Chapter VIII (8)

The village of Kenton was hidden in a small dell, and possessed a village green, in the centre of which were the remains of an old cross. The church tower was one hundred feet high, surmounted by an unusually tall pinnacle at each corner, the figure of a saint appearing in a niche, presumably for protection. Kenton must have been a place of some importance in early times, for Henry III had granted it an annual fair on the feast of All Saints. The magnificent screen in the church not only reached across the chancel, but continued across the two transepts or chapels on either side, and rose in tiers of elaborate carving towards the top of the chancel arch. No less than forty of its panels retained their original pictures of saints and prophets, with scrolls of Latin inscriptions alternating with verses from the Old Testament and clauses from the Apostles' Creed. Most of the screen was fifteenth-century work, and it was one of the finest in the county; much of the work was Flemish. On it were images of saints, both male and female, and of some of the prophets, the saints being distinguishable by the nimbus or halo round their heads, and the prophets by caps and flowing robes after the style of the Jewish costumes in the Middle Ages. There was also a magnificent pulpit of about the same date as the screen, and so richly designed as to equal any carved pulpit in Europe. It was said to have been carved from the trunk of a single oak tree and ornamented in gilt and colours.

The number of screens in the churches near the sea-coast caused us to wonder whether some of them had been brought by sea from Flanders or France, as we remembered that our Cheshire hero, and a famous warrior, Sir Hugh de Calveley, who kept up the reputation of our county by eating a calf at one meal, and who died about the year 1400, had enriched his parish church with the spoils of France; but the lovely old oak furniture, with beautifully figured panels, some containing figures of saints finely painted, which he brought over, had at a recent "restoration" (?) been taken down and sold at two pounds per cartload! We sincerely hoped that such would not be the fate of the beautiful work at Kenton.

We now came to Star Cross, a place where for centuries there had been a ferry across the River Exe, between the extreme west and east of Devon. The rights of the ferry had formerly belonged to the abbots of Sherborne, who had surmounted the landing-place with a cross, which had now disappeared. The ferry leads by a rather tortuous passage of two miles to Exmouth, a town we could see in the distance across the water; but troublesome banks of sand, one forming a rabbit warren, obstructed the mouth of the river. We also passed through Cofton, a small village noted for its cockles, which the women gathered along the shore in a costume that made them resemble a kind of mermaid, except that the lower half resembled that of a man rather than a fish. About two miles from Cofton was the village of Mamhead, with its obelisk built in 1742, one hundred feet high, on the top of a spur of the Great Haldon Hill. The rector of the church here at one time was William Johnson Temple, often mentioned in _Boswell's Life of Johnson_. He was the grandfather of Frederick Temple, Bishop of Exeter at the time we passed through that city, afterwards Bishop of London, and finally Archbishop of Canterbury, to whose harsh voice and common sense we had once listened when he was addressing a public meeting in Manchester. In the churchyard at Mamhead was an enormous yew tree, over eight hundred years old. In 1775, when Boswell came to see Lord Lisburne at Mamhead Park, and stayed at the vicarage, he was so much impressed by the size and magnificence of this great tree, that he made a vow beneath its great branches "never to be drunk again"--a vow he soon forgot when he was out of sight of the tree.

We soon arrived at the pretty little town of Dawlish, and perhaps it was its unique appearance that gave us the impression that we had reached another of the prettiest places we had visited. There we halted for refreshments and for a hurried excursion in and about the town, as we were anxious to reach Torquay before night, where we had decided to stay until Monday morning. We walked towards the source of the water, which comes down from the higher lands in a series of pretty little waterfalls, spreading out occasionally into small lakes adorned at the sides with plots of grass and beds of flowers. The name Dawlish, we learned, came from two Cornish words meaning "deep stream," or, as some have it, "Devil's Water"; and behind the town on Haldon Hill was the "Devil's Punchbowl," from which descended the water that passed through the town, but which is in much too pleasant a position, we thought, to be associated with his satanic majesty.

Modern Dawlish (though "Doflisc" appears in early charters) only dated from the year 1810, when the course of a small stream was changed, and the pretty waterfalls made; rustic bridges were placed over it and houses built near the banks; this scheme, which was intended to make the fortunes of the prospectors and of the inhabitants generally, was completed at the beginning of November in that year. But, sad to relate, before nine o'clock on the morning of November 10th in that same year scarcely a vestige of the improvements remained, and in place of a small rippling stream came a great river, which swept away four houses with stables and other buildings and eight wooden bridges. It seemed almost as if the devil had been vexed with the prospectors for interfering with his water, and had caused this devastation to punish them for their audacity. But a great effort was made in 1818, and a more permanent scheme on similar lines was completed; and Dawlish as we saw it in 1871 was a delightful place suggestive of a quiet holiday or honeymoon resort. Elihu Burritt, in his _Walk from London to Land's End_, speaks well of Dawlish; and Barham, a local poet and a son of the renowned author of _Ingoldsby Legends_, in his legend "The Monk of Haldon," in the July number of _Temple Bar_ in 1867, wrote:

Then low at your feet,
From this airy retreat,
Reaching down where the fresh and the salt water meet,
The roofs may be seen of an old-fashioned street;
Half village, half town, it is--pleasant but smallish,
And known where it happens to _be_ known, as Dawlish.
A place I'd suggest
As one of the best
For a man breaking down who needs absolute rest,
Especially too if he's weak in the chest;
Torquay may be gayer,
But as for the air
It really can not for a moment compare
With snug little Dawlish--at least so they say there.

