"Dartmoor! thou wert to me, in childhood"s hour, A wild and wond"rous region. Day by day Arose upon my youthful eye thy belt Of hills mysterious, shadowy....
I feel The influence of that impressive calm Which rests upon them. Nothing that has life Is visible:--no solitary flock At will wide ranging through the silent Moor Breaks the deep-felt monotony; and all Is motionless save where the giant shades, Flung by the pa.s.sing cloud, glide slowly o"er The grey and gloomy wild."
CARRINGTON: _Dartmoor_.
The region of the Forest of Dartmoor and Commons of Devon is one which excites a vast difference of opinion. For some it has an extraordinary fascination, whilst to others it is only, like a beautiful view in the Highlands which I once heard depreciated by a native--"just hills." And the hills on Dartmoor are not even very high. Yes Tor, till lately thought to be the highest point, is only a little over two thousand feet; and High Willhayes, its superior, cannot claim to be more than a few feet higher. So there are no towering heights or tremendous precipices to explain its peculiar spell. Sir Frederick Pollock, in paying true homage to the moor, gives the reason that accounts for Dartmoor"s dominion--its individuality. "The reader may think fit to observe, and with undisputable truth, that there are many other moors in the world. Yes, but they are not Dartmoor." And there is no more to be said.
A very truthful and vivid description of the moor has been given by the late Mr R. J. King: "The dusky sweep of hills stretches away with an endless variety of form and outline; in some parts sharply peaked, and crested with ma.s.ses of broken rock; at others, rounded and ma.s.sive, and lifting a long line of sombre heath against the sky. The deep hollows which separate the hills are thickly covered with fern and heather, over which blocks of granite are scattered in all directions; and, as in all similar districts, each valley has its own clear mountain stream, which receives the innumerable waterfalls descending from the hill-sides. The whole country has a solitude, and an impressive grandeur, which insensibly carries back the mind to an earlier and ruder age."
"... Granite-browed, thou sitt"st in grandeur lone, Thy temples wreathed with heaven"s unsalted mist; Feet in the brine, and face veiled by the cloud, And vest.i.ture by changing nature wrought-- t.i.tan of earth and sky--silent and proud, Even beauty kneeling hath her homage brought.
Time as a shadow speeds across thy plains, Leaving no record of his printless feet;
And all our generations come and go, As snowflakes on thy shoulders melting slow."[3]
[Footnote 3: W. H. Hamilton Rogers, "Dartmoor."]
Let the time or season be what it may, the moor has some fresh charm to offer. In the early summer there is a special soft greenness, and the hot air quivers above and about the rocks; later the hill-sides are coloured by the lilac-pink of the ling and the richer tones of bell-heather; and when the autumn leaves are fading and falling "inland," there may come such a day of sunshine and glorious blue sky, with the larks singing on every side among the golden furze-blossoms, that one is able to forget the calendar. And then, amongst the great boulders covered with white lichen that lie along the sides of streams, the leaves of the whortleberries turn scarlet over the little round fruit, with its plum-like bloom. Sometimes in winter the snow lies in patches on the hills, among stretches of pale gra.s.s and rich, dark, red-brown ma.s.ses of heather. On the edge of the moor, the springs by the roadsides flow through a sparkling white border into a shining ice hollow, and, looking away, one sees snow-covered heights against a pale blue sky, in the unbroken stillness of distance. Perhaps the moor is specially irresistible when the full moon throws its magic over hill and valley, suggesting infinite possibilities. In the clear air the hills look very solemn and impressive, and the long, broken reflections of the moonbeams lie in every stream as it ripples over rocks or breaks against boulders; while the foam gleams and trembles as flakes are torn away by the current and swallowed up by the black shadows. In such a time and place one may learn the meaning of "a silence that can be heard."
