Urith: A Tale of Dartmoor

by S. Baring-Gould

There was a noise of voices in the street, exclamations, heard between the deep deafening notes of the bell.

Presently the old man said. "What did you say, Julian! A life—whose life?"

She did not answer. He looked round. She was gone.

"And what did the Captain mean," he added, "when he said—he who has stepped into another man's shoes must wear his cravat?"

As he looked about, searching for Julian—he saw his question answered; understood why the bell tolled, why the whole of the population of the little place was in the street, talking, gesticulating, crying out, and looking at the topmost window of the Castle.

He who had stepped into Anthony's shoes, assumed his name, occupied his place, was wearing the cravat intended for his neck.

But where was Julian?

That was a question asked often, repeatedly, urgently, and it was a question that was never answered.

A shepherd boy declared that he had seen her going over the moor in the direction of Tavy Cleave. Search was made for her in every direction, but in vain.

When the writer was a boy, he was with a party at a picnic at Tavy Cleave, and was bidden descend the precipitous flank to the river to bring up water in an iron kettle. He went down—jumping, sliding, scrambling, and suddenly slid through a branch of whortleberry plants between some masses of rock that had fallen together, wedging each other up, and found himself in a pit under these rocks. To his surprise he there found a number of bones. His first impression was that a sheep had fallen from the rocks into this place, and had there died, but a little further examination convinced him that the remains were not those of a sheep at all. Among the remains, where were the little bones of the hand, was a ring. The ring was of gold and delicately wrought. It probably at one time contained hair, but this had disappeared, and the socket was empty, within the hoop was engraved "Ulalia Crymes, d. April 6, 1665." It was clearly a mourning ring. Now Ulalia Glanville was the last of that family, the heiress who married Ferdinando Crymes, and the day of her burial was April 10th, therefore, probably she died about April 6th, in that very year, 1665. And this was the mother of Julian. Can this have been the ring commemorative of her mother worn by Julian Crymes, and does this fact identify the bones as the remains of that unhappy girl? If so she must have either slipped or precipitated herself from the rocks over head, and fallen between these masses of stone, where her crushed body escaped the observation of all searchers, and of accidental passers-by.