Part 10

His castle (what remains of it) stands on a steep and lofty mound of earth at the northern end of the town, overlooking the streets and clustering roofs, and commanding a glorious panorama of the river Dart, winding deep amid the trees toward Dartmouth and the sea. These castle remains are very meagre: a low circular keep-tower, open to the sky, perched on an eminence studded thickly with tall trees--that is all. Below is a garden, with closely shaven lawn, where young men and maidens play tennis in summer months. Outside, in the street, an ancient archway, which was once the North Gate of the town, still stands.

There is, in the retiring little Guildhall of Totnes, standing behind the church, sufficient interest for an especial visit. Low-browed rooms, oak-panelled, with leaden casemented windows set in deep embrasures, with dusky, glowering portraits of old-time worthies hanging against the walls--these are characteristic items toward a due presentment of the place. Here, too, are framed proclamations of Commonwealth period, commencing “OLIVER, by the grace of God.” Oliver, you shall see, is nothing less than “His Highness.”

And now, having “done” the town, do not, I pray you who may essay to follow our wanderings, set out upon walking hence to Dartmouth. Rather should you voyage by steamer those eight miles, at your ease physically and mentally, this last happy condition attained by reflecting that such scenery is not otherwhere to be enjoyed, and that to voyage thus is the thing expected of all good tourists in South Devon.

XLII.

We took steamer from Totnes to Dartmouth. There are two classes aboard, “saloon” and “second,” and there is but threepence difference between the two. But the Wreck, who was paymaster this day, and is ever economically inclined, prudently bought two of the cheaper tickets, “for,” said he, “we are not travelling _en grande tenue_” (terms for translation may be had on application). So we took our places astern, and in due course arrived off the pontoon at Dartmouth. The Wreck, who was in charge of the pasteboards, handed them up.

“Sixpence more, please,” said the collector.

“What for?” demanded the Wreck.

“You can see the notice,” replied the man; and he pointed to an inscription, “Passengers going abaft the funnel must pay saloon fare.”

“But we didn’t go abaft the funnel,” said the Wreck; “we sat behind all the time.”

“Behind _is_ abaft,” remarked the collector....

The Wreck paid the sixpence. “But,” said he, “I wish, next time you paint your boat, you would write up decent English instead of your confounded nautical slang, which no fellow can understand.” And so, as Pepys might have said, into Dartmouth, where we lay at the King’s Head.

XLIII.

The situation of Dartmouth is eminently characteristic of the seaport towns of South Devon and Cornwall. It lies, like so many of them, at the mouth of a little river, which, running almost due south for an inconsiderable number of miles, widens at last into an estuary that gives on the sea through a narrow opening between tall cliffs. On the inner side of this strait and dangerous gut, the storm-tossed mariner, wearied of Channel waves, rides in a deep, land-locked harbour, at peace, and on the shores of this harbour there springs up a town to supply the wants of them that go down to the sea in ships. From Exmouth in the east to Falmouth in the west, the same conditions are seen. Sometimes the town stands on the western side of the estuary, sometimes on the eastern shore; but almost every one of them has in time developed its suburb over the water. Exmouth has its Starcross, Teignmouth its Shaldon. Opposite Dartmouth, on the eastern side of Dartmouth harbour, stands Kingswear, and over against Salcombe is Portlemouth. Torpoint, that stands on the western shore of the Hamoaze, is an essentially modern excrescence from Devonport. East and West Looe seem to be coeval one with the other--those jealous towns of Looe River; but Polruan is the dependency of Fowey, even as Flushing is of Falmouth.

Dartmouth can hold its own among the best of these havens, even as Dartmouth town is easily first in picturesque beauty and hoary survivals of early seafaring days. I think a waft of more spacious times has come down to us, and lingers yet about the steep streets and strange stairways, the broad eaves and bowed and bent frontages of Dartmouth--an air in essence salty, and ringing with the strange oaths and stranger tales of the doughty hearts who adventured hence to unknown or unfrequented seas, or went forth to do battle with the Spaniard. Hence sailed crusaders, and Dartmouth came a splendid third to Fowey and Yarmouth in 1342, when the port sent as many as thirty-one sail for the investment of Calais. Followed then descents of the French upon these coasts, succeeded in turn by ravagements on the seaboard of France at the hands of Dartmouth and Plymouth men, when two score French ships were destroyed. Then came in 1404 the French admiral, Du Chastel, who landed at Blackpool Valley, three miles to the westward, with the object of taking Dartmouth from an unsuspected quarter. But this project failed of accomplishment; the storm-beaten tower of Stoke Fleming church looked down that day upon the secluded valley where, upon the sands of that curving shore, by the tree-grown banks of a rivulet that loses itself in diminutive swamps, the clang of battle echoed all day from the hillsides, and Dartmouth men gave so good an account of themselves that four hundred Frenchmen dead, and two hundred prisoners, with Du Chastel himself, completed the tale of that day’s doings.

