side, and a high padlocked gate decorated with spikes and nails on
the other, seemed to bar all further progress. We carefully scaled
the gate, and dropped into the meadows on the other side, leaving
a record of our progress in the shape of a fragment of the Wreck’s
clothing fluttering aloft in the breeze. A toilsome climb through
many fields and thick hedges brought us to a vantage point, whence we
could see our goal--Dittisham Quay--below, situated on a narrow isthmus
beside the Dart, where the river doubled on its course. Close beside
it miraculously appeared the village we had left. We had painfully
traversed three miles of this promontory, instead of crossing the
narrow neck of land that alone separated village and quay.
Tea was a grateful meal indeed after this. We took it at the open
windows of an inn that looked upon the water, and when the meal was
done the sun went down. The air grew intensely chill, and the mists
crept along the face of the water. I had just touched in the last
notes of Dittisham Quay, when the whistle of the steamer sounded up
river, and the vessel came swiftly round the Point. We were the only
passengers from Dittisham, and were soon put aboard. This steamer
was one of the smaller boats that ply on the Dart, with furnace and
boiler-covering on deck. We sat on the hot iron, the Wreck and I, and
felt happy as the heat worked through. Now and again the crew (two
all told) would open the furnace door, and the light from the glowing
coals would shine on their faces with a ruddy glow, intensified by the
steely-blue water and the dark background of hills, until they looked
like so many devils from hell.
We nearly ran down in the darkness a small launch, whose occupant had
(one of the crew observed) suddenly “shifted his hellum”--whatever
that may mean, and then we ran alongside the _Britannia_ and the
_Hindostan_ training-vessels, with their lights streaming brilliantly
through many ports on to the tide.
Those two sturdy old line-of-battle ships, with their lofty sides and
long ranges of ports, tier over tier, are of types more seemly, more
impressive, than the wallowing masses of ironmongery that to-day are in
the forefront of our navy. They recall the days when England was well
defended against tremendous odds by her wooden walls, superseded in
these days by intricate machinery, inconstant and uncertain in time of
need, and misdirected from Westminster by wooden heads that unluckily
show no signs of supersession.
The moon had risen over Kingswear when our throbbing cockle-shell
stopped her heart-beats and was warped gently against the pontoon,
and the shine tipped every little ripple in the harbour with silver,
making silhouettes of Kingswear houses and hills. Two red lights shone
from the landing-stage, and a number of other lights glimmered yellow
by comparison with the moon’s rays; other hills were of a velvety
blackness, and against them stood out the slim white masts and spars
of the many yachts anchored out in mid-stream. The little pencillings
of light that played upon the water added to the charm of the scene
and the witchery of it. You cannot convey a sense of its beauty by
words; it cannot, indeed, be conveyed at all. Take the charmingest
effect of stage scenery that you have ever seen, and add a Shylock-like
percentage, then you are by way of a conception of the surpassing
beauty of Dartmouth harbour on a summer’s night.
XLV.
Little yellow coaches run three times daily from Dartmouth to
Kingsbridge and _vice versâ_, running winter and summer. We walked out
of Dartmouth as far as Stoke Fleming--three miles. What shall I say of
the country, save that it was hilly? I think we walked to the village
through some dim recollections of the name and fame of Thomas Newcomen,
who invented the steam-engine, lived and died at Dartmouth, and was
buried here. They say his first notion of steam power was gained
through watching the steam from his kettle lifting the lid, but do they
not also say the same of James Watt?
After all we did not find much of interest in Stoke Fleming church, and
saw nothing of Thomas Newcomen’s tomb. But, on the other hand, we saw
and copied the curious epitaph to his ancestor, Elias Newcomen, who was
vicar here. It is a small mural brass, on the south chancel pier:--
“Elias old lies here intombd in grave
but Newecomin to heavens habitation
In knowledge old, in zeale, in life most grave
too good for all who live in lamentation,
Whose ffire & Ceed with hauie plaint & mone
will say too late Elias old is gone.
The xiij of Ivli 1614.”
A fourteenth-century brass, to the memory of John and Elyenore Corp,
with curious French and Latin epitaph, was interesting. Then we heard
the horn of the coach, and rushed out just in time to secure our
seats. With our advent the coach became filled. We of the outside were
tourists all. All the way the gentleman-driver and the passenger beside
him talked “horse,” and some of the talk was very tall indeed.
We passed down extremely steep roads, through Blackpool valley, from
thence up again, through the miserable village of Street down at last
to Slapton Sands, the driver throwing out, now and again, packages of
newspapers as we passed various estates.
