LEE MOUNT, DAWLISH.
XXXV.
There is a legend accounting for this petrified couple. It seems that the vicar of a neighbouring parish had business with his bishop at the Palace of Exeter. He set out late in the afternoon, on horseback, for the city, accompanied by the parish clerk, and, a storm coming on, they promptly lost their way in the mist and rain; the incessant flashes of lightning, brilliant as they were, would not have sufficed for them to regain their road, even had their horses been less terrified. The vicar was speedily drenched to the skin. “Damme,” says he, “there’s not a soul at hand of whom to inquire our way in this misbegotten wilderness. I’d take the devil himself for a guide if he were here.”
No sooner had the vicar uttered this profane sentiment, than they heard, above the howling of the storm, the clattering sound of a horse’s hoofs, and a prolonged flash of lightning showed them an old gentleman, clad in sombre garments, cantering past on his mare. The clerk hailed him, and he drew rein.
“I suspect, sir,” said he, addressing himself to the vicar, “you have lost your way. Can I be of any service to you? If so, pray command me, for it is ill wandering abroad on such a wild night.”
“Sir,” said the vicar, who was, indeed, no mealy-mouthed man, for all his holy office, “we have lost our road, and are wet through,” adding, “this is the most damnable night that ever I have had the ill fortune to travel in.”
“You may well say that,” rejoined the old gentleman briskly, with a complacent smile; “but allow me to put you in the right way.”
In scarcely five minutes from their encounter, the party drew rein before a cosy inn. The vicar, the clerk, and their guide dismounted, and sending their riding cloaks to the kitchen fire to dry, sat down to a bowl of punch. They caroused until a late hour, while the storm raged unceasingly without.