Part 2

At gloaming time, when the jackdaws make an end; when the owl glides out from his tower to the trees and the beetles boom, twilight shadows begin to move and the old grey house broods, like a sentient thing, upon the past; but no unhappy spirits haunt its desolation, and the mighty dead, despite their taking off, revisit these glimpses of the moon to clasp pale hands no more. Abundant life flows to the gate and circles the walls. Arable land ascends the hills, and the clank of plough and cry of man to his horses will soon be heard in the stubble of the corn. The orchards flash ruddy and gold; to-morrow they will be naked and grey; and then again they will foam with flowers and roll in a white sea to the castle walls. Time rings his rounds and forgets not this sequestered hollow. Today, beside the entrance-gate of Compton, the husbandman mounts his nag from that same "upping-stock" whence a Gilbert and a Ralegh leapt to horse in England's age of gold.

BERRY POMEROY

Hither, a thousand years and more ago, rode Radulphus de la Pomerio, lord of the Norman Castle of the Orchard; for William I. was generous to those who helped his conquests. Radulphus, as the result of a hero's achievements at Hastings, won eight-and-fifty Devon lordships, and of these he chose Beri, "the Walled town," for his barony, or honour.

Forward we may imagine him pressing with his cavalcade, through the wooded hills and dales, until this limestone crag and plateau in the forest suddenly opened upon his view, and the Norman eagle, judging the strength of such a position, quickly determined that here should his eyrie be built. For it was a stronghold impregnable before the days of gunpowder.

So the banner with the Pomeroy lion upon it was set aloft on the bluff, and soon the sleep of the woods departed to the strenuous labour of a thousand men. There is a great gap in the hill close at hand that shows whence came these time-worn stones, when a feudal multitude of workers were set upon their task. Then, grim, squat and stern, with a hundred eyes from which the cross-bow's bolts might leap, arose another Norman castle, its watch-towers and great ramparts wedged into the woods and beetling over the valley beneath. It sprang from the solid rock, dominated a gorge, and so stood for many hundred years, during which time the descendants of Ralph exercised baronial rights and enjoyed the favour of their princes. The family, indeed, continued to prosper until 1549, but then disaster overtook them and they disappeared, disgraced. It was during this year that Devon opposed the "Act for Reforming the Church Service." Tooth and nail she resented the proposed changes; and among the malcontents there figured a soldier Pomeroy, now head of his house, who had fought with distinction in France during the reign of Henry VIII. Like many another military veteran since his time, he assumed an exceedingly definite attitude on matters of religion, and held tolerance a doubtful virtue where dogma was involved. Him, therefore, the discontented gentlemen of the West elected their leader, and, after preliminary successes, the baron lost the day at Clist Heath, nigh Exeter. He was captured, and only escaped with his life. He kept his head on his shoulders, but Berry Pomeroy became sequestrated to the Crown.

By purchase, the old castle now owned new masters, for the Seymours followed the founders in their heritage, and the great Elizabethan ruin, that lies in the midst of the Norman work and towers above it, is of their creation.

Sir Edward--a descendant of the Protector--it was who, when William III. remarked to him, "I believe you are of the family of the Duke of Somerset?" made instant reply, "Pardon, sir; the Duke of Somerset is of my family." This haughty gentleman was the last of his race to dwell at Berry Pomeroy; but to his descendants the castle still belongs, and it can utter this unique boast: that since the Conquest it has changed hands but once.

The fabric of Seymour's mansion was, it is said, never completed, but enough still stands to make an imposing ruin; while the earlier fragments of the original fortress, including the southern gateway, the pillared chamber above it and the north wing of the quadrangle, complete a spectacle sufficiently splendid in its habiliments of grey and green.

Nature had played with it and rendered it beautiful. Ivy crowns every turret and shattered wall; its limbs writhe like hydras in and out of the ruined windows, and twist their fingers into the rotting mortar; while along the tattered battlements and archways, grass and wild flowers grow rankly together and many saplings of oak and ash and thorn find foothold aloft. Over all the jackdaws chime and chatter, for it is their home now, and they share it with the owl and the flittermouse.

