“When bright Aurora shall unbar the morn,
And light discover Nature’s cheerful face;
The cracking whip and the loud-sounding horn
Will call blithe huntsmen to the distant chase.
“Eftsoons they issue forth a goodly band,
The sharp-tongued hounds with music rend the air,
The fiery coursers strike the rising sand;
Far through the thicket flies the frighted hare.
“Froude the honour of the day supports,
His presence glads the woods, his orders guide the chase.”
—Leek.
CHAPTER XV
BARUM
To Barnstaple, capital of North Devon, and capital also of the Maid of Sker, or such portions of the story as relate to the county, proceed we now. Already we have winged brief flights to the neighbourhood in connection with Heanton Court and Ashford, one of Blackmore’s early homes described so lovingly in the above-named romance. The scenes appear very real, and would have been still more so but for the construction of the railway, which shuts off from the view the house and the old boat-stage (Maid of Sker, chapter xxxix.). The true name of “Deadman’s Pill,” which was opposite Ashford, is Fremington Pill or Penhill, a creek in which there was a sort of dock, where the larger vessels anchored, and received or delivered cargoes.
Barnstaple is a place on which it would be a pleasure to bestow many a page of garnered lore, and the district around is no less delightful to the lover of the past. This being the case, it may be well to premise that my hope is, in a subsequent volume on the Kingsley country, to amplify the account here given, and this must excuse seeming deficiencies.
The recollections of old inhabitants are always interesting, and it may be laid down that, next to our own, no age attracts like that immediately preceding it, out of which we are sprung, and in which Blackmore flourished. Therefore I account it a fortunate accident that made me for a short time an inmate in the house of Mr Parminter, one of the makers of modern Barnstaple, who drew my attention to a remarkable fact—that in the old days the town was provided with iron gates, which were closed at night, to keep out tramps and travellers. Mr Parminter remembers two—those in High Street and Cross Street. Boutport Street, where Parson Rambone challenged all and sundry, must also have had its gate.