Dartmoor rises high above the surrounding country, and keeps his white winter livery lying upon it long time, if not washed away by rain. The air is delicious, but it must be admitted that the moor has a very ample share of wind, rain, and mists. Faultfinders have also complained of the bogs, and occasional accidents to travellers" horses have given the mires the significant name of "Dartmoor Stables," although the moor ponies are supposed always to be able to pick a safe path through dangerous places.
From a certain point of view, Dartmoor reminds one of the mirror of the Lady of Shalott, for here
"Shadows of the world appear."
Or, rather, the shadows of a past world are reflected in its wastes, witnessing to prehistoric man; to the tinners, who appear out of the mists of antiquity, and who peopled the moor through the Middle Ages; to the dawn of Christian teaching in the country; and to the Normans, with their forest rights and laws. Antiquities abound, although there are instances where it is most difficult to decide whether the remains are prehistoric, or merely traces of mediaeval mining. "It is possible that "old men"s workings," as the traces of abandoned mines are called in this country, may account for more of them than is generally admitted."
But modern observations have severely excluded any fanciful theories.
"Certain stone inclosures which have pa.s.sed for British fortifications are now more plausibly considered to have been made (at a sufficiently remote time, we may freely allow) for the protection of cattle."
However, after deducting any objects of doubtful antiquity, there remain an enormous number as to which, there can be no question--stone rows, kistvaens, menhirs, large circles of upright stones, forts and barrows, and pounds enclosing hut-circles. It is interesting to read the views of antiquaries at different stages of the nineteenth century, and their flat contradictions of the opinions of their predecessors. A good instance is given in the new edition of that mine of information, Rowe"s "Perambulation of Dartmoor," where certain verdicts as to the origin of Grimspound are quoted. "Polwhele states that it was a seat of judicature for the Cantred of Darius; Samuel Rowe, that it was a Belgic or Saxon camp; Ormerod considered it a cattle-pound pure and simple; Spence Bate was convinced that it was nothing more than a habitation of tinners, and of no great age; while now the work of the Rev S. Baring-Gould and Mr Robert Burnard goes far to show that its construction reaches back into a remote past, and that its antiquity is greater than any former investigator dared to a.s.sign to it."
The great numbers of prehistoric people who lived on the moor are very remarkable. "Tens of thousands of their habitations have been destroyed," says Mr Baring-Gould, "yet tens of thousands remain. At Post Bridge, within a radius of half a mile, are fifteen pounds. If we give an average of twenty huts to a pound, and allow for habitations scattered about, not enclosed in a pound, and give six persons to a hut, we have at once a population, within a mile, of 2,000 persons." Perhaps they climbed so high because on the lower slopes the forest was thick, and wild beasts were more to be feared, though, according to tradition, they were certainly not free from danger on the moor; for "wolves and winged serpents were no strangers to the hills or valleys." All their possessions that we are aware of belong to the early Bronze Age, when flint was used in great quant.i.ties, and bronze was known, but was rare and very valuable. The amber pommel of a dagger, inlaid with gold pins, and part of a bronze dagger blade, were found in a barrow on Hameldon, and a few other bronze weapons have been discovered; flint implements in abundance. Great numbers of flint sc.r.a.pers for cleaning the skins of animals, and small knives for cutting up meat, have been picked up; arrow-heads are scarce, and it would seem that they left very few celts or axes, and spear-heads.
Of the exceedingly interesting remains, perhaps the most interesting--at any rate, to the uninitiated--is Grimspound. The boundary wall, which is double, encloses four acres; it is from ten to twelve feet thick, but not above five and a half feet in height. Within the circle are twenty-four hut-circles, and in some of them charcoal and fragments of pottery have been found. A brook, dipping under the walls, and pa.s.sing through the enclosure, supplied the camp with water.
