By the last entry it will be seen that the parishioners of Corfe were determined to get their money's worth, and the old churchyard must at times have contained quite a large collection of fur and feather. Speaking of rewards for the extermination of the fox, I am reminded of an entry in the Holne Churchwardens' accounts for 1782 which has a tinge of sly humour about it. Four shillings and two pence is paid for "running a fox to Okehampton." We can imagine the good churchwardens of Holne rubbing their hands and congratulating themselves on having got rid of Reynard, or speculating over future raids on domestic fowls in the Okehampton district. But the churchwardens were not too hopeful; they were a little doubtful. As "dead men rise up never," so a dead fox would not come prowling home again. So they talked the matter over and decided that half the customary noble would be a fitting remuneration to the hunter away of the fox.

I cannot leave Corfe without saying a few words in praise of the Greyhound Inn. Here the beams of the roof are black oak and squared enormously, like the timbers of a mighty ship, and some of the odd, low doorways remind one of the hatchways in a vessel. Visitors have so often knocked their heads against the low doors that it has been necessary to paint in large letters above several of them, "MIND YOUR HEAD." In the little smoke-room at the back one might fancy himself on board a ship in strange seas—especially does one experience this sensation in the evening before the candles are carried in. If it is wintertime the impression is more intense—the wind howls and worries at the window and the sky is swept clean in one broad, even stretch; then one may call for a pint of Romsey ale, fill the pipe and enjoy the lonely kingdom of the man at the helm of a great vessel. When morning comes this same little room is bright and cheerful. The window looks out on a narrow courtyard paved with mighty stones, and Corfe Castle, which thrusts itself into every view of the town, fills the background. In the winter the rustics sit about the board in this room, but they do not come there in summer, being shy of visitors. The labourers seldom wear the smocks, made of Russian duck, which their fore-elders were so inclined to favour. These smocks were much more stout than people would imagine, and the texture was so closely woven and waterproof that no rain could run through it.

*         *         *         *         *         *

Four miles of a good, comfortable road running through a breezy heathland brings the pilgrim from Corfe to Wareham. On these heaths large quantities of white clay are dug up and run in truckloads to fill vessels in Poole Harbour. This clay is used for making pipes and in the manufacture of china. The clay pits are a very ancient and uninterrupted industry, and they have been worked continuously since the Romans discovered them. The spade of the Dorsetshire labourer still occasionally turns up fragments of Roman pottery made from this identical clay. When Stoborough, now a mere village, once an antique borough, is reached we come within sight of Wareham, which is entered across a long causeway over the Frome marshes. More life can be seen in an hour here by the Frome than in a whole long day upon the hills. I have noticed how the birds that fly inland, high above me, will follow the river as a blind man feels his way, by natural impulse. Over the water-meadows the peewits are twisting in eccentric circles, and everywhere in the reeds the little grey-brown, bright-eyed sedge-warblers are flitting about. It seems almost incredible that such a small bird as the sedge-warbler can produce such a torrent of sound. For a right merry, swaggering song, which, without being very musical, is indeed exhilarating, commend me to the sedge-warbler. He sings all the day long, and often far into the night, and even if he wakes up for a few seconds when he has once settled down to sleep he always obliges with a few lively chirrups.

