Urith: A Tale of DartmoorBaring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
General
Urith: A Tale of Dartmoor
Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Dartmoor (England) -- Fiction
The turf was free from masses of boulder, but was in places swampy. At
the water-shed was a morass with a spring, and from this point the
stream had been laboriously worked in ancient times for tin; the bed was
ploughed up and thrown into heaps in the midst of the course.
"Look yonder," said Cudlip. "Do you see that pile o' stones with one
piece o' granite atop standing up? There's P. L. cut on that. Did you
ever hear tell how Philip Lang came by his death there? and how he came
to lie there? For I tell y' there he is buried, and it is the mark where
Peter Tavy parish ends and Tavistock parish begins, and they say he do
lie just so that the parish bound goes thro' the middle of him. It all
came about in the times of the troubles between the King and the
Parliament. Sir Richard Grenville was in Tavistock, and was collecting
men for the King; and Lord Essex came up with the Roundheads, and there
was some fighting. Then some of the train bandmen were out here, and
among them was Philip. He was a musketeer; but, bless your soul! he
didn't know how to use the piece, and I've heard my father say that was
the way with many. It was an old matchlock, and to fire it he had a fuse
alight. Lord Essex was skirmishing round the country and Sir Richard had
set a picket at this point. Well, Philip Lang, not knowing but the enemy
might surprise him from one side or the other, had his fuse alight, and
his musket charged. But by some chance or other, the fuse was uncoiled,
and the lighted end hung down behind him and touched the horse on the
croup. The beast jumped and kicked, and Lang could not make it out, for
the fuse was behind him. Every time the horse bounded, the burning end
struck him again in another spot, and he sprang about, and ran this way
and that, quite mad; and Philip Lang, who was never a famous rider, let
go his matchlock, and had hard to do to keep his seat. But, though he
had dropped the musket, the fuse was twisted round him and kept bobbing
against the horse, and making it still madder. Then the beast dashed
ahead across the valley, and went head over heels down into the old
miners' works, and Philip was flung where you see that stone, and he
never breathed or opened his eyes after. 'Twas a curious thing that he
fell just on the boundary of both parishes, and there was no saying
whether he lay in one or the other. There was mighty discussion over it.
The Peter Tavy men said the body belonged to Tavistock, and the
Tavistock men said it belonged to Peter Tavy; and neither parish would
bury him, for, you see, he was a poor man, without friends or money."
"Say, rather," threw in Fox, "without money and friends."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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