The light-coloured cliffs of Dorsetshire had now given place to the dark red sandstone cliffs of Devonshire, a change referred to by Barham in "The Monk of Haldon," for he wrote:

'Tis certainly odd that this part of the coast,
While neighbouring Dorset gleams white as a ghost,
Should look like anchovy sauce spread upon toast.

We were now bound for Teignmouth, our next stage; and our road for a short distance ran alongside, but above, the seashore. The change in the colour of the cliffs along the sea-coast reminded my brother of an incident that occurred when he was going by sea to London, about nine years before our present journey. He had started from Liverpool in a tramp steamboat, which stopped at different points on the coast to load and unload cargo; and the rocks on the coast-line as far as he had seen--for the boat travelled and called at places in the night as well as day--had all been of a dark colour until, in the light of a fine day, the ship came quite near Beachy Head, where the rocks were white and rose three or four hundred feet above the sea. He had formed the acquaintance of a young gentleman on board who was noting every object of interest in a diary, and who, like my brother, was greatly surprised at the white cliffs with the clear blue sky overhead. Presently the captain came along, and the young man asked him why the rocks were white. "Well, sir," said the captain, "the sea is as deep there as the rocks are high, and they are so dangerous to ships in the dark that the Government has ordered them to be whitewashed once a month to prevent shipwreck." Out came the pocket-book, and as the captain watched the passenger write it down, my brother looked hard in the captain's face, who never moved a muscle, but a slight twinkle in one of his eyes showed that he did not want to be asked any questions!

The Devon red sandstone was not very durable, and the action of the sea had worn the outlying rocks into strange shapes. Before reaching Teignmouth we had some good views of the rocks named "the Parson and the Clerk," the history of which was by no means modern, the legend being told in slightly different ways:

A great many years ago the vicar of Dawlish and his clerk had been to Teignmouth to collect tithes, and were riding home along the cliffs on a dark wet night when they lost their way. Suddenly they came to a house that they did not remember having seen before. The windows were bright and light, and they could hear the shouts and laughter of a very merry company within; they were just wishing themselves inside when a window was thrown open and they were invited to come in, an invitation they very willingly accepted, and they soon began to enjoy themselves, drinking deeply and waxing merrier every moment, the parson singing songs that were quite unfit for a priest, entirely forgetting the sanctity of his calling, while the clerk followed his master's example. They stayed long, and when, with giddy heads and unsteady legs, they rose to depart, the parson said he was sure he could not find the way, and he must have a guide, even if it were the devil himself. The man who had invited them into the house said he would put them on the right way for Dawlish, and led them to the top of the road, and telling them to go straight on, immediately disappeared. When they had gone a little way, they thought the tide uncommonly high, as it reached their feet, although a minute before they were sure they were on dry land; and the more they attempted to ride away the faster rose the water! Boisterous laughter now echoed around, and they shouted for help, and a bright flash of lightning revealed the figure of their guide, who was none other than the devil himself, jeering and pointing over the black stormy sea into which they had ridden. Morning came, and their horses were found quietly straying on the sands, but neither the parson nor his clerk were ever seen again: but meantime two isolated rocks, in which were seen their images, had risen in the sea as a warning to their brethren of future generations to have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness.

From the Teignmouth side the Parson appeared seated in a pulpit the back of which was attached to the cliff, while under him was an arch just like the entrance to a cave, through which the sea appeared on both sides; while the poor Clerk was some distance farther out at sea and much lower down. We thought it was a shame that the parson should be sitting up there, watching the poor clerk with the waves dashing over him, as if perfectly helpless to save himself from drowning. Still, that was the arrangement of the three-decker pulpit so common in the churches of a hundred years ago--the clerk below, the parson above.

Our road terminated on the beach at Teignmouth, and near St. Michael's Church, where on a tablet appeared the figure of a ship, and underneath the following words:

SACRED TO THE MEMORY

OF

RICHARD WESTLAKE,

AGED 27 YEARS,

MASTER OF THE BRIG "ISLA,"

ALSO JOHN WESTLAKE,

HIS BROTHER, AGED 24 YEARS,

WHO LOST THEIR LIVES IN THE SAID
BRIG WHICH FOUNDER'D IN THE STORM
ON THE 29TH DAY OF OCTOBER 1823
WITHIN SIGHT OF THIS CHURCH.

Readers be at all times ready, for you
Know not what a day may bring forth.

Teignmouth was a strange-looking town, and the best description of it was by the poet Winthrop Mackworth Praed, who described it as seen in his time from the top of the Ness Rock:

A little town was there,
O'er which the morning's earliest beam
Was wandering fresh and fair.
No architect of classic school
Had pondered there with line and rule--
The buildings in strange order lay,
As if the streets had lost their way;
Fantastic, puzzling, narrow, muddy,
Excess of toil from lack of study.
Where Fashion's very latest fangles
Had no conception of right angles.