The ancient town of Wareham has been alluded to somewhat contemptuously by several writers as "slumberous" and dull. Perhaps it is, although it is brighter in appearance than some towns near London that I know. At all events its stormy youth—in the days when London itself was but a "blinking little town"—has entitled it to a peaceful old age. All the scourges against which we pray—plague, pestilence, famine, battle, murder and sudden death—have been endured with great strength of mind and calmness by the people of the town. Sir Frederick Treves tells us that its history is one long, lurid account of disaster, so that it would need a Jeremiah to tell of all its lamentations. However, an indomitable temper and a readiness to believe that to-morrow will be brighter than to-day is the prevailing spirit of her people, and the town has an incredible hold upon life and the grassy ramparts which almost encircle it. The ramparts, or town walls, are ten centuries old, and form three sides of an irregular square, and enclose, together with the Frome, an area of a hundred acres. Before the silting up of Poole Harbour the sea came nearer to its walls than it does now and the river was much wider. We learn from ancient records that a great swamp stretched seawards from the foot of the ridge. That Wareham was a port of a kind is probable enough, for it furnished Edward III. with three ships and fifty-nine men at the siege of Calais. As far back as one can follow the ancient records of the town a good number of ships called here, and when one comes out on the ample quay it is clearly seen that this place has once been a lively and animated wharf, resounding to the clatter of sea-boots and the songs of the chanty men. The waterside taverns and huge storehouses on the boat-station speak of the brave days gone by, and I cannot imagine a more pleasant spot to linger in on a sunny day. The seats and tables outside the Rising Sun and New Inn are very inviting, and when I passed this way it gave me peculiar pleasure to spend an hour here, looking broadly about me. As I looked across the quay to the grey bridge, meadows and beautiful fertile valley the odours and sounds of the country cropped up around me. The sun, laying a broad hand on the river, had smoothed all the eddies out and was sending it between the banks, not bubbling loud, but murmuring softly. Yes, the river was very sleepy that day. However, the Frome has its share of living interests. Here one can see the heron as he stands upon the shallows waiting till an eel shall move in the mud. A melancholy-looking fellow he looks, too, as he stands, gaunt and still, brooding some new spell. Anon a small bubble rising in the shallows, followed by a slight turbidness of the water around it, attracts the watcher. A swift step or so, a lightning flash of his sharp beak and he has secured his eel. One watches him rising with labouring wings in a direct upward flight, the eel writhing in fruitless efforts to escape.

The summit of the town wall is used as a promenade, and one part of the west rampart, looking across the heath to the Purbeck Hills, is called the "Bloody Bank." Here were executed, by order of Judge Jeffreys, some of Monmouth's unfortunate adherents. Their bodies were cut up and placed on the bridge, and their heads were nailed to a wooden tower in the town on the completion of the execution. Here, too, Peter of Pomfret was hanged. He was a queer, cranky fellow and it appears that he was given to drawing horoscopes and meddling with secret and hidden things. He would have been quite free from any trouble had he not ventured to read in the scheme of the twelve houses of the Zodiac the fortune of King John. He read, "under a position of heaven," that the King's reign would end on Ascension Day, 23rd May 1213, and this prophecy reached the ears of the King, who had little faith in the sayings of Peter. However, the King made up his mind that Peter's reign should end on this date, and he passed the unfortunate prophet on to Corfe Castle, where, we may be certain, he was carefully looked after. The 23rd of May passed the same way as other long-lost May-days and pay-days have passed, but King John was still very lively and active, and to convince Peter of Pomfret that he was a poor soothsayer he ordered the fellow to be whipped at the back of a dung-cart from Corfe to Wareham, where a gallows had been erected to welcome him. At Wareham Peter was driven through the streets, followed by a crowd of yelling, bloodthirsty people, and then hanged from the Bloody Bank, with the heather-covered moor before his eyes and the sky full of birds twittering and flying above his head.

The name Wareham is Saxon. Wareham=Wearth-ham—"the dwelling on the 'land between two waters'" (one of the meanings of wearth or worth), a name descriptive in the fullest sense of the position of the town betwixt the Frome and Piddle. Certainly the history and importance of Wareham dates back to Saxon days. However, on the strength of a stone built into the north aisle of St Mary's Church, which bears the inscription: "Catug c ... (Fi) lius Gideo," this foundation has been presumed to be of the British period, a bishop bearing the name of Cating having been sent from Brittany in or about 430. It is concluded that this stone is the record of a consecration performed by him.

Beohrtric, King of Wessex, is said to have been buried at Wareham, and here for a time lay the body of Edward the Martyr. Wareham was a favourite landing-place of the Danes, and despite its vicissitudes was important enough to sustain two sieges in the wars of Stephen and Maud, to be twice taken and once burnt. Wareham was once the chief port of Poole Harbour; but while Poole flourished Wareham decayed. Unlike other Dorset towns it stood by the Cavaliers, but as the inhabitants were lacking in martial skill and a sufficient body of troops, the town was made a kind of shuttlecock by the contending parties. The last misfortune of the town was its almost total destruction by fire in 1762. All things considered, it is little wonder, therefore, that in spite of its age Wareham has so few antiquities. The castle has left but a name, the priory little more; but reconstruction has spared the most interesting feature of St Mary's Church—the Chapel of St Edward—which is said to indicate the temporary burial-place of Edward the Martyr, whose marble coffin is now to be seen near the font.

