Concerning my journey to Launceston there is but little need to describe
in detail. Except that it was long and wearisome it calls but for few
remarks. On our way thither we passed through Bodmin, where was a jail,
and where the assizes were periodically held. I asked why I was not
imprisoned there, seeing it was so much nearer Trevanion than
Launceston, and would thus save a long journey, but the men in whose
custody I was made no reply. Indeed we did not stay at Bodmin at all.
Instead we made our way towards the Bodmin moors, and passed through one
of the dreariest regions it has ever been my lot to see. The journey
through the night, from Wadebridge to Roche Rock, was awesome enough,
but it was cheerful compared with our wanderings through that waste land
which lies between the town of Bodmin and the village of Lewannick, a
distance of something like twenty miles. Besides, in the ride to Roche
Rock I was excited, I breathed the air of romance and adventure; a young
girl who I was even then learning to love rode by my side, and I had but
little time to think of the lonely district through which we rode. Now I
was a prisoner, my destination was one of the county jails, where I
should have to lie until such time as I should be tried for treason. All
this made the bare brown moors look more desolate. We had to ride
slowly, too, for there were innumerable bogs and quagmires, and no
proper roads had been made. One spot especially impressed me. It was
that known as Dozmary Pool, about which numberless wild tales had been
told. Legend had it that it had no bottom, and that Tregeagle, about
whose terrible fate all the children in Cornwall had heard, was
condemned to scoop out its dark waters with a limpet shell in order to
atone for his sins. Of the legend I thought but little, but the supposed
scene of his trials was enough to strike terror into the bravest heart.
The pool is as black as ink, and is situated in the midst of uninhabited
moorland. Early spring as it was, the wind howled dismally across the
weary waste, and my custodians shuddered as they rode along, for truly
it required little imagination to believe that the devil must delight to
hold his revels there. I have since thought that if I had played upon
the superstitious fears of my guards I should have had but little
difficulty in effecting my escape.
After we had left the Bodmin Moors, we came upon those situated in the
parish of Altarnun, and these were, if possible, less cheerful than the
other, for on our right hand rose a ghastly-looking hill on which
nothing grew, and whose gray, forbidding rocky peaks made us long to get
into civilized regions again. By and by, however, after passing through
a hamlet called Bolven Tor we came to Altarnun, where we rested for
nearly two hours, and then made our way towards Launceston.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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