Seen from beyond the stew ponds in the valley below, the ruins of Berry still present a noble vision piled among the tree-tops into the sky, and never can it more attract than at autumn time, when the wealth of the woods is scattered and only spruce and pine trail their green upon the grey and amber of the naked forest. Then, against the low, lemon light of a clear sunset, Berry's ragged crown ascends like a haunted castle in a fairy story; while beneath the evening glow, the still water casts many a crooked reflection from the overhanging branches, and the last leaves hanging on the osiers splash gold against the gloom of the banks. The hour is very still after wind and rain; twilight broods under gathering vapours, while another night gently obscures detail and renders all formless and vast as the darkness falls. The castle is swallowed up in the woods; the first owl hoots; then there is a rush overhead and a splash and scutter below, as the wild duck come down from above, and, for a little while, break the peace with their noise. Their flurry on the water sets up wavelets, that catch the last of the light and run to bank with a little sigh. Then all is silent and stars begin to twinkle through the network of boughs at forest edge.

BERRY HEAD

Upon this seaward-facing headland the great cliffs slope outward like the sides of an old "three-decker." They bulge upon the sea, and the flower-clad scales of the limestone are full of lustrous light and colour, shining radiantly upon the still tide that flows at their feet. For, on this breathless August day, the very sea is weary; not a ripple of foam marks juncture of rock and water.

The cliffs are spattered with green, where scurvy-grass and samphire, thrift and stonecrop find foothold in every cleft; but the flowers are nearly gone; the rare, white rock rose which haunts these crags has shed her last petal and the little cathartic flax and centaury; the snowy dropwort, storks-bill and carline thistles have all been scorched away by days of sunshine and dewless nights. Only the sea lavender still brushes the great, glaring planes of stone with cool colour, and a wild mallow lolls here and there out of a crevice.

By the coastguard path holiday folk tramp with hot faces, but, save for the gulls, there is little sound or movement, for land and sea are swooning in the heavy noontide hour. The birds are everywhere--cresting the finials of the rocks, swooping over the sea, busy teaching the little grey "squabs" to use their wings and trust the air. Now and then a coney thrusts his ears from a burrow, likes not the heat, and pops back again to his cool, dark parlour. Brown hawks hang above the brown sward. Life seems to be retreating before the pitiless sun, yet the sear, scorched grasses will be green again in a few weeks when the cisterns of the autumn rains open upon them. Already tiny, blue _scilla autumnalis_ is pressing her head through the turf.

Islets lie off-shore, so full of light that they glow like bubbles blown of air and seem to float on the surface of the sea. Their shadows fall in delicious purple on the aquamarine waters and warm hues percolate their ragged, silver faces, while the gulls cluster in myriads upon them, and, black and silent among the noisy sea-fowl, stand dusky cormorants with long necks lifted. Like pale blue silk, shot and streamed over with pure light, the Channel rises to the mists of the horizon. Light penetrates air and water and earth, so that the weight of land and water are lifted off them and lost; indeed the scene appears to be composed of imponderable hazes and vapours merging into each other; it is wrought in planes of light--a gorgeous, unsubstantial illumination as though the clouds were come to earth. The eternal melody of the gulls pierces the picture with sound, hard and metallic, until their din and racket seem of heavier substance and reality than the mighty cliffs and sea from which it pours. Yet the birds themselves, in their floatings and their wheelings, are lighter than feathers. They make the only movement save for fisher craft with tan-red sails now streaming in line round the Head to sea. For the Scruff they are bound--a great, sandy bottom where sole and turbot dwell ten sea-miles off-shore.