If we follow the road from where the town is entered across the picturesque old bridge we pass the Black Bear, a spacious old inn, with an excellent effigy of Bruin himself sitting grimly on the roof. The Red Lion is the inn mentioned by Hardy in The Hand of Ethelberta. The queer ivy-covered little Chapel of St Martin, on the left side of the main street, at the top of the rise from the Puddle, is visited by antiquaries from all the counties of England. It is one hundred and seventy years since regular services were held here. The roof beams are very ancient and still hold their own without any other aid. The interior is vault-like and eerie, and about the old place there hangs an atmosphere which has no affinity with the everyday world, but which reeks up from long-neglected tombs—a mystic vapour, sluggish and faintly discernible. An inscription on the north wall is to the memory of a surgeon, his wife and four children. The surgeon died in 1791, at the age of eighty-one, from an "apoplectic fit." It is rather a puzzle why the doctor was buried in this church, for in 1791 no parson had officiated here for fifty years or more. The pilgrim will be interested in the Devil's Door, by the altar, a memory of early Christian superstition. It was the custom to open this door when the church bells were rung, to allow the devil to flee.

CHAPTER XI MY ADVENTURE WITH A MERRY ROGUE

I like inns, and I like old ale, and all the old curious glasses, mugs and pewters which were so dear to our forefathers, and I begin this chapter in this way to forestall any possible charges of heresy that my narrative may call forth. I would almost go further, and say that my affection for such things is wholly a private matter concerning only myself, or, at least, no more than a few very intimate friends. That, I think, is how sentimentalism should be conducted. When it is managed otherwise, when it becomes a public thing, it becomes a public nuisance, besides being contemptible. But, as I have gone so far, I might as well go the length of admitting that I am addicted to the habit of collecting old drinking vessels, and I have allowed the disease to get the upper hand. I cannot pass a curio shop in which willow-pattern mugs, tapering glasses and "leather bottels" are displayed without a burning longing to possess them. I like to have these things about me, not merely as ornaments or to drink from, but for—— Well, when I come to think of it, I cannot quite say; there is not sufficient reason. That is enough to brand me an incurable curio-hunter. Curios and ancient drinking vessels are to me what the sea is to a sailor. It is a passion which has become interwoven with my blood and fibre, and I can never again wholly break loose from it.

But all this is by the way; the point is, why do I commence this chapter by talking about such things?

For the reason that in this chapter I am going to tell of a singular adventure in which a "black jack" loomed very solidly.

It happened at Morcombe Lake. I will not write of this place. You must get it out of a guide-book, for the village is not a thing for fine words; it stirred me in no way. But it shall not be said that Morcombe Lake has not a small share of fame, for in this village is produced the famous Dorset Knob Biscuit, without which no Dorset table is really complete. Mr Moores, who "magics" butter, milk and sugar in his small bake-house and brings forth these golden-brown "Knobs," informs me that his family has been busy sending them out in tins for over a hundred years.

I had walked from Bridport, passing through Chideock, with its venerable-looking church beside the Castle Inn, and coming to Morcombe, where there is a deep-eaved, comfortable, ramshackle, go-as-you-please kind of a little inn, I could hear somebody singing inside. It was a clear, mellow voice, and I listened to the cadences of the song with a thrill of pleasure. It was a humorous trio, and the lonely singer changed his voice for each verse with a largeness and confidence in his vocal powers that quite carried me away. Indeed, it was a song which we all should know, which runs:

Entering, I saw one of the kind of men God loves. He was of middle age, very honest and simple in the face, good-humoured and cheerful. He was sitting before a tall, leather black jack—one of the finest specimens of the old-fashioned leather jugs I have ever seen—quaffing his morning ale from it. He paused from his song and lifted his wide straw hat in a grandiloquent way.

"Good marning, sir! Fine marning's marning! Tez mortel 'ot ta-day," he said, in a mellow voice, and he looked up at me with large, china-blue eyes. I passed the time of day with him, but the fine leathern flagon had already claimed all my attention; I had no eyes for anything else at the moment. I dealt hotly with speculations over the ownership of the flagon. Did it belong to the rustic or the innkeeper? Did they know its value? This and a hundred other thoughts flashed through my mind. As I stood there I dwelt avariciously upon thought of possession. I said to myself: "I must have that flagon. I will buy. Beg it. Steal it, if necessary." The desire to possess it consumed my soul.

