SUMMARY OF RUN THROUGH NORTH CORNWALL

Distances.

Land’s End
St. Ives19miles
Newquay33”
St. Columb Major7”
(Bedruthan Steps and back14 ”)
Bodmin15”
Liskeard14”
Launceston20”
Back to Bodmin22”
Wadebridge7”
Tintagel17”
Bude19”
Morwenstow11”
Total198miles

Roads.

Some very steep gradients, but hills on the whole less constant.

Surface: main roads mostly good; lanes rough.

V
NORTH CORNWALL

“I believe I may venture to aver,” wrote Tonkin of Cornwall two hundred years ago, “that there are not any roads in the whole kingdom worse kept than ours.” This is not the case now. The main roads of Cornwall are excellent, and are far better kept than the average road of Somerset, for instance. No doubt the quickest way from Sennan to St. Ives is by Penzance and St. Erth Station; for this road, which is in the direct route from Land’s End to John o’ Groat’s, leaves little to be desired. But the more interesting way is through St. Just, and Morvah, and Zennor. We cannot expect so good a surface here, yet from Sennan to Morvah, where the country is so much disfigured by mines that we are glad to hurry, the road is capital; and it is only as the scenery becomes beautiful that the surface grows rough. There is a very steep descent beyond St. Just, followed at once by a climb of which the stiffest gradient is about one in five and a half.

It is in St. Just that we pass—on our left as we drive through the Bank Square—the ancient amphitheatre known as the Plân-an-Guare. Here, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, miracle-plays were acted on the level space in the centre, while the six tiers of seats that are replaced by the grassy bank were crowded with country-folk and miners. The plays were very popular, says Carew, “for they have therein devils and devices to delight as well the eye as the ear.”

There are none of these bizarre attractions, nor indeed anything else, to delight our eyes till we have passed Morvah. But from Morvah to St. Ives we have a lovely drive through a country of hills and heather, of bracken slopes and tors of granite—a little pattern cut from Dartmoor. At Trereen it will be well to leave the car and walk across several fields to Gurnard’s Head, whence there is a fine view of the jagged coast. The massive granite steps that here serve the purpose of stiles are luxurious beyond the dreams of laziness.

The last part of this road is bad, but the wild green slopes remind us still of Dartmoor till we run down the long, steep hill into the town of St. Ives. This is quite as good a centre as Penzance from which to see the western end of Cornwall, for the Tregenna Castle Hotel, with its park and walled garden and its lovely outlook over the sea, is one of the most charming in the Duchy; and the place itself is unspoilt. Indeed, these little fishing towns of Cornwall seem to understand very well that their face is their fortune, so to speak; that their welfare depends, not on bandstands and esplanades, but on the beauty of their harbours and fishing boats and narrow streets. Here at St. Ives are the simple charms of Newlyn and the rest: the same little piers and clustered masts, the same contorted streets and the same artists.

It is well that Mr. Knill, when he set up his crooked pyramid, did not place it too near the town. If we look back as we drive away we shall see, upon the skyline, the empty mausoleum of this unconventional mayor, who built his own tomb and arranged to be mourned with music and dancing at its base, but omitted to be buried in it. Some say he did not mean it for a tomb at all, but for a landmark to smugglers. This may be so, since at one time he certainly indulged in privateering—an enterprise into which, he explained, “he was hurried by the force of circumstances.” Perhaps the same explanation applies to his burial in London.

ST. IVES.

We drive on through the pretty, straggling village of Lelant to the port of Hayle. The rich colouring of the harbour and river here, the red and green flats, the brown and yellow sands, the crooked posts reflected in the water, and the flocks of gulls, are the last pleasing sights that we shall see for many miles; for the country through which we have to pass cannot have been beautiful in its best days, and is now made hideous by pit-heads and chimneys. Camborne is big and ugly, with trams: Redruth is big and ugly, without trams: there is no other visible difference, nor any gap between them. But the compensation that motorists so often find in dull country is ours: this is the splendid highway that leads to John o’ Groat’s. We leave it when it turns towards Truro, but by that time our surroundings are less depressing. Above Zelah Hill we take the road that crosses Newlyn Downs, where the close carpet of heather somewhat restores our spirits, though nowhere till we reach Newquay is there any hint of the beautiful things that lie hidden in this neighbourhood. After crossing the railway we should not take the first turn to Newquay, but should wait for the second, where the signpost stands. We shall thus avoid two bad hills.

