Drake he's in his hammock, an' a thousand mile away,
(Capten, art tha' sleepin' there below?),
Slung atween the round shot in Nombre Dios Bay,
An' dreamin' arl the time o' Plymouth Hoe.
Yarnder lumes the island, yarnder lie the ships,
Wi' sailor lads a-dancin' heel-an'-toe,
An' the shore-lights flashin', an' the night-tide dashin',
He sees et arl so plainly as he saw et long ago.
Drake he was a Devon man, an' ruled the Devon seas,
(Capten, art tha' sleepin' there below?),
Rovin' tho' his death fell, he went wi' heart at ease,
An' dreamin' arl the time o' Plymouth Hoe.
Take my drum to England, hang et by the shore,
Strike et when your powder's runnin' low;
If the Dons sight Devon, I'll quit the port o' Heaven,
An' drum them up the Channel as we drummed them long ago.
Drake he's in his hammock till the great Armadas come,
(Capten, art tha' sleepin' there below?),
Slung atween the round shot, listenin' for the Drum,
An' dreamin' arl the time o' Plymouth Hoe.
Call him on the deep sea, call him up the Sound,
Call him when ye sail to meet the foe;
Where the old trade's plyin' an' the old flag flyin'
They shall find him ware an' wakin', as they found him long ago!
In olden times there existed a much older abbey than Buckland, named
Buckfast Abbey, but it was right on the other side of Dartmoor, and the
abbots and monks formerly crossed from one to the other. In those remote
times there were no proper roads, and the tracks between the two places
were mainly made by the feet of the monks, with crosses placed at
intervals to prevent their losing the way, especially when the hills
were covered with snow. The track still existed, being known as the
"Abbots' Way." The distance between the two abbeys was about sixteen
miles as the crow flies, but as the track had to go partially round some
of the tors, which there rose to an elevation of about 1,500 feet above
sea-level, and were directly in the way, it must have involved a walk of
quite twenty miles from one abbey to the other. Buckfast Abbey is one of
the oldest in Britain, and ultimately became the richest Cistercian
house in the West of England. The last abbot was Gabriel Donne, who
received his appointment for having in 1536 captured Tyndale the
Reformer, who was in the same year put to death by strangling and
burning.
[Illustration: BUCKLAND ABBEY.]
One of the earliest stories of the "lost on the moors" was connected
with that road. Childe, the "Hunter of Plymstock," had been hunting in
one of the wildest districts on Dartmoor, and was returning home at
night, when a heavy snowstorm came on and the night became bitterly
cold. Having completely lost his way, and as his tired horse could go no
farther, he stopped at one of the ancient crosses and dismounted. His
blood, however, began to freeze within him, and to try to save his own
life he killed his horse, and, cutting a great hole in its body, crept
inside. When daylight came in the morning, knowing he was dying, and
that some of the monks would probably find his body when they came to
the cross, he dipped his fingers in his horse's blood and scribbled on
the stone:
They fyrste that fyndes and brings mee to my grave,
The Priorie of Plymstocke they shall have.
His body was found by the "monks of Tavystoke," and buried in their
abbey at Tavistock; and from that time to the dissolution of the
monasteries the Abbey of Tavistock had possession of the manor of
Plymstock, Childe having no children to follow him.
We were sorry that we had been unable to explore Dartmoor itself instead
of only its fringes, so we decided to make an effort to see Dartmoor
Prison, which we were given to understand was only a few miles away. We
changed our course a little and passed on to Walkhampton, where we were
advised to follow the by-road above the Walkham river, from which the
village took its name, this being the easiest and most pleasant way. We
had a nice walk along the valley until we reached Merridale, but there
we succumbed to the attractions of the small inn. We felt that we should
never be able to wait for food until we reached Tavistock, as the
mountain air and the exertion of climbing up the hill had been too much
for us, so we ordered refreshments there instead of at Tavistock, as
originally intended. We had loitered a little on our way up the hill,
stopping to look at the views behind us, which were better than those in
front--a necessary procedure, for we were rather inclined at times "to
keep our noses too near the grindstone," or perhaps, like Othello, to be
"led by the nose as asses are," and to toil up the hills with the
wilderness before us, in total forgetfulness of the lovely scenes
behind. We therefore advise all tourists on a walking expedition to look
back occasionally, since much of the pleasure and beauty of the tour may
otherwise be lost.
[Illustration: VIXEN TOR, TAVISTOCK.]
We had a short walk in the direction of Princetown, where the prison was
situated, but we were not at all favourably impressed by the appearance
of the country, without a house in sight except the inn where our
refreshments were being prepared. Presently we met an official in
uniform, who told us the prisoners were not always kept inside the
prison, but were employed in making and repairing roads and fences and
in cultivating land. He pointed out some men a long distance away who
were so employed, and strongly advised us not to go any farther in that
direction. The only objects of interest on the Moor, beyond the tors and
the views from their summits, were the antiquities, which in that part
were particularly numerous, for without leaving the road between the
prison and Merridale there could be seen a cluster of hut circles, a
kistvaen, a menhir, and a double line of stone rows, and within a short
radius many other relics of prehistoric man, as well as one or two
logans or rocking-stones. We therefore returned with him to the inn--for
even an antiquary cannot live on stones; he ought to be well supported
with both food and clothing to enable him fully to explore and
appreciate the ancient relics of Dartmoor. Our refreshments were quite
ready and were soon put out of sight, and, as we had a downward gradient
to the River Tavy, we had made up for our delay when we crossed the
bridge over the river and entered the town of Tavistock.
The earliest history of Tavistock was no doubt associated with the
prehistoric remains on the hills above, if that had been written; but as
early as the tenth century Orgarius, Earl of Devon, in consequence of a
dream, decided to build a magnificent abbey there, and to dedicate it to
St. Mary. He began to build it in 961, but as he died before it was
completed, his son Ordulph completed it in 981 and endowed it with the
manor of Tavistock and others. Ordulph was also a nephew of King
Ethelred, and, according to tradition, was a giant able to stride across
a river ten feet wide. Orgarius had not only left a gigantic son, but he
had also left a daughter of such surpassing beauty that her fame spread
all over England; and Edgar, who by that time was king, hearing of the
wonderful beauty of Elfrida, sent his favourite--Athelwold--to her
father's castle to ascertain if her beauty was such as had been
reported. Athelwold went on his mission, but was so struck and
bewildered with Elfrida's beauty that he fell violently in love with her
himself, and when he returned he told Edgar that Elfrida was not so
beautiful, but was rich and more fit to be the wife of a subject than a
king. Edgar therefore consented to his favourite's marriage with her;
but the king, discovering that he had been deceived, insisted on paying
Athelwold a visit at his home in Devonshire. Athelwold craved permission
to go home and prepare for the king's visit, which was granted, and with
all possible haste he went and, kneeling before his wife, confessed all,
and asked her to help him out of his difficulties by putting on an old
dress and an awkward appearance when the king came, so that his life
might be spared. Elfrida was, however, disappointed at the loss of a
crown, and, instead of obscuring her beauty, she clothed herself so as
to appear as beautiful as possible, and, as she expected, captivated the
royal Edgar. A few days afterwards Athelwold was found murdered in a
wood, and the king married his widow. But the union, beginning with
crime, could not be other than unhappy, and ended disastrously, the king
only surviving his marriage six or seven years and dying at the early
age of thirty-two. He was buried at Glastonbury, an abbey he had greatly
befriended.