"Wantee plaize to take a seat? The cider here be a prime sort, I shuree!" said the rustic, breaking in upon my thoughts. He spoke very slowly and, as I have said, had a nice mellow voice, and he did what only honest men do—looked straight at me when he spoke.

"Surely," I said, and sat down beside him. "Pray excuse me," I continued, waving my hand towards the leather jack, "but that is a remarkable old drinking vessel."

"Thickee there is the ownly wan I ever see like it," said he, holding it up and looking at it with admiration. "Yes, sir, it be a brave good mug, and I have taken my cider and ale out of he for twenty year. It's just a fancy of mine to bring it along with me when I drink. I tellee that mug has been with my folk for two hundred years. Parson says it is just a 'miracle' of an old thing."

"Aha!" said I to myself, "the parson is after it too."

"They tell me," he said, "that it may be worth a pound or two. Well, well! It is an old friend, and I should be loath to part with the cheel, but——"

"But," I repeated eagerly.

"But," he continued, "things have been cruel bad with me o' late, and I have thought, whatever is the good o' keeping it when like 'nuff we can sell it for a pound or so and buy the chillern a few clothes against the winter."

"True, true!" I said, trying to keep my excitement undermost. "But you would only get a few shillings for it, I am afraid. Such things have no market value."

"No market value?" he answered. "Well, I suppose I dunnow much 't-al-'bout-et!"

He mused for a few moments. I narrowly watched him out of half-closed eyes—"Oh, yes; I was playing the old grey wolf, sure enough"—and said, very carelessly: "I should hate drinking my ale out of a 'leather bottel.' They may look picturesque, but I am certain the beer would taste vile. I have no sympathy with the enthusiast who sang:

However, I would not mind giving you a few shillings for it."

I happened to glance up as I said this. He sat there looking at me with a troubled expression in his blue eyes.

He then said a number of things in broad Dorset, and the "tellees" and "thickees" and "dallees" became unintelligible, but he meant that I could but be joking when I said "a few shillings."

"Well, I won't disturb your peace of mind any more," I said. "We will let the matter drop."

Then he stepped up close to me, put the black jack in my hand, and said, with an appealing note in his voice: "Two hundred years in my family, maister. Just say what you've a-mind to give me; only let it be a fair price. I would not be so anxious to sell it, but my rent is a bit behind, and I shall have to sleep with Miss Green——"

"Sleep with Miss Green?" I gasped, somewhat shocked.

"Sleep under the hedge, then," he continued, making the expression clear to me. "Now, you see the fix I'm in, maister."

Then I was ashamed. Deep shame covered me, and I had a great revulsion of feeling. How could I be so niggardly as to beat down this poor fellow's price? Perhaps, after all, it was his only possession of any value at all. I turned the jack over in my hands. It was strong and black and very highly polished with age—and the curves and proportions of it were exactly satisfying to the eye that looked upon it. It was a benediction of a flagon....

I held it up, and said, "How much?"

"Aw! dally-buttons! Take it for two pounds," he said, "you nidden begridge me that."

And he added, in passing, that two pounds made it a kind of gift to me—just a token to signify it had changed hands: it was an act of pure charity on his part.

"Then," I said, "thirty shillings," and he waved his hand about genially, and remarked that it "twidden" be worth his while to stretch out his hand for such a paltry sum.

So then I pulled out thirty shillings, and he pushed the flagon over to me and took the money. Thus the bargain was struck.

So this being settled, and I eager for a drink of ale, called the innkeeper, who was in another room. Beer was brought and my friend insisted on paying for it.

I asked him about his wife and children. But I could get very little from him, and that little in a low voice. I felt sorry for him, for I understood that parting with his flagon had rather upset him. He seemed as different as one could imagine from the singer I had seen when I entered. He told me that his was a very old family in this place, and his name was Ralph Copplestone. He also quoted the following adage to strengthen his statement:—

Before he left me, however, he had recovered his cheerfulness. He set off down the road, and as he passed he began singing:

Finally his voice, still singing, died away in the distance. I sat before the flagon with a feeling of wonder, not unmixed with sadness. The fresh breeze dropped, and it seemed as if the little inn parlour grew dark and grey. He was a strange fellow!

