Set in Silver
things of the moor were afraid of nothing that could come to them out of
the world beyond, for that pungent air breathes "courage," and the gray
granite, breaking through the poor coat of grass, dares the eyes that
look at it not to be brave.
Near the moorland ponies--on Holne Moor--we came to the strangest
reservoir you could dream of. It was vast, and blue as a block fallen
out of the sky; and once, Sir Lionel said, it had been a lake, though
now it gives water to the prison town. An old road used to run through
it; and to this day you can see the bridge under water. The story is
that strange forms cross that bridge at night. I'm sure it's true, for
anything could happen on the moor, and of course it swarms with pixies.
You believe that, don't you? Well, anyway, you would if you saw the
moor.
The next tor was nameless for us, but it was even finer than Sharp Tor.
After seeing Stonehenge I felt so certain it must be Druidical that it
was disappointing to hear it wasn't--that all such theories about the
tors had "exploded." Afterward there were lots of tors; and there were
tin mines, too, not far from our wild, desolate road--tin mines that
have always been worked, they say, since the days of the Phoenicians.
I should have been more interested in thinking about them, however, if
we hadn't just then begun gliding down a hill which, from the top,
looked as if it might go straight through to China. My toes felt as if
they'd been done up in curl-papers for years. But there was a savage joy
in the creepiness of it, and Apollo "chunk-chunked" sturdily down, in a
nice, dependable way, toward a lonely village, which I felt sure was
entirely populated by Eden Phillpotts people. He, and the other authors
who write about the moor, invariably make their leading characters have
"primitive passions," so I thought perhaps the faces of the moor folk
would be wilder and stranger, and have more meaning than other civilized
faces. But all those I saw looked just like everybody else, and I was so
disappointed! They even dropped their "h's"; and once, when we stopped a
moment at a place where Sir Lionel wasn't sure of the way, I asked a boy
on a rough pony the names of some trees we had passed. "H'ash and green
h'elm, miss," said he. It _was_ a blow!
Toward eleven, the sun had drunk up the cold mist, and the moor basked
in heat. We were in an empty world, save for a cottage now and then, and
a Cyclopean wall of stones loosely piled one upon another. Yet this was
the main road from Ashburton to Princetown! Apollo glided along a
desolate white way between creamy and silver grasses artistically
intermingled, and burning, golden gorse, which caught the sun. The
splendid, dignified loneliness of the moor was like the retreat chosen
by a hermit god! There may be only twenty square miles of moor, but it
feels like a hundred.
Hexworthy and the Forest Inn, which we came to in a valley, were
curiously Swiss, all but the ancient cross which made me think of Eden
Phillpotts's "American Prisoner." How can I say an "ancient" cross,
though, when the _really_ old things on the moor began not only before
Christ, but before history--the stone circles, the cairns and the
cromlechs, the kistvaen and the barrows! The hut circles, where a
forgotten people used to live, are strewn in thousands over the moor,
and cooking utensils are sometimes dug up, even now; so you see,
everything isn't discovered yet. The people hadn't any metal to work
with, poor creatures, until the Bronze Age, and they clothed themselves
in skins, which I suppose their dressmakers and tailors made when the
sheep and cows that wore them first had been cut up and eaten. I wonder
if girls were pretty in those days, or men handsome, and if anyone
cared? But I suppose knowing the difference between ugliness and beauty
is as old as Adam and Eve. If Eve hadn't been pretty, Adam wouldn't have
looked at her, but would have waited in the hope of something better.
The first sight of Princetown only intensified the loneliness of the
moor, somehow, partly because it loomed so gray and grim, partly,
perhaps, because we knew it to be a prison town. The dark buildings
looked as much a natural growth of the moor as those ruined temples on
the horizon, which were tors. It was almost impossible to believe that
Plymouth was only fifteen miles away. And the sombreness and gloom of
the melancholy place increased instead of diminished as we drew nearer
to it, after leaving behind us the pleasant oasis of Tor Bridge and its
little hotel that anglers and walkers love.
The prison settlement was stuck like a black vice-spot in the midst of
wide purity. Gloom hung over it in a pall, and stole the warmth from the
sunshine. What a town to name after a Prince Regent! and what a town to
have lunch in! Yet it was a singularly good lunch.
We ate it in a hotel built of gray stone, with gray stone colonnades,
which looked like an annex to the prison. There was meat pie, which one
expected to find smoking hot, and it gave quite a shock to find it not
only cold, but iced. There was a big, cool dining-room, all mysterious,
creeping shadows, and queer echoes when one dared to speak. And unless
one did speak the silence sent a chill through one's body, but it was an
interesting chill. Certainly the hotel was the strangest I ever saw; and
the hotel dog was like no other animal on land or sea. He appeared to be
a mixture of brindled bull and Irish terrier, with long side-whiskers on
a bull-dog face. He was a nightmare, but he loved Devonshire cream and
junket, and ate them as if he were a lamb.