Slapton Sands is a three miles’ stretch of shore, with a perfectly
straight and level coach road the whole distance. On one side is the
sea, and on the other the waters and marshes of Slapton Lea--fresh
water on one hand, salt on the other: the Sands Hotel between.
Our coach stopped a moment to unload some luggage for the sportsmen
staying here, for the fishing and the wild-fowl shooting are famous;
then on again to Torcross, where we changed horses. At this modern
settlement the road turns inland, and goes, through comparatively
uninteresting country, past Stokenham, Chillington, and Charleton. Then
over a sturdy bridge spanning a creek, and at last upon the road that
borders Salcombe River, and leads past the Quay into Kingsbridge.
The coach rattled up to the “Anchor,” at the foot of the steep
Fore Street of Kingsbridge. We discharged our obligations to the
gentleman-driver, secured our beds, and ordered dinner, eventually
despatched amid the litter of our mail from London, which was duly
lying at Kingsbridge Post-Office on our arrival. The Wreck, knowing
(good soul) that it would be impossible otherwise for me to keep my
attention off my proofs, filched those entrancing sheets away, and sat
on them until the advent of the coffee.
But let us have done with these domestic details: what of Kingsbridge?
XLVI.
Kingsbridge at the time of writing is chiefly noted for its being ten
miles from the nearest railway station; but when these lines see the
crowning glory of print, it will probably have lost that claim to
distinction, for there is now building a branch to it from the main
line at Brent, and when that branch is opened, Lord alone knows what
the place will do for name or notoriety, unless indeed it can keep
the mild fame of its “white ale” in the forefront, together with what
_kudos_ may accrue from the sister parish (of Dodbrooke) having been
the birthplace of Dr. John Wolcot.
[Illustration: Fore Street Kingsbridge]
For “Peter Pindar” was born at Dodbrooke in 1738, and has he not
immortalised the twin-towns of Kingsbridge and Dodbrooke in one of
his “Odes to my Barn”? The first ode was called forth by the Doctor’s
sheltering a persecuted band of strolling players, who ran no small
risk of stocks and pillory.
“Sweet haunt of solitude and rats,
Mice, tuneful owls, and purring cats;
Who, whilst we mortals sleep, the gloom pervade,
And wish not for the sun’s all-seeing eye,
Your mousing mysteries to spy;
Blessed, like philosophers, amidst the shade;
When Persecution, with an iron hand,
Dared drive the moral-menders from the land,
Called players,--friendly to the wandering crew,
Thine eyes with tears surveyed the mighty wrong,
Thine open arms received the mournful throng--
Kings without shirts, and queens with half a shoe.
* * * * *
Daughter of thatch, and stone, and mud,
When I, no longer flesh and blood,
Shall join of lyric bards some half-a-dozen;
Meed of high worth, and, midst th’ Elysian plains,
To Horace and Alcæus read my strains,
Anacreon, Sappho, and my great cousin.[4]
On thee shall rising generations stare,
That come to Kingsbridge or to Dodbrooke fair:
Like Alexander, shall they every one,
Heave the deep sigh, and say, ‘Since Peter’s gone,
With reverence let us look upon his barn.’”
You will see by these last few lines that “Peter” had a good conceit
of himself, and I must confess that I like him all the more for it.
The same spirit flows through all his works in artless (or is it
artful) manner; certainly it spurred his enemies (and they were many)
to unseemly exhibitions of wrath in their retaliatory versicles, in
which they could by no means match the flowing metre and sarcasm of Dr.
Wolcot’s spiteful muse. Here is a specimen of the attacks upon him,
which derives its point from his profession--the cheapness of the gibe
is obvious:--
“I wish thou hadst more serious work,[5]
As ’Pothecary to the Turk,
How wouldst thou sweep the Mussulmans away:
Not Janizaries breathing blood and ruin,
And daily mischief and rebellion brewing,
Not plagues, nor bowstring, nor a bloody battle
Would kill so fast this unbelieving Cattle,
As doses--mixt in Doctor Pindar’s way.”
This versifier was a champion of George III., whom Wolcot was never
weary of satirising for his meanness and parsimony and general
dunderheadedness. That monarch was an excellent butt into which to
fire arrows of stinging satire; in especial, his eccentric habit of
incessantly repeating his words is delightfully taken advantage of, as,
for example, in that extremely witty description of “A Royal Visit to
Whitbread’s Brewery”--
“Grains, grains, said majesty, to fill their crops;
Grains, grains!--that comes from hops--
Yes, hops, hops, hops.”