But Blackpool was a landing-place to be attempted only in fine weather. Dartmouth harbour was the natural entrance. To guard it there were built, in ancient times, the twin-towers of Dartmouth and Kingswear Castles, facing one another, across the water, and between them was stretched an iron chain, drawn taut by windlasses in time of peril, which effectually prevented the entrance of hostile ships. Kingswear Castle is comparatively insignificant, but Dartmouth Castle, viewed from the Kingswear side, forms, with the adjoining church of Saint Petrox, a striking group, backed by the lofty tree-clad hills of Gallants’ Bower. A modern fort, built into the rock beside the sea, adds a modern touch. Saint Petrox contains brasses to Roopes in plenty, one of the inscriptions, curiously beautiful, for all its spelling:--

“JOHN ROOPE, OF DARTMOUTH, MARCHANT, 1609.

“’Twas not a winded nor a withered face Nor long gray hares nor dimnes in the eyes Nor feble limbs nor uncouth trembling pace Presagd his death that here intombed lies His time was come, his maker was not bounde To let him live till all their markes were founde, His time was come, that time he did imbrace With sence & feelinge with a joyfull harte As his best passage to a better place, Where all his cares are ended & his smarte This Roope was blest, that trusted in God alone He lives twoe lives where others live but one.”

By this time my sketch-book was filled, and we went to a bookseller’s to buy another, finally purchasing a ship’s log-book for the purpose. It was ruled with faint blue lines, unfortunately (what stationers term “feint only”), but the paper of it took pencil beautifully. I think we left the bookseller’s assistant with but a poor estimate of our artistic powers, for he seemed consumed with astonishment at the choice, and grieved when I flouted the gorgeous sketch-books, oblong in shape, and lettered in big gold lettering on their covers, that he would have us buy. “All artists,” said he, “use these;” but we took leave to doubt the statement, and left them for the use of the bread-and-butter miss.

Then, armed with this formidable book, we explored the old parish church (Saint Saviour’s) of Dartmouth, and started off “at score” with the sketch of ironwork on the doorway of the south porch. “Exploration” seems quite the word for an examination of Dartmouth church: it is old and decrepit, and rendered dusky by wooden galleries--a wonderfully and almost inconceivably picturesque building, without and within, and (what is not often seen nowadays) a very much unrestored church. It was in 1887 (I think) that a scheme for restoration was set afoot, when the great controversy between the vicar and the Society for the Preservation of Ancient Buildings took place. The society wished the church to be let alone; the vicar wanted “restoration.” He plaintively remarked that the roof leaked on to him while he preached; and I seem to recollect that he was obliged to use an umbrella in the pulpit on wet Sundays, but of this I am not quite sure.

The outcome of this wordy war was a compromise: the roof was made watertight, and the restoration generally was dropped like a hot potato.

Dartmouth church is closely girdled with old houses and steep streets, paved with painful but romantic-looking cobbles, and the churchyard rears itself high above the heads of wayfarers in the narrow lanes. Here is the town gaol, rarely or never used, save for the paternal detention of derelict drunkards, who, lest they should break their good-for-nothing necks down these staircase-streets, are locked within until the morrow comes, with sobriety and headache as co-parceners.

Dartmouth, you gather, who read municipal notices and proclamations fastened on the church door, is a composite borough--Clifton-Dartmouth-Hardness is its official style and title; but it would, I suspect, puzzle even antiquarians to delimit their respective territories at this time. We idly culled the information as we passed one morning for a day’s excursion to Dittisham.

XLIV.

They call it three and a half miles from Dartmouth to Dittisham; we made it, I should say, about eight; but there is no occasion for any one who essays to follow our route to emulate this shocking example.

Those eight miles were all either up or down hill. A spirit-level wouldn’t get the ghost of a chance anywhere along these lanes, for, the moment you get atop of a hill, it begins to descend again.

We had just reached the bottom of a long hill when we met a countryman of whom we inquired the way.

“Did ye coom from oop yon?” said he.

“Yes,” we replied, with forebodings of disaster.

“Then you’ve coom aout of y’r way,” he said; “ye’ll have to go oop and take th’ next turn to th’ right.”

We took his directions, and were rewarded by presently coming into Dittisham, in receipt, by the way, of a sudden and startling view of Torquay and Marychurch, eight miles away as the crow flies, and yet perfectly clear and distinct.

Down through Dittisham lanes we went, past the great grey tower of the church, with its sun-dial, on to the beach of the river at ebb. Here were several plum trees, loaded with plums; a small variety, dark blue, more like damsons, and hard, and not too sweet. We, I grieve to say, plucked many of these plums and ate them; but there was a Nemesis attendant on the act.

The beach was practicable for some distance, until the water on one 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.

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.