stairs and laid upon the bed in which he had slept the preceding night. It was soon known to us all that he had shot himself through the heart! and it was speedily afterwards discovered that the placard on the wall too truly described his person, and offered a reward of one hundred pounds for his apprehension under the charge of forgery and embezzlement. He had doubtless been prepared for the sad chance that might await him; and the sight of the placard was less surprising than conclusive in its effect. The suicide had been committed in a spot close to where the cricket-players were engaged, and the report of the pistol led to the instant discovery of the body, which was known to one of the party as that of a sojourner at the hotel. The inn was now all still, under the cloud of horror which had gathered over it. The fearful whisperings of the little town mingled with the moaning winds of that sad evening. The late coach came down on its way to Portsmouth. I changed my intention of staying the night, and proceeded on my journey thinking—but I will leave the reader to think for me, for the subject is fresh to him, and he will no doubt reflect, as I did, upon the extraordinary contrasts of that dark hour. Portsmouth, too, had its incident. When I stepped on board the Brunswick steam-boat for Devonshire, a vessel from France had just arrived, and she was passing close to us up the harbour. A sturdy man-o'-war'sman was on her deck, impatient, as he said, "to get ashore from out of the blowsy teakettle," to whose conduct he had been compelled to submit, for at that time there was no notion of admitting a boiler into the hold of a battle-ship. He saw his "lovely Nan" waving her lily-white handkerchief on the quay; and, without waiting for the paddles to stop, hailed an old messmate, who was in his boat amid a hundred others, ready to "pull alongside." The paddles stopped an instant, but not for Jack, nor conscious of the promptness of the messmate to respond to Jack's call. No sooner, therefore, was the boat secretly under the paddle, than the order "Go a-head" was given. Jack, losing not an instant, jumped into the boat; and, in one second or two more, the said boat was knocked into two very independent fragments, and both men were missing. "Stop her! man overboard!" was the cry; and a brief while of anxious suspense followed; but, thanks to Heaven, we shall not finish with tragedy this time. The "messmate" was picked up on to the steamer's deck, and Jack rose clear some yards "a-port," striking off for the quay with his long cue trailing after him like a helmless and unnecessary rudder, and exclaiming, "All right, my hearties! lash your boat to my pigtail and I'll tow ye ashore." My voyage was such as to make me repent I had not preferred the tedium of the turnpike-road to the tossing of the Channel waves-the animal power of the horse to the horse-power of the engine. The port of my destination was Dartmouth; and as we passed the mouth of the Dart, a little object was seen at intervals on the top of a wave, indistinct in the misty rain, which, by eyes less dimmed by sickness and calm despair than mine, was recognised to be what is termed (with very non-especial significance) a "shore-boat." It appeared to me that, being intended only as a surface swimmer, it had no more business out at sea at that 81 hour than the boatman's cottage. I presume it was always above water; but an inexperienced sight would have regarded it as a diving duck, engaged for by far the greater portion of its time in the profoundest investigation of the mysteries of "the deep." We "lay to," as it is termed,—that is, we stopped our paddles and performed a pas seul on the waves, in which a compound of starboard and larboard rolling, and fore and aft pitching, was practised to the utmost amount of allowable eccentricity. The steward told me to get ready. This was gratuitous. There was never a man more ready than I for the most submissive yielding to anything which the fates in their ingenuity might contrive as an imperative decree. But, when he told me to get ready my luggage, he might as well have ordered me to ascend and hang my portmanteau on the masthead. He understood the faint humour of my sickly smile, in which were comprised the imploring appeal of one much to be pitied, the mild reproof of one not to be made a fool of, and the settled aspect of that despair which was the only calm thing in the varieties of the moment. I gave him my name, and he fetched me the two or three articles which bore that hapless indication of ownership. The purse, which I drew with difficulty from its tenacious hold in my damp pocket-the pocket coming out with it-seemed to be made of seaweed; and the several required pieces of silver came from it like reluctant limpits. The boat was now alongside,-meaning, that it was one moment staving in its bows against the paddle-box, and the next bounding off out of reach; now up to the steamer's gangway, and anon at the bottom of a wave six or eight feet below it. In