It was not till the next day, in the late afternoon, when the air was already full of the golden dust that comes before the fall of the evening, that I came down Broad Street into Lyme Regis. In passing, I was attracted by a little curiosity shop. The dusty window was full of all sorts of things—red-heeled slippers, old bits of brass, quaint, twisted candlesticks, blue enamel snuffboxes, jewellery—value and rubbish being mixed in confusion together. And there right in the fore-front was an exact counterpart of my black jack! It was truly an amazing coincidence! I looked into the doorway, and saw the owner of the shop, a very old gentleman. His face was a network of wrinkles, which time so pleasantly writes on some old faces that they possess a sweetness which even youth lacks. I made up my mind to seek information from him about the flagon. He was examining a piece of china with a magnifying-glass when I entered.

"Good evening—good evening!" he said, putting down the glass, and looking up at me with a smile. "What can I show you, sir?"

The old man drew in his wrinkled lips expectingly.

"The odd black jack in your window," I said boldly.

The old man went to a corner of the window, and after much fumbling produced the black jack, which he set upon the counter. As I examined it he watched me in silence from beneath his penthouse brows. It was, indeed, a facsimile of the one I had purchased from the rustic.

"It is not really antique. It is a very clever imitation, not more than a few months old," came the old man's voice. He paused, the smile still lighting his face. "A genuine specimen like this one is not to be found anywhere—outside the museums." He lifted his arm with a peculiar gesture that seemed to take in the whole world.

Outwardly I remained calm, swinging my foot nonchalantly against the wooden panel of his counter. If I had burst out laughing that moment I cannot think what the old curio-dealer would have thought, but it was with difficulty that I restrained myself from doing so. Little did he know that I had just picked up a genuine black jack for a mere song! Then I told him, with gusto, my adventure with the rustic at the inn.

Suddenly he broke out:

"What was his name?"

"Copplestone—Ralph Copplestone," I replied.

"Why, he's the very rogue that sold me this one," said the old man, shaking his simple head.

"Is that possible?" I said, and I jumped down from the counter where I had perched myself. The strangest sensation came over me. I thought of the honest, open face and the innocent blue eyes of my friend the tavern-haunter.

The curio-dealer smiled quietly, sadly.

"Yes, he imposed upon me, too. He is a very clever rogue. A harness-maker by trade, and all his people before him for three hundred years have been of the same calling. So you see the secret of making a black jack has been handed down from father to son. It is one of the traditions of his family; a knowledge which is mingled with his blood and fibre, so to speak. Such skill is older than five thousand years. He has the spirit of the artist—but the soul of the rogue."

"Why," I said, "then if he is a rogue, then I'm a rogue too, for I knew I was paying him a paltry sum for an article I thought to be worth ten pounds—perhaps twenty."

So I laughed, and I've been laughing gloriously ever since—at myself, at the merry rogue in the inn, at the silly old hypocritical world.

As I passed out of the dim old shop and walked down to the sea it came over me, with a sudden feeling of satisfaction in my soul, that the sun shone on Ralph Copplestone just as joyfully as it did on me, that the good God had endowed him with strong arms and a mighty voice for songs.

"After all," I said to myself, "we are all rogues if we are only scratched deep enough."

CHAPTER XII THE DEVON AND DORSET BORDERLAND

The irregular and old-fashioned little town of Lyme Regis—"so crooked's a ram's horn," as the native would say—is situated in a most romantic position at the foot of the hills, being built in the hollow and on the slopes of a deep combe, through which flows the small stream of the Lym to the sea. It is seated on a grand coast, which rises to the east in the blackest precipices and west in broken crags thickly mantled with wood. As a port it is most ancient, having furnished ships to Edward III. during his siege of Calais.

Lyme, in its day, has seen a good many stirring events. In the reigns of Henry IV. and V. it was twice plundered and burned by the French; and in that of Richard II. nearly swept from the earth by a violent gale. During the Rebellion it successfully withstood a siege which was one of the most important of the time. In 1644 Prince Maurice invested it, established his headquarters at Old Colway and Hay House, and his troops along the neighbouring hill. Day after day the assault continued, more than once by storming parties; but the gallant governor, Colonel Ceeley, assisted by Blake, afterwards so famous as an admiral, most courageously repulsed every attack, and after a siege of nearly seven weeks was relieved by the approach of the Earl of Essex. In 1685 the town was again enlivened by the bustle of arms, when, in the month of June, the Duke of Monmouth here landed, with about eighty companions, after running the gauntlet through a storm and a fleet of English cruisers in his passage from Amsterdam. As he reached the sandy shore he fell upon his knees and uttered a thanksgiving for his preservation. He remained here four days, at the George Inn, when, having collected about two thousand horse and foot, he set forward on his disastrous expedition.

