Page:010 Once a week Volume X Dec 1863 to Jun 64.pdf/481

 16, 1864.] least, Dick, the boy, had confessed to having been waylaid and bribed, to allow of poison being put into the draught; but by far the greater number anticipated that the body and legs belonging to the mysterious face had turned up, and were being marched before the coroner.

Term was over, and for once I was glad to leave the protecting wing of Alma Mater, for I was engaged to spend at least a week of the ensuing Easter Vacation on the moors of South Devon with two old schoolfellows—both ardent fishermen.

Prince Town was at once fixed upon as our head-quarters. In the first place, it is within easy reach of lots of rivers, and not too remote from railway communication; secondly, we were all three tolerably well known in those quarters; and lastly (by no means the least consideration) it boasts one of the best country inns (the Duchy Hotel) that I ever stopped at. Plymouth was our rendezvous; and thence we started with light hearts and knapsacks, with all requisite piscatory appliances, by the Tavistock railway, whose station at Horrabridge is distant from Prince Town some six and a half miles, from Plymouth about ten.

The Tavistock line is certainly one of the most picturesque in the kingdom, following as it does for many miles the romantic windings of the Plym. First we skirt its estuary, called Laira Water, which is fringed on the opposite side by the thickly-wooded and exceedingly beautiful slopes of Saltram, the property of Lord Morley. Here our road lies along an embankment in the very bosom of the water; but presently we plunge into the recesses of Cann Woods and Bickleigh Vale, where the roofs of our carriages are almost brushed by the overhanging boughs of oak, ash, and beech. Now and then we got a glimpse at the river, which rapidly grows smaller as we go further up. We pass Plym Bridge, a spot unrivalled for sylvan beauty, and Bickleigh, also cradled in foliage; until at length, at Shaugh, we open up the moor itself. The Dewarstone faces us at this point, the favourite haunt and theme of the too-little read Devonshire poet, Carrington. It is the southernmost spur of the Dartmoor hills, and frowns over the junction of the Cad and Meavy, which here unite to form the Plym. Just above, on the course of the Meavy, is Sheepstor, with its quaint bridge and desolate moorland church, one of the most imposing of the outlying Tors; and to this point we determined to return from our station and fish up the river, which takes us to within a mile of Prince Town.

Horrabridge is a pleasantly-situated village on the Walkham, a branch of the Tavy; which latter stream flows by Tavistock into the Tamar. On our leaving the train here, we were met by the trap of mine host of the Duchy, ever the “guide philosopher and friend” of the Dartmoor tourist; and by him our scanty impedimenta were taken on to Prince Town, and ourselves dropped at that point of the road nearest to the river Meavy. En route we pass through Walkhampton—in the vernacular, Wackinton,—whose granite church is a most conspicuous object in this part of the moor, perched as it is on the summit of a detached Tor; the hamlet itself is at the respectful distance of a good half-mile below it. As we cross the valley of the Walkham, and the watershed that separates it from that of the Meavy, we get a beautiful specimen of that peculiarly lovely scenery which characterises the part of Dartmoor bordering on the fertile and well-wooded lowlands, and which is well described by Howitt in his “Rural Life of England”:—“There are wastes and wilds, crags of granite, views into far off districts, and the sound of waters hurrying away over their rocky beds, enough to satisfy the largest hungering and thirsting after poetical delight Below, the deep, dark river went sounding on its way with a melancholy music; and as I wound up the steep road, all beneath the gnarled oaks, I ever and anon caught glimpses of the winding valley to the left, all beautiful with wild thickets and half shrouded faces of rock, and still on high those glowing ruddy tors standing in the blue air in their sublime silence.” A delicious description. As I write it I can in spirit see the “views into far off districts,” and hear, almost as plainly as if I were really standing above it, the river sounding on its way.

Arrived at Sheepstor, we set to work at the real object of our coming on the moors—the “luring the wily trout.” Though three rods, or even two, are as a rule too many to be working near one another on any small stream, we determined, for the sake of good-fellowship, not to separate; so we resolutely fished “pool for pool”; and thanks to the weather, which could not have been more favourable (like a hunting morning, “a southerly wind and a cloudy sky”), we managed to secure decent bags for our first day’s sport.

It is astonishing how particular these little moorland trout (which rarely weigh more than three-quarters of a pound) are as to the exact hue of the fly to “tickle their fancy.” Judging from my own experience I put on, when I com-