ravages and practically
destroyed the town. These galleys were a class of boat common in the
Mediterranean, where they had been employed ever since the warlike times
of the Greeks and Romans. In addition to sails, they were propelled with
oars manned by slaves; and a similar class of ship worked by convicts
was used by the French down to the middle of the eighteenth century. The
men of Teignmouth, who had no wish to be captured and employed as galley
slaves, seeing that they were in a hopeless position, retreated inland.
Lord Macaulay thus describes the position in his History:
The Beacon on the ridge above Teignmouth was kindled, Hey-Tor and
Cawsand made answer, and soon all the hill tops of the West were on
fire. Messengers were riding all night from deputy lieutenant to
deputy lieutenant; and early the next morning, without chief, without
summons, five hundred gentlemen and yeomen, armed and mounted, had
assembled on the summit of Haldon Hill, and in twenty-four hours all
Devonshire was up.
It was therefore no wonder that Trouville found his landing opposed by
thousands of fierce Devonshire men, who lined the shores and prevented
him from landing his troops; the expedition was a complete failure, and
he returned to France.
In those days, when railways and telegraphy were unknown, the whole
country could be aroused very quickly and effectively by those beacon
fires. The fuel was always kept ready for lighting on the Beacon hills,
which were chosen so that the fire on one hill could be seen from the
other. On our journey through England we passed many of these beacons,
then used for more peaceful purposes.
In 1815 another ship appeared in Torbay, with only one prisoner on
board, but a very important one. The ship was the British man-of-war the
_Bellerophon_, and the prisoner the great Napoleon Bonaparte. We had
already come to the conclusion that Torquay, with its pretty bay, was
the most delightful place we had visited; and even Napoleon, who must
have been acquainted with the whole of Europe, and who appeared in
Torbay under what must have been to him depressing circumstances,
exclaimed when he saw it, "_Enfin, voilà un beau pays_!" (What a
beautiful country this is!) He arrived on July 24th, five weeks after
the Battle of Waterloo, and departed on August 8th from Plymouth, having
been transferred to the _Northumberland_ for the voyage to his prison
home in St. Helena, a South Atlantic island 760 miles from any other
land, and where he died in 1821. During the few days' visit of the
_Bellerophon_ at Torbay, thousands upon thousands of people came by land
and water in the hope of seeing the great general who had so nearly made
himself master of the whole of Europe, and although very few of them saw
Napoleon, they all saw the lovely scenery there, and this, it was said,
laid the foundation of the fortunes of the future Torquay.
[Illustration: NAPOLEON ON THE _BELLEROPHON_. _From the Painting by
Orchardson_.]
We had intended leaving Torquay for Totnes by the main road, which
passed through Paignton, but our host informed us that even if we passed
through it, we should not see Paignton in all its glory, as we were
twelve years too early for one pudding and thirty-nine years too late
for the next. We had never heard of Paignton puddings before, but it
appeared that as far back as 1294 Paignton had been created a borough or
market town, and held its charter by a White-Pot Pudding, which was to
take seven years to make, seven years to bake, and seven years to eat,
and was to be produced once every fifty years. In 1809 the pudding was
made of 400 lbs. of flour, 170 lbs. of suet, 140 lbs. of raisins, and
240 eggs. It was boiled in a brewer's copper, and was kept constantly
boiling from the Saturday morning until the Tuesday following, when it
was placed on a gaily decorated trolley and drawn through the town by
eight oxen, followed by a large and expectant crowd of people. But the
pudding did not come up to expectations, turning out rather stodgy: so
in 1859 a much larger pudding was made, but this time it was baked
instead of boiled, and was drawn by twenty-five horses through the
streets of the town. One feature of the procession on that occasion was
a number of navvies who happened to be working near the town and who
walked in their clean white slops, or jackets, and of course came in for
a goodly share of the pudding.
One of the notables of Paignton was William Adams, one of the many
prisoners in the hands of the Turks or Saracens in the time when the
English Liturgy was compiled. It was said that the intercession "for all
prisoners and captives" applied especially to them, and every Sunday
during the five years he was a prisoner at Algiers, William Adams' name
was specially mentioned after that petition. The story of his escape was
one of the most sensational of its time. Adams and six companions made a
boat in sections, and fastened it together in a secluded cove on the
seacoast; but after it was made they found it would only carry five of
them, of whom Adams was of course one. After the most terrible
sufferings they at length reached "Majork," or Majorca Island, the
Spaniards being very kind to them, assisting them to reach home, where
they arrived emaciated and worn out. The two men left behind were never
heard of again. We had often heard the name "Bill Adams," and wondered
whether this man could have been the original. The county historian of
those days had described him as "a very honest sensible man, who died in
the year of our Lord 1687, and his body, so like to be buried in the sea
and to feed fishes, lies buried in Paignton churchyard, where it
feasteth worms."
