Page:All the Year Round - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/296

286[February 20, 1869] of the knight, and of his intention (often expressed) of leaving his lands to the church in which he should be buried, at once seized cross, torch, and crozier, and started over the deep snow for the moor, searching everywhere in the white drifts for the lost man. At last they found his snowy tomb in a morass under Fox Tor, and by him his will, written with horse's blood.

Whether the will, however, was found there or not by the monks, this at least is certain, that they produced it in due form soon afterwards. But though they did hurry off with the corpse, greedily anxious for the reward, the people of Plymstoke lay in wait for them at a ford where they would pass. The monks were not going to be caught so easily; they changed the road, threw a bridge over the river near the abbey, reached Tavistock in safety, produced the indisputable will, and gained the lands. A cross was erected to Childe by the grateful monks, at the foot of Fox Tor, and so stood till twenty years ago, when some ignorant workmen destroyed it, in the absence of their master. The story, we regret to confess, must be very old or else untrue, for Plymstoke belonged to the Tavistock Benedictines (as the author of Murray's Devonshire and Cornwall observes) before the Conquest. The same legend, too, is found in St. Dunstan's life.

A little beyond Merrival, that moorland hamlet scarcely yet out of the wilderness, the crow casts his quick eye on Druid circles, rock pillars, and cromlechs, dating back to the legendary time of Devonshire mythology when wolves infested the valleys, and winged serpents the hills. The hut circles here were used as market-places when the plague devastated Tavistock. The townspeople, sad and hopeless, fresh from the graves of their fathers and children, pale, bandaged, and muffled up, afraid to give or receive contagion, came here and placed their money in these stone circles, and took away the provisions brought for them by the scared country people. 

  morning again! The delightful air, cool, refreshing; the trees and walks and groves. But, with their sham air of innocence, the taint of sin and temptation. To their leaves and branches cling the mutterings and despairing ejaculations of those wandering under them, who have lost peace and happiness for ever, and found ruin. There are the innocent, as it were, the titularly good—the young girls and their mammas, who, in a cowardly way, lend their sanction to these villanies, throwing the cloak of respectability over this den, and who pay no penalty. They affect to shut their eyes, and selfishly enjoy. Yet they are as guilty as any. I tell them so, solemnly. Shame—shame on them, who have not even the poor pretext of damaged health! They will spend their money and enjoy themselves—ay, and more scandal for them!—will all the time sanctimoniously reprobate what is going on round them, and then return quite happy and as they came. Then they will tell their friends, "Oh, it was shocking to see those scenes! We never went near the place, except just passing through." Lay that unction to your souls, my pious ladies—that hypocrisy won't do. You have not fallen, because your jaded hearts are indifferent, and so caked over with the cold crust of fashion and deceit, that you have lost even the warm feeling of temptation. So take no pride in that, and never fear, you will all be reckoned with, and in good time, and according to the weight of your responsibility. There is one who weighs all these things, in scales, to which the most accurate balance that jeweller could devise for his gold and gems, is as rude as a common weighing-machine. There they were, all passing me, with their empty chatter. They seemed to look at me, but I know this was my own morbid soul. Oh, if I could get away home—anywhere—even into a jail! But how is this to end? What must I do?

I was wearied with all this agony, worn down sorely, as if I had been carrying a heavy load and was now come to an inn to rest; and then, dropping to sleep, I had reasoned myself into a belief that it might not be so awful a calamity after all. As usual, the blessed night and more blessed sleep seemed to interpose and put all off for a long indistinct time, like the troubles which the wise prophesy to children when they are to grow up. But with the morning—a cold and grey one—I was put back again, to long before the time I had left off at. It was all to begin again with that terrible soreness and dull aching oppressing of my heart, as though some calamity from which there was no hope of extrication had taken place last night. I lingered on, actually shrinking from rising, not from laziness, dreading to go out and face these goblins; but I did go out along the beautiful walk, by the charming trees, breathing the fresh morning air, but shrinking guiltily from every face I met, as if they knew my crime. How every familiar object, only a short time ago so welcome and agreeable, now jarred upon me, they all touched that one horrible chord which goes harshly into my very heart.