Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and CoastsNorthcote, Rosalind
History
Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts
Northcote, Rosalind
Devon (England)
From Mary Tavy a road runs nearly parallel to the river. Beyond Horndon
the houses are fewer and more scattered, and somehow there is a
suggestion that one is coming nearer and nearer to the verge of
civilization. The few houses look nice in themselves, with the exception
of a farm, so cheerless and neglected-looking, that it was a surprise to
find it inhabited; and not far beyond this house the road reaches
another and very different farm, looking full of comfort--and goes no
farther. This farm has the significant name of Lane End, and one
realizes from its solitary, exposed position that the high and
substantial wall surrounding it was built for sound reasons. It stands
on the moor, and the cultivation is of the roughest kind; the fields,
such as they are, being plentifully sprinkled with huge boulders. In
winter, when there is much fear of snow, these fields serve as an
enclosure for the ponies that are driven-in off the moor--looking like
wild animals in their long, hanging, furry coats. The river is heard
dashing over the rocks below, and about a mile farther on is Tavy
Cleave.
The last time I saw it a vague threat hung over everything, adding a
cold fascination to the moor. The hills showed tints of faint green and
palest brown, and patches of bracken gave a consoling shade of russet.
Hare Tor rose beyond, silent and impressive, covered with snow. The Tavy
had a new beauty, for it was almost frozen over, and the dark water, and
along whirling scraps of foam, showed between the blocks of ice and
snow, and the boulders were each bordered with shining white. The sky
was heavy with snow-clouds, and beneath them and in the rifts were
stormy red sunset tints, while a cold blue-grey mist was creeping up the
valley.
There are some places--the Castle of Elsinore, for instance--that seem
to have an amazing and incomprehensible gift of resisting civilization.
They may be brought up to date, and trimmed, and filled with
inappropriate people, and everything else done that should spoil them,
but in spite of it all they do not for a moment look as if any modern
extraneous objects had a meaning for them. They belong to their own day
and its manner, and to no other.
The same sort of feeling hovers about Tavy Cleave, and a great sense of
the mystery that here more, there less, broods over the moor. But there
is no suggestion as to who it is that the moor has most truly and
absolutely belonged to, nor even the region of time: only the feeling
that the valley is, in a finer than the usual sense, haunted.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account