But the people of the little town are able to graze their cattle and cut furze for fuel on it. Hatherleigh parish has two holy wells. St John's Well stands on the moor, and there used to be a pretty custom of fetching its water for a baptism. The water of St. Mary's Well was good for the eyes, and within the memory of persons still alive pagan traditions were observed around it on Midsummer Eve. Amidst 'wild scenes of revelry ... fires were lit, feasting and dancing were indulged in.' For some years, in this part of the country, while he was curate to his father, who had the neighbouring living of Iddesleigh, the renowned 'Jack' Russell preached on Sundays and hunted on weekdays. He was immensely popular, and so many stories are told of him and his hounds that it has been already said, 'Russell is fast becoming mythical.' He was not the ideal of a modern parish priest, but this is the opinion of one who remembers him. The writer begins by speaking of a friend of Russell's as a man who 'seems ... to have been as good a Christian as he was a gentleman; not ecstatic perhaps, but in the sense of leading a godly, righteous and sober life. And,' he goes on, 'the same may with certainty be predicated of Russell ... Russell, like a wise man, got right home to Nature. It was not for nothing that the gipsy chieftain left him his rat-catcher's belt, and begged for burial at his hands in Swymbridge churchyard.' Perhaps the following story of him is not quite so well known as many others: Mr Russell once advertised for a curate: 'Wanted, a curate for Swymbridge: must be a gentleman of moderate and orthodox views.' Soon after this advertisement had appeared Mr Hooker, Vicar of Buckerell, was standing in a shop door in Barnstaple, 'when he was accosted by Will Chapple, the parish clerk of Swymbridge, who entered the grocer's shop. "Havee got a coorate yet for Swymbridge, Mr Chapple?" inquired the grocer, in Mr Hooker's hearing. "No, not yet, sir," replied the sexton. "Master's nation purticler, and the man must be orthodox." "What does that mean?" inquired the grocer. "Well, I reckon it means he must be a purty good rider." Here we must leave the Torridge altogether, and go eleven miles south-east to the point where the Taw leaves the uplands of Dartmoor. Almost the first village that the river passes is South Zeal, close to South Tawton, and near South Zeal was the old home of the Oxenhams, the family about whom the well-known legend of the white bird is told. When an Oxenham is about to die, a white bird flaps at the window or flies about the sickroom, and stories of the bird having been seen at such times have been told at intervals, through two centuries. The evidence in some instances seems fairly good, but where an apparition is expected it is not unlikely imagination may play tricks, or a chance event may be interpreted as an omen.