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F. J. Snell
The Blackmore Country
Published by Good Press, 2019
EAN 4064066136338
Table of Contents
CHAPTER II BLACKMORE’S VILLAGE
CHAPTER V THE TOWN OF THE TWO FORDS
CHAPTER VI THE WONDERS OF BAMPTON
CHAPTER VII WHERE MASTER HUCKABACK THROVE [10]
CHAPTER VIII BROTHERS BARLE AND EXE [12]
CHAPTER IX THE HEART OF THE MOOR
CHAPTER X BAGWORTHY AND BRENDON
“ To the Right Hon. the Earl of Sunderland, Principal Secretary of State.
“ To the Honourable Sir Bourchier Wrey, K t . and Bart., in London.
CHAPTER XI THE MOUTH OF THE LYN
CHAPTER XIV THE FORGE OF FAGGUS AND THE CURE OF CHOWNE [19]
Faggus and his Strawberry Horse.
Close of Mr Froude’s Season in North Devon.
CHAPTER XVI THE SHORE OF DEATH
THE BLACKMORE COUNTRY
CHAPTER I
THE APPROACH
R. D. Blackmore was about ten years of age when his father took up his abode at Culmstock, a village in East Devon, at the foot of the Blackdowns. Notwithstanding an inclination to wander, evidence of which has been adduced in the previous section, the boy must have passed a fair amount of time at home; and wherever Blackmore tarried, he became imbued with the spirit of the place, wrested all its secrets, and acquired an intimate acquaintance with its arts and crafts such as would do credit to a committee of experts. Above all, he had the enviable gift of being able to distil from the rude realities their poetic essence—the prize of loving intelligence.
So far as Culmstock and the neighbourhood are concerned, the fruits of his observation are to be seen in Perlycross, and in a much lesser degree in Tales from the Telling House. The former, by no means so répandu as Lorna Doone, labours under the disadvantage, which is yet not all disadvantage, of fictitious names; consequently but few are aware that Perliton, Perlycross, and Perlycombe are pretty, but deceptive aliases of Uffculme, Culmstock, and Hemyock. These little places—Uffculme, however, claims to be a town—are tapped by a light railway of serpentine construction, which branches from the main line at Tiverton Junction. The trains are appallingly slow, chiefly on account of the curves; and just outside the junction is a stiff gradient, the ascent of which, especially in frosty weather, is problematical. Often there is nothing for it but to drop back to the station and try again, or, as the French have it, se reculer pour mieux sauter.
The level champaign traversed by the caricature of locomotion is remarkable for its fertility, and for many other things redolent, I wot, to the ordinary resident of nothing but the meanest bathos—so deadly in use! It is otherwise with the stranger within the gates, to whom these items of every day unfold themselves as precious boons, creating a joyous sense of novelty and possession. A rapid but happy and accurate description of the vale by Mr. Henry, who, I believe, is an Irishman, points the common lesson how much of beauty and wonder lies around us, had we but eyes to see. Impatient for the hills, and doubtless as purblind as my neighbours, I should scarce have lingered amid these pastoral scenes but for his restraining touch, so that I rest doubly indebted to his sage and kindly interpretation.
“I live in Uffculme. Its name might appropriately be Coleraine, for it is indeed a corner of ferns; every lane abounds with them, the hart’s tongue being specially abundant. Uffculme takes its name from the river Culm, and means simply up Culm. It is noted for ‘zider’ and its grammar school. It is a quaint and quiet village. I love its charming thatched cottages, with their niched eaves, each niche the eyebrow of a little window. The inns too are quaint, with their suspended signs, each a symbolic gem. Some in the country around here bear such names as the ‘Merry Harriers,’ the ‘Honest Heart,’ the ‘Rising Sun,’ the ‘Half Moon,’ the ‘Hare and Hounds,’ etc.
“There are four streets in Uffculme, and a triangular ‘square,’ on which a market is held every two months. In the interval the grass has its own sweet will. Everything is still; the smoke rises like incense in the air. Here, as I write, looking into a garden, which even now, in October, has many flowers in bloom, I hear no sounds but the song of the robin enjoying the glory of the morning sun, a chanticleer crowing in the distance, and the clanging anvil of the village blacksmith.
“The narrowness of the lanes around adds greatly to the country’s charms, their high hedgerows being a mass of many kinds of flowers. Thoroughly to enjoy the beauties of the neighbourhood, however,