BABBACOMBE.
With so much sympathy on tap, my young martyr began to pity himself infinitely, and sobbed the more. “Did ’ur, then?” said that kindly comforter: “puir liddle bye, puir liddle bleed. You ’m proper ’urted yo’self, have ’ee. Where’s his mammy, then? Where do ’ee live tu? Coom ’ee up-along an’ zittee on this zeat,” and much else.
The neighbourhood of these exploited seaside towns are, however, not the places, as a general rule, in which to look for such fine survivals of old Devon talk. The villages and the hamlets are the last homes of it, and, generally speaking, the only times when an indweller hears the Doric is when a servant, fresh-caught from “Dartymoor” or other remote district, comes into residence. Then, indeed, one hears strange phrases. Then you learn, if you did not know it before, that in Devon all girls are “maads” and all boys “byes,” large or small; or I should say, in the Devon tongue, “gert” or “liddle.” In Devon most things that are thorough, or difficult, or to be expressed in terms of bigness or admiration are “proper,” and this expression, among some others, is not, like much else of the rustic talk, obsolescent. It is, indeed, common in towns, and seems, like the Devonian soft burring inflection, to be, after a period of disuse, coming back again.
Anything very large is thus said to be “proper gert”; a difficult task is still a “proper chore”; and—although to one not used to the West the propriety of it is not evident—a person helplessly intoxicated is “proper drunk,” or “durnk” may even be said; for (as in “gert” for “great”) your true West countryman will always, whenever humanly possible, depose the letter “r” from its proper place. He will overcome majestic difficulties in this linguistic way, and will even “urn” instead of “run.”
A Devonian never lives “at” a place, only “tu” it; baskets to him are either “flaskets” or “maunds”; he has a staggering way of saying “Well done!” as an exclamation of surprise, even on the most tragical occasions, so that he has seemed sometimes, to strangers who are not acquainted with this peculiarity, to be callously superhuman or less than human; which is a libel on the kindly race.
Babbacombe—the real Babbacombe of the beach, not the strange new thing on the cliff-top—is the tiniest of places, with the “Cary Arms” inn, a little stone fishing-pier, a few boats, a fortuitous concourse of lobster-pots, a windlass or two, and a general air of being a natural growth, as indeed it is. It seems remote from the evil passions of the world, but for all that seeming, it was the scene of a dreadful tragedy in 1884, when Miss Keyse, an elderly lady who lived in a picturesquely thatched cottage on the very margin of the beach, was murdered by John Lee, her manservant. He was a young footman, a native of Kingskerswell. The motive was said to have been revenge for the reduction of his wages by sixpence a week. The whole thing is sordid, and one had rather not mention it at all; only the notoriety of the case compels. Lee saturated the rooms with petroleum and set fire to the house, in the hope of concealing the evidence of his crime, but fortunately the fire was extinguished before it had made sufficient progress, and the marks on the body were discovered and Lee arrested. He was tried, found guilty, sentenced to death, and actually brought to the scaffold at Exeter Gaol; but there the strange and unparalleled circumstances occurred which saved him from execution and condemned him to lifelong imprisonment instead. Three several times the trap-door on which the condemned man stood refused to fall when the bolt was drawn, although each time, when he was led away, and it was tried, it worked properly. After the third attempt, it was decided, in the interest of the official spectators and of the wretched criminal himself, to prolong the harrowing scene no longer, and Lee was removed to his cell and a report sent to the Home Secretary who first respited him and then commuted the sentence to imprisonment for life.
These are supposed to be materialistic times, when everything is held to have some discoverable natural cause, and the failure of the trap is explained by the wood of it being swollen, and jamming every time a weight was placed upon it. But the affair was so remarkable, that very naturally the whole country was deeply stirred. Those who were present never lightly dismissed the subject, and for one’s self, it seems very like God’s protest against man’s injustice. But we, who were not present and are not thrown off our balance by the dreadful experience, must consider that in the long history of the world many innocent persons have been hanged, and Providence stirred no finger on their behalf, while many assassins have escaped the Avenger of Blood. It should be said that local opinion has always been strong in the belief of Lee’s guilt.
The house, one is glad to say, exists no longer. Only an outhouse which belonged to it remains, and the rest of the site is dense with trees and undergrowth. In spite of repeated rumours of his release, Lee is still in prison, nor does it appear likely that he will ever be permitted to go at liberty again.
One of the most famous spots on this coast is that to which we now come. Anstey’s Cove has been described and pictured times innumerable, and I—ah! me—am going to do it again. The way to the Cove lies in between the inevitable dead walls of the district: these the high and solid ones built by Bishop Phillpotts of Exeter some fifty years since, to enclose the grounds of his villa of “Bishopstowe” and keep the public out of all possible glimpses of this paradise: highly characteristic of a bishop.
These walls must have been extremely ugly when newly built, but nature, more kindly than the dignified clergy, has toned down the rawness, assuaged the harsh lines and set a green mantle over the bishop’s walls, so that they are now stony cliffs, lichened and moss-grown, rich in tiny ferns, and overhung by tall trees.