Inland gleam cornfields of heavy grain ripe for harvest--pale yellow of oats and golden brown of wheat, where the poppies stir with the gipsy rose; and flung up upon the cliff-edge rise lofty ramparts, ribbed with granite and bored by portholes for cannon. A modern gun a league out at sea would crumble these masonries like sponge-cake; but they were lifted in haste a hundred years ago, when England quaked at the threatened advent of "Boney," whose ordnance could not have destroyed them. The great fortresses were piled by many thousands of busy hands, yet time sped quicker than the engineers, and before the forts were completed, Napoleon, from the deck of the _Bellerophon_ in the bay beneath, had looked his last on Europe.

Still the unfinished work sprawls over the cliffs, and whence cannon were meant to stare, now thrust the blackberry, brier and eagle-fern through the embrasures, and stunted black-thorns and white-thorns shine green against the grey.

One clambers among them to seek the gift of a patch of shade, and wonders what the first Napoleon would have thought of the hydroplane purring out to sea half a mile overhead.

THE QUARRY AND THE BRIDGE

Lastrea and athyrium, their foliage gone, cling in silky russet knobs under the granite ledges, warm the iron-grey stone with brown and agate brightness, and promise many a beauty of unfolding frond when spring shall come again. For their jewels will be unfolding presently, to soften the cleft granite with misty green and bring the vernal time to these silent cliffs.

The quarry lies like a gash in the slope of the hills. To the dizzy edges of it creep heather and the bracken; beneath, upon its precipices, a stout rowan or two rises, and everywhere Nature has fought and laboured to hide this wound driven so deep into her mountain-side by man. A cicatrix of moss and fern and many grasses conceal the scars of pick and gunpowder; time has weathered the harsh edges of the riven stone; the depths of the quarry are covered by pools of clear water, for it is nearly a hundred years since the place yielded its stores.

One great silence is the quarry now--an amphitheatre of peace and quiet hemmed by the broken abutments of granite, and opening upon the hillside. The heather extends over wide, dun spaces to a blue distance, where evening lies dim upon the plains beneath; round about a minor music of dripping water tinkles from the sides of the quarry; a current of air brushes the pools and for a moment frets their pale surfaces; the dead rushes murmur and then are silent; here and there, along the steps and steep places flash the white scuts of the rabbits. A pebble is dislodged by one of them, and, falling to the water beneath, sets rings of light widening out upon it and raises a little sound.

In the midst, casting its jagged shadow upon the water, springs a great, ancient crane from which long threads of iron still stretch round about to the cliffs. It stands stoutly yet and marks the meaning of all around it.

At time of twilight it is good to be here, for then one may measure the profundity of such peace and contrast this matrix of vanished granite with the scene of its present disposal; one may drink from this cup all the mystery that fills a deserted theatre of man's work and feel that loneliness which only human ruins tell; and then one may open the eye of the mind upon another vision, and suffer the ear of imagination to throb with its full-toned roar.

For hence came London Bridge; the mighty masses of granite riven from this solitude span Thames.

Away in the heath and winding onward by many a curve may yet be traced the first railroad in the West Country. It started here, upon the frontier hills of Dartmoor, and sank mile upon mile to the valleys beneath. But of granite were wrought the lines, and over them ran ponderous wagons. Many thousand feet of stone were first cut for the railway, before those greater masses destined for London set forth upon it to their destination.

Like the empty quarry this deserted railway now lies silent, and the place of its passing on the hills and through the forest beneath is at peace again. From the Moor the tramway drops into the woods of Yarner, and here, between a heathery hillside and the fringes of the forest, the broken track may still be found, its semi-grooved lengths of granite scattered and clad in emerald moss, where once the great wheels were wont to grind it. The line passes under interlacing boughs of beeches and winds this way and that, like a grey snake, through the copper brightness of the fallen leaves; it turns and twists, dropping ever, and ceases at last at the mouth of a little canal in the valley, where barges waited of old to carry the stone to the sea.

Here also is stagnation now, but picturesque wrecks of the ancient boats may still be seen at Teigngrace in the forgotten waterway. They lie foundered upon the canal with bulging sides and broken ribs. Their shapes are outlined in grasses and flowers; sallows leap silvery from the old bulwarks and alders find foothold there; briar and kingcups flourish upon their decay; moss and ferns conceal their wounds; in summer purple spires of loosestrife man their water-logged decks, and the vole swims to and from his hidden nest therein.