John Wolcot was in early life apprenticed to his uncle, an apothecary
of Fowey. After accompanying Sir William Trelawney to Jamaica, as
physician, he took holy orders, and was presented to a living in the
island.
Returning to England and his old profession, he settled at Truro and
Helston, finally removing to London in 1780, and bringing with him
young Opie, whom he had discovered in the wilds of Mithian. In old age
he became blind, and died in London 1819, and was buried in St. Paul’s
Church, Covent Garden.
When I say that Kingsbridge market-house has a turnip-like clock, I
would not have you suspect me of flouting this prosperous little town,
the market centre for the rich agricultural district of the South Hams.
I would not do such a thing: my intentions are strictly honourable.
Believe me, I simply and dispassionately state a grotesque fact, which
you may verify from the drawing of Kingsbridge, and parallel from the
almost exactly similar clock of St. Anne’s, Soho.
This morning we looked into Kingsbridge church, and copied the
philosophic epitaph to “Bone Phillip,”[6] and then to the Grammar
School, a sturdy stone building, with the following inscription over
its doorway:--
This Grammar School was
Built and Endowed 1670
By
Thomas Crispin of y^e City of
Exon Fuller, who was Born in
this Town y^e 6^{th} of Jan 160–7/8
Lord w^t I have twas Thou y^t Gavst it me
And of Thine owne this I Return to Thee.
There is a large portrait of Crispin still hanging on the principal
staircase, rich in tone, representing the benefactor with the broadest
of broad-brimmed hats and walking-cane--a mild-featured gentleman.
And yet he is the terror of small boys, who hold the belief that this
gentle soul comes forth at midnight from his frame, carrying his head
under his arm. I have slept in the bedroom he is supposed particularly
to affect in his nightly wanderings, but (needless to say) Crispin did
not disturb me.
[Illustration: HEADMASTER’S DESK, KINGSBRIDGE.]
There is, too, in the low-pitched, panelled schoolroom a headmaster’s
desk, with canopy, worthy of note, surmounted with a painting of the
Royal Arms, and the initials “C. R.,” with the date 1671; and, on
every available inch of woodwork, schoolboys, more destructive than
Time himself, have carved their names or daubed them in ink, evidences
these of that noble rage for recognition, fame, or notoriety, of that
yearning for immortality, that possesses all alike from cockney ’Enry
upward.
I think something of this feeling impelled one of us to the writing of
these lines in the visitors’ book of the “Anchor,” where we stayed.
Here they are--
... And yet would stay
To lounge the livelong day
Adown the street, upon the Quay:[7]
But duty calls. “Away, away!”
XLVII.
We left Kingsbridge as evening drew on, for the five miles’ voyage to
Salcombe. The steamer was full of country folk, and a few tourists were
observable amid the market baskets. Next to us sat a young fellow and
his newly married wife, evidently on their honeymoon, and desperately
ill at ease. Every one on board, although none of them were acquainted
with those young people, knew their case, and they were the centre to
which all eyes were directed. Few noticed the scenery while this human
interest was on view, although that scenery was most impressive.
The _quasi_ river of Salcombe, seen under a gorgeous sunset with
lowering clouds, is not so much lovely as weird, its lonely creeks
and inlets running between hills almost treeless, and black against
the sky. We passed the excursion steamer coming home to Kingsbridge
from Plymouth, with its white mast-head light, and green and red
side-lights, the hull of her looming hugely as she rushed by.
[Illustration: KINGSBRIDGE QUAY: EVENING.]
Presently our engines stopped, and in sight of Salcombe lights across
the water, we landed a party in the darkness of a lonely shore for
Portlemouth. Passengers and luggage were tumbled into the boat, and
soon were lost to view in the gloom; only the splashing of the oars,
the rattle of rowlocks, and the murmur of voices indicating their
neighbourhood. When the boat returned we steamed across to Salcombe
Quay, and landed under the glittering lights of the precipitous town;
glittering, that is to say, from a distance: near at hand they have
more the shine of glow-worms.
It is a thrilling experience to land thus, on a Saturday night, in an
entirely strange place, and to have, perforce, to hunt immediately for
a night’s lodging. We traversed the long narrow street of Salcombe
without success, and finally arrived opposite the glare of an imposing
house.
“Do you want the hotel, sir?” inquired a Voice.