Possibly the irregular way in which the old portion of the town had been built was due to the inroads of the French, who had invaded and partially destroyed the town on two occasions; for in those days the English coast between Portland and Plymouth was practically undefended. By way perhaps of reprisal Teignmouth contributed seven ships and 120 mariners to Edward III's expedition to Calais in 1347.

That unfortunate young poet John Keats visited Teignmouth in 1818. He had begun to write his poem "Endymion" in the Isle of Wight the year before, and came here to revise and finish it. The house where he resided, with its old-fashioned door and its three quaint bow windows rising one above another, was pointed out to us, as well as a shop at that time kept by the "three pretty milliners" in whom poor Keats was so greatly interested. Endymion was a beautiful youth whom Selene, the moon, wrapped in perpetual sleep that she might kiss him without his knowledge. Keats, who was in bad health when he came to Teignmouth, was reported to have said he could already feel the flowers growing over him, and although he afterwards went to Rome, the warmer climate failed to resuscitate him, and he died there in 1820, when only twenty-five years old.

We had expected to have to walk thirty miles that day, via Newton Abbot, before reaching Torquay; but were agreeably surprised to find we could reduce the mileage to twenty-three and a half by crossing a bridge at Teignmouth. The bridge was quite a formidable affair, consisting of no less than thirty-four arches, and measured 1,671 feet from shore to shore. It was, moreover, built of beams of wood, and as it had been in existence since the year 1827, some of the timber seemed rather worn. The open rails at the sides and the water below, and our solemn thoughts about Keats, tended to give us the impression that we were not altogether safe, and we were glad when we reached the other side, and landed safely at St. Nicholas, or rather at the villages which formed the southern portion of Teignmouth. With the Ness Rock, a huge dark red rock with a nose turned upwards towards the sky, to our left, we walked briskly along the coast road towards Torquay in order to reach that town before dark, as we were obliged to find a good inn to stay in over the Sunday. Continuing along this road, with fine views in the neighbourhood of Anstey's Cove, we soon arrived at Torquay, of which we had heard such glowing descriptions on our journey.

Near the entrance to the town we overtook a clergyman, with whom we entered into conversation, telling him of our long journey, in which he was much interested. We asked him if he could recommend us a good hotel where we could stay until Monday morning, as we did not walk on Sundays; and he suggested that we should stay at one of the boarding-houses. We had never thought of staying at these places, but when he said he knew of one that would just suit us, and would be pleased to accompany us there, we were delighted to accept his kind offer.

I knew my brother was rather suspicious of boarding-houses, and when we arrived opposite the rather nice house where the clergyman had taken us I noticed he looked rather critically at the windows both below and above. When he saw that the curtains were drawn equally on each side of the windows and all the blinds drawn down to almost exactly the same distance, he was quite satisfied, as he had often said it was a sure sign that there was somebody in the house who was looking after it, and that similar order would be certain to reign within.

The clergyman was evidently well known to the people at the house, and an introduction to the master and mistress, and (shall we record?) to their two daughters as well, placed us immediately upon the best of terms with the whole family. We received every attention, and after a good tea we had a walk in and around the town, and were well pleased with the appearance of Torquay. It was a much larger place than we had anticipated. In a stationer's shop window we saw exhibited a small _Guide to Torquay_, published in Manchester, and sold for the small sum of one penny, from which we learned that the population of Torquay had risen enormously during the past few years, for while it registered 11,294 in 1858 and 16,682 in 1868, in 1871, the year of our journey, it stood at 26,477; and it further informed us that the distance from there to London was 216 miles, and that "the express which leaves Paddington at 9.15 and arrives at Torquay at 4.34 has a third-class carriage for Torquay"--an example of the speed of express trains in those days. The _Guide_ must have only just been issued, evidently in advance for the coming year, as it gave the Torquay High Water Table from May to October inclusive for 1872, and the following precise account of Anstey's Cove.

ANSTIS COVE

Anstis Cove deserves a special visit. Passing from the Strand, under
an avenue of trees opposite the Post-Office, and leaving the Public
Gardens on the right hand, the visitor will go as straight as the
road will permit till he comes in sight of St. Matthias' Church. The
road to the right leads down to Anstis Cove. He will notice among the
ferns and trees a door in the mossy bank, like the entrance to a
hermitage in the wilderness. It is the door of the venerable Kent's
Cavern. Persons who are now employed by the Torquay Natural History
Society will guide the visitor and supply candles. The vast cavern is
six hundred and fifty feet in length, with small caverns and
corridors, which are most dangerous without a guide, rugged, wet, and
slippery. Some years ago the skeleton of a woman who had lost her way
was found. No one now enters without a guide. In some parts the
cavern is so low that the visitors are obliged to crawl and squeeze,
but in other parts it is 30 feet high. The eminent geologist, Dr.
Buckland, here discovered the bones of rhinoceros, elephants, lions,
wolves, bears, hippopotami, and hyaenas--beasts of prey that haunted
the forests of prehistoric England before the times of the Celts.
Rude implements which have been found in the cavern prove that in
very remote times it was the resort of savage tribes. The cavern is
now in process of careful examination by qualified persons, at the
expense of the British Association, to whom they make periodical
reports. Fossil remains which have been, discovered may be seen at
the museum of the Natural History Society, in Park Street, between
the hours of ten and four daily.