We stayed a long time in Princetown, and then started to go home by a
different way. Out of a vast moorland tract we descended to Dartmoor
Bridge, the prettiest oasis in the wild desert of moor which we had seen
yet. But soon we were back in moorland again, with tors rising up to
snatch at heaven with their dark claws. Each one seemed different from
all the rest, just as people's faces are different in crowds. Some were
like crests of waves, petrified as they were ready to break; but the
weirdest of all were exactly like ruined forts of dwarfs. And presently
the scenery changed again in a kaleidoscopic way. We came to lovely
Houndsgate, with a great, deep wonder-valley far below us, only to
return to a region of tors and bracken, and to plunge down the most
tremendous hill of all--a hill which was like gliding down the glassy
side of an ocean wave.
I had just exclaimed, "See, there's a motor ahead of us!" when an
extraordinary thing happened. The car going before us, very fast,
suddenly ran to the side of the steep road, stopped, some people jumped
out, and at the same instant a great flame spouted straight up toward
the sky.
Not one of us said one word, except Emily, who squeaked, and cried, "Oh,
Lionel! we shall all be killed and burned up!"
Of course, Sir Lionel didn't answer. I would have given anything to be
in Mrs. Senter's place, sitting beside him, so that I could see his
face, and guess what he meant to do. But it was decided and done in a
few seconds. He took Apollo on a little farther, and then stopped as
near the burning motor as he dared, so that there might be no danger of
our catching fire. Before we could have counted "one, two," he had
sprung from the car and was running toward the fiery chariot, with Young
Nick flying after him. Dick Burden got down, too, and sauntered in their
wake, but he didn't go very fast.
It was so exciting and confusing that I scarcely understood at first
what was happening, but Sir Lionel tore off his coat as he ran, and
flung it round the woman from the other car. She had not been on fire
when she jumped out, but the grass and bushes close by the road had
already begun to blaze, and her dress had caught in the flame. She was
tall and big, but Sir Lionel lifted her up as if she'd been a child,
and, wrapped in his coat, laid her down at a little distance on the
grass, where he rolled her over, and put out the fire. Then, when she
was on her feet again, panting and sobbing a little, he and the other
men began stamping out the flames playing among the low bushes, lest
they spread along the moor. As for the car, Sir Lionel said afterward it
was hopeless trying to save her, as there were gallons and gallons of
petrol to burn (it was her brakes that had got on fire, and ignited the
rest), and no sand or anything of that sort to throw on. But while we
were staring at the strange scene, the flames died down, having drunk up
all the petrol; and whether some part of the mechanism which held the
red-hot brakes in place gave way suddenly, I don't know. All I do know
is, that the car quivered, moved forward, began running down the
tremendous hill, faster and faster, until, with a wild bound, she
disappeared from our sight over a precipice.
By this time we were all out, except Emily, hurrying down the hill, to
talk to the people who had lost their car; but would you believe it,
they hardly cared for their loss, now they were out of danger? It was a
bride and groom, with their chauffeur, and they were Americans, staying
at the Imperial, in Torquay. The bridegroom was elderly but humorous,
and told us he used to hate motors and kept tortoises for pets, because
he liked everything that moved slowly, all his ancestors having come
from Philadelphia. But the girl he loved wouldn't marry him unless he
promised to take her to England on an automobile trip. Now he hoped she
had had enough, and would let him go back to tortoises again.
He said he had never enjoyed anything so much as seeing the car's
red-hot skeleton jump over the precipice, where it could not hurt
anyone, but would just fall quietly to pieces on the rocks.
The bride was great fun, too, and as she comes from St. Louis, it is not
likely she will cultivate tortoises. When we took them all three back to
Torquay with us, squashed in anyhow, she talked about running over to
Paris and buying a balloon or an aeroplane! We came by way of the
Buckland Chase, as it is called--private property; and an elfin glen of
beauty, for mile after mile, with the Dart singing below, and the
Lover's Leap so close that it seemed painfully realistic--especially
after the adventure of the car which leaped into space.
Sir Lionel got his coat burnt, and his hands a little, too; but he would
drive, though Young Nick might have done so as well as not.
After all we shan't get to Cornwall to-morrow! Sir Lionel says it would
be a crime to leave this part of the world without going up the Dart
(the "Rhine of England") in a boat, and seeing the beautiful old Butter
Market at Dartmouth.
I shall send you postcards from there, if I have the chance, for it's
very historic. It will be Cornwall the day after, but I shall have to
wire my next address.
With all the love of
Your Moorland Princess.
P. S. You ought to have seen Emily and Mrs. Senter fussing over Sir
Lionel when he burnt his hands! He hates being fussed over, and was
almost cross, until our eyes happened to meet, and then we both smiled.
That seemed to make him good-natured again. And he is wonderfully
patient with his sister, really.
XVII
MRS. SENTER TO HER SISTER, MRS. BURDEN, AT GLEN LACHLAN, N. B.
_White Hart Hotel, Launceston, Cornwall_,
_Aug. 10th_
My Dear Sis: It came off all right. My things usually do, don't
they? With some women, it is only their lip-salve and face powder that
come off. With me, it is plans. Luckily I inherited mamma's genius for
high diplomacy, while you, alas, only came in for her rheumatism. And by
the way, how _are_ your poor dear bones? Not devilled, I hope? Do
forgive the cheap wit. I am obliged to save my best things for Sir
Lionel. He appreciates them highly, which is one comfort; but it is