Running across the southern part of the heart of wild Dartmoor is a
very ancient road. "The Abbot's Way" they call it, and antiquaries hold
varied opinions as to when it was made, and even as to where it led to
and from. To-day, much of this old trackway has gone back to nature and
cannot be distinguished from the rugged moorland across which it passes,
but some stretches of it survive in a strange green path marked here and
there by a boundary stone or a much-weathered Celtic cross.
But the old stories--tales perhaps even older than the road--tell that
the Abbot's Way is the favourite hunting ground of the Wish Hounds or
Yell Hounds, an eerie spectre-pack that hunts across the wildest parts
of the moor on moonless nights.
Strange, gruesome tales are told by those who, benighted or lost in the
fog, have stumbled home through the dark of a winter night across the
grim moorland. They tell--half dazed with fear--as they reach at last
some house and welcome human companionship, of the wild baying of the
hounds that drifted through the murk night to their ears, or of the
sudden vision of the pack passing at whirlwind speed across bog and
marsh urged onward by a grim black figure astride a giant dark horse
from whose smoking nostrils came flame and fire.
The description of this figure, "The Midnight Hunter of the Moor,"
seldom varies, although stories of the Wish Hounds differ from time
to time.
Some say that they are headless, and that their blood-curdling cries
seem to emerge from a phosphorescent glow of evil smoke that hovers
about the place where the head should be. Others describe them as gaunt,
dark beasts with huge white fangs and lolling red tongues.
Up on the grim wild moors it is not hard at midnight, through the
roaring of the wind, or in the stillness of a calm night broken only by
the weird cry of some nocturnal bird or the distant sound of a rushing
stream, to imagine, far away, the baying of this spectre-pack.
The old country folk hold that the man or beast who hears the devilish
music of the Wish Hounds will surely die within the year, and that
any unhappy mortal that stands in the way of the hunt will be pursued
until dawn, and if caught will inevitably lose his soul; for the dark
huntsman, they say, is the devil, whose power is great over that rugged
country between sunset and sunrise.
Even to-day some of the older people will tell you stories of escapes
they have had from the Midnight Hunter, or of the fate that befell some
friend or neighbour very many years ago who never returned from a night
journey across the moor.
But grim as it may be after nightfall, the country which the Abbot's Way
traverses is one of amazing beauty. You may pick up this old track on
the moors a mile or two from Princetown, or strike north to join it from
South Brent or Ivybridge station. To the west there is a stretch of it
clearly marked near Sheepstor where it crosses the head-waters of the
Plym.
Some think the old Way got its name because it was the means of
communication between the Abbeys of Buckfast on one side of the moor and
Tavistock on the other. Others say it was an old wool-trading track to
the west.
Dartmoor all around this district is at its best. It is a riot of rugged
boulder, fern, and heather, through which rushing streams, full of
trout, flow swiftly southward to the Channel. The Tors here are not the
highest of the moor, yet many of them rise well above the 1,500 feet
level.
It is a country easy of access, for the Great Western main line skirts
the southern edge of Dartmoor between Totnes and Plymouth, and railway
and coaching services enable the tourist to visit some of the most
remote parts of the moor in a day trip from Torquay, Dartmouth,
Teignmouth, or in fact any of the South Devon seaside resorts between
Dawlish and Plymouth. But the visitor who wishes to explore Southern
Dartmoor at leisure will find Newton Abbot the most convenient centre.
[Illustration: _The Abbot's Way_]
[Illustration]