The interesting person, who thus cheated the unfortunate Richard Jarvis of the few years that probably, in the course of nature, would have remained to him, was one Rebecca Downing, who was executed at the end of the following July at Ringswell, Heavitree, near Exeter; the old-time spot where Devonshire criminals and martyrs suffered; but this was really not quite so fearful an execution as it looks, for she was first hanged and her body then cut down and burnt. The exceptional treatment of hanging and then burning the body of the criminal was owing to the crime being, over and above that of murder, the particularly heinous one, in the eye of the old laws, of _petit treason_, the murdered person being the master of, and person in authority over, the assassin. Coming down a breakneck path from Portlemouth to the ferry, you find yourself come, not only to an out-of-the-way spot, but to a place where, for the first time, you have a foretaste of the Cornish way of speech. Some one aboard the ferry-boat compares this arm of the sea with Fowey. “Aw, my dear man,” says the ferryman, “’tes wider yur than ’tes tu Foy: ees, feth.” That is a kind of middle-marches compromise between the Devon talk and that of Cornwall, where, instead of say “yes, faith,” they say, “iss, fay.” CHAPTER XXIII SALCOMBE—KINGSBRIDGE—SALCOMBE CASTLE—BOLT HEAD—HOPE It is quite a narrow passage across the Kingsbridge River to Salcombe, and shut in majestically by dark rocks and a winding channel. The little town dabbles its feet in the deep water of this arm of the sea, and is in every way a fishy and marine place; but, unless you are lodged in one or other of the houses that rise sheer from the water, it is little or nothing of the sea you will get a sight of. Only from the two narrow alleys leading to the ferry stairs, or down the infrequent passages on to littery quays, is any outlook possible; and it is quite a mile before the jealously walled-in villas and estates of the outskirts cease and one comes to the little bay of South Sands. The naturally uncomfortable physical circumstances of Salcombe, which has no foreshore for the visitor, no pier, and no seats anywhere, are jealously preserved in all their rigours by the luxurious villadom of the place, which has hitherto succeeded in keeping the railway out, and would, if it were possible, put a ring-fence around the neighbourhood and exclude every one but those who are necessary to minister to their wants. Salcombe is probably the most exclusive place on this, or any other coast, and its exclusiveness is, singularly enough, shared by all classes in the place. Here is a literally reproduced conversation that enforces the point. [Illustration: THE FERRY SLIP, SALCOMBE.]