“Yes; which hotel is this?” demanded the Wreck, directing his voice at
the place generally, failing to see any one.
“The Marine Hotel, sir!”
Now, we had heard something of the palatial character of this hotel,
and recollecting the traditional shortness of the artist’s purse, we
trembled!
“Oh!” said the Wreck, replying to the Voice, “rather expensive hotel,
is it not?”
“Yes, sir,” replied the Voice, suddenly becoming endowed with a
body--Boots apparently--“first-class hotel, sir.”
This meant waiters in evening dress and haughty chambermaids. What
should we dusty wayfarers do in this galley, who carried our luggage on
our backs? No landlord of a “first-class hotel” respects a visitor who
has not piles of portmanteaux. We faded away from the glance of that
candid Boots into the (comparatively) utter darkness, and so down the
street again, presently to find that haven where we would be.
We supped, and the Wreck discovered a crumb-brush. “A brush at last!”
he exclaimed, vigorously brushing his hat with it.
“But that’s not a hat-brush,” said I, astonished.
“No matter,” said he, “brushes are so jolly scarce down here that I’d
take this chance if it were a hearth-brush.”
Salcombe streets are of the most break-neck character: full of tragic
possibilities and large stones. Only Fore Street is approximately
level, and in Fore Street are the shops. Such shops! We looked into
one window, about three feet square, and made a mental inventory of
its contents:--Six Spanish onions; a plateful of wooden dolls, leering
with vacuous glances at a tin of sardines; four tin money-boxes; three
plates of apples (incarnate stomach-aches); a cake of blacking; two
cakes of soap (whose name wild horses shall not drag from me); five
peg-tops; one plum cake; and, casting a greasy light over all, a tallow
dip in a brass candlestick. Other shops there were which rejoiced in
large frontages and wide expanses of window, and, displayed in those
windows, were goods disposed at rare and rhythmic intervals, so that
one had not the heart to destroy their symmetry by making purchases.
Salcombe is a port of great possibilities. Were it not so near a
neighbour of Plymouth Sound, that haven _par excellence_, it had been,
one may surmise, a well-frequented harbour, with a town rivalling
Dartmouth. For here is safe anchorage for ships of deepest draught,
and sea-room in plenty within the gullet formed between precipitous
cliffs. Even yet, Salcombe may become a harbour where masts will
cluster thickly. True, the channel is beset with rocks, but what do
rocks avail against dynamite? Now it is seldom visited save by pleasure
yachts and stray coasting-vessels, with the Kingsbridge Packet calling
periodically at its quay _en route_ to or from Plymouth. Salcombe
village has grown into a small town of quiet residents, and equally
quiet holiday-makers, and possibly in the near future the Kingsbridge
Railway, now building, may push on these few miles further, bringing to
the solitary coast scenery of the Bolt Head--the grandest in Devon--a
crowd of tourists, with the inevitable consequences.
On this Sunday we stayed at Salcombe, and with due Sabbatical languor
explored the fantastic pinnacles of Bolt Head, beautiful with the
lowering beauty of a dark and sullen savagery. It is a wild and
storm-tossed promontory on the seaward side of a beautiful estate
belonging to the Earl of Devon--a place bearing the singular name
of The Moult. Down in the bottom, where the Moult homestead stands
sheltered, the tall elms grow straight and comely; but on the hillside,
trees of all kinds cling tenaciously in gnarled, twisted, and stunted
forms, all bent in the direction in which stormy winds most do blow.
Down beside the water, facing the entrance to the harbour, stand the
remains of Salcombe Castle, washed with the waves of every high tide.
Salcombe Castle was the scene of a four months’ defence against the
beleaguering Roundheads, and when it at last surrendered, the garrison
marched out with all the honours of war, “with thire usuall armes,
drumes beating, and collars flyinge, with boundelars full of powder,
and muskets apertinable.”
XLVIII.
We were up early this morning, in order to catch the Kingsbridge
Packet, which called here on its way to Plymouth, and was timed for
eight o’clock. But we need not have hurried over our breakfast to
reach the quay, for when we walked aboard on the stroke of eight, the
amphibious-looking crew were still busily loading up with the fragments
of machinery and steam-pipes salved from a neighbouring wreck, and
it was not until nearly an hour later that we were steaming out of
the harbour toward the open sea. Meanwhile we secured as decent seats
as might be on this grimy cargo-steamer of the old-fashioned paddle
description, and watched with considerable amusement the frantic
efforts of crew and loafers to push her off from the quay walls. The
captain, not, I think, a skipper of coruscating brilliancy, took the
wheel, and shouted himself hoarse down the speaking-tube with contrary
directions, among which we distinguished such choice expressions as,
“Stop her, damn you!” “Easy turn ahead!” “Full turn astern!” while the
paddle-box ground horribly against the projecting corners of the quay,
and the crew and the crowd of loafers jabbed away violently with long
poles.
