A Book of the West. Volume I Devon

Rowe (S.), Perambulation of Dartmoor (new ed.). Exeter, 1896. A caution must be given that the original work was written in 1848, when archæology was a matter of theorising, and when Druids and Phœnicians cut great figures. In reading Rowe's book the reader must pass over all this.

Crossing (W.), Amid Devonia's Alps. London and Plymouth, 1888. A pleasantly written little book, and free from the arrant nonsense of pseudo-antiquarians of fifty years ago, cooked up afresh.

Page (J. L. W.), An Exploration of Dartmoor. London, 1889. All the archæologic lore in this book must be rejected. Otherwise it is good.

Cresswell (B. F.), Dartmoor and its Surroundings. London, 1898. A handy 6d. guide, very useful, and commendably free from false theorising on antiquarian topics.

Spencer (E.), Dartmoor. Plymouth, 1894. A fresh and pleasant book, trustworthy as to the geology, but wildly erroneous as to the antiquities.

For the Archæology: —

Reports of the Dartmoor Exploration Committee of the Devonshire Association, 1894-9.

For the History of the moor: —

Reports and publications of the Dartmoor Preservation Society.

For the Crosses: —

Crossing (W.), The Ancient Crosses of Dartmoor. Exeter, 1887.

Crossing (W.), The Old Stone Crosses of the Dartmoor Border. Exeter, 1892.

For the Churches on the borders of Dartmoor: —

Chapter xix. of Rowe's Perambulation, new edition.

For the Flora and Fauna of the moor: —

Chapters xiv. – xvii. of the same.

For the Geology of Dartmoor: —

Ussher (W. A. G.), "The Granite of Dartmoor," in Transactions of the Devonshire Association, 1888.

CHAPTER XI.

DARTMOOR: ITS TENANTS

Forest rights exercised by the Duchy – Rights of the parishes of Devon to Dartmoor – Encroachments – Venville – Newtakes – Importance of the moor as common land – The four quarters – Drifts – A moorman's house – Vipers in the walls – Crockern Tor and Mr. Fowler – The "Wish Hounds" – The pixies – How an Ordnance surveyor was pixy-led – The moor in fog – Story of a pixy birth – Joe Leaman and the pixies – Notice on church gate – The boys and the plaster figures – The witch of Endor – Those born on the moor do not like to leave it – Freshets on Dartmoor rivers – The Dart – Ancient tenements – The Prisons – Story of an attempted escape – A successful escape – Cost to the country of the criminal class – Some effort should be made to prevent crime – Believer Day – Trout-fishing – Dartmoor in winter – The song of the moor.

Dartmoor consists of moorland running up to heights of over 2000 feet, a great deal of the area being enclosed, forming rough grazing farms, but much of it remains to-day what it was thousands of years ago, boulder-strewn ravines, through which rush impetuous streams, rocky heights crowned with huge blocks of granite, so weather-worn and piled up as to suggest to the stranger that some Titans had so placed them to serve as castles or to add a romantic touch to already wild scenery. Great sweeps of heather and furze-clad downs run up to these elevations, and on many of these the rude stone monuments lie scattered about in all directions.

The forest of Dartmoor became the property of the Princes of Wales only so far that forest rights were granted to the Black Prince and to the Princes of Wales for ever, without prejudice to such rights as had belonged from time immemorial to all Devonshire parishes with the exception of Barnstaple and Totnes. And the rights of Devonshire parishes were to take off the moor whatever was wanted save venison and vert, that is to say, not to cut down green trees. As of trees there are none, or hardly any, this exception could not be very greatly felt as a grievance, and as now there are no deer, one might have supposed that Devonshire people could exercise an unlimited right over Dartmoor. Such, however, is not the case. The Duchy of Cornwall, vested in the Princes of Wales, has claimed and exercised the power to cut away and reject the rights of every parish except such as are immediately contiguous to the moor, and to enclose and to shut out the good people of Devon from large tracts, one of which is made over to the convicts, another to the artillery, to fire across at long range. The tors also are given up to be hacked and quarried; and ponies and bullocks that have found their way on to the moors and do not belong to "Venville" parishes (that is to say, such as are contiguous to the forest) are pounded, and their owners fined for trespass. Thus the grant of forest rights, i. e., rights to hunt the red deer, have been converted to very exclusive rights to everything, and the Devonians, whose right was recognised to everything save venison and vert, has been reduced to nothing at all. But just as the Duchy encroached on the rights of all the good people of Devon, so was it also encroached upon. Before that the grant of forest rights was made to the Black Prince there were certain ancient tenements on the moor; those occupying them held under the king, and were absolutely independent otherwise. But these tenants had certain traditional rights, which they could put in force once only in their lives – on the death of the last holder the incomer might enclose ten acres of moor land, and hold it at a nominal rent. Thus these ancient tenements gradually expanded. But besides this the holders made larger enclosures, locally termed "new-takes," when the fancy came to them to do so, and they settled matters easily with the Duchy agents, to the advantage of both. Large landed proprietors managed to get slices by a little greasing of palms, and some very odd transactions took place whereby great tracts of land, and even farms, were transferred from the Duchy to other hands without the Princes of Wales being in any way benefited, or being aware that they were being robbed. But then – as the Duchy had taken from the people – had not such of the people as could contrive it a right to take back what they could?

All this is now so far a matter of the past that the Duchy is no longer robbed, it robs instead – curtailing on all sides the rights of those living in the low steamy lands to the pure air and wide wastes of that great well-head of health and life – the ancient Forest of Dartmoor.

During the abnormally dry summers of 1893 and 1897 Dartmoor proved of incalculable advantage not to the County of Devon only, but far further afield. When grass was burnt up everywhere, and water failed, then the moor was green, and was twinkling with dancing streams. From every quarter the starving cattle were driven there in thousands and tens of thousands. Drovers came from so far east as Kent, there to obtain food and drink unobtainable elsewhere.

Thousands and tens of thousands more might have been sustained there but for the enclosures that have been suffered to be made – nay, have been encouraged.

Dartmoor is divided into four regions, and over each region a moorman is placed. In every quarter of the moor a special earmark is required for the ponies that are turned out, a round hole punched in the ear, through which is passed a piece of distinguishing tape, red or blue, white or black. The ponies are much given to rambling; they pass from one quarter to another in search of pasture; but the moorman of each quarter can recognise those turned out on his region by the earmark. Sheep also and bullocks are turned out on the moor; but they have to be cared for at home in the winter, whereas the ponies brave the storms and snow. The flocks and herds are not driven on to the moor till summer, and are driven off at the approach of winter.

Although every farmer round has a right to turn out his beasts, yet the moorman expects a fee for each horse, bullock, or sheep sent out on the downs. Cattle, horses, and sheep sent upon the common lands that adjoin the forest are liable to stray on to the broader expanse, and in order to detect these and exact a fine for them certain drivings are ordered, locally called "drifts." The day when a drift is to take place is kept a profound secret till it is proclaimed early in the morning. Then a messenger on a fleet horse is sent round very early to announce it. On certain tors are holed stones, and through these horns were formerly passed and blown on such occasions. There are drifts for ponies, and drifts for bullocks. A drift is an animated and striking scene. Horsemen and dogs are out, the farmers identifying their cattle, the drivers and dogs sending the frightened beasts plunging, galloping in one direction towards the place of gathering. When all the beasts have been driven together, an officer of the Duchy mounts a stone and reads a formal document that is supposed to authorise the moormen to make their claim for fees. Then the Venville tenants carry off their cattle without objection. All others are pounded, or else their owners pay fines before being allowed to reclaim them.

Now and then the Duchy endeavours to extend its right over the commons belonging to contiguous parishes. Nothing is lost by asserting a right, and something may be gained. But when a drift is carried over such commons the farmers of the parishes rise up and repel the moormen, and battles with clubs and horsewhips ensue. Blows are given and returned; it is felt, and felt rightly, that encroachment must be resisted at all cost, lest it should serve as a stepping-stone for deprivation of further rights.

An old moorman's house was a picturesque object: built up centuries ago of granite blocks unshaped, set in earth, with no lime or cement to fix them, low-browed, with the roof thatched with rushes, the windows small, looking into a small court-yard, and this court-yard entered through a door in a high blank wall. On one side the turf stacked up, the saddles, the harness; on the other, a cow-house and stable, the well-house accessible from the kitchen without going from under cover, the well being nothing other than a limpid moor stream diverted and made to flow into a basin of scooped-out granite. The door into the house gives admission into an outer chamber, where is every description of odds and ends; where are potatoes, old barrels, infirm cartwheels, and the poultry hopping over everything. On one side a door gives admission to the kitchen, hall, parlour, all in one, lighted by a small window looking into the court-yard. Or, again, on the one hand is the cattle-shed, on the other the kitchen, all under one roof, and beyond the kitchen the common sleeping-chamber. Rarely is there an upper storey. The object of making these ancient houses so totally enclosed was to protect the dwelling from the furious storms. They were castles, but walled up against no other enemy than the wild weather. Nowadays these ancient houses are rapidly disappearing, and new, vulgar, staring edifices are taking their places – edifices that let in wind and water at every joint and loophole.

The dry walls of these old tenements were snug places for vipers to shelter through the winter, and I have heard many an old moorman relate how, when the peat fire was glowing and the room was warm, he has seen the heads and glittering eyes of the "long cripples" shoot out from the crevices in the wall and sway, enjoying the warmth, but too sluggish to do more.

One told me that his dog was bitten by a viper, and its head was swollen shockingly. He at once got elder flowers, and put them in a caldron to boil, and held the dog's head over the steam. It cured the poor beast.

Many years ago a Manchester man with plenty of money came down to Dartmoor, and declared that it was a shame so much land should lie waste; he would show what could be done with it. So he soon came to terms with the Duchy, which allowed him to enclose thousands of acres – which means exclude the public – and to set up machine-houses for steam-engines to thrash, and for steam-ploughs to turn the soil, and so on. The whole not very far from Crockern Tor, the umbel, the centre of the moor, the seat of the ancient stannary court, sub Dio, under the open vault of heaven, on unhewn granite seats.

One day an old moorman met this new-fangled farmer, and said to him: "How do 'y, Muster Vowler? I had a dream about yü last night."

"Did you, indeed? I am flattered."

"Hear what it is afore yü say that."

"Well, tell me."

"Well, Muster Vowler, I falled asleep, and then I saw the gurt old sperit of the moors, old Crockern himself, grey as granite, and his eyebrows hanging down over his glimmering eyes like sedge, and his eyes deep as peat water pools. Sez he to me, 'Do 'y know Muster Vowler?' 'Well, sir,' sez I, 'I thinks I have that honour.' 'Then,' sez he in turn, 'Bear him a message from me. Tell Muster Vowler if he scratches my back, I'll tear out his pocket.'"

And sure enough old Crockern did it. After a few years Dartmoor beat the scientific farmer. He had tried to drain its bogs, it had drained his purse. He had scratched its back, and it had torn out his pocket.

There existed formerly a belief on Dartmoor that it was hunted over at night in storm by a black sportsman, with black fire-breathing hounds, called the "Wish Hounds." They could be heard in full cry, and occasionally the blast of the hunter's horn on stormy nights.

One night a moorman was riding home from Widecombe. There had been a fair there; he had made money, and had taken something to keep out the cold, for the night promised to be one of tempest. He started on his homeward way. The moon shone out occasionally between the whirling masses of thick vapour. The horse knew the way better perhaps than his master. The rider had traversed the great ridge of Hameldon, and was mounting a moor on which stands a circle of upright stones – reputedly a Druid circle, and said to dance on Christmas Eve – when he heard a sound that startled him – a horn, and then past him swept without sound of footfall a pack of black dogs.

The moorman was not frightened – he had taken in too much Dutch courage for that – and when a minute after the black hunter came up, he shouted to him, "Hey! huntsman, what sport? Give us some of your game."

"Take that," answered the hunter, and flung him something which the man caught and held in his arm. Then the mysterious rider passed on. An hour elapsed before the moorman reached his home. As he had jogged on he had wondered what sort of game he had been given. It was too large for a hare, too small for a deer. Provokingly, not once since the encounter had the moon flashed forth. Now that he was at his door he swung himself from his horse, and still carrying the game, shouted for a lantern.

The light was brought. With one hand the fellow took it, then raised it to throw a ray on that which he held in his arm – the game hunted and won by the Black Rider. It was his own baby, dead and cold. This story was told by the blacksmith at Moreton Hampstead to G. P. Bidder, the calculating boy, who as a lad was fond of playing about the old man's forge. From one of Mr. Bidder's daughters I had the tale.

It would be unjustifiable to pass over the Pixies, or Pysgies as they are generally termed, who are the little spirits supposed specially to haunt Dartmoor, although indeed they leave their traces, and perform their pranks elsewhere. To be "pysgie-led" is to go astray and become so bewildered as not to be able to find the way at all. How entirely one may go wrong even with the best appliances, the following experience will show.

One morning, my friend Mr. R. Burnard, with one of the officers of the Ordnance Survey, another gentleman and myself, started from the Duchy Hotel, Princetown, with the object of visiting an unregistered stone row on Conies Down Tor, which at our request the Survey was about to include in their map. We started at 9.30 a.m., of course provided with compasses and surveying apparatus. There was a bit of fog as we left the hotel door, but as we heard the larks singing aloft we expected it to clear. Mr. Burnard and the officer got ahead of us, and disappeared in the mist before we had gone a hundred yards – and we saw them no more that day.

Beyond the Prisons there is a short cut across the enclosures made by the convicts, into the main Tavistock and Moreton road; we took that, and on reaching the road struck by Fitz's Well due north, or nearly so, for Black Dunghill (Blackadun-hill). Then I knew that by going due north we must strike the Lych Way, the track by which corpses were formerly carried from the centre and east side of the moor for interment at Lydford. This Lych Way is fairly well marked.

The mist became thicker; we walked on, hoping on reaching Conies Down Tor to find our friends there. But after a bit I got completely lost; we came on a dip or pan in which were sheep, but no stream; that I could in no way account for, so we set our faces to the wind, which I knew when we started blew from the south, and about one o'clock we reached Princetown again, drenched to the skin. But the Ordnance Survey officer and Mr. Burnard had taken another route, had arrived at Mis Tor, and then by a swerve to the right along Mis Tor pan – one ghastly, boggy tract to be avoided – essayed to strike the Lych Way and reach Conies Down Tor. But in the mist they went so absolutely astray, notwithstanding their scientific appliances, that when about one o'clock they reached a stream flowing north they supposed that they had hit on the Ockment and would come out at Okehampton. Nor was it till a brawling stream came foaming down on the right, and the river took a twist south-west, that it dawned on them that they were on the Tavy. About five o'clock they reached, sopped as sponges and utterly fagged, a little tavern at Mary Tavy, where, in their prostration, they asked for a bottle of champagne. The hostess stared. "Plaize, surs, be he sum'ut to ate? Us hav'n't got nort but eggs and a rasher."

That was a case of Pixy-leading out of pure mischief, to show how superior they were to all the last appliances of science.

Now, when the way is lost, there is one thing to be done, if possible – aim at running water and follow the stream. It may lead you out thirty miles from the spot you want to reach, but it will eventually lead to a roof, and "wittles and drink," and better still – dry clothes.