At the Dissolution the lands of Tavistock Abbey were given by King
Henry VIII, along with others, to Lord John Russell, whose descendants,
the Dukes of Bedford, still possess them. Considerable traces of the old
abbey remained, but, judging from some old prints, they had been much
altered during the past century. The fine old chapter-house had been
taken down to build a residence named Abbey House, which now formed the
Bedford Hotel; the old refectory had been used as a Unitarian chapel,
and its porch attached to the premises of the hotel; while the vicarage
garden seemed to have absorbed some portion of the venerable ruins.
There were two towers, one of which was named the Betsey Grinbal's
Tower, as a woman of that name was supposed to have been murdered there
by the monks; and between that and the other tower was an archway which
connected the two. Under this archway stood a Sarcophagus which formerly
contained the remains of Ordulph, whose gigantic thigh-bones we
afterwards saw in the church. The ruins were nearly all covered with
ivy, and looked beautiful even in their decay; but seeing the purpose to
which some of them had been applied, we thought that the word "Ichabod"
(the glory hath departed) would aptly apply, and if the old walls could
have spoken, we should not have been surprised to hear a line quoted
from Shakespeare--"to what base uses do we come at last."
[Illustration: THE STILL TOWER, TAVISTOCK ABBEY]
The old abbey had done good service in its time, as it had given
Tavistock the claim of being the second town in England where a printing
press was erected, for in 1524 one had been put up in the abbey, and a
monk named Rychard had printed a translation of Boethius' _De
Consolatione Philosophiæ_, and a Saxon Grammar was also said to have
been printed there. The neighbourhood of Tavistock was not without
legends, which linger long on the confines of Dartmoor, and, like
slander, seemed to have expanded as time went on:
The flying rumours gathered as they rolled,
Scarce any tale was sooner heard than told,
And all who told it added something new,
And all who heard it made enlargement too!
On every ear it spread, on every tongue it grew.
Fitzford was the name of one of the river suburbs of Tavistock, and was
once upon a time the residence of the Fitze family. According to some
ancient histories of Devon, one of which had the significant title of
_The Bloudie Book_, Sir John Fitze was noted as a turbulent, dangerous
man, ever ready with his sword on all occasions. Meeting with many of
his neighbours at a noontide dinner at Tavistock, he was vaunting his
free tenure and boasting that he did not hold a foot of land from any
but the "Queene of England," when his neighbour, "Maister Slanning,"
reminded him of a small piece of land he had of his for which he was
liable for rent, but for which no payment had been asked by reason of
"courtesie and friendshippe." Upon hearing these words Fitze flew in a
furious rage and told Slanning with a great oath that he lied,
and withal gave fuel to his rage and reines of spight in the
unjustness of his anger--offering to stab him. But Maister Slanning,
who was known to be a man of no less courage, and more courtesie,
with a great knife that he had, warded the hazard of such
threatenings.
The quarrel was stopped by the intervention of friends, and Slanning,
thinking the matter was at an end, shortly afterwards rode home in
company with only one servant.
Long had they not ridden but commanding the man to walk down his
horses in the way, himself the while taking the greene fields for his
more contented walking; he might behold Sir John Fitze, with four
more, galloping amane after him, which sight could not but be a great
amazement to Maister Slanning.
The quarrel was renewed, and Slanning, who was, by the way, a brave man,
perceived that Fitze was determined to kill him; but he had no chance
against live swords, and when he got to Fitzford gateway he received a
blow from behind which staggered him, and Fitze, seizing the
opportunity, ran his sword through his body, and poor Slanning fell to
the floor a murdered man.
Fitze fled to France, and his friends obtained some kind of a pardon for
him; but when he returned they all gave him the cold shoulder; he was
avoided by everybody, and to add to his discomfort the children of
Slanning sued him in London for compensation.
Meanwhile the guilt in blood weighed heavily upon him, increasing in
intensity as years went on, and the shade of Slanning never left him day
or night, until finally he could not sleep, for the most horrid dreams
awoke him and his screams in the night were awful to hear. Sometimes he
dreamt he was being pursued by the police, then by black demons and
other hideous monsters, while in the background was always the ghost of
the man he had so cruelly murdered.
Late one night a man on horseback, haggard and weary, rode up to the
door of the "Anchor Inn" at Kingston-on-Thames and demanded lodgings for
the night. The landlord and his family were just retiring to rest, and
the landlady, not liking the wild and haggard appearance of their
midnight visitor, at first declined to receive him, but at length agreed
to find him a room. The family were awakened in the night by the lodger
crying in his sleep, and the landlady was greatly alarmed as the noise
was continued at intervals all through the night. They had to rise early
in the morning, as the landlord had some work to do in his fields, but
his wife would not be left in the house with the stranger who had
groaned so horribly during the night. Their footsteps seem to have
awakened the man, for suddenly they were terrified to see him rush
downstairs with a drawn sword in his hand, throw himself upon a man
standing in the yard, and kill him instantly. It was thought afterwards
that he must have mistaken his victim for a constable; but when he came
to his senses and found he had killed the groom to whom he had given
orders to meet him early in the morning, he turned his sword against
himself and fell--dead! And such was the tragic end of John Fitze.
[Illustration: LYDFORD CASTLE.]
There is a saying, "Like father, like son," which sometimes justifies
itself; but in the case of Fitze it applied not to a son, but to a
daughter, who seems to have followed his bad example and to have
inherited his wild nature, for it was said that she was married four
times--twice before she reached the age of sixteen! She afterwards
married Lord Charles Howard, son of the Duke of Suffolk, and after she
had disposed of him--for the country people believed she murdered all
her husbands--she married Sir Richard Granville, the cruel Governor of
Lydford Castle, but preferred to retain the title of Lady Howard. It was
said that she died diseased both in mind and body, and that afterwards
she had to do penance for her sins. Every night on the stroke of twelve
a phantom coach made of bones, drawn by four skeleton horses and
ornamented with four grinning skulls, supposed to be those of her four
husbands, issued from under Fitzford gateway with the shade of Lady
Howard inside. A coal-black hound ran in front as far as Okehampton, and
on the return journey carried in its mouth a single blade of grass,
which it placed on a stone in the old courtyard of Fitzford; and not
until all the grass of Okehampton had been thus transported would Lady
Howard's penance end! The death-coach glided noiselessly along the
lonely moorland roads, and any person who accepted Lady Howard's
invitation to ride therein was never seen again. One good effect this
nocturnal journey had was that every one took care to leave the inns at
Tavistock in time to reach home before midnight.