At last we swung clear, and steamed into the fairway, where we stopped
and took two sailing vessels in tow. When we had made all fast we
started in earnest, and came out of Salcombe round by Bolt Head with
much straining and slackening of hawsers, as the two vessels astern
pitched and wallowed in the heavy seas.
The morning was chill and misty, and inclined for rain. The rocks of
Bolt Head, although we were so near to them, could only now and again
be even partially seen through shredded vapours, and all around was a
ghostly wall of opalescent fog. The pilot took charge of the wheel--a
statuesque figure, silent, impassive, shrouded in gamboge-coloured
oilskins, and steadfastly gazing ahead with set eyes under shaggy
eyebrows.
We made, as well as we could, a tour of the vessel, laying firm hold of
bulwarks and ropes and seats as we went. There were few people aboard,
but there was a great deal of miscellaneous cargo on deck, beside the
remains of the wrecked steamer’s engine-room. We coasted round a pile
of petroleum barrels, coloured that hideous blue which identifies them
anywhere; and then one of us fell over a basket full of squawking live
ducks, voyaging to Plymouth market. Then, doubling a promontory of
empty beer barrels, we came upon the engine-room, smelling to heaven
with boiling oil and rancid fat. We could see it, bubbling and greasy,
on the hot metal, and that “finished” us. We leant over the side of the
vessel, and were very and continuously ill.
* * * * *
I think it must have been after the lapse of a few years that we came
in sight of Plymouth Sound. Plymouth Sound is perhaps one of the
most soul-stirring places in the world to an Englishman who knows its
story; but we had had, were having, too much physical stirring to be
even languidly interested in it, which shows, by the way, the gross
enthraldom of mind by matter: soul-stirring has a poor chance when
you’re fearfully sea-sick.
[Illustration: BOLT HEAD.]
We passed the Mewstone Buoy, and fondly imagined that, as the
Breakwater came in sight, the threshing and the buffeting of the sea
was done; but, though Plymouth seemed so near, it was a weary three
miles yet, and Britannia only rules the waves in a metaphorical sense.
Some one who passed us, unmoved by all the uproar of the sea, let off
that antique joke. I could have killed him, but refrained: his time
will come, without doubt.
We landed at Millbay Docks, and never before was I so pleased to set
foot on shore.
The day had brightened considerably. We left our knapsacks at a
cloak-room, and set out for a preliminary survey of Plymouth. We made
at once for the Hoe: I suppose everybody does the same thing. The Hoe
still affords a glorious outlook upon the Sound and the sea beyond,
although a great deal of its western end has been quarried away for
building operations.
There, third or fifth-rate streets and tramways conspire to render
sordid a neighbourhood which any other nation than our own would have
kept sacred, both for the satisfying of the æsthetic and the patriotic
instinct. But we have, I suppose, despite the wind-bags of that House
of Zephyrs at Westminster, so much glorious tradition that we can
afford the destruction, or partial desecration, of sites historic in
the best sense. We can even afford, so imperishable are our laurels,
to set up memorials of our achievements in arms, memorials whose
uninspired tawdriness would wither with unconscious ridicule the scanty
bays of other nations.
What satisfaction, what decorative pleasure is gained in that
achievement in ungainly ostentation, the Armada Memorial? Is that
rushing termagant with flying petticoats indeed Britannia? and that
hairy poodle beside her, is that really the British Lion? The British
Lion, _pour rire_, rather: “The British Lion is a noble scion,” the
embodiment of the music halls. This memorial, I suppose, is set up in
praiseworthy commemoration of the might of the Mailed Hand; but for all
her trident and her sword, this valorous virago, this Britannia, on
her pillar, is a creature of finger-nails, scratches, and subsequent
hysteria.
Hard by is Drake, modelled in bronze by an alien, for the satisfaction
of British patriotism. This work of the ingenious Boehm is not without
dignity, viewed from carefully chosen standpoints; but from most points
of the compass he is something too cock-a-hoop, he wears too much the
air of the sparrow on a ting for our satisfaction. It is well, though,
that he should be here in bronze for the healthful admiration and
emulation of Englishmen.