Here came the Hey Tor granite, after dropping twelve hundred feet from the Moor above. Leaving the great wains, it was shipped upon the Stover Canal and despatched down the estuary of Teign to Teignmouth, whence larger vessels bore it away to London for its final purpose.

It came to supersede that bridge of houses familiar in the old pictures, the bridge that was a street; the bridge that in its turn had taken the place of older bridges built with wood: those mediaeval structures that perished each in turn by flood or fire.

It was in 1756 that the Corporation of London obtained an order to rebuild London Bridge; but things must have moved slowly, for not until fifty years later was the announcement made of a new bridge to pass from Bankside, Southwark, to Queen Street, Cheapside. The public was invited to invest in the enterprise, and doubtless proved willing enough to do so. The ancient structure, long a danger to the navigation of the river, vanished, and in 1825, with great pomp and ceremony, the foundation-stone of the "New London Bridge" sank to its place. A recent writer in _The Academy_ has given a graphic picture of the event, and described the immense significance attached to the occasion. From the earliest dawn of that June morning, London flocked to waterside and thronged each point of vantage. Before noon the roofs of Fishmongers' Hall, of St. Saviour's Church, and every building that offered a glimpse of the ceremony were crowded; the river was alive with craft of all descriptions; the cofferdam for the erection of the first pier served the purpose of a private enclosure, where notable folk sat in four tiers of galleries under flags and awnings.

At four o'clock, by which time the great company must have been weary of waiting, two six-pounder guns at the Old Swan Stairs announced the approach of the Civic and State authorities. The City Marshal, the Bargemasters, the Watermen, the members of the Royal Society, the Goldsmiths, the Under-Sheriffs, the Lord Mayor and the Duke of York appeared.

"His Lordship, who was in full robes," so says an eye-witness of the event, "offered the chair to his Royal Highness, which was positively declined on his part. The Mayor, therefore, seated himself; the Lady Mayoress, with her daughters in elegant dresses, sat near his Lordship, accompanied by two fine-looking, intelligent boys, her sons; near them were the two lovely daughters of Lord Suffolk, and many other fashionable ladies."

Then followed the ceremony. Coins in a cut-glass bottle were placed beneath a copper plate, and upon them descended a mighty block of Dartmoor granite. "The City sword and mace were placed upon it crossways, the foundation of the new bridge was declared to be laid, the music struck up 'God save the King,' and three times three excessive cheers broke forth from the company, the guns of the Honourable Artillery Company on the Old Swan Wharf fired a salute, and every face wore smiles of gratulation. Three cheers were afterwards given for the Duke of York, three for Old England, and three for the architect, Mr. Rennie."

Then did a journalist with imagination dance a hornpipe upon the foundation-stone--for England would not take its pleasure sadly on that great day--and subsequently many ladies stood upon it, and "departed with the satisfaction of being enabled to relate an achievement honourable to their feelings!"

And still the noble bridge remains, though the delicate feet that rested on its foundation-stone have all tripped to the shades. The bridge remains, and its five simple spans--the central one of a hundred and fifty-two feet--make a startling contrast with the nineteen little arches and huge pedestals of the ancient structure. New London Bridge is more than a thousand feet long; its width is fifty-six feet; its height, above low water, sixty feet. The central piers are twenty-four feet thick, and the voussoirs of the central arch four feet nine inches deep at the crown and nine feet at the springing. The foundations lie twenty-nine feet, six inches beneath low water; the exterior stones are all of granite; while the interior mass of the fabric came half from Bramley Fall and half from Derbyshire.

More than seven years did London Bridge take a-building, and it was opened in 1831. The total costs were something under a million and a half of money--less than is needed for a modern battleship.