There can be no doubt that Lyme Regis has failed to prove itself anything like a popular watering-place; yet it has very good bathing, with neither currents nor hollows, and has the most picturesque front in Dorset. The fine scenery should tempt the holiday-maker to suffer the somewhat enclosed situation, which makes the place very close during the hot summer days. It is in winter that Lyme should be popular, for then it can boast a remarkably genial climate.

The quaint old stone pier, called the Cobb, is the real lion of Lyme, and is the source of much satisfaction to the stout hearts of the town. The Cobb, "the oldest arnshuntest bit o' stone-work in the land, a thousand years old—and good for another thousand, I tellee," as described to the present writer by a rustic, was probably first constructed in the reign of Edward I. It has been frequently washed away, and restored at a great price, and was finally renewed and strengthened in 1825-1826. It is a semicircular structure, of great strength, the thick outer wall rising high above the roadway, so as to protect it from the wind and sea.

At Lyme an inn received me: a room full of fishermen and agricultural workers, a smell of supper preparing, and much drinking of cider. It was the New Inn, and I was told that this room was only the tap-room and not usually used by visitors. I found that one wing of the old building had been specially fitted for travellers, and I will gladly name it to all my readers who are satisfied with an old-fashioned comfort, a good bed and good fare.

After supper I bought a packet of sailor's shag, and went out smoking into the chief street. A few steps took me to the Cobb, and I leaned over the low wall and contemplated the glorious green sea, tumbling and gurgling below me. I always think that the union of mighty stone slabs and the sea is most satisfying to look upon—there is something endlessly good and noble about such a thing. I think a building of hewn stone when it dips into the water should act as a sedative to the mind, should teach one to become calm, slow and strong; to deal generously in rectitudes and essentials.

It was late in August, and the mellow chimes of the parish church had just boomed eight o'clock. The great orange moon hung over the bay, and the night came creeping over the rich yellow sand which crowns the Golden Cap. Then the cliffs merged into a fainter confusion. Bats came out and flitted about the old houses by the Buddle river, and the night became the natural haunt of restless spirits. A candle flickering behind a leaded casement brought back suddenly the memory of a home long passed away and whatever blessings belong to my childhood. And all of a sudden that inexplicable heart-hunger for the place of my birth gripped me, and Youth (whatever Youth may be), with its sights, its undefinable, insistent spell, came back to me in one flash—Youth came to me from the old houses on the sea-wall, borne with the misty saltness of the sea air. Go away; travel the length and breadth of the land, visit a hundred cities, encounter a hundred new experiences, and form a hundred conflicting impressions of stranger scenes and places; go where you will, and do what you will; one day you will have seen and done enough, and you will find your thoughts turned again to the haunts of Youth.

At the sight of those ruffianly looking old dwellings by the riverside my memory was carried back to another small seaport town where, long enough ago, I played at smuggling. Are we not all haunted by certain landscapes which come back unbidden, not as topographical facts, but as vestures of the soul? Their enchantment is in our blood, and their meaning uncommunicable.

Here, where one can smell the smell of venerable wooden fishing boats and tar, there is a suggestion of the good old smuggling days. There is a hint of rum, brass-bound sea-chests, trap-doors and deep mouldy cellars about the Buddle River houses, and the people who inhabit them are of very settled habits, and the inconveniences to which they have been accustomed seem to them preferable to conveniences with which they are unfamiliar. To this day, therefore, they empty slops out of the windows, burn candles, wind up their pot-bellied watches with large keys, and attain ripe old age. This curious quarter of Lyme Regis was once a smugglers' retreat and a favourite spot for their operations. A stranger visiting the banks of the Buddle could not fail to be struck with the curiously formed streets, alleys, and passages thereabouts, and if he secured the good offices of a native to pilot him through the mazes he would be still further astonished at their intricacy. The houses are connected in the most mysterious manner, whether from design or accident, or whether to meet the exigencies of the smuggling trade, and for the more readily disposing of the kegs of spirits, and bales of other excisable goods, it is impossible to say. The most reasonable conclusion to arrive at is that the latter was the case.