But Anstis Cove is the object of our search. Proceeding down the
shady lane, taking the first turning on the left hand, we find a
gateway leading to a footpath among all kinds of bushes and shady
trees, down to the pebbly beach. The lofty limestone cliff of Walls
Hill is before us--such rocks as are nowhere else to be seen. They
seem like huge monsters creeping into the ocean. Here, amongst huge
rocks on the shore, are the bathing machines. The water is clear as
crystal. Rowing-boats are also here for hire, and here the strata of
the neighbouring cliffs hanging over the sea can be examined. Here is
a cottage, too, where lobsters and picnic viands may be procured. On
the beach the fossil Madrepore is often found.

We were the only visitors at the boarding-house, where the cleanliness and the catering were all that could be desired. The young ladies vied with each other to make our visit a pleasant one, and after a good supper we stayed up relating some of our adventures until the clock struck ten, when we retired for a well-earned rest, having walked quite 179 miles that week.

(_Distance walked twenty-three and a half miles_.)

_Sunday, November 12th._

We rose at our usual early hour this morning, and were downstairs long before our friends anticipated our arrival, for they naturally thought that after our long walk we should have been glad of an extra hour or two's rest; but habit, as in the time of Diogenes, had become second nature, and to remain in bed was to us equivalent to undergoing a term of imprisonment. As boot-cleaning in those days was a much longer operation than the more modern boot-polish has made it, we compromised matters by going out in dirty boots on condition that they were cleaned while we were having breakfast. It was a fine morning, and we were quite enchanted with Torquay, its rocks and its fine sea views on one side, and its wooded hills on the other, with mansions peeping out at intervals above the trees. We could not recall to mind any more beautiful place that we had visited.

After breakfast we attended morning service at the church recommended by our host, but after travelling so much in the open air the change to the closer atmosphere of a church or chapel affected us considerably. Although we did not actually fall asleep, we usually became very drowsy and lapsed into a dreamy, comatose condition, with shadowy forms floating before us of persons and places we had seen in our travels. The constant changes in position during the first part of the Church Service invariably kept us fairly well alive, but the sermon was always our chief difficulty, as during its delivery no change of posture was required. When the service began, however, we were agreeably surprised to find that the minister who officiated was none other than the clergyman who had so kindly interested himself in finding us lodgings yesterday. This awakened our interest in the service, which we followed as closely as we could; but when the vicar announced his text, beginning with the well-known words, "They that go down to the sea in ships," we were all attention, for immediately our adventures in the North Sea came into our minds, and the ocean, that great work of the Almighty, is so graphically described in that 107th Psalm, and the dangers of the sailors with their fears and hopes so clearly depicted, that we record the whole text, as it appeared in the versified rendering of the Psalms, in the hope that some one may "read, mark, learn and inwardly digest":

They that go down to the sea in ships: and occupy their business in
great waters; these men see the works of the Lord, and His wonders in
the deep. For at His word the stormy wind ariseth, which lifteth up
the waves thereof. They are carried up to the heaven, and down again
to the deep: and their soul melteth away because of the trouble. They
reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their
wit's end. So when they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, He
delivereth them out of their distress. For He maketh the storm to
cease, so that the waves thereof are still. Then are they glad,
because they are at rest, and so He bringeth them unto the haven
where they would be. O that men would therefore praise the Lord for
His goodness, and declare the wonders that He doeth for the children
of men.

The preacher referred feelingly to a great storm or tornado which had visited the South Coast about six years before, when a large number of ships, sheltering in Torbay, were swept out by a sudden change in the wind and over forty of them were sunk. This happened in the month of January, when drifting snow filled the eyes of the spectators, who were within hearing distance but could render no assistance. The Brixham sailors acted most bravely and saved many lives, but over one hundred people were drowned. We could see that some members of the congregation still mourned the loss of friends who had perished on that sad occasion.

We were well pleased with the service, and after a short ramble returned to our lodgings for dinner at one o'clock, afterwards adjourning to the drawing-room, where we were presently joined by our host, who suggested a walk that afternoon to see the beautiful views in the neighbourhood, a proposition to which we readily assented.

But while he was getting ready my brother happened to strike a few chords on the piano, which immediately attracted the attention of the two young ladies, who told us they had seen us at church, where they were in the choir. They were beginning to learn some pieces to sing at Christmas, and, producing a pianoforte copy, asked my brother to play the accompaniment while they tried them over. He made some excuses, but they said they knew he could play as soon as they heard him strike the chords; so, as his excuses were not accepted, he had to submit to the inevitable---not altogether unwillingly. They had only just begun when their father came into the room and claimed our company for the promised walk, and, as I was the only member of the party ready to join him, we went out with the understanding that they would follow us. After walking a short distance I suggested waiting for them, but the gentleman assured me they knew the way he always went on Sundays, and would be sure to find us. I enjoyed the company of our host, as he seemed to know the history of the whole neighbourhood, and possessed a fund of information ready at command concerning every object of interest we saw. He pointed out Portland in the far distance, where convicts worked, and where the stones used for sharpening scythes were produced. He also told me that formerly Torquay consisted merely of a few cottages inhabited by fishermen, but some nobleman bought the place for £13,000, and let the ground in lots on short leases for building purposes. Now that it was covered with fine houses, he received tens of thousands a year from chief rent, while many of the houses would come to his family in a few years' time.