My Lady hath a sable coach,
With horses two and four;
My Lady hath a gaunt bloodhound.
That goeth on before:
My Lady's coach hath nodding plumes,
The driver hath no head;
My Lady is an ashen white
As one that long is dead.
I'd rather walk a hundred miles,
And run by night and day.
Than have that carriage halt for me
And hear my Lady say:
"Now pray step in and make no din,
Step in with me to ride;
There's room, I trow, by me, for you
And all the world beside!"
The church at Tavistock was dedicated to St. Eustachius, for we were now
quite near Cornwall, a land of saints with all kinds of queer names. The
church had the appearance of having passed through the ordeal of some
severe restorations, but we saw many objects of interest therein. There
was a tomb with effigies of Judge Granville, his wife, and three sons
and four daughters, erected in 1615 by his widow after she had married
again--a circumstance that might give rise to some speculations. The
children's heads had all been knocked off, and the boys had disappeared
altogether; probably, we thought, taken prisoners by some of Cromwell's
men to serve as ornaments elsewhere. There was also a monument to the
Fitze family, including a figure of Sir John Fitze, the last of the
line, who was buried at Twickenham; but whether he was the hero of the
legend or not we could not ascertain.
Thomas Larkham, who was vicar from 1649 to 1660, stood out against the
Act of Conformity, and was dismissed. But he kept a diary, and a page of
it had been preserved which referred to the gifts presented to him after
being deprived of his stipend.
1653, _Nov. 30th._--The wife of Will Hodges brought me a fat goose;
Lord, do them good! Edward Cole sent by his daughter a turkey; Lord,
accept it! _Dec. 2nd._--Sara Frowt a dish of butter; accept, Lord!
_Dec. 6th._--Margaret Sitwell would not be paid for 2-1/2 lbs. of
butter; is she not a daughter of Abraham? Father, be pleased to pay
her. Walter Peck sent me, _Dec. 14th_, a partridge, and Mr. Webb the
same day pork and puddings; Lord, forget not! Mrs. Thomasin
Doidge--Lord, look on her in much mercy--_Dec. 19th_, gave me 5s.
_Jan. 25th._--Mrs. Audry sent me a bushel of barley malt for
housekeeping; Lord, smell a sweet savour! Patrick Harris sent me a
shoulder of pork,--he is a poor ignorant man. Lord, pity him!
There was a curious thirteenth-century chest, trapezium in form, and
said to be the only one of that shape in the West of England. It was of
carved oak, and called a treasure chest, because it had a secret recess
at the back where the priest kept a jewel with which he fastened his
robes. Another old chest contained some ancient Latin writings, the
earliest of which bore the dates 1285, 1325, and 1370, written in old
lettering with what was known as "monk's ink," made from vegetables.
Some of the documents bore seals with rush rings attached, and there was
a black-letter Bible, and a chained book dated 1588, the year of the
Spanish Armada. We were also shown four pewter flagons for Communion
wine, all of the time of Charles I, two churchwardens having each given
one in 1633 and two other wardens one each in 1638. Asked why so many
were required, we were informed that in those days all the people were
compelled to come to church, and it was nothing unusual for quarts of
wine to be used at one Communion, at a cost of several pounds! But in
those days Holy Communion was only administered four times a year!
[Illustration: BRENT TOR, TAVISTOCK.]
Tavistock was one of the four Stannary towns in Devonshire, where
Stannary Courts were established to deal with all matters relating to
tin and the tinners who produced it. Under a charter of Edward I tin was
ordered to be officially weighed and stamped in the towns so appointed.
But while the tinners had the privilege of digging for tin on any
person's land without payment for rent or damage, they were subject to
heavy penalties and impositions in other ways, and especially in the
case of adulteration of tin with inferior metal. The forest laws also in
those early times were terrible and barbarous. To enforce the authority
of the Stannary Courts a prison was constructed in the thirteenth
century out of the keep or dungeon of Lydford Castle, about nine miles
north of Tavistock; and in the sixteenth century this prison was
described as "one of the most annoyous, contagious, and detestable
places in the realm." When Sir Richard Granville, who was noted for his
extremely cruel disposition, was Governor, prisoners were known to be
compelled to swallow spoonfuls of the molten metal they were supposed to
have adulterated. William Browne, a poet born at Tavistock in 1590, in
one of his pastorals perpetuated the memory of Lydford Castle:
I oft have heard of Lydford law--
How in the morn they hang and draw.
And sit in judgement after.
[Illustration: KIT HILL, CALLINGTON.]
We had now to return towards the coast-line from which we had diverged
after leaving Plymouth, and we decided to walk from Tavistock to
Liskeard and stay there for the night. The country was rather hilly, and
in about three miles we crossed the River Tamar, at the same point
passing from Devon into Cornwall, for the river here divided the two
counties. It had made for itself in the course of ages a deep passage
through the hills, which for the pedestrian involved a deep descent and
a sharp ascent on the other side to and from the river. Our way now
crossed the Hingston Downs, where we came to one of the chief landmarks
of Cornwall, named the Kit Hill, at an elevation of 1,067 feet above
sea-level, standing quite near our road. This hill marked the site of a
desperate battle in 835, between King Edgar of Wessex on the one side
and the Danes combined with the men of Cornwall on the other. The Saxons
lost heavily, but they won the battle, and the neighbouring barrows, or
tumuli, were supposed to have covered the remains of those who fell on
that occasion. We were now amongst the tin mines, of which there were
quite a number, used and disused, in sight, some right on the top of the
hills; and from these highlands we could see the two Channels, the
English on one side and the Irish on the other. It was supposed that the
Irish had originally inhabited the whole of Cornwall, but the old
Cornishmen were in reality Celts of a different tribe. One of the miners
told us that on his return from South Africa he could see Kit Hill
distinctly from a long distance out at sea. Some of the tin miners, it
seemed, were emigrating to South Africa, while others were going to
America. Soon afterwards we reached the fair-sized village or town of
Callington, which under the old franchise returned two Members to
Parliament, one of whom had been Horace Walpole, the son of the famous
Robert Walpole. We looked through the church, where we saw a rather fine
monument to Lord Willoughby de Broke erected in 1503. He was represented
as wearing armour and the insignia of the Garter, and at his feet were
two curious figures of monks, said to be unique, for the figures in that
position were invariably those of lions or other animals. A lady from
the vicarage told us that his lordship was the steward of the Duchy of
Cornwall, and an important person, but there was some doubt about his
being buried there. There was another church in the neighbourhood, and
as both the villages belonged to him, he had a tomb made in each, so
that he could be buried in whichever part of his property he happened to
be in when he died, or, as he explained to his friends, "where you drop,
there you may be buried."