[Illustration: PAIGNTON OLD TOWER]
We could see Paignton, with its ivy-covered Tower, all that was left of
the old Palace of the Bishops of Exeter, but we did not visit it, as we
preferred to cross the hills and see some other places of which we had
heard, and also to visit Berry Pomeroy Castle on our way to Totnes.
Behind Torquay we passed along some of the loveliest little lanes we
had ever seen. They must have presented a glorious picture in spring and
summer, when the high hedges were "hung with ferns and banked up with
flowers," for even in November they were very beautiful. These by-lanes
had evidently been originally constructed for pedestrian and horse
traffic, but they had not been made on the surface of the land, like
those in Dorset and Wilts, and were more like ditches than roads. We
conjectured that they had been sunk to this depth in order that pirates
landing suddenly on the coast could see nothing of the traffic from a
distance. But therein consisted their beauty, for the banks on either
side were covered with luxuriant foliage, amongst which ferns and
flowers struggled for existence, and the bushes and trees above in many
places formed a natural and leafy arch over the road below. The surface
of the roads was not very good, being naturally damp, as the drying
influences of the wind and sun could scarcely penetrate to such
sheltered positions, and in wet weather the mud had a tendency to
accumulate; but we did not trouble ourselves about this as we walked
steadily onwards. The roads were usually fairly straight, but went up
and down hill regardless of gradients, though occasionally they were
very crooked, and at cross-roads, in the absence of finger-posts or any
one to direct us, it was easy to take a wrong turning. Still it was a
real pleasure to walk along these beautiful Devonshire lanes.
[Illustration: A TYPICAL DEVONSHIRE LANE.]
In a Devonshire lane, as I trotted along
T'other day, much in want of a subject for song,
Thinks I to myself, I have hit on a strain--
Sure, marriage is much like a Devonshire lane.
In the first place 'tis long, and when once you are in it,
It holds you as fast as a cage does a linnet;
For howe'er rough and dirty the road may be found,
Drive forward you must, there is no turning round.
But though 'tis so long, it is not very wide,
For two are the most that together can ride;
And e'en then 'tis a chance but they sit in a pother.
And joke and cross and run foul of each other.
But thinks I too, the banks, within which we are pent,
With bud, blossom, berry, are richly besprent;
And the conjugal fence, which forbids us to roam.
Looks lovely, when deck'd with the comforts of home.
In the rock's gloomy crevice the bright holly grows:
The ivy waves fresh o'er the withering rose,
And the evergreen love of a virtuous wife
Soothes the roughness of care--cheers the winter of life.
Then long be the journey, and narrow the way,
I'll rejoice that I've seldom a turnpike to pay;
And whate'er others say, be the last to complain.
Though marriage is just like a Devonshire lane.
Late though it was in the year, there was still some autumn foliage on
the trees and bushes and some few flowers and many ferns in sheltered
places; we also had the golden furze or gorse to cheer us on our way,
for an old saying in Devonshire runs--
When furze is out of bloom
Then love is out of tune,
which was equivalent to saying that love was never out of tune in
Devonshire, for there were three varieties of furze in that county which
bloomed in succession, so that there were always some blooms of that
plant to be found. The variety we saw was that which begins to bloom in
August and remains in full beauty till the end of January.
Beside the fire with toasted crabs
We sit, and love is there;
In merry Spring, with apple flowers
It flutters in the air.
At harvest, when we toss the sheaves,
Then love with them is toss't;
At fall, when nipp'd and sear the leaves,
Un-nipp'd is love by frost.
Golden furze in bloom!
O golden furze in bloom!
When the furze is out of flower
Then love is out of tune.
