Chapter 63

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.

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."

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.

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!

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.

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!