[Illustration: HAYES BARTON.]
East of Exe River and south of those rolling heaths crowned by the
encampment of Woodberry, there lies a green valley surrounded by forest
and hill. Beyond it rise great bluffs that break in precipices upon the
sea. They are dimmed to sky colour by a gentle wind from the east, for
Eurus, however fierce his message, sweeps a fair garment about him. Out
of the blue mists that hide distance the definition brightens and lesser
hills range themselves, their knolls dark with pine, their bosoms
rounded under forest of golden green oak and beech; while beneath them a
mosaic of meadow and tilth spreads in pure sunshine. One field is
brushed with crimson clover; another with dull red of sorrel through the
green meadow grass; another shines daisy-clad and drops to the green of
wheat. Some crofts glow with the good red earth of Devon, and no growing
things sprout as yet upon them; but they hold seed of roots and their
hidden wealth will soon answer the rain.
In the heart of the vale a brook twinkles and buttercups lie in pools of
gold, where lambs are playing together.
Elms set bossy signets on the land and throng the hedgerows, their round
tops full of sunshine; under them the hawthorns sparkle very white
against the riot of the green. From the lifted spinneys and coverts,
where bluebells fling their amethyst at the woodland edge, pheasants
are croaking, and silver-bright against the blue aloft, wheel gulls, to
link the lush valley with the invisible and not far distant sea. They
cry and musically mew from their high place; and beneath them the cuckoo
answers.
Nestling now upon the very heart of this wide vale a homestead lies,
where the fields make a dimple and the burn comes flashing. Byres and
granaries light gracious colour here, for their slate roofs are mellow
with lichen of red gold, and they stand as a bright knot round which the
valley opens and blossoms with many-coloured petals. The very buttercups
shine pale by contrast, and the apple-blooth, its blushes hidden from
this distance, masses in pure, cold grey beneath the glow of these great
roofs. Cob walls stretch from the outbuildings, and their summits are
protected against weather by a little penthouse of thatch. In their arms
the walls hold a garden of many flowers, rich in promise of small
fruits. Gooseberries and raspberries flourish amid old gnarled apple
trees; there are strawberries, too, and the borders are bright with May
tulips and peonies. Stocks and wallflowers blow flagrant by the pathway,
murmured over by honey bees; while where the farmhouse itself stands,
deep of eave under old thatch, twin yew trees make a dark splash on
either side of the entrance, and a wistaria showers its mauve ringlets
upon the grey and ancient front. The dormer windows are all open, and
there is a glimpse of a cool darkness through the open door. Within the
solid walls of this dwelling neither sunshine nor cold can penetrate,
and Hayes Barton is warm in winter, in summer cool. The house is shaped
in the form of a great E, and it has been patched and tinkered through
the centuries; but still stands, complete and sturdy in harmony of
design, with unspoiled dignity from a far past. Only the colours round
about it change with the painting of the seasons, for the forms of hill
and valley, the modelling of the roof-tree, the walls and the great
square pond outside the walls, change not. Enter, and above the
dwelling-rooms you shall find a chamber with wagon roof and window
facing south. It is, on tradition meet to be credited, the birthplace of
Walter Ralegh.
Proof rests with Sir Walter's own assertion, and at one time the manor
house of Fardel, under Dartmoor, claimed the honour; but Ralegh himself
declares that he was born at Hayes, and speaks of his "natural
disposition to the place" for that reason. He desired, indeed, to
purchase his childhood's home and make his Devonshire seat there; but
this never happened, though the old, three-gabled, Tudor dwelling has
passed through many hands and many notable families.
"Probably no conceivable growth of democracy," says a writer on Ralegh's
genealogy, "will make the extraction of a famous man other than a point
of general interest." Ralegh's family, at least, won more lustre from
him than he from them, though his mother, of the race of the
Champernownes, was a mother of heroes indeed. By her first marriage she
had borne Sir Walter's great half-brother, Humphrey Gilbert; and when
Otho Gilbert passed, the widow wedded Walter Ralegh, and gave birth to
another prodigy. The family of the Raleghs must have been a large and
scattered one; but our Western historian, Prince, stoutly declares that
Sir Walter was descended from an ancient and noble folk, "and could have
produced a much fairer pedigree than some of those who traduc'd him."
The tale of his manifold labours has been inadequately told, though Fame
will blow her trumpet above his grave for ever; but among the lesser
histories Prince's brief chronicle is delightful reading, and we may
quote a passage or two for the pleasure of those who pursue this note.
"A new country was discovered by him in 1584," says the historian,
"called in honour of the Queen, Virginia: a country that hath been since
of no inconsiderable profit to our nation, it being so agreeable to our
English bodies, so profitable to the Exchequer, and so fruitful in
itself; an acre there yielding over forty bushels of corn; and, which is
more strange, there being three harvests in a year: for their corn is
sow'd, ripe and cut down in little more than two months."