Urith: A Tale of Dartmoor

by S. Baring-Gould

Roads in former days to a large extent made themselves, or were made by the travellers. In the first place the bottoms of valleys were deserted by them as much as might be, because of the bogs that were there, and the lines of communication were laid on the ridges of hills above the springs that undermined and made spongy the soil. Then the roads were traced before the enclosures were made, and originally were carried as directly as possible from point to point. But obstacles, sometimes temporary, intervened: perhaps a slough, perhaps a rut of extraordinary depth had torn into the road, and became the nucleus of a pool; perhaps an unduly hard and obstinate prong of rock appeared after the upper surface had been worn through. Then the stream of travellers swayed to one side, and gave the course of the road a curve, which curve was followed when hedges were run up. These hedges following the curves stereotyped the line of road, which thenceforth became permanently irregular in course.

A roadway in those days was about as easy to go over, and to go over with expedition, as the beach of Brighton. Consequently it was slow work journeying on such highways on horseback; and it was journeying like a snail, when travelling in a coach. The outrunner had no very arduous task to outstrip the horses. He put his foot on the turf by the road-side, and tripped along at his ease, leaping the puddles and stones which were occasional by the road-side; whereas they were continuous in the roadway.

Fox rode sulkily beside the coach, as it rolled and rocked along the highway from Tavistock to the North. The night was overcast, after midnight, as it had been before the turn of the night; no wind was blowing, nor did rain fall, but the aspect was utterly sombre and uncheering. Every light was out in such houses as were passed, and not a passenger was met, or overtook the carriage that lumbered along, sending squirts of muddy water to this and that side as the wheels plunged into ruts. Fox came occasionally to the coach window, and said something to his father, and was bespattered from head to foot, boots, clothes, and face.

Presently the point was attained where the road left the valley of the brawling Tavy and climbed Black Down. There was a directness in the way in which old roads went at hills that was in keeping with the characters of our forefathers. A height had to be surmounted, and the road was carried up it with a rush, and with none of our modern zig-zags and easy sweeps. The hill must be ascended, and the sooner it was surmounted the better. Now, the great road to the North from Plymouth by Tavistock had the huge hogsback of Black Down to surmount, and it made no hesitating and leisurely attempts at it; it went up four hundred feet as direct as a bow-line.

On reaching the foot of the Down, the driver paused and the footman on the box dismounted. The men with the spare horses went ahead and hitched on their beasts. Then ensued loud cries and shouts, and the cracking of whips, each man attending to a horse, and encouraging it to do its uttermost to haul the great coach up the hill. The only men who kept their places were the driver on the box, and Mr. Crymes within.

Now, a good many other coaches had halted at the same spot, and halting there had ground away the soil, so as to make a very loose piece of road; moreover, the water falling on the road had run down it to the lowest level, and finding this rotten portion there had accumulated and done its utmost to assist the disintegration. The result was that the wheels sank in liquid mire to the axles, and six horses did little more than churn the filth and jerk the coach about.

Mr. Crymes having been subjected to several violent relapses as the coach was half pulled out of the pit and then sank back again, thrust his head out of the window and called:—"Wilkey! will it not be best to have all the horses harnessed? There is rope in the box."

"Well, perhaps it were best, your worship."

Thereupon much discussion ensued, and much time was spent in attaching ropes; and finally, with great hooting, and with imprecations as well, and some words of encouragement, the whole team was set in motion, and the coach was hauled out of the slough, and began slowly to snail the way up the two-mile ascent.

Again Mr. Crymes thrust forth his head.