Elsewhere he observes that Siward's Cross, "standing as it does on the line of the Abbot's Way, would seem not improbably to have been set up by the monks of Tavistock as a mark to point out the direction of the track across the Moor; and were it not for the fact that it has been supposed to have obtained its name from Siward, Earl of Northumberland, who, it is said, held property near this part of the Moor in the Confessor's reign, I should have no hesitation in believing such to be the case."
No matter who first lifted it, still it stands—the largest cross on Dartmoor—like a sentinel to guard the path that extended between the religious houses of Plympton, Buckland and Tavistock. And other crosses there are beyond the Mire, where an old road descended over Ter Hill. But the Abbot's Way is tramped no more, and the princes of the Church, with their men-at-arms and their mules and pack-horses, have passed into forgotten time. Few now but the antiquary and holiday-maker wander to Siward's Cross; or the fox-hunter gallops past it; or the folk, when they tramp to the heights for purple harvest of "hurts" in summer-time. The stone that won the blessings of pious men, only comforts a heifer to-day; she rubs her side against it and leaves a strand of her red hair caught in the lichens.
The snow began to fall more heavily and the wind increased. Therefore I turned north and left that local sanctity from olden time, well pleased to have seen it once again in the stern theatre of winter. It soon shrank to a grey smudge on the waste; then snow-wreaths whirled their arms about it and the emblem vanished.
COOMBE
Life comes laden still with good days that whisper of romance, when in some haunt of old legend, our feet loiter for a little before we pass forward again. I indeed seek these places, and confess an incurable affection for romance in my thoughts if not my deeds. I would not banish her from art, or life; and though most artists of to-day will have none of her, spurn romantic and classic alike, and take only realism to their bosoms; yet who shall declare that realism is the last word, or that reality belongs to her drab categories alone?
"There is no 'reality' for us—nor for you either, ye sober ones, and we are far from being so alien to one another as ye suppose, and perhaps our goodwill to get beyond drunkenness is just as respectable as your belief that ye are altogether incapable of drunkenness."
A return to romance most surely awaits literature, when our artists have digested the new conditions and discovered the magic and mystery that belong to newly created things—whether Nature or her human child has made them; but for the moment, those changes that to-day build revolution, stone on stone, demand great seers to record the romantic splendour of their promise, sing justly of all that science is doing, write the epic of our widening view and show man leading the lightning chained in his latest triumph. For us, who cannot measure such visions, there remains Nature—the incurable romantic—who retains her early methods, loves the sword better than the pruning-hook, and still sometimes strikes jealously at her sophisticated child, who has learned to substitute a thousand wants for the simple needs that she could gratify.
At Coombe, on the coast of North Cornwall, there yet lies a nest of old romance, wherein move, for dream-loving folk, the shadows of an old-time tale. Nature reigns unchanged in the valley and her processions and pageants keep their punctual time and place; but once a story-teller came hither, and the direct, genial art of a brave spirit found inspiration here. From this secluded theatre sprang Westward Ho! and none denies willing tribute to him who made that book.