The curious name of Cobb has given rise to much discussion. Murray's Handbook to Dorset (1859) puts forward the theory that it is of British origin, and calls attention to a barrow-crowned knoll above Warminster called Cophead, and a long embankment on the race-course at Chester, which protects it from the River Dee, which has been known from time immemorial as the Cop. The length of the Cobb is 870 feet, and height above the sea-level 16 feet. It combines in one stone causeway the duties of breakwater, double promenade and quay. The projecting stone steps, which form one of the oldest parts of the wall, are known as Granny's Teeth, and are described by Jane Austen in Persuasion. The beach to the west of the Cobb is known as Monmouth's Beach. The Duke landed about a hundred yards west of the wall. A local tradition states that when the late Lord Tennyson visited the town one of his friends was anxious to point out the spot where Monmouth landed, but the great man impatiently exclaimed: "Don't talk to me of Monmouth, but show me the place where Louisa Musgrove fell!"

The bridge arch in Bridge Street is considered to be of an age second only to that of the Parish Church, and is well worthy of inspection. The Buddle Bridge consists of one arch of large span, thought to have been built in the fourteenth century, when the bed of the Lym, or Buddle, was excavated to an extra depth of eight feet. An ancient Pointed arch with dog-tooth moulding has recently been unearthed in the basement of a house abutting on the bridge. The arch is below the level of the roadway, and it no doubt formed part of a bridge of several arches built in the twelfth century. It rises from about two feet below the ground-floor cellar of this house. The arch has been seen by the Rev. C. W. Dicker, of the Dorset Field Club, who sent to the editor of The Lyme Regis Mirror the following letter:—

Dear Sir,—I have just received a copy of last week's Mirror, containing an account of the very interesting archway under Bridge Street, which I was kindly invited to inspect. As far as I can judge from the result of my one opportunity of examining it, the evidence points to the assumption that Bridge Street formerly crossed the Buddle upon a bridge of several arches, constructed in the twelfth century, and that the archway in question was probably the third from west to east. The street at this point is (or was) obviously supported upon a masonry substructure, upon which the houses abut. The masonry of the newly found arch is typical of the middle of the twelfth century, at which time the manor was chiefly in the hands of Roger of Caen, Bishop of Sarum and Abbot of Sherborne, a great builder, much of whose work is still to be found in Dorset. The archway clearly was built to support the roadway; and as its alignment is exactly that of the larger archway (apparently of the fourteenth century), under which the river now runs, there seems little room for doubt as to its origin. Yours faithfully,

C. W. H. Dicker, 
Vice-President and Hon. Editor
Dorset Field Club. 

Pydeltrenthide Vicarage,
Dorchester.

The Town Hall, at the farther end of Bridge Street, was rebuilt on the site of the old Guildhall. The iron-cased door, that once led to the men's "lock-up," and the grating of the women's prison, have been fixed against the north front wall. This wall is pierced by two arches, with a doorway to the Old Market, over the gateway of which is a carved projecting window. Here are the ancient parish stocks, removed from the church. At the farther end, facing Church Street, a wide gable stands out, lighted by an old but plainer window. In the lower part is the passage through to the Gun Cliff, with a flight of steps in the wall, leading down to the beach. From Church Street there is an easy approach to the Drill Hall, which was opened in 1894. On the opposite side of the street, and directly facing Long Entry, there is "Tudor House," a large old house possessing much fine oak panelling and carving. The interest of Tudor House is twofold, for it is associated with the "Father of English Literature," Henry Fielding, author of Tom Jones. Here lived Sarah Andrew, a rich heiress, when Fielding became wildly enamoured of her. This love affair was opposed by Andrew Tucker, who was Sarah's guardian, but Fielding persisted in his suit with such energy that Tucker had to appeal to the Mayor of Lyme to be protected from the violence of Fielding and his men. This is recorded in the town journals.

Fielding lost the rich heiress, but immortalised her memory in the supremely beautiful character of Sophia, in Tom Jones.

The Parish Church, dedicated to St Michael, contains some interesting relics. A prominent feature is the carved Jacobean pulpit and sounding-board, bearing in capitals the inscription: "TO GOD'S GLORY RICHARD HARVEY MERCER AND MERCHANT ADVENTURER THIS ANNO, 1613." It was removed from a column near the south door and entrance to the vestry during the renovation of the church by Dr Hodges, in 1833.

The building dates from the fifteenth century, though it is clear from town records that a church stood near or on the spot in 1298, and there are remains of a Norman arch and pillar in the west porch. Note the two parish chests, one of Jacobean workmanship. The following interesting inscriptions are from six of the bells which were set up in 1770:—

1. "O Fair Britannia Hail." T.B. f., 1770.

2. "Harmony in sound and sentiment." T.B. 1770.

3. "O be joyful in the Lord all ye lands." T.B. f., 1770.

4. Re-cast in 1843. Thomas Mears, founder, London. Fredk. Parry Hodges, vicar. Robert Hillman, Mayor. John Church and George Roberts, churchwardens.

5. "O sea spare me." This peal of bells was erected partly by rate and part by subscription in the year 1770.

6. "Pro Religione, pro Patria, pro Libertate." 1770. Mr Tuff and Mr Tucker, C. W. Thomas Bilbie, Fecit.

The curfew is still rung at eight o'clock at Lyme Regis.

Fuller details of the history of the church and town will be found in a very comprehensive little History of Lyme Regis, by Cameron, which is published by Mr Dunster at "The Library" in Broad Street.

Broad Street, leading downwards from the station to the sea, is the main thoroughfare, and the principal business part of the town. Half-way up the street on the eastern side is a small passage leading to an ancient forge. It is scarcely to be noticed unless one is expressly seeking for it, but once up the narrow court there it is, with its open doorway all red inside like a wizard's cave, with the hammers ringing on the anvil, and the sparks showering out of the big flue. Here Vulcan has toiled, moiled and, let us hope, aled for five hundred years without a break, and here, in spite of cheap machinery, Mr Govier, the master smith of Lyme Regis, still seems to enjoy a regular and ready custom. The forge has been in Mr Govier's family for three hundred years, and it has a great weather-beaten wooden-and-tile roof, which is all but on the verge of collapse. A long sweep of old oak wood controls the bellows, and as you look in you will see the hand of Govier himself is on the bellows handle. He draws it down and lets it up again with the peculiar rhythmic motion of long experience, heaping up his fire with a cunning little iron rake, singing a most doleful song to himself all about "shooting his true love at the setting of the sun." But you must not think the master smith is a gloomy man, for this song (and other still more pathetic ones) is just a tune of acquiescence to his labours—a song in sympathy with the roar of the bellows and the ascending sparks of his fire.

He turned from his forge, set his hands on his hips and looked at me a moment. Then I realised why McNeill Whistler spent so much of his time in this forge making sketches of the smith. He looked like Vulcan's very brother, his face sunburnt and forge-burnt to wheat-colour, his eyes blue as cornflowers, and his hair black and crisp, and everywhere about him the atmosphere of the blacksmith. There are all kinds of interesting things in the old forge, from Roman horseshoes to plates for race-horses, and a pair of old beam-scales dated 1560. These scales have been hanging up as far back as Govier and his father before him could remember. Besides having the knowledge of a craftsman, Govier is a singer of old songs.

"That song you were singing when I came in?" I asked. "I know it as well as anyone, but somehow it has escaped me."

"Ah!" said the master smith. "Well, well! It is years ago now that I first heard it, when the ships came inside our walls with coal and took away stone. We rarely see a ship in our walls now, but when I was a boy my father and I frequently went down to the quay to repair ironwork aboard the old sailing boats. Those old Devon sailors were the fellows for songs. Upon my soul, I believe sailors no longer sing as they once did. I find a great difference between the old-fashioned chanty man and the modern seaman who never sings at his work. The man who sings loudly and clearly is in good health, prompt, and swift to the point, and his heart is as big as parson's barn. The silent sullen fellow may have these qualities—he may have 'em, I say; but then the chap who sings is the happier man."

"But there are some miserable fellows who reckon to be very happy," I said.

At this Govier gave a shrug of his ox-like shoulders, and waved away all such sorry triflers.

"There are such people," said he; "but they are not entertaining. However, you want to get the hang of that song, and though I cannot remember the exact words I have the rhythm of it in my head right enough, and I think it runs like this: