He had now ridden about three miles from Bovey, when he entered a long pass between two ridges of hills; by his side a trout stream, called the Becky, tumbled along, larch trees grew on the banks, and the heights above were crowded with dwarf oaks, beeches, and other forest trees.
Whistling to himself he rode along, hastening to get home ere it was quite dark, for the roads were both difficult and dangerous, save to those who knew them well.
Soon the valley contracted, and there was only room for the torrent and the road, while the craggy wooded heights rose yet more lofty above: sometimes, over their summits could be seen the rounded heights of the moorland.
The tumbling of a cascade to the left, was heard as the road parted from the river, and began to ascend a dark pass, where the faint decaying light was almost excluded by the foliage.
In devious zig-zags the road ascended to the upper plateau, and our rider, the summit attained, looked back at the valley. It was a mass of foliage, which hid the depth; the upper branches glimmered in the rays of the departing sun which was just disappearing behind a wild-looking hill, whereon appeared a mass of rocks, so closely resembling the ruins of a castle, that it needed a keen eye to discover the deception at a glance.
But the rocks of Hound Tor were too familiar to our youthful friend to detain him a moment, and riding through a few meadows, he drew up at the gate of an ancient manor house, beneath the slope of a rock-clad hill, which was crowned by a mass of granite resembling the human form, and from the protuberance of what represented the nasal organ, called “Bowerman’s Nose.”
The reader will search in vain for that manor house now; the park in which it stood has been disafforested, and subdivided into numerous farm holdings; the stones which formed that mighty wall which encircled the pleasaunce or garden, or which composed the stately pile within, may yet exist amidst the materials of many cottages, where beside poverty and squalor one beholds a carved architrave, or shattered column; but we are writing of days long gone by.
Cuthbert Trevannion, to give him the name by which mine host of the “Rose and Crown” distinguished him, rode up an avenue, and throwing the bridle of his horse to a groom who stood ready to receive it, asked—
“Is my father at leisure?”