There were more temperance hotels, or houses, in Cornwall than in most
other counties we had passed through, almost invariably clean and good,
and it was to one of these that we adjourned at Callington for tea. We
found it quite up to the mark, and we had a splendid feed there both as
regarded quantity and quality, Devonshire cream being evidently not
confined to its own county. It would have been a grand place in which to
stay the night, but, though the weather was threatening, we must place
our average mileage in a safe position, especially as we were now
nearing the end of our long walk. It was nearly dark when we left
Callington, and, on our inquiring the way to Liskeard, a man we saw at
the end of the village said he could put vis in a nearer way than going
along the high road, which would save us a good half-mile in the
journey. Going with us to the entrance of a narrow lane, he gave us very
careful and voluminous instructions about the way we must follow.
Thanking him, we left him, and proceeded along the lane in search of a
farmhouse, or rather a gate at the end of the road leading towards it,
for he had told us we should not be able to see the house itself in the
dark, but should be sure to see the gate, as it was a large one, painted
white, and after passing this we were to make one or two turns which he
described. The sky was overcast and the night very dark, and although
there was a new moon, it was only three days old--too young to be of any
service to us. But we could not find either the gate or the farm, or any
turns in the road, nor could either of us remember distinctly the latter
part of the instructions given to us by the man, one thinking we had to
turn to the right and the other to the left. The fact was, we had
calculated upon meeting some one on the road from whom, we could inquire
further. We had been walking slowly for some time, stopping occasionally
to listen for the footsteps of some person from whom we could inquire,
but not a sound could we hear until we almost stumbled against a gate
that barred our further progress, for it reached right across our road,
and beyond this we could hear the sound of rushing water.
I knew now that we had come to a full-stop, as my brother would never
go beyond that gate after he had heard the roar of the stream, which
must have been quite near us. He had often rowed a boat on dangerous
rivers and on the sea; had been nearly lost one dark night in a high
spring-tide on the sandbanks of the River Mersey; had been washed out to
sea through the failure of an oar at Barmouth; had narrowly escaped
being swamped with his boat off the East Coast; and a few years before
had a hair-breadth escape from drowning by being drawn under the wooden
framework protecting the piles for a future famous bridge over the River
Thames near the heart of London; but, owing to a narrow escape from
drowning when he was almost a child, he had the greatest horror of
having his head under water and of being drowned, and even now he was
afraid of the sound of rushing water in the dark, for he could not swim
a yard; but he was a brave man nevertheless!
So there we stood on a pitch-dark night, leaning over a gate in an
unknown country, and on a by-road, listening to the rush of the water
beyond, wishing that some one might come that way to direct us; but it
was hopeless. When we struck a match and lit a piece of paper, we
discovered that there was no road beyond the gate, the lane having made
an abrupt turning towards the left upon reaching it. We walked along
carefully, striking a match occasionally, and at length came to a
finger-post, green with age; we could not, however, distinguish the
lettering on the arms at the top, so I knew that my turn had now come,
as when there was any climbing to be done during our journey, I had to
do it. I "swarmed up" the post to the arms at the top, while my brother
lighted a piece of newspaper below; but it was of no use, as the names
were partly obscured. Still I could see that Liskeard was not one of
them, so I dropped down again, nearly knocking my brother over, as the
ground was not level at the foot of the post and the light had gone out.
We had to stop a minute or two, for the glare of the light from the
burning paper had made the darkness more impenetrable than before; but
the narrowness of the road was an advantage to us, as we knew we could
not get far astray. Coming to a good hard road, we arrived at a bridge
where there were a few houses, and soon we were walking quickly again on
the right way to Liskeard; but how we blessed that countryman who with
the best of intentions had directed us the nearer way! In a few miles we
saw a light ahead, and found it came from a small inn by the roadside
where one road crossed another, and here we called to inquire our way,
and were informed we had arrived at St. Eve, which we thought must be
the name of some doubtful Cornish saint; but that impression was removed
when we found it was the local pronunciation for St. Ive. We could just
discern the outline of a small church to the right of our road, and as
there were so few houses we did not confound it with the much larger
place in Cornwall, St. Ives, nor, needless to say, with another place
named St. Ives in Huntingdonshire, which we passed through on our walk
from London the previous year.
It was getting unpleasantly near "closing time" when we reached
Liskeard, but we were just in time to be well entertained and housed for
the night.
(_Distance walked thirty-six miles_.)
_Thursday, November 16th._
Liskeard was visited in 1757 by John Wesley, who described it as "one of
the largest and pleasantest towns in Cornwall," a description with which
we agreed, but we were inclined to add the words, "and of no
occupation," for there was no outward or visible sign of any staple
industry. As in other similar places we had visited, the first question
that suggested itself to us was, "How do the people live?" Their
appearance, however, caused us no anxiety, as every one we saw looked
both well and happy. They had made a clean sweep of their old castle,
which was said to have been built in the thirteenth century by Richard,
Earl of Cornwall, and King of the Romans, the brother of Henry III; the
site they had formed into a public park, in which stood the old grammar
school where Dr. Wolcot was educated, who wrote a number of satirical
odes, letters, and ballads, under the name of "Peter Pindar," in the
time of George III, many of his satires being levelled at the king
himself. Eventually he sold his works for an annuity of £250.
Liskeard was remarkable for the spring of water round which the town had
been built, and which was described by Leland in his _Itinerary_ as "a
good conduit in the middle of the Town very plentiful of water to serve
the Town." Four pipes originally conveyed the water to different points,
and the street where the well existed was known as Pipewell Street.
The wells of Cornwall were famous, being named after the different
saints who had settled beside them in ancient times, appreciating the
value of the pure water they contained. We had often tested the water of
the wells and springs we had come to in the course of our long walk, and
the conviction had grown upon us that we owed much of our continued good
health to drinking water. We naturally perspired a good deal, especially
when we walked quickly, which of course created thirst; and the
different strata of the various rock-formations we had crossed must have
influenced the water and ourselves to some extent. We had come to the
conclusion that people who went on holidays and attributed the benefit
derived solely to "the change of air" might have equally benefited by
the change of water!
In one part of Cheshire, formerly in possession of the Romans, there was
a rather remarkable spring of water known as the "Roman Well," over
which appeared the following Latin inscription, difficult to translate,
but which had been interpreted thus:
_Sanitate Sacrum_: Sacred to Health!
_Obstructum reserat_, It removes obstruction.
_Durum terit_, It crushes the hard,
_Humida siecat_, It dries the moist,
_Debile fortificat_, It strengthens the weak,
_Si tamen arte bibis_. Provided thou drinkest with knowledge.
The water rises from some subterranean source in the sandstone rock and
enters with considerable force into the receptacle prepared for it,
which is about five feet deep. The water was always beautifully clear
and cool, and visitors often amused themselves by throwing halfpennies
into the bath and watching them apparently being transformed into
shillings as they reached the bottom--a fact attributed to the presence
of lime in the water.