Drizzlecombe, near Sheep"s Tor, is rich in a variety of antiquities, for it has three stone rows, a large tumulus, a kistvaen, and a later relic--a miner"s blowing-house. One of the avenues is two hundred and sixty feet long, and one is double for a part of the way, and each of the three starts from a menhir, or long stone. Near Merivale Bridge are two double stone rows, but the stones are small. Close by are a sacred circle, a kistvaen, a pound and hut-circles, and one cairn, besides the ruins of others that have been destroyed. It would be absurd to pretend to enter on such a wide subject here. Some idea of its extent may be gathered by considering one single branch of it: Mr Baring-Gould has stated that no fewer than fifty stone avenues have been observed in different parts of the moor. And hut-circles and ancient track-lines are unnumbered, although very many antiquities of all kinds have been destroyed when granite was wanted for rebuilding churches, or for making doorways or gate-posts, or even for mending roads.
The early antiquaries discovered the hand of the Druids in certain unusual rock-shapes, now known to be the work of Nature--such as rock-basins, which are developed in the granite by the action of wind and rain; tolmens, or holed stones; and logans, or rocking-stones.
Granite on the moor generally weathers irregularly, and if the lower part of a piled-up ma.s.s partly crumbles away, a huge layer of harder granite remains balanced on one or two points, and becomes what is called a logan-stone. In some cases, though the slab is almost impossible to remove, it will rock at a finger-touch. Perhaps the most striking example on Dartmoor is the Rugglestone, near Widdecombe, which it has been calculated weighs about one hundred and ten tons; but there are several in the neighbourhood, and a logan called the Nut-Crackers is perched among the thickly scattered boulders on l.u.s.tleigh Cleave. This lovely little valley lies on the eastern edge of the moor, and the River Bovey flows through it. Ma.s.ses of granite crown the ridge; lower on the hill-side is a jungle of tall bracken, and the stream is overshadowed by a wood, crowded with matted undergrowth and with innumerable rocks tumbled together.
Granite more consistent than that found on most of the tors--that is, "not broken into the usual layers of soft beds alternating with hard layers"--forms the great ma.s.ses of rock on Hey Tor, and these have not weathered into strange, jagged outlines. William Howitt wrote a charming description of Hey Tor in his "Rural Life of England," from which I quote a few lines: "Below, the deep dark river went sounding on its way with a melancholy music, and as I wound up the steep road all beneath the gnarled oaks, I ever and anon caught glimpses of the winding valley to the left, all beautiful with wild thickets and half-shrouded faces of rock, and still on high these glowing ruddy tors standing in the blue air in their sublime silence. My road wound up and up, the heather and bilberry on either hand."
A "wonder" which has been a.s.sociated with the Druids is the grove of oaks called Wistman"s Wood. It lies close to Two Bridges, on the slope above the West Dart, and at a little distance looks more like a furze-brake than a wood. All the oaks are dwarfs, stunted by the lack of soil and force of the winds. Mr Rowe quotes from a "botanical writer,"
who examined some of them: "The bole of this tree was about three feet high, and its total height to the topmost branches fifteen feet. The circ.u.mference of the trunk was six feet, and its prime must have been about the date of the Norman Conquest." Some of the boughs, like the trunks, are immensely thick for the height of the trees, and they are covered with very deep cushions of bright green moss and hangings of polypody, and whortleberries grow upon them. Every step between the trees is perilous, among the uneven crowded ma.s.ses of rocks and half-concealed clefts. Many of the boulders are moss-covered, a kind of sedge and long, flag-like gra.s.s spring among the crevices and add to the pitfalls, and the whole wood really has the air of having been bewitched. Mrs Bray"s impressions of it are interesting. She found the slope "strewn" all over with immense ma.s.ses of granite.... In the midst of these gigantic blocks, growing among them, or starting, as it were, from their interstices, arises wildly, and here and there widely scattered, _a grove of dwarf oak-trees_.... They spread far and wide at their tops, and their branches twist and bend in the most tortuous manner; sometimes reminding one of those strange things called mandrakes, of which there is a superst.i.tion noticed by Shakespeare--
""Like shrieking mandrakes torn from out the earth.""
