Page:Devon and Cornwall Queries Vol 9 1917.djvu/300

236 Outside the gate leading to the Castle is a beggar man sitting on the ground between two trees; he has two wooden legs. Beside him is a crutch, and a satchel hangs round his neck. A man dressed in something of a Puritan style is dropping alms into the cap held in the beggar's outstretched hand. I may mention here that the costumes do not indicate the date of the events portrayed. It was usual in the seventeenth century to represent all characters more or less in the dress of the day. There is nothing about the beggar in Hooker's account.

Beyond the tree on the beggar's left is a pack-mule toiling up the hill to the Castle gate with a load of wood, driven by a boy who comes behind with an uplifted stick in his hand. This may indicate the attempt of the rebels to burn the city gates.

Below the beggar and his benefactor is a gabled house, very delicately and elaborately carved, with a doorway at the side cut in the thickness of the stone. The house has two chimneys; on one side is a penthouse, on the other a square sign, hanging in the usual way from a horizontal cross-piece. It is probably an inn.

At the centre of the whole composition is a battlemented building with two large square windows; the seam where two parts of the stone are joined comes vertically between these windows. The design is not continuous across the seam, and some figures are incomplete; a strip of the stone is missing here. In the left-hand window a man is standing; the legs below the knees are out of sight, but what is shown of the figure fills the whole depth of the window. The man has both arms extended, he is delivering an harangue. Outside the window to the right of the orator is a man designed on a larger scale than the others; he has a moustache and beard and wears a full robe with a fur tippet over and a round cap. He also is making a speech; he gesticulates with his right hand, his left rests on the helmet of a soldier with a halberd. I take this to represent Sir Peter Carew. Behind him appear the head and shoulders of another man with moustache and pointed beard, holding his right hand extended.

In front, moving towards the bottom of the stone, there is a procession of citizens in furred cloaks, two and two,