In striking contrast to this was the water afterwards brought through
the district from a watershed on the distant Welsh hills, which depended
for its supply almost entirely on the downfall from the clouds. The
difference between that and the water from the Roman well was very
marked, for while the rainwater was very soft, the other that contained
the lime was very hard, and therefore considered more conducive to the
growth of the bones in children. Our personal experiences also with the
water at Inverness, and in the neighbourhood of Buxton in the previous
year, which affected us in a similar way, convinced us that water
affected human beings very markedly; and then we had passed by Harrogate
and Leamington, where people were supposed to go purposely to drink the
waters. Even the water of the tin-mining district through which we were
now passing might contain properties that were absent elsewhere, and the
special virtues attributed to some of the Saints' Wells in Cornwall in
olden times might not have been altogether mythical.
Besides the four Stannary towns in Devon there were originally four in
Cornwall, including Liskeard, where all tin mined in their respective
districts had to be weighed and stamped. Probably on that account
Liskeard returned two members to Parliament, the first members being
returned in 1294; amongst the M.P.'s who had represented the town were
two famous men--Sir Edward Coke, elected in 1620, and Edward Gibbon, in
1774.
Sir Edward Coke was a great lawyer and author of the legal classic _Coke
upon Littleton_. He became Speaker of the House of Commons,
Attorney-General, and afterwards Chief Justice, and was the merciless
prosecutor of Sir Walter Raleigh, and also of the persons concerned in
the Gunpowder Plot; while his great speech against Buckingham towards
the close of the career of that ill-fated royal favourite is famous.
Edward Gibbon was the celebrated historian and author of that great work
_The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_. The history of his
Parliamentary connection with Liskeard was rather curious. One morning
in 1774, when in London, he was asked if he would like to enter the
House of Commons, and when he consented, the "free and independent
electors" of Liskeard were duly "instructed" to return him. But it was
very doubtful whether he ever saw any of the electors, or had any
dealings with the Constituency whatever, although he acted as one of
their members for about eight years. Possibly, as there were two
members, the other M.P. might have been the "acting partner."
Liskeard church was the second largest in Cornwall, and in it we saw a
"Lepers' squint" and also a turret at the corner of the aisle from which
the priest could preach to the lepers without coming in contact with
them, for the disease was very infectious--so much so that the hospital
built for them was a mile or two from the town. "Lepers' squints" had
been common in some parts of England, and as the disease is often
mentioned in the Bible, we considered it must have been imported from
the East, perhaps from Palestine by the Crusaders. We had not seen or
heard of any cases of leprosy on our journey, and we concluded that the
disease could not have been natural to our colder climate, and had
therefore died out as a result of more cleanly habits. The pulpit was
dated 1632, the carving on it being the work of a local sculptor, whose
remuneration, we were told, was at the rate of one penny per hour, which
appeared to us to be a very small amount for that description of work.
Possibly he considered he was working for the cause of religion, and
hoped for his further reward in a future life; or was it a silver penny?
[Illustration: LISKEARD CHURCH.]
The houses in Liskeard were built of stone, and the finest perhaps was
that known as Stuart House, so named because King Charles I stayed there
for about a week in 1644. This was of course in the time of the Civil
War, when Cornwall, as it practically belonged to the King or his son,
did not consider itself as an ordinary county, but as a duchy, and was
consequently always loyal to the reigning sovereign. It was also a
difficult county for an invading army to approach, and the army of the
Parliament under the Earl of Essex met with a disastrous defeat there.
But we must not forget the Holy Wells, as the villages and towns took
their names from the saints who presided at the wells. That of St.
Keyne, quite near Liskeard, is described by Southey:
A Well there is in the West Country,
And a clearer one never was seen;
There is not a wife in the West Country
But has heard of the Well of St. Keyne.
An oak and an elm-tree stand beside,
And behind doth an ash-tree grow,
And a willow from the bank above
Droops to the water below.
St. Keyne introduced the rather remarkable belief that the first of a
newly married couple to drink of the water of her well, whether husband
or wife, should in future rule the home. We supposed that the happy pair
would have a race to the well, and the one who arrived there first
would ever afterwards play the first fiddle, if that instrument was in
use in the time of St. Keyne. But a story was related of how on one
occasion the better-half triumphed. No sooner had the knot been tied
than the husband ran off as fast as he could to drink of the water at
St. Keyne's Well, leaving his wife in the church. When he got back he
found the lady had been before him, for she had brought a bottle of the
water from the well with her to church, and while the man was running to
the well she had been quietly seated drinking the water in the church
porch!
[Illustration: ST. KEYNE'S WELL.]
The story was told by the victim to a stranger, and the incident was
recorded by Southey in his poem "The Well of St. Keyne":
"You drank of the Well, I warrant, betimes?"
He to the countryman said:
But the countryman smiled as the stranger spake,
And sheepishly shook his head:
"I hastened as soon as the wedding was done,
And left my wife in the porch;
But i' faith! she had been wiser than me,
For she took a bottle to church."
It was at Liskeard that we first heard of George Borrow, a tramp like
ourselves. Although we should have been pleased to have had a talk with
him, we should scarcely have been able to accompany him on one of his
journeys, for he was 6 feet 3 inches in height against our 5 feet 8
inches, and he would have been able to walk quicker than ourselves. He
was born in 1803 and died in 1881, so that he was still alive when we
were walking through Cornwall, and was for many years a travelling agent
for the British and Foreign Bible Society. In the course of his
wanderings, generally on foot, he made a study of gipsy life, and wrote
some charming books about the Romany tribes, his _Lavengro_ and _Romany
Rye_ being still widely read. He was a native of Norfolk, but his father
was born near Liskeard, to which place he paid a special visit at the
end of 1853. On Christmas Day in that year, which was also a Sunday, he
walked to St. Cleer and attended service in the church, Mr. Berkeley
being the preacher, and although there was no organ, he saw a fiddle in
the gallery, so fiddles must have then been in use in Cornwall. He would
also see the Well of St. Cleer, which was quite near the church, and
must in the time of the Saxons have been covered over with stone, as the
old arches and columns were Saxon work. Borrow's father was born at
Trethinnick Farm, near St. Cleer, which he also went to see. He left
Liskeard in January 1854 on a tramp through Truro and Penzance to Land's
End by almost the same route as that we were about to follow ourselves.
As he made many notes during his wanderings in Cornwall, his friends
naturally expected him to publish an account of his travels there, after
the manner of a book he had published in 1862 entitled _Wild Wales_, but
they were disappointed, for none appeared.
[Illustration: ST. CLEER'S WELL.]
It was said that Cornwall did not grow wood enough to make a coffin, and
the absence of trees enabled us to see a number of huge,
mysterious-looking stones: some upright and standing alone, others in
circles, or in groups named cists composed of upright stones, forming a
cavity between them in the shape of a chest covered at the top, and not
intended to be opened again, for they had been used as tombs.
Occasionally the stones stood quite near our road, some in the shape of
crosses, while we could see others in fields and on the top of small
hills.
There were some remarkable stones near St. Cleer, including the famous
"Cheesewring," formed of eight circular stones each resembling a cheese,
placed one on top of another and rising to a height of about eight
yards; but the strange part about this curious erection was that the
four larger and heavier stones were at the top and the four smaller ones
at the bottom. It was a mystery how in such remote times the builders
could have got those immense stones to the top of the others and there
balanced them so exactly as to withstand the storms of so many years.
[Illustration: THE CHEESEWRING]
Near this supposed Druidical erection was a rough cave known as "Daniel
Gumb's House," formerly inhabited by a man of that name who came there
to study astrology and astronomy, and who was said to have had his
family with him. He left his record by cutting his name at the entrance
to the cave, "D. Gumb 1735," and by inscribing a figure on the roof
representing the famous 47th proposition in the First Book of Euclid.
The Trethevy Menhir, a cromlech or "House of the Dead," which George
Borrow went to see, consisted of seven great hewn slabs which formed a
chamber inside about the height of a man; over the top was an enormous
flat stone of such great weight as to make one wonder how it could have
been placed there so many centuries ago. At one corner of the great
stone, which was in a slanting position, there was a hole the use of
which puzzled antiquarians; but George Borrow was said to have contrived
to get on the top of it and, putting his hand through the hole, shouted,
"Success to old Cornwall," a sentiment which we were fully prepared to
endorse, for we thought the people we saw at the two extremes of our
journey--say in Shetland, Orkney, and the extreme north of Scotland, and
those in Devon and Cornwall in the South of England--were the most
homely and sociable people with whom we came in contact.
[Illustration: "DANIEL GUMB'S HOUSE," LISKEARD.]
Some of the legends attached to the stones in Cornwall were of a
religious character, one example being the three stone circles named the
"Hurlers"; eleven in one circle, fourteen in another, and twelve in a
third--thirty-seven in all; but only about one-half of them remained
standing. Here indeed might be read a "sermon in stone," and one of them
might have been preached from these circles, as the stones were said to
represent men who were hurling a ball one Sunday instead of attending
church, when they and the two pipers who were playing for them were all
turned into stone for thus desecrating the Sabbath Day.
We crossed the country to visit St. Neot, and as the village was away
from the main roads and situated on the fringe of Bodmin Moor, we were
surprised to find such a fine church there. We were informed that St.
Neot was the second largest parish in Cornwall, and that the moor beyond
had been much more thickly populated in former times. We had passed
through a place of the same name in Huntingdonshire in the previous
year, when walking home from London, and had been puzzled as to how to
pronounce the name; when we appealed to a gentleman we met on the road
outside the town, he told us that the gentry called it St. Netts and the
common people St. Noots, but here it was pronounced as spelt, with just
a slight stress on the first syllable--St. Ne-ot, the letter "s" not
being sounded officially.
St. Neot, supposed to have been related to King Alfred, being either a
brother or an uncle, came here from Glastonbury and built a hermitage
near his well, in which he would stand for hours immersed up to his neck
in the water in order "to mortify his flesh and cultivate his memory,"
while he recited portions of the Psalter, the whole of which he could
repeat from memory. Though a dwarf, he was said to be able to rescue
beasts from the hunters and oxen from the thieves, and to live on two
miraculous fishes, which, though he ate them continually, were always to
be seen sporting in the water of his well!
St. Neot was the original burial-place of the saint, and in the church
there was a curious stone casket or reliquary which formerly contained
his remains; but when they were carried off to enrich Eynesbury Abbey at
the Huntingdon St. Neots, all that was left here was a bone from one of
his arms. This incident established the connection between the two
places so far apart.
[Illustration: TRETHEVY STONES, LISKEARD.]
The church had a beautiful Decorated tower and a finely carved
sixteenth-century roof, but its great glory consisted in its famous
stained-glass windows, which were fifteen in number, and to each of
which had been given a special name, such as the Young Women's Window,
the Wives' Window, and so on, while St. Neot's window in its twelve
panels represented incidents in the life of that saint. It was supposed
that these fine windows were second to none in all England, except those
at Fairford church in Gloucestershire, which we had already seen, and
which were undoubtedly the finest range of mediæval windows in the
country. They were more in number, and had the great advantage of being
perfect, for in the time of the Civil War they had been taken away and
hidden in a place of safety, and not replaced in the church until the
country had resumed its normal condition.
The glass in the lower panels of the windows in the Church of St.
Neot's, Cornwall, had at that time been broken, but had been restored,
the subjects represented being the same as before. Those windows named
after the young women and the wives had been presented to the church in
the sixteenth century by the maids and mothers of the parish.
On our way from here to Lostwithiel, which my brother thought might have
been a suitable name for the place where we went astray last night, we
passed along Braddock or Broad-oak Moor, where in 1643, during the Civil
War, a battle was fought, in which Sir Ralph Hopton defeated the
Parliamentary Army and captured more than a thousand prisoners. Poetry
seemed to be rather at a discount in Cornwall, but we copied the
following lines relating to this preliminary battle:
When gallant Grenville stoutly stood
And stopped the gap up with his blood,
When Hopton led his Cornish band
Where the sly conqueror durst not stand.
We knew the Queen was nigh at hand.
We must confess we did not understand this; it could not have been
Spenser's "Faerie Queene," so we walked on to the Fairy Cross without
seeing either the Queen or the Fairy, although we were fortunate to find
what might be described as a Fairy Glen and to reach the old Castle of
Restormel, which had thus been heralded:
To the Loiterer, the Tourist, or the Antiquary: the ivy-covered ruins
of Restormel Castle will amply repay a visit, inasmuch as the remains
of its former grandeur must, by the very nature of things, induce
feelings of the highest and most dignified kind; they must force
contemplative thought, and compel respect for the works of our
forefathers and reverence for the work of the Creator's hand through
centuries of time.
[Illustration: RESTORMEL CASTLE.]
It was therefore with some such thoughts as these that we walked along
the lonely road leading up to the old castle, and rambled amongst the
venerable ruins. The last of the summer visitors had long since
departed, and the only sound we could hear was that made by the wind, as
it whistled and moaned among the ivy-covered ruins, and in the trees
which partly surrounded them, reminding us that the harvest was past and
the summer was ended, while indications of approaching winter were not
wanting.
The castle was circular in form, and we walked round the outside of it
on the border of the moat which had formerly been filled with water, but
now was quite dry and covered with luxuriant grass. It was 60 feet wide
and 30 feet deep, being formerly crossed by a drawbridge, not now
required. The ruins have thus been described by a modern poet:
And now I reach the moat's broad marge,
And at each pace more fair and large
The antique pile grows on my sight,
Though sullen Time's resistless might,
Stronger than storms or bolts of heaven,
Through wall and buttress rents have riven;
And wider gaps had there been seen
But for the ivy's buckler green,
With stems like stalwart arms sustained;
Here else had little now remained
But heaps of stones, or mounds o'ergrown
With nettles, or with hemlock sown.
Under the mouldering gate I pass,
And, as upon the thick rank grass
With muffled sound my footsteps falls,
Waking no echo from the walls,
I feel as one who chanced to tread
The solemn precincts of the dead.
The mound on which the castle stood was originally of Celtic
construction, but was afterwards converted into one of the fortresses
which the Normans built in the eastern part of Cornwall as
rallying-points in case of any sudden insurrection among the "West
Welshmen." The occupation of the fortress by the Normans was the
immediate cause of the foundation of the town of Lostwithiel, to which a
charter was granted in 1196 by Robert de Cardinan, the then owner of the
castle and the surrounding country.
An exchequer deed showed how the castle and town of Lostwithiel came
into the possession of the Dukes of Cornwall:
Know ye present and to come that I, Isolda-de-Tracey, daughter and
heir of Andrew de Cardinan, have granted to Lord Richard, King of the
Romans, my whole Manor of Tewington.... Moreover I have given and
granted to the aforesaid Lord the King, Castle of Restormell and the
villeinage in demesne, wood and meadows, and the whole Town of
Lostwithiel, and water of Fowey, with the fishery, with all
liberties, and free customs to the said water, town, and castle,
belonging. Whereof the water of Fowey shall answer for two and a half
knights fees (a "knight's fee" being equal to 600 acres of land).
In the year 1225 Henry III gave the whole county of Cornwall, in fee, to
his brother Richard, who was created Earl of Cornwall by charter dated
August 12th, 1231, and from that time Restormel became the property of
the Earls of Cornwall. Afterwards, in 1338, when the Earldom was raised
to a Dukedom, the charter of creation settled on the Duchy, with other
manors, the castle and manor of Restormel, with the park and other
appurtenances in the county of Cornwall, together with the town of
Lostwithiel: and it was on record that the park then contained 300 deer.
Richard, Earl of Cornwall and King of the Romans, caused extensive
alterations and improvements in the castle at Restormel, and often made
it his residence, and kept his Court there. He was elected King of the
Romans or Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire at Frankfort on January 13th,
1256, and crowned at Aix-la-Chapelle, November 27th, 1257. Edward the
Black Prince, upon whom the Dukedom was confirmed when only seven years
old, paid two visits to Restormel. The first of these was in 1354,
possibly while his expedition to France was being prepared at Plymouth,
and the second in 1363.
In the time of the Civil War the commanding position of the castle
caused it to be repaired and held by the Parliamentarians; but after the
disastrous defeat of their army under the Earl of Essex in 1644 it was
garrisoned by Sir Richard Grenville for the King. In recent times it
was again visited by royalty, for on Tuesday, September 8th, 1846, the
royal yacht _Victoria and Albert_ sailed into Fowey and landed a royal
party, who drove to Restormel Castle. It revived old memories to read
the names of the party who came here on that occasion, for in addition
to Queen Victoria and her husband, Prince Albert, there were the
Princess Royal and the Prince of Wales, Lady Jocelyn, Miss Kerr, Mdlle.
Geuner, Lord Spencer, Lord Palmerston, Sir James Clark, Mr. Anson, and
Col. Grey.
The castle was not a very large one, and we were more impressed by the
loneliness of its situation than by the ruin itself, for there was a
long approach to it without a cottage or a friendly native in sight, nor
did we see any one in the lonely road of quite a mile along which we
passed afterwards to the town of Lostwithiel. But this road was quite
pleasant, following the tree-covered course of the River Fowey, and
lined with ferns and the usual flower-bearing plants all the way to that
town.
[Illustration: LOSTWITHIEL ANCIENT BRIDGE AND LANDING PLACE.]
Here we rejoined the Liskcard highway, which crossed the river by an
ancient bridge said to date from the fourteenth century. At this point
the river had long ago been artificially widened so as to form a basin
and landing-place for the small boats which then passed to and fro
between Fowey and Lostwithiel.
The derivation of the last place-name was somewhat doubtful, but the
general interpretation seemed to be that its original form was
Lis-guythiel, meaning the "Palace in the Wood," which might be correct,
since great trees still shut in the range of old buildings representing
the remains of the old Palace or Duchy House. The buildings, which were
by no means lofty, were devoted to purposes of an unimportant character,
but they had a decidedly dungeon-like appearance, and my brother, who
claimed to be an authority on Shakespeare because he had once committed
to memory two passages from the great bard's writings, assured me that
if these old walls were gifted with speech, like the ghost that
appeared to Hamlet, they "could a tale unfold, whose lightest word would
harrow up our souls; freeze our young blood; make our eyes, like stars,
start from their spheres; our knotted and combined locks to part, and
each particular hair to stand on end like quills upon the fretful
porcupine"; but fortunately "this eternal blazon must not be to ears of
flesh and blood," and so we hurried away up the town.
Lostwithiel, one of the Stannary towns, was at one time the only coinage
town in Cornwall, and traces of the old Mint and Stannary Court could
yet be seen. The town had formerly the honour of being represented in
Parliament by the famous writer, statesman, and poet, Joseph Addison.
[Illustration: LOSTWITHIEL CHURCH, SOUTH PORCH AND CROSS]
The church was dedicated to St. Bartholomew, and was described as "a
perfect example of the Decorated period" and the "glory of Cornwall." It
possessed a lantern spire "of a kind unexampled elsewhere in the West of
England"; but as our standard was high, since we had seen so many
churches, we failed to appreciate these features, and, generally
speaking, there were no very fine churches in Cornwall compared with
those in other counties. This church, however, had passed through some
lively scenes in the Civil War, when the Royalist army was driving that
of the Parliament towards the sea-coast, where it was afterwards
cornered and captured. A Provost named Marshall commanded the detachment
of the Parliamentary forces at Lostwithiel, and to show their contempt
for the religion of the Church of England, they desecrated the church by
leading one of their horses to the font and christening him Charles "in
contempt of his most sacred Majesty the King." Meanwhile two Cavaliers,
supporters of the King, and gentlemen of some repute in the county, had
hidden themselves in the church tower and drawn the ladder up after
them. When they saw the Provost preparing to depart, for he was now in a
hurry to get away from the approaching Royalist soldiers, they jeered at
him through a window in the tower. He called to them, "I'll fetch you
down," and sent men with some "mulch and hay" to set fire to the tower
into which the Cavaliers had climbed, but they only jeered at him the
more, which caused him to try gunpowder, intending, as he could not
smoke them out, to blow them out; but he only succeeded in blowing a few
tiles off the roof of the church. The font was a fine one, octagonal in
form, and carved on all the eight panels, though some of the figures had
been mutilated; but it was still possible to discern a horrible-looking
face covered with a wreath of snakes, a mitred head of a bishop, a
figure of a knight with a hawk, horn, and hound, and other animals
scarcely suitable, we thought, for a font.
