in the county of Devon. We stand aghast at the barbarity of our forefathers; but if ever the penalty could be made to fit the crime, then it must be owned, Tom deserved the rope. He was a notorious thief, whose depredations were the common talk of the village, and, to make matters worse, his evil deeds were performed under the cloak of religion. Once a couple of ducks were missed, and, whilst every cottage was being searched in the hope of regaining the stolen property, Tom, secure in his pretensions to piety, stood complacently in his doorway, and the party of inquisitors passed on. Just inside were the ducks, feeding out of his platter.
One night a huckster’s shop, kept by Betsy Collins, at Millmoor, was feloniously entered and robbed. Next morning, Tom, apprised of the event, ran off in his night-cap to condole with the poor woman in her misfortune, and succeeded so well as to be invited to share her morning repast. “There!” said he, “her’ve a-gied the old rogue a good breakfast.”
As a professor of religion Tom contracted a warm friendship with a baker named Potter, who was an ardent Methodist. Neither friendship nor religion, however, prevented Mr. Musgrove from enriching himself at his neighbour’s expense. Profiting by an opportunity when Potter was at chapel, and closely engaged with pious exercises, Tom and his one-armed daughter broke into the bakehouse and carried off Potter’s bacon, the lady burglar aiding herself with her teeth.
These breaches of morality appear to have been condoned—at any rate, they did not land the culprit in any serious trouble. But at last Tom went a step too far. Down in the hams, or water-meadows, between Culmstock and Uffculme, he seized a large ram, which he slew, brought home, and buried in his garden. The crime was traced to his door, professions and protestations proved unavailing, and Musgrove, tried and convicted at the following Assizes, was publicly executed at Exeter Gaol. It will be remembered that Mrs. Tremlett’s “dree buys was hanged, back in the time of Jarge the Third, to Exeter Jail for ship-staling” (Perlycross, chapter xxvi.)
Sheep-stealing was not the only excitement. In Blackmore’s youth—and Perlycross is built on the circumstance—smuggling was carried on with spirit (in both senses) over the Blackdowns, and queer stories are told of fortunes made by “fair trade,” in the conduct of which a mysterious tower, out on the hills, is said to have played an important part. An octogenarian of my acquaintance admits that, as a boy, he shared in these illegal adventures, which did not receive that amount of social reprobation they may have deserved. He does not deny that he slept in a friend’s house over kegs of brandy which he knew to be contraband, nor does he disguise the fact that he was not a mere sleeping partner. He acknowledges being sent with a keg to meet a fellow-conspirator, who for the sake of appearances toiled in the local woollen factory, but out of business hours drove a lucrative trade with the farmers in the forbidden thing. Worst of all, on one occasion, when an excise officer was reported to be in the village, a cask was hastily transferred to his shoulders, which, as being youthful, were less likely to attract suspicion, and he actually walked past the Government man—barrel and brandy and all! Horses laden with the foreign stuff came up from Seaton. They had no halters, and were guided, says my friend, by the scent, the journey being naturally performed in the dark.
Smuggling, however, took various forms. Men from Upottery, Clayhidon, and elsewhere would halt a cart on the outskirts of the village, and go round with brandy or gin in bladders, which they carried in the pockets of their greatcoats. One Giles, of Clayhidon, had a donkey and cart with a keg of brandy concealed in a furnace turned upside down. A Culmstock man called Townsend, landlord of the “Three Tuns,” is said to have been ruined by a smuggler, who sold him a gallon of brandy and demanded accommodation, as usual. The publican refused it on the ground that the house was already full, upon which the smuggler, stung with resentment, informed the police, and Townsend was fined £270.
By these instances, something, it may be hoped, has been done towards reconstructing the Culmstock in which Blackmore grew up, and which helped to make him what he was—essentially the prophet of the village and rural life. And here I must rectify a possible misunderstanding, Because stress has been laid on changes in the social conditions of the parish, as being of deeper significance, it must not be inferred that there have been no alterations, or none of any importance, in the face of things. The contrary is the truth, and, on a reckoning, one is tempted to say with Betty Muxworthy, “arl gone into churchyard.”
Culmstock churchyard has indeed swallowed up, not only successive generations of the inhabitants, but a goodly share of the village itself. This is the more regrettable, as the portions absorbed are precisely those which, being redolent of the olden times, one would have liked preserved. The shambles, a covered enclosure for butchers attending the weekly market, has gone the way of all flesh. So also has the stockhouse, which was, rather inconsequently, an open
space where the stocks were kept. Hard by stood an inn, called the “Red Lion,” which either failed to draw sufficient custom, or having a handsome porch, was deemed too good for a common inn and metamorphosed into a school. A Mr. Kelso arriving with wife and daughters three, accomplished the transformation, and, according to local tradition, he had the honour of instilling the rudiments of learning into the late Archbishop Temple. This, not the National School which was built in the Rev. John Blackmore’s time and mainly through his exertions, was the academy of Sergeant Jakes, the position of which is plainly defined in chapter xxxvi.[4]
There was formerly a considerable trade at Culmstock in combing and spinning wool. Thirty hands are now employed at the mill (no longer an independent concern, but a branch establishment of Messrs Fox Brothers, of Wellington); once four hundred were busy at home. Soap also throve. It was made on the right shoulder of the hill, and the manufacturer, a Mr. Hellings, kept seven pack-horses to transport it to Exeter. Culmstock soap had a great vogue in the cathedral city, and it was a common observation that no one had a chance till Hellings was “sold out.” In the neighbouring village of Clayhidon was a silk factory, employing, I believe, a hundred hands, and run by a gentleman of the Methodist persuasion, whose house and chapel adjoined—the three together producing a combination of the earthly and the heavenly which impressed my informant as the acme of convenience. A similar factory in Red Lion Court, Culmstock, met with speedy failure.
These industries are now extinct, and one is somewhat at a loss in seeking for “live” interests, although it is impossible to forget that Hemyock is a famous mart for pigs. The whole district is piggy, and the sleek black animal with the curly tail is as highly respected, in life and in death, as his congener in that porcine paradise, Erin. I was talking to an old fellow at Culmstock, it may have been two years ago, and the conversation turned on swine. Rather to my surprise, he spoke of a certain female of the breed as having been “brought up in house,” and with full appreciation of the fun, volunteered a local saw to the effect that “when a sow has had three litters, she is artful enough to open a door.”
Culmstock, it is not too much to say, is redolent of Waterloo. The beacon was often aflame during the Napoleonic wars, and, upon their conclusion, the famous Wellington Monument was erected at no great distance, in honour of the Iron Duke, who took his title from Wellington in Somerset, the Pumpington of Perlycross.
Thanks to the industry of Mr. William Doble, who is, I believe, a descendant of more than one of the local heroes, it is possible to restore the atmosphere which brought about the creation, years afterwards, of Sir Thomas Waldron and Sergeant Jakes. When R. D. Blackmore was a boy, many were still living who could remember the incessant din of the joy-bells on the announcement of the victory—a din continued for several days; and the scene in the Fore-street, the “grateful celebration,” when high and low, indiscriminately, turned out to share the feast. Naturally, however, the festivities were dashed with some amount of sorrow and anxiety, as it was not yet known what had been the fortunes of the gallant fellows who had gone forth to fight England’s battle. Two stanzas of a song, which an old lady of Culmstock sang as a girl, reflect with simple pathos the dreadful suspense of relations and friends.
“Mother