It surprised me greatly how much I missed my brother's company. We had never been separated for so long a period during the whole of our journey, and at every turn I found myself instinctively turning round to see if he were following. It was a lovely walk, but when we reached the house on our return, neither my brother nor the young ladies were to be found, and it was nearly time for the five-o'clock tea before they returned. They all looked very pleasant, and assured us they had followed us as promised, and the young ladies seemed able to convince their father that they had done so; but to my mind the matter was never satisfactorily cleared up, and I often reminded my brother in after years about those two young ladies at Torquay, who, by the way, were very good-looking. Many years afterwards some poetry was written by a lady who must have been an authority on the "Little Maids of Devon," for she wrote:

Oh! the little maids of Devon,
They've a rose in either cheek,
And their eyes like bits of heaven
Meet your own with glances meek;
But within them there are tiny imps
That play at hide and seek!

Oh! the little maids of Devon,
They have skins of milk and cream,
Just as pure and clear and even
As a pool in Dartmoor stream;
But who looks at them is holden
With the magic of a dream.

Oh! the little maids of Devon,
They have honey-coloured hair.
Where the sun has worked like leaven.
Turning russet tones to fair,
And they hold you by the strands of it,
And drive you to despair.

Oh! the little maids of Devon,
They have voices like a dove,
And Jacob's years of seven
One would serve to have their love;
But their hearts are things of mystery
A man may never prove!

We all attended church again for evening service, and after supper passed the evening singing hymns, in which I was able to join, some of them very beautiful and selected because they had been composed by people connected with the County of Devon. One of them was written by Charlotte Elliott, who died at Torquay in 1871, the year we were there, and still a favourite even in these later years, the first verse being:

Just as I am, without one plea
But that Thy Blood was shed for me,
And that Thou bidd'st me come to Thee,
O Lamb of God, I come.

The first vicar of Lower Brixham was the Rev. Henry Francis Lyte, who at fifty-four years of age began to suffer from consumption, and who, when he knew he had not long to live, prayed that he might be enabled to write something that would live to the glory of God after he was dead. As a last resource he had been ordered by the doctors to go to the Riviera, where he died at Nice a month later. The night before he started he preached his farewell sermon, and, returning to his house as the sun was setting over the ships in the harbour, many of which belonged to the fishermen he had laboured amongst for so many years, he sat down and wrote that beautiful hymn:

Abide with me; fast falls the eventide;
The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide;
When other helpers fail, and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, O abide with me.

Then there was the Rev. A.M. Toplady, for some time vicar of Broad Hembury, near Honiton. While walking out with some friends in Somerset, he was caught in a storm, and the party sheltered in a well-known cave by the roadside, where, standing under its rocky entrance, he wrote this famous hymn:

Rock of ages, cleft for me.
Let me hide myself in Thee;
Let the Water and the Blood,
From Thy riven Side which flow'd,
Be of sin the double cure,
Cleanse me from its guilt and power.

All these hymns are sung in every part of the world where the English tongue is spoken.

The two ladies were good singers, one soprano and the other contralto, while I sang tenor and my brother tried to sing bass; but, as he explained, he was not effective on the lower notes (nor, as a matter of fact, on the high ones either). He said afterwards it was as much as he could do to play the music without having to join in the singing, and at one point he narrowly escaped finishing two bars after the vocalists. Still we spent a very pleasant evening, the remembrance of which remained with us for many years, and we often caught ourselves wondering what became of those pretty girls at Torquay.

NINTH WEEK'S JOURNEY

_Monday, November 13th._

From time immemorial Torbay had been a favourite landing-place both for friends and foes, and it was supposed that the Roman Emperors Vespasian, Titus, and Adrian, when on their way to the camp on Milber Downs, had each landed near the place where Brixham now stands. Brixham was the best landing-place in the Bay, and the nearest to the open sea. It was a fishing-place of some importance when Torquay, its neighbour, was little known, except perhaps as a rendezvous of smugglers and pirates. Leland, in his famous _Itinerary_ written in the sixteenth century, after describing the Bay of Torre as being about four miles across the entrance and "ten miles or more in compace," says: "The Fishermen hath divers tymes taken up with theyr nettes yn Torre-bay mussons of harts, whereby men judge that in tymes paste it hath been forest grounds." Clearly much of England has been washed away or has sunk beneath the ocean. Is not this part of the "Lyonesse" of the poets--the country of romance--the land of the fairies?