Newquay must have been a glorious place before its shores were black with people, and its steep red cliffs crowded with lodging-houses, and its jutting promontory crowned with a huge hotel. Even now, in spite of these things, its wears something of a queenly air. We have left behind us the slow ripples of the southern sea: the fierce blue waves sweep in upon this grand coast with quite a different kind of dignity. But Newquay is too world-ridden to be really lovable. “How beautiful she must have been!” is a sad saying, whether applied to town or woman.

TRERICE.

In its neighbourhood, however, are several noteworthy things. We have only a few miles to drive, by leafy lanes and frequent splashes, to a spot that the world has left untouched and that time has only made more beautiful, the house of the Arundels. The best way to Trerice is the lane by Kestle Mill. John Arundel of Trerice is a proud name that becomes monotonous in the annals of Cornwall, and is not unknown in those of England. It was here they lived, those warlike Arundels—old Jack of Tilbury the Admiral, and John-for-the-King, who made so gallant a fight at Pendennis. Though the Arundels owned Trerice even in Edward III.’s time, I do not think Old Tilbury ever saw this Elizabethan building, for he was an old man in the days of Henry VIII. It was probably his son who built this lovely house at the foot of the hill, with the huge mullioned window and the moulded ceilings, and the oriel that overlooks the walled garden and its yew hedges. But John-for-the-King, we may suppose, has warmed himself before these splendid fireplaces, and has looked out through these windows at the flowers and pines, and has eaten his dinner at the great oak table now in the drawing-room. Some say he was a hard man. Possibly: for he lived in hard times. Yet one who knew him well called him “equally stout and kind.” “Of his enemies,” says Carew, “he would take no wrong nor on them any revenge. Those who for many years waited in nearest place about him learned to hate untruth.”

There was another branch of the family who, for their greater possessions, were known as “the great Arundels.” We may see their house at St. Mawgan. When approaching, from St. Columb Minor, the deep wooded hollow in which Lanherne stands close beside the church of St. Mawgan, one should take the most easterly of the two by-roads that lead to it. This hill, it is true, is steep enough; but the other is steeper—one in five. Those who are going on to Bedruthan Steps or elsewhere will do wisely to climb out of the hollow on this same road, and go round by St. Columb Major, for the hill on the further side of St. Mawgan is the steepest of all!

Here in this seclusion, guarded by a triple defence of hills as well as by the dark woods and by their own high wall, live the nuns of Lanherne in the house of warriors. Not much of their dwelling is visible, of course, but the chapel may be seen, and one wing of the old house looks down, with many mullioned windows, on a gay little garden that all may enjoy. Below Lanherne is the church, with turreted tower and painted screen, and brasses and bench-ends, and shields of the Arundels.

As I said before, the shortest way to Bedruthan Steps is the longest way round—the way, namely, by St. Columb Major. The road by Mawgan Porth has an alluring look upon the map, but as a matter of fact comes to a sudden end in the sands; and I have heard a tragic tale of a car that stuck fast there, and endured the humiliation of being dragged out by horses. At the junction of roads between the two St. Columbs is a gate into the woods of Lanherne, of whose loveliness this is the only glimpse we may have, since motors are not admitted to them. We turn to the left in St. Columb Major, past the grey church of St. Columba, a maiden who was, says Hals, “comparatively starved to death” in Gaul. Her church has had a chequered career. One of the pinnacles of the tower was again and again destroyed by lightning and rebuilt in vain, till the builders carved on it the words: “God bless and preserve this work.” I do not know if it escaped in the seventeenth century, when three schoolboys, by setting fire to some gunpowder, “made a direful concussion;” but only a few years later the steeple was again struck by lightning “and the iron bars therein wreathed and wrested asunder as threads.”

On a by-road that is of course hilly, but by no means bad, we rise on to Denzell Downs, with a wide view to the left and a glimpse of Mawgan Porth in the distance. When, having left St. Eval on the right, we come to an isolated cottage, we must take the track that goes straight on; for the one that turns to the right has an endless number of gates, some steep hills, and a very rough surface, and is much the longer of the two. Even on the track we take there are gates enough to try the temper, but it soon leads to a field where we may leave the car. We walk down across the heather to the cliffs. These have not the iron severity of the Land’s End: the shale they are made of is friable, and has been carved into a thousand shapes—including a ridiculously life-like figure of Queen Bess—by the waves that fret and foam even on the stillest day. The wide bay lies below us with all its decorative arches and pinnacles and turrets, bounded by Park Head, long and grey; and in the distance Trevose Head makes the skyline. Two flights of steps are cut in the cliffs: one leading to the shore and the other to a cave.