And already, before it is one hundred years old, there comes a cry that London's heart finds this great artery too small for the stream of life that flows for ever upon it. One may hope, however, that when the necessity arrives, this notable bridge will not be spoiled, but another created hard by, if needs must, to fulfil the demands of traffic. Perhaps a second tunnel may solve the problem, since metropolitan man is turning so rapidly into a mole.

From quarry to bridge is a far cry, yet he who has seen both may dream sometimes among the dripping ferns, silent cliff-faces and unruffled pools, of the city's roar and riot and the ceaseless thunder of man's march from dawn till even; while there--in the full throb and hurtle of London town, swept this way and that amid the multitudes that traverse Thames--it is pleasant to glimpse, through the reek and storm, the cradle of this city-stained granite, lying silent at peace in the far-away West Country.

BAGTOR

From the little southern salient of Bagtor at Dartmoor edge, there falls a slope to the "in country" beneath. Thereon Bagtor woods extend in many a shining plane--from wind-swept hill-crowns of beech and fir, to dingles and snug coombs in the valley bottom a thousand feet beneath.

On a summer day one loiters in the dappled wood, for here is welcome shade after miles of hot sunshine on the heather above. Music of water splashes pleasantly through the trees, where a streamlet falls from step to step; the last of the bluebells still linger by the way, and above them great beech-boles rise, all chequered with sun splashes. On the earth dead leaves make a russet warmth, brighter by contrast with the young green round about, and brilliant where sunlight winnows through. There, in the direct beam, flash little flies, which hang suspended upon the light like golden beads; while through the glades, young fern is spread for pleasant resting-places. Pigeons murmur aloft unseen, and many a grey-bird and black-bird sing beside their hidden homes.

At last the woodlands make an end, old orchards spread in a clearing, and the sun, now turning west, has left the apple trees, so that their blossom hangs cool and shaded on the boughs. Behind--a background for the orchard--there rise the walls of an ancient house, weathered and worn--a mass of picturesque gables and tar-pitched roofs with red-brick chimneys ascending above them. No great dignity or style marks this dwelling. It is a thing of patches and additions. Here the sun still burns radiantly, makes the roof golden, and flashes on the snow-white "fan-tails" that strut up and down upon it.

Great Scotch firs tower to the south, and the light burns redly in their boughs against the blue sky above them. A farmhouse nestles beside the old mansion under a roof of ancient thatch, that falls low over the dawn-facing front, and makes ragged eyelashes for the little windows. The face of the farm is nearly hidden in green things, and a colour note of mauve dominates the foliage where wistaria showers. There are climbing roses too, a Japanese quince, and wallflowers and columbines in the garden plot that subtends the dwelling. Mossy walls enclose the garden, and beneath them spreads the farmyard--a dust-dry place to-day wherein a litter of black piglets gambol round their mother. Poultry cluck and scratch everywhere, and a company of red calves cluster together in one corner. A ploughman brings in his horses. From a byre comes the purr of milk falling into a pail.

On still evenings bell music trickles up to this holt of ancient peace from a church tower three miles away; for we stand in the parish of Ilsington on the shoulder of Dartmoor, and the home of the silver "fan-tails" is Bagtor House--a spot sanctified to all book-lovers. Here, a very mighty personage first saw the light and began his pilgrimage; at Bagtor was John Ford born, the first great decadent of English letters, the tragedian whose sombre works belong to the sunset time of the spacious days.

In April of 1586 the infant John received baptism at Ilsington church; while, sixteen years later, he was apprenticed to his profession and became a member of the Middle Temple. At eighteen John Ford, who wrote out of his own desire and under an artist's compulsion only, first tempted fortune; and over his earliest effort, _Fame's Memorial_, a veil may be drawn; while of subsequent collaborations with Webster and Decker, part perished unprinted and Mr. Warburton's cook "used up" his comedies. Probably they are no great loss, for a master with less sense of humour never lived. But _The Witch of Edmonton_ in Swinburne's judgment embodies much of Ford's best, and his greatest plays all endure.