Though some of the stone circles on the moor are due to miners rather than to prehistoric man, their antiquity may very well win respect; for, according to the views of the early nineteenth century, it was quite probable that the Phoenicians were trading with this island for tin in the year 1000 B.C.! It is unnecessary to say that the reasoning which supports this theory is very ingenious, and later opinions do not allow that the Phoenicians ever traded directly with Britain at all. The metal, it is held, was brought to the Mediterranean coast through the medium of "the Veneti of what is now Vannes, and the tin trade was carried through Gaul to Ma.r.s.eilles." To take a great leap from the date originally suggested, there is certain evidence that British tin was conveyed over this trade route in the year 40 B.C. The Romans taught the Britons better methods of mining, and how tin might be used for household needs. Another long interval without any mention of the subject brings us to the reign of the Normans, when it seems that the mines were almost entirely in the hands of the Jews. On their expulsion by Edward I, the mines were neglected for a few years, and next a charter was granted to several Devonshire gentlemen, at their request, conferring the important privilege of holding plea of all actions relating to the mines, "those of lyfe, lymme, and lande" excepted.
Henceforward the Devonshire miners were separated from the Cornish, and held stannary parliaments on the top of Crockern Tor. The summit is piled with granite, and out of the rock was hewn "a warden"s or president"s chair, seats for the jurors, and a high corner stone for the crier of the court, and a table," says Polwhele; and here the "hardy mountain council"--twenty-four burgesses from each of the stannary towns--a.s.sembled. "This memorable place is only a great rock of moorstone, out of which a table and seats are hewn, open to all the weather, storms and tempests, having neither house nor refuge near it by divers miles," wrote Prince. It is much to be regretted that nearly all traces of the court have now disappeared, and a report says that the table and seats were carried away to be used for some buildings not far off. It is said that the last parliament was held on this tor in 1749, but for some time before that date the court merely met on the tor, and, after the jurors had been sworn in, adjourned to one of the stannary towns.
From the charter of Edward I onwards, mining seems to have prospered, with one or two intervals of great depression, and as late as 1861 seventy-four mines were being worked in Devonshire. "Streaming" for tin was very much practised in the Middle Ages, and the sides of valleys all over Dartmoor are scored with the works of the tin-streamers, who turned about the streams and examined the beds for "grain-tin." Many of the ruined "blowing-houses" are still to be seen on the moor. Mrs. Bray mentions a curious testimony to the wildness and remoteness of the parts in which some of the miners must have worked: "A very old woodcut ...
exhibited a whole pack of hounds harnessed and laden with little bags of tin, travelling over the mountains of Dartmoor; these animals being able to cross the deep bogs of the forest in situations where there were no roads, and where no other beasts of burden could pa.s.s."
It was owing to the mines that Dartmoor became a part of the Duchy, for the "metalliferous" moors of Dartmoor and Cornwall had, on that account, long been Crown lands; and therefore, when Edward III created his eldest son Prince of Wales and Duke of Cornwall, the Chase of Dartmoor, and the Castle and Manor of Lydford were granted to him with the estates in Cornwall. Dartmoor has existed as a forest practically from time immemorial, and the date when forest laws were first imposed on it is, in the opinion of the learned, "lost in antiquity." The first charter affecting the state of the moor was bestowed in 1204, when King John was compelled reluctantly to grant a Charter of Forests, disafforesting the lands that had been gradually appropriated by the Kings since Henry I.
Surrounding the forest proper are lands known as the Commons of Devon, and, usually speaking, they are included in any general reference to Dartmoor. Every parish in Devonshire, excepting Barnstaple and Totnes, has a right to pasture cattle on them for the payment of a small sum.
