Dorchester was strongly for the Parliament in the unpleasantness between Oliver and the king, but its loyalty was not very aggressive, for it surrendered to the royal army with scarcely a show of resistance—the more to its discredit, since it had been elaborately fortified and was well supplied with munitions of war. It suffered severely for its cowardice, for it was taken and retaken many times during the war and its citizens subjected to numberless exactions and indignities. The ascendency of the commonwealth brought Dorchester comparative peace for three or four decades. The next notable event in its career was the coming of Jeffreys the infamous to judge the unfortunate Dorset men who inclined, or were alleged to have inclined, towards the Duke of Monmouth in his ill-starred attempt on the throne of England. To expedite matters, Jeffreys let it be understood that a plea of guilty would predispose him to mercy, but the poor wretches who fell into this trap were sentenced to death or transportation on their own confessions. The charge lodged against most of the unfortunates was that they were “away from their habitacions att the tyme of the rebellion.”
For more than two centuries after this carnival of death, sanctioned by a corrupt and vengeful government, Dorchester has pursued the paths of unbroken peace and has grown and prospered in a quiet way. The fame of Thomas Hardy attracts many and the roving motor car also brings an increasing number of pilgrims, none of whom go away disappointed. It is a trim old town, still picturesque, though modern improvements are making inroads on its antique quaintness. Its environs are singularly beautiful; the country roads enter the town between ranks of splendid trees and the avenues around the town are bordered with giant limes, sycamores and chestnuts. The River Frome glides quietly past the place through reedy meadows and the smooth green sward covers the ancient Roman amphitheatre which adjoins the town on the south. This is by far the most perfect work of its kind in Britain; it is about two hundred feet in diameter and must have accommodated some twelve thousand spectators. It lies just along the road by which we leave the town and which runs almost due west to Bridport, Lyme Regis and Exeter. For some miles we pursue a sinuous course across the barren country and occasionally encounter forbiddingly steep grades. At Bridport we catch our first glimpse of a placidly blue sea, which frequently flashes through gaps in the hills for the next twenty miles.
At Lyme Regis the road pitches down a sharp hill into the town, which covers the slopes of a ravinelike valley. It is a retired little seaside resort, though red roofs of modern villas now contrast somewhat with its rural appearance. No railroad comes within several miles of the place, which has a permanent population of only two thousand. It is not without historic tradition, for here the Duke of Monmouth landed on his ill-fated invasion to which we have already referred. The town was a favorite haunt of Jane Austen and here she located one of the memorable scenes in “Persuasion.” It is still a very quiet place—a retreat for those seeking real seclusion and freedom from the formality and turmoil of the larger and more fashionable resorts. Its tiny harbor, encircled by a crescent-shape sweep of cliffs, is almost innocent of craft to-day, though there was a time when it ranked high among the western ports. It is one of those delightful old villages one occasionally finds in England, standing now nearly as they did three centuries ago, while the great world has swept away from them.
We wish we might tarry a day in Lyme Regis, but our plans will not permit it now. We climb the precipitously steep, irregular road that takes us out of the place, though we cast many backward glances at the little town and quiet blue-green harbor edged by a scimiterlike strip of silver sand. The Exeter road is much the same as that between Lyme Regis and Dorchester—winding, steep, narrow and rough in places—and the deadly Devonshire hedgerow on a high earthen ridge now shuts out our view of the landscape much of the time. Devon and Cornwall, with the most charming scenery in England, would easily become a great motoring ground if the people would mend the roads and eradicate the hedgerows.
At Exeter we stop at the Rougemont for lunch, despite the recollection of pretty high charges on a former occasion. It is one of the best provincial hotels, if it is far from the cheapest. A drizzling rain is falling when we leave the cathedral city for Newton Abbot and Totnes, directly to the south; in the market-place of the first-named town is the stone upon which William III. was proclaimed king after his landing at Brixham.
Totnes, seven miles farther, has many quaint old houses with odd piazzas and projecting timbered gables, which give the streets a decidedly antique appearance. Here, too, is another famous stone, the identical one upon which Brutus of Troy first set foot when landing in Britain at a date so remote that it can only be guessed at. Indeed, there be wiseacres who freely declare that the Roman prince never set foot on it at all; but we are in no mood for such scepticism to-day, when cruising about in a steady rain seeking “objects of interest,” as the road-book styles them. Of Totnes Castle only the foundations remain, though it must have been a concentric, circular structure like that of Launceston. From its walls on fair days there is a lovely, far-reaching view quite shut out from us by the gray mist that hovers over the valley—a scene described by a writer more fortunate than we as “a rich soft country which stretches far and wide, a land of swelling hills and richly wooded valleys and green corn springing over the red earth. Northwards on the skyline, the Dartmoor hills lie blue and seeming infinitely distant in the light morning haze; while in the opposite direction, one sees a long straight reach of river, set most sweetly among the hills, up which the salt tide is pouring from Dartmouth so rapidly that it grows wider every moment, and the bitter sea air which travels with it from the Channel reaches as far as the battlements on which we stand. Up that reach the Totnes merchants, standing on these old walls, used to watch their argosies sailing with the tide, homeward bound from Italy or Spain, laden with precious wines and spices.”
But no one who visits Totnes—even though the day be rainy and disagreeable—should fail to see Berry Pomeroy Castle, which common consent declares the noblest ruin in all Devon and Cornwall. We miss the main road to the village of Berry and approach the ruin from the rear by a narrow, muddy lane winding over steep grades through a dense forest. We are not sure whether we are fortunate or otherwise in coming to the shattered haunt of the fierce old de Pomeroys on such a day. Perhaps its grim traditions and its legends of ghostly habitants seem the more realistic under such a lowering sky—and it may be that the gloomy day comports best with the scene of desolation and ruined grandeur which breaks on our vision.
The castle was an unusual combination of medieval fortress and palatial dwelling house, the great towers still flanking the entrance suggesting immense defensive strength, as does the situation on the edge of a rocky precipice. The walls are pierced by multitudes of mullioned windows—so many, indeed, an old chronicle records, that it was “a day’s work for a servant to open and close the casements.” In some details the more modern remnants of the structure remind one of Cowdray Palace—especially the great window groups. Verily, “ruin greenly dwells” at Berry Pomeroy Castle. Ivy mantles every inch of the walls and some fragments, rising tall and slender like chimneys, are green to the very tops. The green sward runs riot over the inner courts and covers fallen masses of debris; great trees, some of them doubtless as old as the castle itself, sway their branches above it; our pictures tell the story, perhaps better than any words, of the rank greenness that seems even more intense in the falling rain.
One quite forgets the stirring history of the castle—and it is stirring, for does not tradition record that its one-time owners urged their maddened steeds to spring to death with their riders from the beetling precipice on which the castle stands, rather than to surrender to victorious besiegers?—I say one forgets even this in the rather creepy sensations that come over him when he recalls the ghostly legends of the place. For Berry Pomeroy Castle has one of the most blood-curdling and best authenticated ghost stories that it has been my lot to read. It has a weird interest that warrants retelling here and the reader who has no liking for such things may skip it if he chooses.