In 1588, when the Spanish Armada appeared outside the Bay, there was great excitement in the neighbourhood of Torbay, which grew into frenzy when the first capture was towed in. The _Rosario_, or, to give her the full name, _Nuestra Señora del Rosario_, was a fine galleon manned by 450 men and many gallant officers. She was the _capitana_, or flagship, of the squadron commanded by Don Pedro de Valdez, who had seen much service in the West Indies and who, because of his special knowledge of the English Channel, was of great importance in the council of the Armada. He was a bold, skilful leader, very different from the Commander-in-Chief, and as his ship formed one of the rearguard he took an early part in the fight with the pursuing English. He was badly mauled, losing his foremast and suffering worse by fouling two ships, one of his own squadron, the other a Biscayan; all three were damaged. He demanded assistance of Medina Sidonia, but the weather was rough and the Duke refused. In the darkness the _Rosario_ drove off one or two English attempts to cut her off, but Drake himself in the famous _Revenge_ lay alongside and called upon Valdez to surrender. His reply was a demand for honourable terms, to which Drake answered that he had no time for parley--the Spanish commander must come aboard at once or he would rake her. The name of Drake (El Draque, the Dragon) was enough for the Spaniard, and Valdez, in handing over his sword, took credit to himself that he yielded to the most famous captain of his day. Drake in reply promised good treatment and all the lives of the crew, a thing by no means usual, as can be guessed by the remark of the disgusted Sheriff, when so many prisoners were handed over at Torbay; he wished "the Spaniards had been made into water-spaniels." Drake sent the _Roebuck_ to see the ship safely into Torbay, where she was left in charge of the Brixham fishermen, her powder being secured at once and sent by the quickest of the fishing-boats to our own ships, at that moment badly in need of it. The prisoners were taken round to Torbay, where they were lodged in a building ever afterwards known as the "Spanish barn."

In 1601 the first squadron organised by the East India Company sailed from Torbay, and in 1667 the Dutch fleet, commanded by De Ruyter, paid the Bay a brief but not a friendly visit, doing some damage. In 1688 another fleet appeared--this time a friendly one, for it brought William, Prince of Orange, who had been invited to occupy the English throne abdicated by James II. We were informed that when his ship approached the shore he spoke to the people assembled there in broken English--very broken--saying, "Mine goot people, mine goot people, I mean you goot; I am come here for your goot, for your goots," and suggested that if they were willing to welcome him they should come and fetch him ashore; whereupon one Peter Varwell ran into the sea, and carried the new King to the shore, gaining much renown for doing so. This happened on November 5th, the date for landing doubtless having been arranged to coincide with the anniversary of the attempt of Guy Fawkes to blow up the Houses of Parliament with gunpowder eighty-three years before, so that bonfire day served afterwards to celebrate the two occasions. The house where William stayed that night was still pointed out in Brixham.

In 1690 James II, who had been dethroned and exiled to France, told Tourville, the French Admiral, that if he would take his fleet to the South of England he would find all the people there ready to receive him back again, so he brought his ships off Torbay. Instead of a friendly reception here, he found the people decidedly hostile to James's cause, so he detached two or three of his galleys to Teignmouth, quite a defenceless place, where they committed great ravages and practically destroyed the town. These galleys were a class of boat common in the Mediterranean, where they had been employed ever since the warlike times of the Greeks and Romans. In addition to sails, they were propelled with oars manned by slaves; and a similar class of ship worked by convicts was used by the French down to the middle of the eighteenth century. The men of Teignmouth, who had no wish to be captured and employed as galley slaves, seeing that they were in a hopeless position, retreated inland. Lord Macaulay thus describes the position in his History:

The Beacon on the ridge above Teignmouth was kindled, Hey-Tor and
Cawsand made answer, and soon all the hill tops of the West were on
fire. Messengers were riding all night from deputy lieutenant to
deputy lieutenant; and early the next morning, without chief, without
summons, five hundred gentlemen and yeomen, armed and mounted, had
assembled on the summit of Haldon Hill, and in twenty-four hours all
Devonshire was up.

It was therefore no wonder that Trouville found his landing opposed by thousands of fierce Devonshire men, who lined the shores and prevented him from landing his troops; the expedition was a complete failure, and he returned to France.

In those days, when railways and telegraphy were unknown, the whole country could be aroused very quickly and effectively by those beacon fires. The fuel was always kept ready for lighting on the Beacon hills, which were chosen so that the fire on one hill could be seen from the other. On our journey through England we passed many of these beacons, then used for more peaceful purposes.

In 1815 another ship appeared in Torbay, with only one prisoner on board, but a very important one. The ship was the British man-of-war the _Bellerophon_, and the prisoner the great Napoleon Bonaparte. We had already come to the conclusion that Torquay, with its pretty bay, was the most delightful place we had visited; and even Napoleon, who must have been acquainted with the whole of Europe, and who appeared in Torbay under what must have been to him depressing circumstances, exclaimed when he saw it, "_Enfin, voilà un beau pays_!" (What a beautiful country this is!) He arrived on July 24th, five weeks after the Battle of Waterloo, and departed on August 8th from Plymouth, having been transferred to the _Northumberland_ for the voyage to his prison home in St. Helena, a South Atlantic island 760 miles from any other land, and where he died in 1821. During the few days' visit of the _Bellerophon_ at Torbay, thousands upon thousands of people came by land and water in the hope of seeing the great general who had so nearly made himself master of the whole of Europe, and although very few of them saw Napoleon, they all saw the lovely scenery there, and this, it was said, laid the foundation of the fortunes of the future Torquay.