Two cla.s.ses of men have special rights in the moor: owners and occupiers of tenements within the forest, and venville tenants, or owners of land in particular vills, or towns, adjoining the forest. Claims and counter-claims as to their exact rights and liabilities have been pressed in successive centuries, but various ancient doc.u.ments set forth these tenants" rights, "time out of mind, to take all things that might do them good, saving green oak and venison." These privileges include pasturing all "commonable beasts" on the moor, digging turf for fuel, stone and sand for mending houses and lands, and taking heath for thatching, "paying their dues and doing their suits and services." The "suits and services" involved attendance at the Prince"s Courts, and the tenants" help at the time of the bullock and pony drifts--that is, when the herds are driven off the moor by the moormen to a point chosen by the Duchy steward, and are there identified by their owners.
In the Duchy records appear various well-known names that one does not naturally a.s.sociate with the Forest. The Conqueror granted it to his half-brother, Robert, Earl of Montaigne; King John gave the Earldom of Cornwall to his second son, Richard Plantagenet, afterwards King of the Romans. This Prince "much augmented the powers of the stannaries of Devon and Cornwall, and under his auspices they thrived exceedingly."
For a short time the earldom was bestowed on Piers Gaveston; Thomas Cromwell and some others had a lease of the lead-mines on the moor for twenty-one years; the first Earl of Bedford was "Custos of the Forest or Chase of Dartmoor"; and Sir Walter Raleigh was appointed Ranger and Master Forester, besides being Lord Warden of the Stannaries. The first perambulation of the forest boundaries probably took place in 1224, and others have been made at intervals ever since; yet a long tale of grievances from that date almost up to the present time might be heard from commoners whose rights have been encroached upon.
The bounds of property owned by religious houses at certain points were marked by granite crosses, of which a great number are still to be found on the moor. Some of them, however, were standing long before the monasteries were built. To take one instance, the cross on Sourton Down has an inscription which, it has been declared, belongs to the sixth century, and which can still be deciphered when the sun is setting and the rays slant across it. The Abbot"s Way, leading over the moor, is marked by crosses. It ran westwards from Buckfast Abbey, and divided at Broad Rock, near Plym Head, in the middle of the moor--one branch going to Tavistock, and the other to Buckland Abbey. The path cannot now be traced the whole way, but the crosses show the line. Beckamoor Cross (or the Windy Post, as it is sometimes called), between two and three miles south-east of Tavistock, is a typical Dartmoor cross, and a fine example, but it cannot be numbered among the very old ones, for it seems to date from the sixteenth century.
Perhaps the Dartmoor village best known by name is Widdecombe-in-the-Moor, and its fame is spread by the song "Widdecombe Fair;" this is the most popular of Devonshire folk-songs, and the air served the Devon Regiment as a march in the Boer War. But Widdecombe has more solid claims to consideration, and one of them is the large and beautiful church, with its very fine tower and high crocketed pinnacles, each pointed by a cross. The roof is adorned by "bosses, carved and painted with heads, flowers and leaves, and also figures or marks which obscurely shadow forth the learning of the alchemist." The presence of these symbols is explained by a tradition that the church was built by miners. "On one of the bosses is the combination of three rabbits, each with a single ear, which join in the centre, forming a triangle--a favourite alchemical symbol, called the hunt of Venus." Parts of the rood-screen remain, and on the panels are painted saints and doctors of the Church, and a king and queen. On October 21, 1638, a terrible storm raged here during service-time. First fell "a strange darkenesse"; then a terrific thunder-clap; "the ratling thereof" was much like "the report of many great cannons." "Extraordinarie lightning" flashed, "so flaming that the whole church was presently filled with fire and smoke," and a smell of brimstone, and a great ball of fire came in at the window and pa.s.sed through the church. The church itself was much torne and defaced, "stones throwne from the Tower as thick as if an hundred men had been there throwing." Several people were killed and many "grievously scalded and wounded." The history of the storm has been told in verse, and the lines were painted on tablets and placed in the church. Mrs Bray found "the wildest tales" of the storm floating among the people in the neighbourhood, and, amongst them, "One story is that the devil, dressed in black and mounted on a black horse, inquired his way to the church, of a woman who kept a little public-house on the moor. He offered her money to become his guide; but she distrusted him, in remarking that the liquor went hissing down his throat, and finally had her suspicions confirmed by discovering he had a cloven foot, which he could not conceal even by his boot."
