Built of local ragstone and thatched, the old dwelling has probably not been altered in any particular since the memorable time of that secret conclave, and it still belongs to the Seymours, or St. Maurs, as they now—harking back to the ancient spelling—choose to style themselves. The historic association is the subject of a diffident allusion inscribed in recent times on a stone pillar in the garden:— William Prince of Orange is said to have held his first Parliament here in November 1688 The remainder of the voyage up the Dart to Totnes is along a gradually narrowing stream, past the noble hanging woods of Sharpham, to Bridgetown Quay, where the road-bridge and the narrowed river alike forbid further progress. Of Totnes there is a great deal more to be said than can be set down here. Between the mythical legend of its being founded by Brutus the Trojan and modern times, it has acquired a history which demands volumes. It had a mint in Saxon ages, is described as a walled town in Domesday, and was not without some eminent rottenness as a rotten borough at the beginning of the nineteenth century. It has a mystical castle mound, with a circular shell of a keep on the summit, an ancient gateway spanning the main street, and an interesting old guildhall. Its beautiful church is among the very finest in Devon, and the quaint old piazza shops vie with those of Dartmouth. There is, as may well be supposed, much doubt of Brutus the Trojan having been the founder of Totnes, but the legend is indestructible, from very inability to disprove it; besides, let into the pavement outside 51, Fore Street, you are shown the very granite boulder on which Brutus set foot when he landed! and so he becomes associated, at the beginning of the town’s long story, with a wanderer, in his own way equally remarkable, at its close. For in Totnes you may see, in the open space called “The Plains,” a monument to William John Wills, a native of the town, and son of a local doctor, which narrates how he was born in 1834, emigrated in 1852 to Australia, and, having been “the first of mankind to cross the Australian Continent, perished in returning.” He was a greater traveller than Brutus; and his exploits, as we see, are matters of ascertained fact. CHAPTER XXI DARTMOUTH CASTLE—BLACKPOOL—SLAPTON SANDS—TORCROSS—BEESANDS—HALL SANDS