We had intended leaving Torquay for Totnes by the main road, which passed through Paignton, but our host informed us that even if we passed through it, we should not see Paignton in all its glory, as we were twelve years too early for one pudding and thirty-nine years too late for the next. We had never heard of Paignton puddings before, but it appeared that as far back as 1294 Paignton had been created a borough or market town, and held its charter by a White-Pot Pudding, which was to take seven years to make, seven years to bake, and seven years to eat, and was to be produced once every fifty years. In 1809 the pudding was made of 400 lbs. of flour, 170 lbs. of suet, 140 lbs. of raisins, and 240 eggs. It was boiled in a brewer's copper, and was kept constantly boiling from the Saturday morning until the Tuesday following, when it was placed on a gaily decorated trolley and drawn through the town by eight oxen, followed by a large and expectant crowd of people. But the pudding did not come up to expectations, turning out rather stodgy: so in 1859 a much larger pudding was made, but this time it was baked instead of boiled, and was drawn by twenty-five horses through the streets of the town. One feature of the procession on that occasion was a number of navvies who happened to be working near the town and who walked in their clean white slops, or jackets, and of course came in for a goodly share of the pudding.

One of the notables of Paignton was William Adams, one of the many prisoners in the hands of the Turks or Saracens in the time when the English Liturgy was compiled. It was said that the intercession "for all prisoners and captives" applied especially to them, and every Sunday during the five years he was a prisoner at Algiers, William Adams' name was specially mentioned after that petition. The story of his escape was one of the most sensational of its time. Adams and six companions made a boat in sections, and fastened it together in a secluded cove on the seacoast; but after it was made they found it would only carry five of them, of whom Adams was of course one. After the most terrible sufferings they at length reached "Majork," or Majorca Island, the Spaniards being very kind to them, assisting them to reach home, where they arrived emaciated and worn out. The two men left behind were never heard of again. We had often heard the name "Bill Adams," and wondered whether this man could have been the original. The county historian of those days had described him as "a very honest sensible man, who died in the year of our Lord 1687, and his body, so like to be buried in the sea and to feed fishes, lies buried in Paignton churchyard, where it feasteth worms."

We could see Paignton, with its ivy-covered Tower, all that was left of the old Palace of the Bishops of Exeter, but we did not visit it, as we preferred to cross the hills and see some other places of which we had heard, and also to visit Berry Pomeroy Castle on our way to Totnes.

Behind Torquay we passed along some of the loveliest little lanes we had ever seen. They must have presented a glorious picture in spring and summer, when the high hedges were "hung with ferns and banked up with flowers," for even in November they were very beautiful. These by-lanes had evidently been originally constructed for pedestrian and horse traffic, but they had not been made on the surface of the land, like those in Dorset and Wilts, and were more like ditches than roads. We conjectured that they had been sunk to this depth in order that pirates landing suddenly on the coast could see nothing of the traffic from a distance. But therein consisted their beauty, for the banks on either side were covered with luxuriant foliage, amongst which ferns and flowers struggled for existence, and the bushes and trees above in many places formed a natural and leafy arch over the road below. The surface of the roads was not very good, being naturally damp, as the drying influences of the wind and sun could scarcely penetrate to such sheltered positions, and in wet weather the mud had a tendency to accumulate; but we did not trouble ourselves about this as we walked steadily onwards. The roads were usually fairly straight, but went up and down hill regardless of gradients, though occasionally they were very crooked, and at cross-roads, in the absence of finger-posts or any one to direct us, it was easy to take a wrong turning. Still it was a real pleasure to walk along these beautiful Devonshire lanes.

In a Devonshire lane, as I trotted along
T'other day, much in want of a subject for song,
Thinks I to myself, I have hit on a strain--
Sure, marriage is much like a Devonshire lane.

In the first place 'tis long, and when once you are in it,
It holds you as fast as a cage does a linnet;
For howe'er rough and dirty the road may be found,
Drive forward you must, there is no turning round.

But though 'tis so long, it is not very wide,
For two are the most that together can ride;
And e'en then 'tis a chance but they sit in a pother.
And joke and cross and run foul of each other.

But thinks I too, the banks, within which we are pent,
With bud, blossom, berry, are richly besprent;
And the conjugal fence, which forbids us to roam.
Looks lovely, when deck'd with the comforts of home.

In the rock's gloomy crevice the bright holly grows:
The ivy waves fresh o'er the withering rose,
And the evergreen love of a virtuous wife
Soothes the roughness of care--cheers the winter of life.

Then long be the journey, and narrow the way,
I'll rejoice that I've seldom a turnpike to pay;
And whate'er others say, be the last to complain.
Though marriage is just like a Devonshire lane.