Presently we arrived at Cockington, a secluded and ancient village,
picturesque to a degree, with cottages built of red cobs and a quaint
forge or smithy for the village blacksmith, all, including the entrance
lodge to the squire's park, being roofed or thatched with straw. Pretty
gardens were attached to all of them, and everything looked so trim,
clean, and neat that it was hard to realise that such a pretty and
innocent-looking place had ever been the abode of smugglers or pirates;
yet so it was, for hiding-holes existed there which belonged formerly to
what were jocularly known as the early "Free Traders." Near Anstey's
Cove, in Torbay, we had seen a small cave in the rocks known as the
"Brandy Hole," near which was the smuggler's staircase. This was formed
of occasional flights of roughly-hewn stone steps, up which in days gone
by the kegs of brandy and gin and the bales of silk had been carried to
the top of the cliffs and thence conveyed to Cockington and other
villages in the neighbourhood where the smugglers' dens existed.
[Illustration: COCKINGTON VILLAGE.]
Possibly Jack Rattenbury, the famous smuggler known as "the Rob Roy of
the West," escaped to Cockington when he was nearly caught by the crew
of one of the King's ships, for the search party were close on his heels
when he saved himself by his agility in scaling the cliffs. But
Cockington was peaceful enough when we visited it, and in the park,
adorned with fine trees, stood the squire's Hall, or Court, and the
ivy-covered church. Cockington was mentioned in Domesday Book, and in
1361 a fair and a market were granted to Walter de Wodeland, usher to
the Chamber of the Black Prince, who afterwards created him a knight,
and it was probably about that time that the present church was built.
The screen and pews and pulpit had formerly belonged to Tor Mohun
church, and the font, with its finely carved cover and the other relics
of wood, all gave us the impression of being extremely old, and as they
were in the beginning. The Cary family were once the owners of the
estate, and in the time of the Spanish Armada George Cary, who was
afterwards knighted by Queen Elizabeth, with Sir John Gilbert, at that
time the owner of Tor Abbey, took charge of the four hundred prisoners
from the Spanish flagship _Rosario_ while they were lodged in the grange
of Tor Abbey.
[Illustration: COMPTON CASTLE.]
From Cockington we walked on to Compton Castle, a fine old fortified
house, one of the most interesting and best preserved remains of a
castellated mansion in Devonshire. One small portion of it was
inhabited, and all was covered with ivy, but we could easily trace the
remains of the different apartments. It was formerly the home of the
Gilbert family, of whom the best-known member was Sir Humphrey Gilbert,
a celebrated navigator and mathematician of the sixteenth century,
half-brother of Sir Walter Raleigh, and knighted by Queen Elizabeth for
his bravery in Ireland. Sir Humphrey afterwards made voyages of
discovery, and added Newfoundland, our oldest colony, to the British
Possessions, and went down with the _Squirrel_ in a storm off the
Azores. When his comrades saw him for the last time before he
disappeared from their sight for ever in the mist and gloom of the
evening, he held a Bible in his hand, and said cheerily, "Never mind,
boys! we are as near to Heaven by sea as by land!"
We had a splendid walk across the hills, passing through Marldon, where
the church was apparently the burial-place of the Gilbert family, of
which it contained many records, including an effigy of Otho Gilbert,
who was Sheriff of the County and who died in 1476. But the chief object
of interest at Marldon appeared to be a six-barred gate called the
Gallows Gate, which stood near the spot where the three parishes
converged: Kingskerswell, Cockington, and Marldon; near this the
culprits from those three places were formerly hanged. We looked for the
gate in the direction pointed out to us, but failed to find it. Some
people in the village thought its name of the Gallows Gate was derived
from an incident which occurred there many years ago. A sheep-stealer
had killed a sheep, and was carrying it home slung round his shoulders
when he came to this gate. Finding it fastened, he was climbing over,
when in the dark his foot slipped and the cord got across his neck. The
weight of the carcase as it fell backwards, added to his own, caused him
to be choked, so that he was literally hanged upon the gate instead of
the gallows for what was in those days a capital offence.
After passing the Beacon Hill, we had very fine views over land and sea,
extending to Dartmoor and Dartmouth, and with a downward gradient we
soon came to Berry Pomeroy, the past and present owners of which had
been associated with many events recorded in the history of England,
from the time of William the Conqueror, who bestowed the manor, along
with many others, on one of his followers named Ralph de Pomeroy. It was
he who built the Castle, where the Pomeroys remained in possession until
the year 1547, when it passed into the hands of the Seymour family,
afterwards the Dukes of Somerset, in whose possession it still remained.
