The Blackmore Country

by F. J. Snell

In the first verse of an old Devonshire harvest-home song, convivial spirits were thus addressed:

“Here’s a health to the barley mow, my brave boys;
Here’s a health to the barley mow!
We’ll drink it out of the jolly brown bowl;
Here’s a health to the barley mow!”

In successive verses they were adjured to drink it out of the nipperkin, the quarter-pint, the half-pint, the quart, the pottle, the gallon, the half-anker, the anker, the half-hogshead, the hogshead, the pipe, the well, the river, and, finally, the ocean.

In the direction of Nicolashayne were three large barns (since converted into six cottages) in front of which was a broad area of road for the wagons to halt upon. The “Church of Exeter” has proprietary rights in the parish; and a proctor came up from Thorverton to receive tithes on behalf of the Dean and Chapter. Only the small tithes went to the vicar.

The grandson of Clerk Channing of Perlycross, a man over seventy, tells me that he can remember the introduction of the first wagon and the first spring-cart at Culmstock, pack-horses being used always before. This circumstance can be accounted for in two ways, partly from the intense conservation of rural Devonshire—at last, perhaps, broken up—and partly from the pose of the village, with its face towards the valley of the Culm and its back against the hills. In a rough country like the Blackdowns the pack-horse would be certain to tarry longer than in more cultivated regions, and a large portion of the parish of Culmstock, though, according to Blackmore, it comprises some of the best land in East Devon, consists of hills and commons.

The wildest tract of all is Maidendown—a dreary waste compact of bog and scrub in the vicinity of the late Archbishop Temple’s paternal home, Axon, and reaching out to the main road between Wellington and Exeter. Its situation does not agree with that of the Black Marsh, or Forbidden Land, of Perlycross, which is described as lying a long way back among the Blackdown Hills, and “nobody knows in what parish”; otherwise one might have guessed that Maidendown was the prototype of that barren stretch with a curse upon it.

In the West country pack-horses are equally associated with moors and lanes. Nowadays a Devonshire lane—love is compared to a Devonshire lane—is regarded as essentially beautiful, with its beds of wild flowers and tracery of briars; but Vancouver’s impartial testimony compels one to think that in former days this domain of the pack-horse was not so attractive. He says:

“The height of the hedge-banks, often covered with a rank growth of coppice-wood, uniting and interlocking with each other overhead, completes the idea of exploring a labyrinth rather than that of passing through a much-frequented country. This first impression, however, will be at once removed on the traveller’s meeting with, or being overtaken by, a gang of pack-horses. The rapidity with which these animals descend the hills, when not loaded, and the utter impossibility of passing loaded ones, require that the utmost caution should be used in keeping out of the way of the one, and exertion in keeping ahead of the other. A cross-way in the road or gateway is eagerly looked for as a retiring spot to the traveller, until the pursuing squadron, or heavily-loaded brigade, may have passed by.... As there are but few wheel-carriages to pass along them, the channel for the water and the path for the pack-horse are equally in the middle of the way, which is altogether occupied by an assemblage of such large and loose stones only as the force of the descending torrents have not been able to sweep away or remove.”

This was certainly not pleasant, although in most other respects Culmstock was then a more interesting place than now. I do not assert that it was more moral. About seventy years ago, a native of the village, one Tom Musgrove, was hanged for sheep-stealing, being the last man, it is said, to experience that fate in the county of Devon. We stand aghast at the barbarity of our forefathers; but if ever the penalty could be made to fit the crime, then it must be owned, Tom deserved the rope. He was a notorious thief, whose depredations were the common talk of the village, and, to make matters worse, his evil deeds were performed under the cloak of religion. Once a couple of ducks were missed, and, whilst every cottage was being searched in the hope of regaining the stolen property, Tom, secure in his pretensions to piety, stood complacently in his doorway, and the party of inquisitors passed on. Just inside were the ducks, feeding out of his platter.

One night a huckster’s shop, kept by Betsy Collins, at Millmoor, was feloniously entered and robbed. Next morning, Tom, apprised of the event, ran off in his night-cap to condole with the poor woman in her misfortune, and succeeded so well as to be invited to share her morning repast. “There!” said he, “her’ve a-gied the old rogue a good breakfast.”