A Book of the West. Volume I Devon

The schools have pretty well banished superstition from Dartmoor; none now remains, and I doubt whether the old stories are any longer to be picked up there.

Education, however, is not in an advanced condition. The other day I took down for preservation the following notice I saw affixed to the church gate at Post Bridge. It was written on vermilion-red paper: —

"Mary maze hencot as been and kellad
John Webb Jack daw.
and he got to pay 5s for kellad a Jack daw."

The sense is not clear. As may be noticed, Mary is a he, just as a cow is a he.

Here is a bit of conversation overheard between two Dartmoor boys: —

"I zay, Bill, 'ow many cows hev your vaither?"

"Mine – oh! dree and an oss. How many 'as yourn?"

"Mine! oh! my vaither – e's in heaven."

"Get out! mine ha' been there scöres o' times."

This is a sceptical age. The very foundations of faith in verities and trust in authorities are shaken. How far may be instanced by this anecdote: —

Two choir boys had been to a Christmas treat. There was a cake with little plaster figures on it, and two of these were presented to the aforesaid boys, Jack and Tom, by their pastor and spiritual father, with strict injunctions not to eat them, as they would be most injurious, might kill them. They took the images home, and showed them to their mother, who at once perceived that they were of plaster of Paris and not edible.

"Byes!" said she, "doant ey niver go for to ate of thickey drashey things. They'll kill yu for zure-cartain, right off on end."

Here, pray note it, was the same thing inculcated by the material as well as the spiritual parent. Some hours later the mother with a shock perceived that one of the plaster figures was gone from the mantelshelf on which she had placed it.

"Tom! Tom!" she cried to the only son who was then in the house, "where be the plaister man to?"

"Plaise, mother, Jack hev aiten 'n – and if Jack be alive this arternoon, I be goin' to ate the other wan."

When such a condition of mind exists among the young, can one expect to find a belief in Pixies still present?

The only very modern case of spectres or their congeners on the moor I have heard of is that of a moor farmer, who is wont to return from market at Moreton in a hilarious condition.

"T' other day," said he, "just as I comed to a little dip in the ground t' other side o' Merripit, who shu'd I meet but the witch o' Endor. 'Muster,' sez she, 'Yu've been drinkin' and got liquor o' board.' Now how cu'd a woman a' knawed that onless her'd been a sperrit herself or a witch I'd like to knaw."

Some of those who have been brought up on the moor cannot endure to leave it. One man named John Hamlyn, who died aged eighty years, had never in all his life been off it. Another, Jacob Gorman, aged seventy-five, had been from it only two months in all his life. At a little cot near Birch Tor, it was said that the fire had not gone out for a hundred years, as the women had never for a night left the house.

Some of the old cottages on the moor were wonderful abodes, like Irish cabins. They are gradually disappearing, but a few still remain. The influx of visitors to Dartmoor, and the money brought there, tend to their effacement. A cot that could be run up between sunrise and sunset and a fire lighted by nightfall, has been held to constitute a right for ever to the place. Some of the hovels still standing have been so erected.

The rivers on the moor are liable to freshets. In the notable storm of 1890, Merivale Bridge on the Walla, and the old bridge leading from Tavistock to Peter Tavy over the Tavy river, were swept away. But the Dart is notorious for its sudden swelling. It was due to this that the old couplet ran —

"River of Dart, O river of Dart,
Every year thou claimest a heart."

The river "cries" when there is to be a change of wind. "Us shall have bad weather, maister; I hear the Broadstones a crying." The Broadstones are boulders of granite lying in the bed of the river. The cry, however, hardly comes from them, but from a piping of the wind in the twists of the glen through which the turbulent river writhes.

In Dartington churchyard there is a tombstone to the memory of John Edmonds, who was drowned in the river on August 17th, 1840. He and his intended were coming from Staverton Church, where they had been married, when a wave of water rolled down on them, and cart, horse, and bride and bridegroom were swept away. Her body was found caught in a tree a few hundred yards below, but the body of the man was not recovered for nearly three weeks afterwards; the horse and cart were carried over the weir near Totnes bridge.

About a hundred and fifty years ago there was no stone bridge at Hexworthy, only a clapper (wooden bridge). Two men were coming down the road when they heard the roar of a freshet. "Here cometh old Dart – let's run," said one. They ran, but old Dart was too quick for them; he caught them on the clapper and carried both off and drowned them; so that year he had two hearts.

A few years ago the Meavy suddenly rose and caught a man and his horse as they were crossing a ford below the village. The man was not drowned, but died of the consequences.

Up to 1702 there were on Dartmoor but thirty-five tenements in fifteen localities, some two or three being grouped together in certain places. These ancient farms are situated in the best and most favoured portions of the Forest of Dartmoor, and have been occupied from prehistoric times, as is evidenced by the quantity of flint tools that are turned up at these spots.

There is an account of the tenants of Dartmoor as early as 1344-5, from which it appears that they were then forty-four in number. In 1346 the forty-four tenants depastured no less than 4700 oxen and thirty-seven steers, a very respectable total, and one showing that the favoured spots in the forest some five and a half centuries ago carried considerable herds of cattle.

The names of the ancient tenements are: Hartland, Merripit, Runnage, and Warner; Dury, Pizwell, Bellever, Reddon, and Babenay; Princehall, Dunnabridge, Brounberry, Sherberton, Hexworthy, Huccaby, and Brimpts.

Formerly all these tenements were held as customary freeholds or copyholds, but many of them have been purchased by the Duchy.[20 - For a full account of them see Burnard (R.), Dartmoor Pictorial Records. Plymouth, 1893.]

Where the miners lived in the old times, when tin mining was in vigour on the moor, is not very clear, as very few ruins of quadrangular buildings remain that could have served as houses, and it is quite certain that they did not inhabit the hut circles, as they have not left their traces therein. They, in all likelihood, lodged in the farmhouses and their outbuildings during the week, and returned to their homes for the Sundays.

In 1806 the vast range of prisons was erected at Princetown, on the bleakest and one of the loftiest sites on Dartmoor, for the accommodation of French prisoners of war. From 1816, when peace was proclaimed, the buildings stood empty till 1850, when they were converted into a convict establishment, and since then the prisoners have been employed in enclosing and reclaiming the moor.

As may well be imagined, many attempts at escape have been made. I remember one, especially daring, which was nearly successful, some forty years ago. A prisoner succeeded in creeping along one of the beams sustaining the roof of the hall in which were the warders eating their supper, without attracting their attention. He got thence over the wall, and next broke into the doctor's house. There he possessed himself of a suit of clothes, and left his convict suit behind. Next he entered the doctor's stable, and took his horse out. But he was unable to enter the harness-room, owing to the strength of the lock, and so was obliged to escape, riding the horse, indeed, but without saddle, and directing it not with a bridle, but with a halter.

He rode along at a swinging pace till he reached Two Bridges, where there is an ascent rather steep for a quarter of a mile, and then he necessarily slackened his pace. To his great annoyance, as he passed the Saracen's Head (the inn which constitutes the settlement of Two Bridges) a man emerged from the public-house and jumped on his horse. This was a moorman. The morrow was appointed for a drift, and he was going to make preparations to drive his quarter of the moor. He leaped on his horse and trotted after the convict, little knowing who he was.

That night was one of moonlight. The moorman saw a gentleman in black riding a good horse before him, and he pushed on to be abreast with him and have a little talk.

"Whom have I the honour of riding with at night?" asked the moorman.

"I'm the new curate," said the convict, "going round on my pastoral duties."

"Oh, indeed, without saddle and bridle?"

"I was called up to a dying person. My groom was away. For souls one must do much."

"Indeed, and your clothes don't seem to fit you," observed the moorman.

Now the doctor was a fat man, and the man who wore his clothes was lean.

"My duties are wearing to the carnal man," said the rider.

"And the horse. By ginger! it's the doctor's," exclaimed the moorman.

The convict kicked the flanks of his steed, and away he bounded. The hill had been surmounted. The moorman gave chase.

Then he recollected that the doctor's horse was an old charger, and he thundered out, "Halt! Right about face!"

Instantly the old charger stopped – instantly – stopped dead, and away over his head like a rocket shot the soi-disant curate.

In another moment the moorman was on him, had him fast, and said grimly, "You're a five-pounder to me, my reverend party."

Five pounds is the reward for the apprehension of an escaped convict.

The moorman got his five pounds, and the convict got something he didn't like. He forfeited all the years of his imprisonment past, and got seven in addition for the theft of the horse and clothes.