After the Pomeroys disappeared the first owner of the manor and
castle was Edward Seymour, afterwards the haughty Lord Protector
Somerset, who first rose in royal favour by the marriage of his
eldest sister Jane Seymour to Henry VIII, and that monarch appointed
him an executor under his will and a member of the Council on whom
the duty devolved of guarding the powers of the Crown during the
minority of his son and successor Edward VI, who only reigned six
years, from 1547 to 1553; and Seymour's father, Sir John, had
accompanied King Henry VIII to his wars in France, and to the Field
of the Cloth of Gold.
Henry VIII had great faith in his brother-in-law, and after the
King's death Seymour quickly gained ascendency over the remaining
members of the Council, and was nominated Lord Treasurer of England,
and created Earl of Somerset, Feb. 17, 1567; two days afterwards he
obtained a grant of the office of Earl Marshal of England for life,
and on the 12th of March following he procured a patent from the
young King, who was his nephew, constituting himself the Protector of
the Realm, an office altogether new to the Constitution and that gave
him full regal power.
It was about that time that the English Reformation began, and the
free circulation of the Bible was permitted. The Latin Mass was
abolished, and the English Liturgy substituted, and 42 Articles of
Faith were adopted by the English Protestants. Protector Somerset was
a Protestant, and always took advice of Archbishop Cranmer, and care
was taken that the young King was instructed in the Reformed
Religion. King Henry VIII had arranged in his lifetime that Edward VI
should marry Mary, the young Queen of Scotland, and Somerset raised
an army and went to Scotland to secure her person: but after fighting
a battle he only just managed to win, he found that the proposed
union was not looked upon favourably in Scotland, and that the young
Queen had been sent away to France for greater safety.
Meantime Somerset's brother Thomas Seymour, High Admiral of England,
had married Catherine Parr, widow of Henry VIII, without the
knowledge of the Protector; and this, with the fierce opposition of
the Roman Catholics, and of the Barons, whose taking possession of
the common lands he had opposed, and the offence given to the
population of London through demolishing an ancient parish church in
the Strand there, so that he could build a fine mansion for himself,
which still bears the name of Somerset House, led to the rapid
decline of his influence, and after causing his brother to be
beheaded he himself shared a similar fate.
Berry Pomeroy was a lovely spot, and the foliage was magnificent as we
walked up to the castle and then to the village, while every now and
then we came to a peep-hole through the dense mass of bushes and trees
showing a lovely view beyond. The ruins of the castle were covered with
ivy, moss, and creeping plants, while ferns and shrubs grew both inside
and out, forming the most picturesque view of the kind that could be
imagined. We were fortunate in securing the services of an enthusiastic
and intelligent guide, who told us many stories of events that had taken
place there, some of them of a sensational character. He showed us the
precipice, then rapidly becoming obscured by bushes and trees, where the
two brothers Pomeroy, with their horses, were dashed to pieces. The
castle had been besieged for a long time, and when the two brothers
found they could hold out no longer, rather than submit to the besiegers
they sounded their horns in token of surrender, and, blindfolding their
horses, mounted and rode over the battlements into the depths below! The
horses seemed to know their danger, and struggled to turn back, but they
were whipped and spurred on to meet the same dreadful fate as their
masters. One look over the battlements was enough for us, as it was
horrible to contemplate, but our guide seemed to delight in piling on
the agony, as most awful deeds had been done in almost every part of the
ruins, and he did not forget to tell us that ghosts haunted the place at
night.
[Illustration: GUARD CHAMBER, BERRY POMEROY]
In a dismal room, or dungeon, under what was known as St. Margaret's
Tower, one sister had imprisoned another sister for years, because of
jealousy, and in another place a mother had murdered her child. He also
told us a story of an old Abbot who had been concerned in some dreadful
crime, and had been punished by being buried alive. Three days were
given him in which to repent, and on each day he had to witness the
digging in unconsecrated ground of a portion of his grave. He groaned
horribly, and refused to take any food, and on the third morning was so
weak that he had to be carried to watch the completion of the grave in
which he was to be buried the following day. On the fourth day, when the
monks came in to dress him in his burial garments and placed him on the
bier, he seemed to have recovered a little, and with a great effort he
twisted himself and fell off. They lifted him on again, and four lay
brothers carried him to the side of the deep grave. As he was lowered
into the tomb a solemn dirge was sung by the monks, and prayers were
offered for mercy on his sinful soul. The earth was being dropped slowly
on him when a faint groan was heard; for a few moments the earth above
him seemed convulsed a little, and then the grave was closed.