And now, after all this pottering in the narrow lanes about Newquay, there are many who will be craving for a comfortable run on an open road. These I advise to join the Truro and Bodmin road near St. Columb Road Station, and drive over a series of breezy heaths, on a good surface with no serious hills, to Bodmin: thence to follow the Fowey to Liskeard and run up to Launceston: and from Launceston to return to Bodmin across the moors. This is a fine run and a real refreshment.

There is no lack of history in Bodmin, the “dwelling-place of monks,” the burial-place of St. Petrock, once a cathedral city, and more than once the headquarters of rebellion. Yet, save the great church, there is little here to see. Very near Bodmin, however, though not on our direct road, there is a place of wonderful beauty, Lanhydrock. This park is rich in splendid trees, carpeted with fern, irregular and wild and lovely beyond the common lot of parks. As we sweep round a curve the gatehouse comes in view, with its arch and octagonal towers and pinnacles; behind it is the stately house, the mullioned windows and the battlements; and between house and gateway, enclosed within a parapeted wall, lies the formal garden, the rows of tapering cypresses, and urns of flowers, and blossoming yuccas. When Essex stayed here with Lord Robarts, at the time that Charles I. was at Boconnoc, the gatehouse was not yet built; but he saw the north wing of the house as it now stands. After his desertion of his troops at Fowey, Lanhydrock fell into royalist hands, and for a short time was owned by Sir Richard Grenville, “the Skellum.”

GATEHOUSE, LANHYDROCK.

We drive away by a magnificent double avenue of beeches and sycamores, and through a shady lane join the main road from Bodmin to Liskeard. This narrow valley of the Fowey is one of the loveliest strips of inland scenery in Cornwall. On every side of us are trees, close by the wayside, and hanging overhead, and clothing the high hills; and all the time, sometimes to left of us and sometimes to right, the brown stream hurries past us through the bracken. After we have crossed it for the second time the valley narrows and the woods close in, before we finally run out into open country. Between Liskeard and Callington, as we have seen before, there are some fine views, but the hilly road is rather badly kept; and the same may be said of the country beyond Callington, which has the same variable scenery, and the same wide but bumpy road. A long rise takes us into Launceston through the square tower of the south gate.

Age after age this hill has had a fortress on it. First the Celt and then the Saxon made a stronghold of it, and finally, when William the Conqueror gave it to his half-brother, Robert de Mortain, there arose the Norman castle that was called Terrible. Of its terror little is left now, for one of its three defending walls is gone, and the ruined keep is so unsteady that no one is allowed to climb its stairs. Yet this tower among the blazing geraniums has not altogether lost its romance, as is the fate of most ruins that stand in public gardens; and the Tudor gateway of the outer ward, with its portcullis-groove and prison-cell, is picturesque enough. If we peer through these bars we shall see a tiny cell with mossy floor and weed-grown walls—the “noisesome den” that George Fox the Quaker named Doomsdale, the prison in which he lay for months. “The commune gayle for all Cornwayle is yn this castel,” says Leland; and many distinguished prisoners have been here, though not all in this dark dungeon. Among these was Skellum Grenville, whose imprisonment had far-reaching results; for the men of Cornwall, as in the case of Trelawny, resolved “to know the reason why.” This was not because they liked him, but simply because he was a Cornishman. And a very good reason too.

In spite of all its strength Castle Terrible was several times taken in the Civil War. Finally it was seized by Fairfax, and kept. He came to Launceston at midnight, and many of the enemy escaped “by the darknesse of the night, and narrownesse and steepnesse of the wayes.” Those who were taken were amazed in the morning, when they were brought before the general, and “had twelve pence apeece given them, and passes to goe to their homes.”

TOWN GATE, LAUNCESTON.

When the Skellum’s brother Sir Bevill was here his troops were quartered in the church that is a few minutes’ walk from the castle, the church that is surely unique in its effect of richness. For every one of its granite stones bears a device, sacred or profane, and round the base is a course of shields, with letters carved upon them to form an inscription. Over the south door are St. George and the Dragon, and St. Martin and the Beggar; and at the east end is a prostrate figure of the Magdalen, at which, by a curious disregard of a certain great saying, it is considered lucky to throw stones. Within the church is a sixteenth-century pulpit, a Norman font, and a good deal of modern carving. Of the priory that Bishop Warelwast founded at Launceston hardly anything remains, except the Norman arch that has been set in the doorway of the “White Hart.”

We have a fine drive back to Bodmin over the moors, where the hills are many but the road is good. There is no heather here, but a great expanse of grass and waving fern, and scattered stones, and slopes of gorse, and now and then, impressive in its loneliness, an ancient Celtic cross of granite by the wayside. We enter Bodmin by an over-arching avenue, and pass out of it on the Wadebridge road, at the back of the asylum.

The short run to Wadebridge is through a lovely country of woods and valleys and rivers, on a road that is well-graded if hilly. There is little obvious attraction in Wadebridge itself, however, for at low tide the river winds through mud-flats that are not flat enough to be picturesque, and the famous bridge—“the longest, strongest, and fairest that the shire can muster”—is not as striking in fact as it appears in pictures. Like Bideford Bridge, it is said to be founded on sacks of wool. Its founder was one Lovibond, the vicar of this old church of Egloshayle that we see beside the river. We do not cross the bridge, but turn to the right on the road to Camelford; and a few minutes later pass near a British camp called Castle Killibury or Kelly Round. We are entering Arthur’s country—a land of shadowy legend, a land that has been peopled for us with a host of adorable, improbable figures, a land of disillusionment, but none the less of unconquerable romance. For this round encampment by which we drive is thought to be one of the few authentic relics of the authentic Arthur, the Kelliwic of the Welsh Triads, a stronghold and court of the British prince who truly lived, and fought, and died of a grievous wound—but not at Camelford.

We are on our way now to the spot that was long believed, and is still believed by many, to be the scene of his last battle: Slaughter Bridge. We turn off to the left in the outskirts of Camelford on rather a rough road to Camelford Station, and there take a narrow lane on the right which leads in a moment to the little grey bridge with the grim name. There is grim truth behind the name, moreover, for if it was not here, but in Scotland, that Arthur died, there has been slaughter on a large scale on the rushy banks of this brook that sings so gaily. Here, in the ninth century, Britons and Saxons fought and died by thousands, and no one knows to-day who won the battle.

On the left is the old gateway of Worthyvale. A little way within it is a wooden shed, where we shall find a guide to show us the ancient stone that does duty alternately as Arthur’s grave and his resting-place when he was wounded. Its age and position and probable origin are sufficiently romantic, for it is thought to be the tombstone of some warrior who was slain in the great battle. It lies now on level grass below the rocky bank, with the stream close beside it, and tree stems fringed with hart’s-tongues leaning over it. The path that leads to it is very steep and very slippery, and as one struggles down it the little barefooted guide prattles cheerfully of the ladies and old gentlemen who have, from time to time, fallen headlong into the stream.

From Slaughter Bridge a few miles, a few lanes, a few hills bring us, with hearts—even middle-aged hearts—beating a little faster than usual, to the very citadel and stronghold of that Land of Faery of which Arthur is the King.

Who can tell wherein the enchantment of Tintagel lies? Its crown of towers is gone; its glory is departed. Only, on the summit of the dark, steep island a few low walls, a doorway, and a window remain of the mediæval castle that seems to have no history. Not a stone here speaks of Arthur. Yet it is of Arthur only that we think.

And if there is no fragment here of the castle where Arthur was born, neither have we any visions of the Table Round, nor of Guinevere and her ladies, nor of Launcelot, nor Galahad; for the King’s court was not here. Only La Beale Isoud we may see sitting in her bower upon this rock, and Tristram kneeling at her feet, and behind him Mark with the uplifted sword. This was the stronghold of the ancient Cornish Earls; and if Arthur was born here it was because his birth was the result of magic, and not because Uther Pendragon had any rights in this place. But since we are here in a world of legend we may surely take the legend of our choice. Let us forget the ugly tale of Uther and Igerne, and remember only how, after the thunders of the storm upon this shore—

“There came a day as still as heaven, and then

They found a naked child upon the sands

Of dark Tintagel by the Cornish sea;

And that was Arthur.”

There are the sands below us, the little bay in the curve of the cliff, the transparent sea that brought the mysterious King to his kingdom.

And because all is mystery here, because behind the veil there is so little that is solid, so little that we know, it is not in the sunshine of a summer day that Tintagel has the most meaning. It is when the mists are trailing on the sea, and the dark rock is wrapped in a cloud as impenetrable as the legends that shroud Arthur, and for a moment a passing gleam lightens the fog above our heads and shows the pale ghost of a castle-wall uplifted against the sky—it is then that Tintagel seems indeed to be the heart of the world of dreams, the most perfect symbol of the mingled mystery and truth of the story of Arthur.

TINTAGEL.

More than three hundred years ago Carew gave his impressions of the island fortress. “In passing thither,” he says, “you must first descend with a dangerous declining, and then make a worse ascent by a path as everywhere narrow so in many places through his stickleness occasioning, as through his steepness threatening, the ruin of your life with the failing of your feet. At the top two or three terrifying steps give you entrance to the hill.” Those who suffer from unsteady heads will feel this lively description to be most accurate as regards the island; but the castle on the mainland may be reached by a path which, though narrow and tortuous enough, does not occasion, nor even threaten, the ruin of one’s life. And from those crumbling twelfth-century walls we may walk along the cliff to the little grey church that has stood here, buffeted by every wind of heaven, since the days of the Saxons. Part of the Saxon masonry is still here, and an old font green with moss, and various ancient stones. What this bleak cliff has to bear in the way of sea-winds may be seen in the churchyard, where all the tombstones—thin slabs of slate—are strongly buttressed by masonry three times as thick as themselves. In a corner is the poetical grave of an Italian sailor drowned on this shore: an ordinary ship’s life-buoy nailed to a rough wooden cross.

We drive away through the pretty village of Trevena, dip into the wooded and flowery dell of Bossiney on a steep and rather rough road, and soon run down into Boscastle among the orchards. The narrow gorge, where the village lies smothered in trees, ends in a little landlocked harbour, and high up on the hill to the left stands the church of Forrabury—the church whose bells, says the legend, are lying at the bottom of the sea with the bones of the blasphemous skipper who was bringing them to Boscastle. R. S. Hawker tells the story in “The Silent Tower of Bottreaux.” We cross the stream and begin a very long climb. This hill has a bad reputation; but its steepest gradient—one in six—is quickly past, and above it there is nothing very serious. After three miles of climbing we find some fine wide views; and as we drive between the high hedges on the rough road to Bude, catch glimpses of sea and headland on the left.

The charm of Bude, I imagine—and many people find it very charming—lies more in its surroundings than itself, more in the splendid coast and rolling sea than in the rather dull little town. The sands and boats at the river-mouth are picturesque, and so is the “cross-pool,” where Hawker in his sealskin coat once masqueraded as a mermaid (of a somewhat full habit), to the sad confusion of the youth of Bude.

Far more attractive in itself is Stratton, hard by, with the dark church-tower raised above the street, and half its houses hidden by the trees. In this church with the fine roof and the granite pillars is buried, under a black marble slab elaborately inlaid with brasses, a Sir John Arundel of the sixteenth century; the father, I believe, of John-for-the-King. And in the north aisle, with no stone to tell the tale of his brave and faithful service, lies Anthony Payne, the tender-hearted giant who taught little boys to fish, and fought with the strength of ten by Bevill Grenville’s side, and wrote a letter for which alone, if for nothing else, he deserves an epitaph. When Sir Bevill died at Lansdowne Hill it was Anthony Payne who broke the news to Lady Grenville. “You know, as we all believe,” he wrote, “that his soul was in heaven before his bones were cold. He fell, as he did often tell us he wished to die, in the great Stewart cause, for his country and his King. He delivered to me his last commands, and with such tender words for you and for his children as are not to be set down with my poor pen, but must come to your ears upon my heart’s best breath. Master John, when I mounted him upon his father’s horse, rode him into the war like a young prince as he is.… I am coming down with the mournfullest load that ever a poor servant did bear, to bring the great heart that is cold to Kilkhampton vault. O! my lady, how shall I ever brook your weeping face?”[12]

Down in the street we may find the house where this servant with the heart and tongue of gold was born and died. It was once a manor-house of the Grenvilles, but is now the “Tree” Inn, and shows little sign of age. Until lately there was a hole still in the ceiling through which Anthony Payne’s huge body was lowered after his death, since it was impossible to bring it down the narrow stairs; but now this room has been rebuilt. Fixed in the outer wall of the inn, however, is a relic of the battle on Stamford Hill, where “ye army of ye rebells … receiued A signall ouerthrow by ye Valor of Sir Bevill Granville and ye Cornish army,” and where Anthony Payne was valiant as his master. Once this stone was on the battle-field, but the owner of the land was so greatly harassed by sightseers that in his rage he dug out the memorial and built a house upon the spot!

Here, as we drive out of Stratton on a fine curving road, is the green slope on our left where the desperate battle of Stamford Hill, and the landlord’s desperate act of self-defence, took place. It was on that hilltop that Sir Bevill’s valour won him a personal letter from the King, the letter that was found in his pocket when he was dead. “Keep this safe,” he had written on it; for the Grenvilles were “King’s men,” not perfunctorily but passionately. It is but a few miles, on rather a rough road, to Kilkhampton, where Sir Bevill and most of his house are buried.

Indeed, Kilkhampton Church is as it were the shrine of the gallant Grenvilles, and deserves that high honour. A shady avenue leads from the modern lych-gate to the porch that was built by a Grenville and the Norman door through which so many Grenvilles have passed to their prayers, and so many have been carried to their graves: Roger, who for his lavish table was called the Great Housekeeper, and John the privateer, and Richard the Marshal and poet,[13] and Sir Bernard, son of the greatest of the Grenvilles and father of Sir Bevill. Sir Richard of the Revenge, as we all know, died “with a joyful and quiet mynde” on a distant sea, leaving behind him “an everlastynge fame of a valyante and true soldier that has done hys dutie as he was bounde to do.”[14] But Sir Bevill, thanks to Anthony Payne, lies in the vault of Kilkhampton, and with him is the wife who could not live long without him, and the boy who rode into the war like a young prince and became as ardent a royalist as his father.

Everywhere we see the Grenville arms: the three strange objects that some call “horsemen’s rests,” and some call rudders, and some clarions. They are outside the south-east door, and in the chancel, and on one of the elaborately carved bench-ends, and on the old granite font, and in much magnificence of paint and gilding on the south wall. And here on the same wall is the ugly eighteenth-century monument to Sir Bevill, with its long epitaph. “A brighter courage and a gentler disposition were never marryed together,” said Lord Clarendon. A better memorial of his bright courage than this thing of gilt and marble is the well-worn helmet that hangs beside it; and of his gentle disposition we have proof enough in his own and his wife’s letters, with their engaging mixture of romance and domesticity. “Would God but grant you were home,” writes Lady Grenville, “till when my heart will never be quiett.” “The Plaisters you sent, I trust in God, hath done me much good.” “I pray you make haste and come home.… I am and still will be yours ever and only.… PS.—I pray you let your Coate be well ayr’d and lye abroad awhile before you weare it. To my dearest and best Frend Mr. Bevill Grenvile, these.” “Beseeching God to encline yr heart to love her who will in spite of the divill ever be yrs immoveably.” “If you please to bestowe a plaine black Gownd of any cheape Stufe on me I will thanke you.”[15]

MORWENSTOW.

Not far from Kilkhampton is another church that some of us may care to see, though the long lane that leads to Morwenstow is by no means one that has no turning. Indeed, it would need some ingenuity to find room for any more corners in these narrow ways; but if progress is slow the country is attractive and the sea is before us, with flat-topped Lundy Island in the distance. We come rather suddenly on the church in its steep and narrow valley, with the tower darkly outlined against the blue sea, and a bold sweep of heather for background: the remote romantic glen where Morwenna the hermit had her cell near the sea, and died with her eyes fixed upon her native Wales: the glen of which Hawker wrote: “Here within the ark we hear only the voices of animals and birds, and the sound of many waters.”

He must have heard the voices of a good many animals; for even when he went to church he was followed by nine or ten cats, they say, which wandered, while he was preaching, about this beautiful building with the Norman arches, and the chancel with the marble floor. Here at the foot of the pulpit is the grave of his wife, the devoted wife who was older than his mother. Morwenstow, in its utter loneliness, its wild beauty, its deep, full colouring, needs nothing to give it charm; but its name, probably, would be known to few if it had not had, for many years, a vicar whose eccentric, poetical, heroic nature made his name and his dwelling-place memorable. We can forgive his errant cats to a man who wrote verses so sonorous—and above all to a man who fought the wreckers as Hawker fought them here.[16] His dust is not in the church he loved and cared for; but his epitaph is on the lips of those who knew him. “His door was always open to the poor,” they say.

The twisted lanes take us back to the main road, and on a splendid surface we cross the border into Devon.