The army of the Parliament was gradually driven to Fowey, where 6,000 of
them were taken prisoner, while their commander, the Earl of Essex,
escaped by sea. Fowey was only about six miles away from Lostwithiel,
and situated at the mouth of the River Fowey. It was at one time the
greatest port on the coast of Cornwall, and the abode of some of the
fiercest fighting men in the British Isles. From that port vessels
sailed to the Crusades, and when Edward III wanted ships and men for the
siege of Calais, Fowey responded nobly to the call, furnishing 47 ships
manned by 770 men. The men of Fowey were the great terror of the French
coast, but in 1447 the French landed in the night and burnt the town.
After this two forts were built, one on each side of the entrance to the
river, after the manner of those at Dartmouth, a stout iron chain being
dropped between them at nightfall. Fowey men were in great favour with
Edward IV because of their continued activity against the French; but
when he sent them a message, "I am at peace with my brother of France,"
the Fowey men replied that they were at war with him! As this was likely
to create friction between the two countries, and as none of his men
dared go to Fowey owing to the warlike character of its inhabitants, the
King decided to resort to strategy, but of a rather mean character. He
despatched men to Lostwithiel, who sent a deputation to Fowey to say
they wished to consult the Fowey men about some new design upon France.
The latter, not suspecting any treachery, came over, and were
immediately seized and their leader hanged; while men were sent by sea
from Dartmouth to remove their harbour chain and take away their ships.
Possibly the ships might afterwards have been restored to them upon
certain conditions, but it was quite an effectual way of preventing
their depredations on the coast of France.
They seem to have been a turbulent race of people at Fowey, for they
once actually became dissatisfied with their patron saint, the Irish St.
Finbar, and when they rebuilt their church in 1336 they dismissed him
and adopted St. Nicholas to guide their future destinies. Perhaps it
was because St. Nicholas was the patron saint of all sailors, as he
allayed a great storm when on a voyage to the Holy Land. What is now
named Drake's Island, off Plymouth, was formerly named St. Nicholas. It
would not be difficult to find many other churches dedicated to St.
Nicholas on the sea-coast from there to the north, and we remembered he
was the patron saint at Aberdeen.
St. Nicholas is also the patron saint of the Russians, some of the Czars
of that mighty Empire having been named after him. While St. Catherine
is the patron saint of the girls, St. Nicholas is the patron saint of
the boys, and strange to relate is also the patron saint of parish
clerks, who were formerly called "scholars."
When pictured in Christian art this saint is dressed in the robe of a
bishop, with three purses, or three golden balls, or three children. The
three purses represent those given by him to three sisters to enable
them to marry; but we did not know the meaning of the three golden
balls, unless it was that they represented the money the purses
contained. My brother suggested they might have some connection with the
three golden balls hanging outside the pawnbrokers' shops. Afterwards we
found St. Nicholas was the patron saint of that body. But the three
children were all boys, who once lived in the East, and being sent to a
school at Athens, were told to call on St. Nicholas on their way for his
benediction. They stopped for the night at a place called Myra, where
the innkeeper murdered them for their money and baggage, and placed
their mangled bodies in a pickling-tub, intending to sell them as pork.
St. Nicholas, however, saw the tragedy in a vision, and went to the inn,
where the man confessed the crime, whilst St. Nicholas, by a miracle,
raised the murdered boys to life again!
Sometimes he had been nicknamed "Nick," or "Old Nick," and then he
became a demon, or the Devil, or the "Evil spirit of the North." In
Scandinavia he was always associated with water either in sea or lake,
river or waterfall, his picture being changed to that of a
horrid-looking creature, half-child and half-horse, the horse's feet
being shown the wrong way about. Sometimes, again, he was shown as an
old black man like an imp, sitting on a rock and wringing the dripping
water from his long black hair!
On our way towards St. Austell we passed some very interesting places to
the right and left of our road, and had some fine views of the sea.
Presently we arrived at a considerable village inhabited by miners, the
name of which we did not know until my brother, who was walking with a
miner in the rear, suddenly called to me, and pointing to a name on a
board, said: "See where we've got to!" When my brother called out the
name of the place, I heard a man shout from across the road in a
triumphant tone of voice, "Yes, you're in it now, sir!" and sure enough
we had arrived at St. Blazey, a rather queer name, we thought, for a
place called after a saint! But, unlike the people of Fowey, the
inhabitants seemed quite satisfied with their saint, and indeed rather
proud of him than otherwise. Asked where we could get some coffee and
something to eat, the quarryman to whom my brother had been talking
directed us to a temperance house near at hand, where we were well
served. We were rather surprised at the number of people who came in
after us at intervals, but it appeared afterwards that my brother had
incidentally told the man with whom he was walking about our long
journey, and that we had walked about 1,300 miles. The news had
circulated rapidly about the village, and we eventually found ourselves
the centre of a crowd anxious to see us, and ask questions. They seemed
quite a homely, steady class of men, and gave us a Cornish welcome and a
Cornish cheer as we left the village.
[Illustration: SARCOPHAGUS OF THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON IN THE CRYPT OF ST.
PAUL'S CATHEDRAL.]
Just before reaching St. Blazey, however, we walked a short distance up
a very charming little valley, which has been described as a paradise of
ferns, wooden glades, and granite boulders, and possesses some of the
finest landscapes in the district, with the ground in springtime azure
with wild hyacinths. Some of the finest ferns grew in profusion in this
glen, including the "Osmunda regalis" and the graceful lady fern; but,
fortunately for the ferns, much of the valley passed through private
grounds, and the pretty Carmears waterfall could only be seen on certain
days.
The parish church of Luxulyan, after which village the valley was named,
stood at the head of the glen, and as the people of Cornwall had so many
saints, they had been able to spare two of them for Luxulyan, so that
the church was dedicated conjointly to St. Cyricus and St. Julitta,
while the name of a third was said to be concealed in the modern name of
the village, St. Suhan, a saint who also appeared in Wales and Brittany.
The name of the village well was St. Cyricus, which probably accounted
for the name appearing the first in the dedication of the church. The
church tower at one time contained the Cornish Stannary Records, but in
the time of the Civil War they had been removed for greater safety to
Lostwithiel, where they were unfortunately destroyed. There were many
ancient and disused tin workings in the parish of Luxulyan, but a
particularly fine kind of granite was quarried there, for use in
buildings where durability was necessary--the lighthouse and beacon on
Plymouth Breakwater having both been built with granite obtained from
these quarries. There was also a very hard variety of granite much used
by sculptors called porphyry, a very hard and variegated rock of a mixed
purple-and-white colour. When the Duke of Wellington died, the Continent
was searched for the most durable stone for his sepulchre, sufficiently
grand and durable to cover his remains, but none could be found to excel
that at Luxulyan. A huge boulder of porphyry, nearly all of it above
ground, lying in a field where it had lain from time immemorial, was
selected. It was estimated to weigh over seventy tons, and was wrought
and polished near the spot where it was found. When complete it was
conveyed thence to St. Paul's Cathedral, and now forms the sarcophagus
of the famous Iron Duke. The total cost was about £1,100.