went my luggage; and away went luggage and boat, as if nothing else was expected. Again came the boat to the gangway. "Now, sir, jump in!" I let myself drop. Down went the boat, and I after it; but, before I reached the foot-plank, it was on the reascent to meet me; and in another second I was part of an heterogeneous cargo of leather, carpet, and still life, half-suffocated by the wet woollen embrace of the boatman, who with an extravagant stretch of the imaginative declared to me that everything was "all right." Away went the steamer; but, so far as I could perceive, our boat appeared to be effecting little else than a repetition of the fruitless labour of Sysiphus-i. e. mounting the outer side of an off-shore wave, for the vain purpose of sliding down it again backwards. As, however, we could not advance towards the shore, the shore apparently advanced to meet us. In due time, after a long battle between the blind faith that the shore would be attained, and the impression that we were doing something less than nothing towards effecting so desired a union, the mouth of the river, like an approaching whale, received us, and there we were left to make our own way into the port. My lusty oarsman now evidently laboured to some purpose; and we pulled up alongside the quay of Dartmouth, whence I immediately walked to private lodgings of the boatman's recommendation, and went instantly to bed at about three o'clock, P.M., begging a strong cup with a little brandy in it, as the only possible restorative. But, oh! the bed of tea, was still the hated steamer! though more gentle in its game of "pitch and toss." To render me the more sensible of at least the safety of condition, a print of the wreck of the Halsewell East Indiaman hung, or my then rather swung, opposite the foot of my bed; and I lay mildly rocking on G 2 the waves of reminiscent impression, till sleep, that "ape of death, lay dull upon me," permitting no further recognition of the evening than allowed time for supper, and improved preparation for sleep again. The pre-eminent beauty of the Dartmouth scenery was the subject both of my pen and pencil on the following day. I know nothing of the kind more charming than the aspect of the harbour and its surrounding heights, from certain points of view on the western side, where the sea wholly disappears, and the waters assume the appearance of an inland lake. The town is picturesque in the extreme, with its richly carved old gable fronts, and streets rising one above the other up the acclivity; and few are the walks more beautiful than that which leads from the town to the castle at the river's mouth. The boat excursion, too, twelve miles up the river to Totnes, is, to use Johnson's phrase, "not only worth seeing, but worth going to see." From Dartmouth I went, through Brixham and Paington, to Torquay; then a lovely place, not over-built, and presenting its happiest midway gradation between the little fishing village it was originally, and the great be-villa'd and be-terraced place which it now is. Hence I proceeded through Teignmouth and Dawlish to Exeter, radiating to many other places which justify the proverbial fame of Devon, where in liveliest green attir'd, Smiling like Hope, and cheering the glad eye, Exeter had, then, more of the antique character than it now retains of that period when Queen Elizabeth complimented it with the motto "Semper Fidelis," and it exhibited a charming combination of the olden form with modern substance. Its stern old cathedral was at that time connected with recent days by a more perfect chain of architectural gradation than now exists, though its town-hall still remains, one of the most remarkable Elizabethan specimens extant. It was here that the pervading female beauty of the south-west of England first particularly struck me; for, assuredly, the women of Exeter rival in fairness the lilies of its surrounding valleys and the roses of its cultivated gardens. The city is the centre of a circumscribing expanse of the most varied country. Follow out its radii of twelve miles, and you have an epitome of England's more select scenic characteristics. The red soil of the general locality gives peculiar warmth to the tone of its landscapes, and remarkable richness to the green of its fields and trees. The sterile grandeurs of Dartmoor, the luxuriant beauty of the private domains, the changeful attractions of the adjacent watering-places, and of the inland course of the river Exe, are so many reasons for the pride of the Exonian,-to say nothing of that sentiment of elevation which attaches to High Churchism, and more especially to the renowned prelate, arch Harry, of the house of Phillpotts. At the time, however, of which I write, Dr. Carey was bishop of the diocese. From Exeter I proceeded on a full investigatory tour of the county, taking up my temporary abode in many of its towns, and ramifying from each as there might be scenic or architectural objects to attract me., Devonshire, topographically, may be thus generally described: It resembles a finely developed peach, with all the varieties of colour which are included between the rosy hues of the sunny side and the paler beauties of that towards the wall, rendered the more pictorial by the wasp-eatings which have formed its hollows and destroyed all surface formality. The granite district of Dartmoor, in the centre of the county, answers to the stone of the fruit; and the leaves in which it lies embedded symbolise the verdant charms which garland it. Its central feature, then, is the lofty, undulating, and desolate expanse of Dartmoor; a vast tract of billowy rise and fall; the summits crowned with granite torrs; the sides of the billows strewed with granite fragments; huge granite masses of fantastic form, rising like castles, or like the rock idols of a gigantic superstition; the middle-height flats dangerous with the treacherously-concealed morass; the lower valley-beds murmuring with the "many waters" of brook and torrent, or resounding with the "leap of the hoarse waterfall;" the outward declivities sloping into a wooded belt, whence extend the surrounding lowlands in all their sunny verdure; so that the Moor may be likened to a dark pall edged with a fringe of green and gold. The entire interior of the forest is treeless, save in the minute exception, which the more strongly proves the general fact-"the lonely wood of Whistman"-a most curious little patch of stunted oaks, not higher than underwood, and clothed with moss, proportionally thick as the flax on a distaff. "Dartmoor" is a misnomer; for it is not the river Dart only that descends from the Moor, the latter being, indeed, the mother of some fifty rivers or streams springing into birth from its lofty founts, or gradually accumulating in its countless furrows, and thence flowing, through courses of infinite beauty, to seek their "proud alliance with the sea." The Moor rambler soon finds, too, that he is in "the land of the logan and the cromlech;" and stone circles, with their avenues, plentifully attest this interesting locality to have been a great cathedral district of the Druids. Monuments, natural and artificial, or partly both, commemorate the traditional acts or tragic fates of our forefathers; and, to crown all, Dartmoor, about the year 1825, became the subject of one of the finest descriptive poems ever issued from the press. The reader is referred to Carrington's "Dartmoor" as affording, at once, the most graphic and poetical picture that delineative skill, imaginative vigour, and impassioned sentiment could produce; and in addition to this must be added an allusion to the "Perambulation of the Ancient and Royal Forest of Dartmoor," by the Rev. Samuel Rowe-a work of learning, research, and deep interest. THE SIX GREY-POWDERS. 66 I. A YOUNG and somewhat shy-looking man was making his way down the street of a country village. He appeared to be a stranger, and his clerical coat and white neckcloth betokened his calling. It would seem he was in search of some house that he could not readily find, for he peered curiously at several through his spectacles as he passed them. As he neared one, a handsome house with a green verandah, a cab, painted black, came dashing up, stopped, and there descended from it a gentleman and his servant in the deepest mourning. The stranger approached the master, and courteously touched his hat. "I beg your pardon," he said, "can you obligingly point out to me the rectory? I understood it to be somewhere here." "At the end of the street, five minutes lower down. Opposite the church." "This end of the street?" resumed the stranger, pointing to the way he had been journeying. "I'll show the gentleman which it is," cried a fine boy of fourteen, who appeared to be growing out of his jacket. "What, is it you, Arthur?" said the owner of the cab. "Where did you spring from ?" The young gentleman had sprung from behind the cab, but he did not choose to say so. "I say, sir," he exclaimed, slipping the question, "you have not seen mamma anywhere, have you?" "No." "Oh, well, it's not my fault. She told me to meet her somewhere here as I came home from school, and she'd take me to have my hair cut. Old Brookes did not do it to please her last time, so she said she'd go and see it done. Now, sir," he added to the stranger, "I'll show you Mr. Leicester's." They walked along together. "Do you know," said the boy, suddenly looking at his companion, "I can guess who you are? You are the new curate." The stranger smiled. "How do you guess that?" "Because you look like it. And we know Mr. Leicester had engaged one: the other did not suit. He is too ill now to do it all himself. Mamma says she is sure he won't live long. Do you know Mr. Cas tonel ?" "No. Who is Mr. Castonel ?" "Why, that was Mr. Castonel, and that was his cab. Did you see how black they were?" "Yes. He appeared to be in deep mourning." "It is for his wife. She was so pretty, and we all liked her so. She was Ellen Leicester, and Mr. Castonel ran away with her, and she died. |