outstrip their masters in the art and craft. The
depth of the slice from the loaf exceeded half
an inch, covered with solid substantial cream.
The rest may be fancied.

How I ran after the rabbits among the rocks,
how I gathered whortleberries and blackberries,
what nosegays I made of heath and honeysuckle,
what a friend I found in the dog " Shepherd,"
who had a tail so short that it could scarcely be
called a tail, and who was the most licking,
loving, docile creature in the world, how I
rejoiced in the blaze of the dry gorse which I was
allowed to fling into the kitchen chimney; above
all, how I obtained the favour of the good old
father of the family, seated in his arm-chair by
the rustic fire——is it not all written in the book
of memory?

Many were the jokes which our Moortownian
country cousins had to bear from the more
refined citizens of the county capital, who
sometimes honoured "the outer barbarians" with a
visit, or more rarely invited them " to see life"
in the western metropolis. "Why, you know
very well who built your place, and how he forgot
to make any road to it after the building!"
"Who taught your fathers to make the cob
walls, and brought the clay and the straw and
the mortar to help you, long before you had a
paved street or a glass window?" And then
the rude rough idiom of Dartmoor was flung
into the crucible of criticism by those whose own
mother-English was not of the purest. " What
d'ye call this?" said a young Exonian vagabond,
when running away with a handful of oats from
the sample-bag of a Moreton farmer, who
vociferated to the passers-by: " Hurn! hurn
arteren! he'th steyld my wets!"

It is a pity the hundreds of old Saxon words
and forms of speech have been so imperfectly
collected from the rural regions of Devon.
Here is a conversation between a judge on the
Exeter bench and a witness from Dartmoor:

WITNESS. Thof the doctor komm'd wei the
trade (medicine), but a kudn' zee'n vur the pillem.

JUDGE. Pillem, man! What d'ye mean by
pillem?

WITNESS. Lor! Not knaw what pillem be?
Why, pillem be mucks a drow'd.

JUDGE. Mucks a drow'd! What's that?

The man lifted up his hands, astounded at his
lordship's ignorance, which he thus helped to
enlighten: " Why, mucks be pillem a wet!"

Once, when sitting on the bench, I noted
down more than twenty obsolete words from
the evidence of a single shepherd on a case of
sheep-stealing.

But again looking back over two generations,
I know not how order was preserved or authority
maintained. I never heard of police, constable,
nor watchman. Crimes were committed
with which the devil——he has not yet
disappeared from our indictments——or the witch
——who is still a living existence in Devonshire——
had always something to do. Yet everybody
trusted everybody, and the doors of the houses
were seldom locked or bolted by day or by
night. Sheep-stealing was a common offence;
hanging followed as a matter of course; and at
every assize men suffered for it at the Exeter
"new drop." Here the farmers combined their
detective operations with infinite zeal, and were
delighted to help one another's servants to the
gallows which they had so well " desarved." I
recollect seeing a poor wretch hanged, of whom
it was given in evidence that his family was in
such a state of starvation that they devoured
the mutton raw when he brought the sheep
into his hovel; but even for him there was no
pity or sympathy. A farmer returning from
market one day, reached Moreton in a most
distracted and disordered state, his horse at full
gallop, his waistcoat torn open; they said his
hair stood on end. He declared that he had been
riding quietly on in the dark, when the devil
jumped up behind him, seized him round the
waist, and treated him in the most unbrotherly
way. He was reported to have lost his money,
and not to have been moderate in his tipple at
the inn where he had " put up;" but nobody
doubted his veracity, and many new frights and
fears accompanied the farmers on their
lonesome, gloomy, homeward way. Sometimes a
murder took place, generally committed by a
stranger, a wandering pedlar, a hanger-on about
country fairs, and now and then a woman was
convicted of poisoning her husband or killing a
child; but there were no newspapers seeking
sensational pabulum for their columns, and the
surface of the social stream was not much or
long rippled by these disturbances.

A stove or grate was a rare luxury then. Stone
coal was never seen; charcoal rarely. Turf from
the marshes, gorse from the moor, and now and
then a wooden log, were the materials of the
cottage fires. People generally sat on stools
within the chimney-hearth, where the scorching
from the blazing furze was sometimes intolerable;
but the occupiers of the inner seats——
especially in winter-time——were more disposed
to put up with the annoyance than to surrender
their places. In truth, the vicinity of the moor
is often bitterly cold, the snow lies deep, the
hail and storm rage furiously. Persons well
off in the world ate barley bread, and tea
was made of balm or peppermint. A cat
and a dog usually formed part of the fireside
group. The old men wore scarlet nightcaps,
the women mob caps tied under their chins. The
labourers took their meals with their masters,
but at a respectful distance. The pay of the
out-door peasant did not exceed a shilling a day;
a hale girl might gain a shilling a week.

The principal sports of the people were
Fives played against the church tower,
football in the sentry field, and ninepins in the
barns. Each had their distinguished
representatives, who were becomingly honoured.
But bell-ringing seemed the great ambition, for
here the contests extended beyond the
parochial bounds, and the prowess of the
Moretonians was to be contrasted and compared with
that of other adjacent belfries. The names of
the prize-winners——are they not chronicled in
the annals of the past?