Widdecombe is called cold and bleak, and it is not only with the terrific tempest that its name is a.s.sociated, for when the snow fell thickly the South Devon folk used to look--as perhaps they still do--towards the moor, and say to the children: "Widdecombe hills are picking their geese, faster, faster, faster."
About twelve miles south-west of Widdecombe is Sheeps Tor, a sharply defined height that has given its name to the parish and tiny village that it overshadows. Originally it was called Shettes Tor--that is, Steep Tor, the word being derived from the Celtic _syth_.
Hidden among the great piles of moorstone heaped upon the tor is a cave known as the Pixies" House. Mrs Bray describes an expedition that she made to Sheeps Tor, and how, on asking her way to the cave, she was told to "be careful to leave a pin, or something of equal value, as an offering to these invisible beings; otherwise they would not fail to torment us in our sleep." Gra.s.s grows on the lower slopes, but near the summit there spreads a "bold and shelving sweep of about two hundred feet, the granite ... totally bare, save where it was here and there covered by a coating of mosses and lichens. It lies tossed about in enormous ma.s.ses in every direction." The cave itself is in the midst of "most confused ma.s.ses of rock, that looked as if they had been tossed about by the fiends in battle," and the entrance itself is a "cleft between two rocks." A story of human interest is also connected with the cave, for here Walter Elford, Lord of the Manor, was forced to hide when the country was being searched for him. Squire Elford was a Parliamentarian, and one of the "secluded" members of the Long Parliament; but he was so far thrown into opposition by the development of the Protector"s policy that he reached the point of plotting against him, and in consequence a party of Desborough"s troops were sent in pursuit of the squire to his own house. Fortunately, among the huge boulders the entrance to the cave was very difficult to find, and the Pixies" House proved a safe refuge until the search-parties were withdrawn.
About fifteen miles from Widdecombe, on the north-west side of the moor, lies Lydford, whose size is in no way proportionate to its antiquity.
"Doubtless," says Risdon, "in the Saxons" heptarchy, it was a town of some note, that felt the furious rage of the merciless Danes." And it is true that in 997 Lydford was burned down by them. At this time Lydford had its own mint, and money was coined here; and in the Domesday Book it was described as being taxed equally with London. But the village is very conspicuously a victim of "the whirligig of time," and William Browne gives a most unflattering picture of its appearance in the middle of the seventeenth century:
"I oft have heard of Lydford law, How in the morn they hang and draw, And sit in judgment after: At first I wondered at it much; But soon I found the matter such As it deserves no laughter.
"They have a castle on a hill; I took it for some old windmill, The vanes blown off by weather.
Than lie therein one night "tis guessed "Twere better to be stoned, or pressed, Or hanged, ere you come hither.
"Near these poor men that lie in lurch, See a dire bridge, a little church, Seven ashes and one oak; Three houses standing, and ten down; They say the rector hath a gown, But I saw ne"er a cloak:
"This town"s enclosed with desert moors, But where no bear nor lion roars, And nought can live but hogs: For, all o"erturned by Noah"s flood, Of fourscore miles scarce one foot"s good, And hills are wholly bogs."
The Castle is not very large, and is now utterly in ruins, though the walls of the square keep are still standing. In Browne"s day it was used as the stannary prison, and was denounced in an Act of Parliament as "one of the most heinous, contagious, and detestable places in the realm." For many years after this Lydford was a lonely village, generally ignored, in spite of its fine air and beautiful scenery.
Towards the moor it looks up to an irregular barrier (about a mile or so distant) of very picturesque tors, and in the opposite direction a fertile and pleasant country spreads beneath it. The River Lyd winds through scenes that are always delightful and sometimes very striking, but the cascade has been so much praised that, if seen in summer, it is apt to be disappointing. Lydford Gorge, however, is properly placed among the "wonders" of Devonshire--to use Fuller"s expression. The gorge is deep and exceedingly narrow, and the sides are precipitous. The river, rushing between blocks of stone, flows so far below the road that from the bridge, where the chasm is only a few yards wide, it is almost invisible. Risdon says: "It maketh such a hideous noise, that being only heard, and not seen, it causeth a kind of fear to the pa.s.sengers, seeming to them that look down to it, a deep abyss." A story (that may quite easily be true) is told of a man arriving late one night in Lydford from Tavistock, to the amazement of Lydford people, who knew that their bridge had been broken down. In the darkness the traveller had noticed "nothing more than that his horse had made a sudden spring; but on being afterwards led to the chasm he was struck with a mingled sensation of horror, surprise, and thankfulness."
From an historical point of view, it is ludicrous to think of Lydford and Princetown, its neighbour (as one counts neighbours on a moor)--Lydford, in all its glory nearly a hundred years before the Conquest, and Princetown, created by the Prince Regent. It is, I believe, the highest village in England, and in walking up to it there comes a feeling that this is rather like walking up a gigantic snail-sh.e.l.l, and that, when one reaches the top, it _is_ the very top and end of all things. A tranquillity reigns over the tiny town which even the occasional sight of warders with their loaded rifles does not break; and the workaday world seems to have been left far below.
But the desolate moor as seen from this point, the bleak winds, and very frequent rain, brought cold comfort to the French prisoners of war, on whose account the prison was built. Their views are probably reflected in a gloomy description of Princetown, traducing the climate, which was given by a French writer, quoted by Mr R. J. King. "For seven months in the year," says a M. Catel, "it is a vraie Siberie, covered with unmelting snow. When the snows go away, the mists appear."
The lot of the French prisoners, however, was tempered by certain alleviations, and very many of them were allowed to live on parole in specified towns, most of which are near the moor. In 1813 a large number of American prisoners of war were added to the eight thousand French at Princetown, but for some reason were not at first allowed the same privileges. This may help to account for the aggrieved tone in which one of them refers to his French fellow-prisoners, as well as to the British. Andrews wrote a journal which was afterwards published. "The Seigneurs," he says, "received remittances from their friends or had money of their own, and were able to support themselves in a genteel manner." They were allowed to have plays with a stage and scenery once a month, and also "had their schools for teaching the arts and sciences, dancing, fencing, and fiddling." He criticises them severely: "They drink, sing and dance," and, with a fine allusion to emphasise his point, declares: "But the Americans have not that careless volatility, like the c.o.c.kle in the fable, to sing and dance when the house is on fire over them." The French were released after the abdication of Napoleon; a year later, peace was signed between England and America, and then, till 1850, the buildings were unoccupied. In that year the decision was made that they should be used as a convict prison, and as a result, one must agree with Sir Frederick Pollock, it "is the ugliest thing physically and morally on the moor."
It is pleasanter to turn back to the moor itself--to topics less out of character with it. Foremost appear stories of magic, black and white, ancient beliefs and legends without end. Mr King, whose knowledge of the country was at once vast and minute, is quoted as having said "that he believed almost every form of superst.i.tion or superst.i.tious observances condemned in the Penitential of Bartholomew, Bishop of Exeter, 1161-1184, might be found sheltering itself under the Dartmoor Tors."
(This remark must have been made about the middle of the nineteenth century.) "The same wild creed has been handed down from generation to generation; the same spots on the lonely moor, and the same gloomy pools in the river, that were shunned by his forefathers, are avoided as "critical" (to use his own word) by the Devonshire peasant now ... and whoever may find himself in the heart of its lonely wastes when daylight is closing, and the air seems to fill with
""Undescribed sounds That come a-swooning over hollow ground, And wither drearily on barren moors,"