The ghost of the blood-stained Fontebrant and that of his assassin were
amongst those that haunted Pomeroy Castle and its lonely surroundings,
and cries and groans were occasionally heard in the village below from
the shrieking shade of the guilty Eleanor, who murdered her uncle. At
midnight she was said to fly from the fairies, who followed her with
writhing serpents, their tongues glistening with poisonous venom and
their pestiferous breath turning black everything with which they came
in contact, and thus her soul was tortured as a punishment for her
horrible deeds. Amongst the woods glided the pale ghosts of the Abbot
Bertrand and the mother with her murdered child.
What a difference there is in guides, and especially when no "tips" are
in sight! You go into a church, for instance, and are shown round in a
general kind of a way and inquiries are answered briefly. As you leave
the building you hand the caretaker a silver coin which he did not
expect, and then, conscience-stricken, he immediately becomes loquacious
and asks if you saw an object that he ought to have shown you, and it
generally ends in your turning back and seeing double the objects of
interest you saw before, and possibly those in the graveyard as well.
Then there are others whose hearts are in their work, and who insist
upon your seeing all there is to be seen and hearing the history or
legends connected with the place. Such was our guide that morning; he
was most enthusiastic when giving us his stories, but we did not accept
his invitation to come some evening to see the ghosts, as we could not
imagine a more lonely and "boggarty" spot at night than amongst the
thick bushes and foliage of Berry Castle, very beautiful though it
looked in the daylight; nor did we walk backwards three times round the
trunk of the old "wishing tree," and in the process wish for something
that we might or might not get; but we rewarded our guide handsomely for
his services.
[Illustration: BERRY POMEROY CHURCH.]
We had a look in the old church, where there were numerous tombs of the
Seymour family; but the screen chiefly attracted our attention. The
projection of the rood-loft still remained on the top, adorned with fan
tracery, and there was also the old door which led up to it. The lower
panels had as usual been much damaged, but the carved figures could
still be recognised, and some of the original colouring in gold,
vermilion, green, and white remained. The figures were said to
represent St. Matthew with his club, St. Philip with the spear, St.
Stephen with stones in his chasuble, St. Jude with the boat, St.
Matthias with the battle-axe, sword, and dagger, St. Mary Magdalene with
the alabastrum, St. Barbara with the tower, St. Gudala with the lantern,
and the four doctors of the Western Church. The ancient pulpit was of
the same period as the screen, as were also the old-fashioned,
straight-backed, oak pews.
[Illustration: THE SCREEN, BERRY POMEROY CHURCH]
The vicarage, which was as usual near the church, must have been a very
healthy place, for the Rev. John Prince, author of _The Worthies of
Devon_, published in 1901, who died in 1723, was vicar there for
forty-two years, and was succeeded by the Rev. Joseph Fox, who died in
1781, aged eighty-four, having been vicar for fifty-eight years. He was
followed by the Rev. John Edwards, who was vicar for fifty-three years,
and died in 1834 aged eighty-three. This list was very different from
that we had seen at Hungerford, and we wondered whether a parallel for
longevity in three successive vicars existed in all England, for they
averaged fifty-one years' service.
[Illustration: PARLIAMENT COTTAGES.]
There were some rather large thatched cottages in Berry Pomeroy village,
where Seymour, who was one of the first men of rank and fortune to join
the Prince of Orange, met the future King after he had landed at
Brixham on November 5th, 1688. A conference was held in these cottages,
which were ever afterwards known as "Parliament Buildings," that meeting
forming William's first Parliament. Seymour was at that time M.P. for
Exeter, and was also acting as Governor of that city. When William
arrived there four days afterwards, with an army of 15,000 men, he was
awarded a very hearty reception, for he was looked upon as more of a
deliverer than a conqueror.
It was only a short distance from Berry Pomeroy to Totnes, our next
stage, and we were now to form our first acquaintance with the lovely
valley of the River Dart, which we reached at the foot of the hill on
which that picturesque and quaint old town was situated. Formerly the
river had to be crossed by a rather difficult ford, but that had been
done away with in the time of King John, and replaced by a narrow bridge
of eight arches, which in its turn had been replaced in the time of
William and Mary by a wider bridge of three arches with a toll-gate upon
it, where all traffic except pedestrians had to contribute towards the
cost of its erection. A short distance to the right after crossing the
bridge was a monument to a former native of the town, to whom a
sorrowful memory was attached; it had been erected by subscription, and
was inscribed: