Part 4 (1/2)
”Siward's Cross” is mentioned in the Perambulation of 1240. ”It is named,” says Mr. Crossing, ”in a deed of Amicia, Countess of Devon, confirming the grant of certain lands for building and supporting the Abbey of Buckland, among which were the manors of Buckland, Bickleigh and Walkhampton. The latter manor abuts on Dartmoor Forest, and the boundary line, which Siward's Cross marks at one of the points, is drawn from Mistor to the Plym. The cross, therefore, in addition to being considered a forest boundary mark, also became one to the lands of Buckland Abbey, and I am convinced that the letters on it which have been so variously interpreted simply represent the word 'Bocland.' The name, as already stated, is engraved on the western face of the cross--the side on which the monks' possessions lay.”
Elsewhere he observes that Siward's Cross, ”standing as it does on the line of the Abbot's Way, would seem not improbably to have been set up by the monks of Tavistock as a mark to point out the direction of the track across the Moor; and were it not for the fact that it has been supposed to have obtained its name from Siward, Earl of Northumberland, who, it is said, held property near this part of the Moor in the Confessor's reign, I should have no hesitation in believing such to be the case.”
No matter who first lifted it, still it stands--the largest cross on Dartmoor--like a sentinel to guard the path that extended between the religious houses of Plympton, Buckland and Tavistock. And other crosses there are beyond the Mire, where an old road descended over Ter Hill.
But the Abbot's Way is tramped no more, and the princes of the Church, with their men-at-arms and their mules and pack-horses, have pa.s.sed into forgotten time. Few now but the antiquary and holiday-maker wander to Siward's Cross; or the fox-hunter gallops past it; or the folk, when they tramp to the heights for purple harvest of ”hurts” in summer-time.
The stone that won the blessings of pious men, only comforts a heifer to-day; she rubs her side against it and leaves a strand of her red hair caught in the lichens.
The snow began to fall more heavily and the wind increased. Therefore I turned north and left that local sanct.i.ty from olden time, well pleased to have seen it once again in the stern theatre of winter. It soon shrank to a grey smudge on the waste; then snow-wreaths whirled their arms about it and the emblem vanished.
COOMBE
[Ill.u.s.tration: COOMBE.]
Life comes laden still with good days that whisper of romance, when in some haunt of old legend, our feet loiter for a little before we pa.s.s forward again. I indeed seek these places, and confess an incurable affection for romance in my thoughts if not my deeds. I would not banish her from art, or life; and though most artists of to-day will have none of her, spurn romantic and cla.s.sic alike, and take only realism to their bosoms; yet who shall declare that realism is the last word, or that reality belongs to her drab categories alone?
”There is no 'reality' for us--nor for you either, ye sober ones, and we are far from being so alien to one another as ye suppose, and perhaps our goodwill to get beyond drunkenness is just as respectable as your belief that ye are altogether _incapable_ of drunkenness.”
A return to romance most surely awaits literature, when our artists have digested the new conditions and discovered the magic and mystery that belong to newly created things--whether Nature or her human child has made them; but for the moment, those changes that to-day build revolution, stone on stone, demand great seers to record the romantic splendour of their promise, sing justly of all that science is doing, write the epic of our widening view and show man leading the lightning chained in his latest triumph. For us, who cannot measure such visions, there remains Nature--the incurable romantic--who retains her early methods, loves the sword better than the pruning-hook, and still sometimes strikes jealously at her sophisticated child, who has learned to subst.i.tute a thousand wants for the simple needs that she could gratify.
At Coombe, on the coast of North Cornwall, there yet lies a nest of old romance, wherein move, for dream-loving folk, the shadows of an old-time tale. Nature reigns unchanged in the valley and her processions and pageants keep their punctual time and place; but once a story-teller came hither, and the direct, genial art of a brave spirit found inspiration here. From this secluded theatre sprang _Westward Ho!_ and none denies willing tribute to him who made that book.
Seen on this stormy December day with a north-wester raging off the sea and the wind turning the forest music to ”a hurricane of harps,” Coombe Valley lives with music and movement. Far away in the gap eastward rises a blue mound with Kilkhampton Church-tower perched thereon, and thence, by winding woods, the way opens to the historic mill. Full of tender colour are the tree-clad hills--a robe of grey and amber and amethyst, jewelled here and there, where the last of the leaves still hang.
Wind-beaten oak and larch, beech and ash twine their arms together and make a great commotion where the woven texture of their boughs is swaying and bending. Their yield and swing challenge the grey daylight, and it plays upon them and flings a tracery of swift brightness over the forest. The light is never still, but trembles upon the transparent woods, so that every movement of their great ma.s.s wins an answering movement from the illumination that reveals them. Beneath, under the tremulous curtain and visible through its throbbing, lies the earth's bosom, all brown with fallen leaves. It swells firm and solid under restless branch and bough, and listens to the great song of the trees.
Sometimes a sunburst from the sky touches the woodland, and the ramage aloft sparkles like a gauze of silver over the russet and gold beneath.
In the heart of the valley there runs a river, and, freed from her work, the mill-stream leaps to join it. The mill-wheel thunders, as it did when little Rose Salterne set stout hearts beating and dreamed dreams, wherein no sorrow homed or horror whispered. But time has not forgotten Coombe Mill, and, to one who may love flowers, the evidence of progress chiefly lies among them. There is a garden here and many a plant, that had not yet faced the buffets of an English winter when Kingsley's heroine tended her clove-pinks and violets, now thrives contented in this little garth.
Beside the mill-pond, flogged by the December storm, Kaffir lilies wave their crimson and the red fuchsia flourishes. A bush of golden eleagnus is happy, and a shrubby speedwell thrives beside it; honeysuckles climb to the thatch of the white-washed homestead; a rambler rose hangs out its last blossoms; and a yellow jasmine also blooms upon the wall.
Marigolds and lavender and blue periwinkles trail together in a bright wreath against the darkness of the water-wheel; there are stocks and Michaelmas daisies, too, with the silver discs of honesty and the fading green of tamarisk.
Many suchlike things flourish in this cradle of low hills, for winter is a light matter here, and great cold never comes to them. They push forth and creep into the lanes and hedges; they find the water-meadows and love the shelter of the apple trees and the brink of the stream.
Beside the mill there towers a great ivy-tod in fruit, and rises the weathered mill-house, stoutly built to bear the strain within. Once granite mill-wheels ground the corn, but now their day is over and they repose, flower crowned, in the hedges outside. The eternal splas.h.i.+ng of water has painted a dark stain here, and ferns have found foothold. One great hart's tongue lolls fifty wet green leaves out from the gloom of the wheel-chamber.
All is movement and bustle; the mill-stream races away to the river, and the river to the sea. The tree-tops bend and cry; the clouds tell of the gale overhead, now thinning to let the suns.h.i.+ne out, now darkening under a sudden squall and dropping a hurtle of hail.
From the mill-pool to the west opened another vision of meadows with a little grey bridge in the midst of them. Hither winds the stream, trout in every hover, and the brown hills rise on either side, barren and storm-beaten. Then, at the mouth of the land between them, a great welter of white foam fills the gap, for the storm has beaten the sea mad, and the roar of it ascends in unbroken thunder over the meadows.
Behind the meeting-place of land and ocean, there roll the lashed and stricken seas, all dim and grey; and their herds are brightened with suns.h.i.+ne or darkened by cloud, as the wind heaves them to sh.o.r.e. But there is no horizon from which we can trace them. They emerge wildly out of the flying scud of cloud that presses down upon the waters.
OLD DELABOLE
[Ill.u.s.tration: OLD DELABOLE.]