Late though it was in the year, there was still some autumn foliage on the trees and bushes and some few flowers and many ferns in sheltered places; we also had the golden furze or gorse to cheer us on our way, for an old saying in Devonshire runs--

When furze is out of bloom
Then love is out of tune,

which was equivalent to saying that love was never out of tune in Devonshire, for there were three varieties of furze in that county which bloomed in succession, so that there were always some blooms of that plant to be found. The variety we saw was that which begins to bloom in August and remains in full beauty till the end of January.

Beside the fire with toasted crabs
We sit, and love is there;
In merry Spring, with apple flowers
It flutters in the air.
At harvest, when we toss the sheaves,
Then love with them is toss't;
At fall, when nipp'd and sear the leaves,
Un-nipp'd is love by frost.
Golden furze in bloom!
O golden furze in bloom!
When the furze is out of flower
Then love is out of tune.

Presently we arrived at Cockington, a secluded and ancient village, picturesque to a degree, with cottages built of red cobs and a quaint forge or smithy for the village blacksmith, all, including the entrance lodge to the squire's park, being roofed or thatched with straw. Pretty gardens were attached to all of them, and everything looked so trim, clean, and neat that it was hard to realise that such a pretty and innocent-looking place had ever been the abode of smugglers or pirates; yet so it was, for hiding-holes existed there which belonged formerly to what were jocularly known as the early "Free Traders." Near Anstey's Cove, in Torbay, we had seen a small cave in the rocks known as the "Brandy Hole," near which was the smuggler's staircase. This was formed of occasional flights of roughly-hewn stone steps, up which in days gone by the kegs of brandy and gin and the bales of silk had been carried to the top of the cliffs and thence conveyed to Cockington and other villages in the neighbourhood where the smugglers' dens existed.

Possibly Jack Rattenbury, the famous smuggler known as "the Rob Roy of the West," escaped to Cockington when he was nearly caught by the crew of one of the King's ships, for the search party were close on his heels when he saved himself by his agility in scaling the cliffs. But Cockington was peaceful enough when we visited it, and in the park, adorned with fine trees, stood the squire's Hall, or Court, and the ivy-covered church. Cockington was mentioned in Domesday Book, and in 1361 a fair and a market were granted to Walter de Wodeland, usher to the Chamber of the Black Prince, who afterwards created him a knight, and it was probably about that time that the present church was built. The screen and pews and pulpit had formerly belonged to Tor Mohun church, and the font, with its finely carved cover and the other relics of wood, all gave us the impression of being extremely old, and as they were in the beginning. The Cary family were once the owners of the estate, and in the time of the Spanish Armada George Cary, who was afterwards knighted by Queen Elizabeth, with Sir John Gilbert, at that time the owner of Tor Abbey, took charge of the four hundred prisoners from the Spanish flagship _Rosario_ while they were lodged in the grange of Tor Abbey.

From Cockington we walked on to Compton Castle, a fine old fortified house, one of the most interesting and best preserved remains of a castellated mansion in Devonshire. One small portion of it was inhabited, and all was covered with ivy, but we could easily trace the remains of the different apartments. It was formerly the home of the Gilbert family, of whom the best-known member was Sir Humphrey Gilbert, a celebrated navigator and mathematician of the sixteenth century, half-brother of Sir Walter Raleigh, and knighted by Queen Elizabeth for his bravery in Ireland. Sir Humphrey afterwards made voyages of discovery, and added Newfoundland, our oldest colony, to the British Possessions, and went down with the _Squirrel_ in a storm off the Azores. When his comrades saw him for the last time before he disappeared from their sight for ever in the mist and gloom of the evening, he held a Bible in his hand, and said cheerily, "Never mind, boys! we are as near to Heaven by sea as by land!"

We had a splendid walk across the hills, passing through Marldon, where the church was apparently the burial-place of the Gilbert family, of which it contained many records, including an effigy of Otho Gilbert, who was Sheriff of the County and who died in 1476. But the chief object of interest at Marldon appeared to be a six-barred gate called the Gallows Gate, which stood near the spot where the three parishes converged: Kingskerswell, Cockington, and Marldon; near this the culprits from those three places were formerly hanged. We looked for the gate in the direction pointed out to us, but failed to find it. Some people in the village thought its name of the Gallows Gate was derived from an incident which occurred there many years ago. A sheep-stealer had killed a sheep, and was carrying it home slung round his shoulders when he came to this gate. Finding it fastened, he was climbing over, when in the dark his foot slipped and the cord got across his neck. The weight of the carcase as it fell backwards, added to his own, caused him to be choked, so that he was literally hanged upon the gate instead of the gallows for what was in those days a capital offence.

After passing the Beacon Hill, we had very fine views over land and sea, extending to Dartmoor and Dartmouth, and with a downward gradient we soon came to Berry Pomeroy, the past and present owners of which had been associated with many events recorded in the history of England, from the time of William the Conqueror, who bestowed the manor, along with many others, on one of his followers named Ralph de Pomeroy. It was he who built the Castle, where the Pomeroys remained in possession until the year 1547, when it passed into the hands of the Seymour family, afterwards the Dukes of Somerset, in whose possession it still remained.