There are few districts in England more picturesque than the southern slopes of Dartmoor; the deeply wooded glens, the brawling mountain torrents, the huge tors with their rock-crowned summits and the mists curling around them, the fertile plains beneath with their deep red soil, the blue ocean girdling all with its azure belt; all these unite to form a picture, which once seen, recurs again and again to the memory, while life lingers.
A few years after the scenes recorded in the first part of this tragical history, a young traveller left the inn of the “Rose and Crown,” Bovey Tracey, late one September evening, bound for the moorland. The sun was sinking towards the western heights which bounded the plain, the giant bulwarks of the moorland—Hey Tor, with its fantastic crown of gigantic rocks, Rippon Tor, with its cairn of stones,—were already tinged with the glorious hues of sunset, and the purple heather which covered their slopes, looked its best in the tints of the departing luminary.
Our traveller was a youth who had perhaps seen some twenty summers, but whose smooth face was yet undignified by the beard of manhood; his attire was of the picturesque style made familiar to us by the pencil of Holbein: over a close-fitting doublet and nether garments hung a mantle, flowing open and sumptuously embroidered; his velvet cap was bound round with a golden band, and adorned with a bright feather and a jewelled clasp, a silver-hilted sword hung by his side.
“You must ride quickly, Master Trevannion, or you will hardly climb the pass before dark, and it is a bad road by the side of the Becky, especially opposite the fall,” said the landlord, kindly.
“I know every foot of it, my Boniface, and so does my steed; never fear for us.”
“It will be dark early, and perhaps wet; look at that cap of mist upon Hey Tor.”
The youth glanced at the little cloud. “I shall be home before it descends,” he said; “Good night, landlord,” and he rode quickly away.
“Who is yonder stripling?” said a dark-browed stranger, as the landlord re-entered the inn.
“The son and heir of Sir Walter Trevannion,” replied the landlord respectfully, for the stranger had announced himself as “travelling on the King’s business,” and was evidently a “man of worship.”