Page:A book of the west; being an introduction to Devon and Cornwall.djvu/294

226 Tor to Hennock to the east was till comparatively recently furze-and-heather-clad moor.

An object of singular picturesqueness in Moreton is the almshouse, with the date of 1637, with a charming arcade of granite stunted pillars. Opposite another almshouse has been erected in modern times, to show how badly we can do things now when our forefathers did things well.

In the same street is the base of the old village cross and the head of the same broken off. In the place of the cross the "Dancing Tree" has sprung up, that has been made use of by Mr. Blackmore in his novel of Christowel. The tree in question is unhappily now in a condition to be danced round, not any longer to be danced upon.

The tree is an elm, and it grows out of the basement of the old village cross, the lower steps of which engirdle the trunk; and a fragment of the head of the cross lies just below. The tree must have sprung up after the destruction of the cross, or, possibly enough, it was itself the cause of destruction, much in the same way as trees have destroyed and rent in sunder the tomb of Lady Anne Grimstone, in Tewin churchyard.

Of this latter the story goes that Lady Anne on her deathbed declared that she could not and would not believe in the resurrection of the body. Rather, she was reported to have said, will I hold that nine trees shall spring out of my dead body.

Now in process of time the great stone sepulchral mass placed over her grave split asunder, and through the rents issued the shoots of nine trees, six ash and