Page:A book of the west; being an introduction to Devon and Cornwall.djvu/416

334 exorcising ghosts were over. He called in the parson, but the parson could do nothing. Matters were in this condition when an Exeter trading vessel, commanded by Captain Izaaks, anchored near Exmouth. The captain heard of Creveldt's trouble; he was under some obligation to him, and he at once visited him. He heard his piteous tale, and said: "In ancient times I have been told that incense was used against stubborn ghosts. I have heard that now Sir Walter Raleigh has introduced a novel sort of incense much more efficacious. Let us send for him."

Accordingly, Sir Walter was invited. He instructed Creveldt how to smoke tobacco; and the fumes of the pipe proved too much for the ghost. The spirit departed, coughing and sneezing, to the tobaccoless world.

No visitor should fail to visit Slapton Lea—a bar of pebble and sand tossed up by the sea, over which runs the coach-road to Kingsbridge—an excursion well meriting being made. The streams descending from the land are held back from entering the sea by this ridge, and form a lake that not only abounds in fish, and attracts water birds, but also contains water plants.

At Slapton lived Sir Richard and Dame Juliana Hawkins, in a house called Pool.

Dame Juliana was a haughty woman, and the story is told that she would not go to church except on a carpet Accordingly, when she went to Slapton Church to pay her devotions, a couple of negro servants proceeded before her unrolling a carpet of red velvet.