IN THE INNER PARLOUR ([p. 16])
only four dwellings to be seen, and those four dwellings are mentioned in Domesday. In the clumsy Norman spelling Woolley is Vluelei, Pullabrook is Polebroch, Hawkmoor is Hauocmore, and Elsford is Eilauesford. In the Exeter version there are some details that are not in the Exchequer version. These were the dwellings of four thanes, and the thanes were there in the reign of Edward the Confessor.
In many of the parishes between Dartmoor and the sea the village and the church are in a corner of the parish, and generally the corner nearest to the sea. This happens so often, that there must have been a reason for it, though there is no knowing what the reason was. The same thing happened with many of the provinces of ancient Rome. Thus, Lugudunensis extended to the Bay of Biscay and the English Channel, but Lugudunum itself, the modern Lyons, was in the corner nearest to the Mediterranean and to Rome. So also Tarraco, the modern Tarragona, was on the Mediterranean coast, but Tarraconensis stretched back to the Bay of Biscay.
Lustleigh church is within seventy yards of the Wrey, which is the parish boundary there. This house is in Bovey Tracey parish, and yet is less than a quarter of a mile from Lustleigh church, and more than two miles and a half from Bovey Tracey church, measuring in a straight line.
Besides the old church at Bovey Tracey, there is a new church about as far from here. This church now has a district of its own, but formerly was served by the Vicar and his curates. At the old church the service was very plain indeed, and he preached in a black gown; but at the new church it was ornate, and he preached in other things. And people said he preached rank Popery there, though he preached sound doctrine at the old church. I have some reason to believe that the sermons he preached at the new church were the same that he had preached at the old church in the previous year. The black gown covered the Popery, if there was any there.
Writing to my father on 7 November 1852, my grandfather tells him:—“The Lustleigh folks had a bonfire on the 5th, and burnt the Pope in a white surplice: therefore the old women say it was intended for the Rector.” He writes on 15 May 1853:—“Your mother has been to church this morning, and says there were not a score of folks there, and the Rector was looking wretched: which I do not wonder at. His congregation have left him, and now there is a chapel building.”
Lustleigh was upset by his preaching in his surplice. Most of his parishioners thought it meant a change of doctrine; and they called him a High Romish Priest. I do not know his motives; but I know the motives of another country clergyman, who did the same. His old black gown was getting so shabby that his wife was always telling him that he must have a new one. And he shelved the question by preaching in his surplice.
As a rule, a surplice meant a shorter sermon; but my friend preached on, as if he had a new black gown. A dreamy organist once played a great Amen in a slight pause in the sermon; and the choir and congregation sang it very fervently.
That church was restored a few years since; and the Squire took the plate round at the opening service afterwards. But he forgot that the chancel had been raised a step above the nave; and he just tripped enough to shoot the whole collection off the plate. The coins went rolling along the chancel floor, and mostly vanished down the gratings over the hot-water pipes—an inauspicious sight: the ancients made their peace with the Infernal Deities by casting offerings into chasms.