A Drift? What is a Drift?

The vast expanse of Dartmoor, occupying nearly a hundred and fifty thousand acres, for the most part, but not altogether, belongs to the Duchy of Cornwall. Considerable, and, in many cases, fraudulent encroachments have been made on Duchy property—slices taken out of it in past times—and the Duchy agents bribed to turn their eyes away; or simply taken and secured to the squatters by prerogative of long squatting unmolested. The main mass of moor constitutes the ancient and Royal forest of Dartmoor; but much waste land exists outside the forest bounds in the possession of private owners, or as common land, over which the lord of the manor has but manorial rights.

Around the circumference of the moor are, and always have been, stationed certain men having a position under the Duchy, corresponding to that of foresters elsewhere. But, as there are no trees on Dartmoor, these men have no care of timber; nor have they, as foresters elsewhere, the custody of the deer, as there are no red deer in this Royal forest. Red deer there were in times past; but they were all destroyed at the close of the last century, when large plantations were made on the moor and in its confines, because the deer killed the young trees.

On account of the rugged and boggy nature of Dartmoor, no Royal hunters had come there since the Saxon kings; consequently, no pains were taken to preserve the deer, and every moorman and squire neighbouring on the wilderness considered that he had a right to supply himself with as much venison from off it as he could eat, and every farmer regarded himself as justified in killing the deer that invaded his fields and swarmed over his crops. The men answering to foresters elsewhere, living under the Duchy, and posted around the borders of the moor, inherited their offices, which passed in families for generations, and it is probable that the Evers, the Coakers, and the Widdecombes of to-day are the direct descendants of the moormen who were foresters under the Conqueror—nay, possibly, in Saxon times.

They are a fine-built race, fair-haired, blue-eyed, erect, better able to ride than to walk, are bold in speech, and perhaps overbearing in action, having none above them save God and the Prince of Wales—the Duke, the only Duke above their horizon.

Around the forest proper is a wide tract of common land, indistinguishable from moor proper, and this does not belong to the Duchy, but the Duchy exerts, for all that, certain rights over this belt of waste. The parishes contiguous on the moor have what are termed Venville rights, that is to say, rights to cut turf and to free pasturage on the moor; the tenants in Venville may be said to have the right to take anything off the moor that may do them good except green oak and venison, or more properly, vert and venison. This has led to the most ruthless destruction of prehistoric antiquities, as every farmer in Venville carries away as his right any granite-stone that commends itself to him as a gate-post, or a pillar to prop a cowshed; sheep, bullocks, and horses are turned out on Dartmoor, and the horses and ponies live in all weathers on the wilderness, defy all boundaries, and ask for no care, no shelter, no winter quarters. Bullocks and sheep have their lairs, and want to be levant and couchant, and to be cared for in winter, and therefore are not driven on to the moors till spring, and are driven off in autumn.

The moor is divided into regions, and over each region is a moorman. In each quarter of the moor a special ear-mark is required for the ponies turned out in that district, a round hole punched in the ear, through which is passed a piece of distinguishing tape, scarlet, blue, white, and black. Ponies wander widely: a herd will disappear from one place and appear at another like magic, in search after pasture; but the moormen of each region claim the fines on the ponies belonging to their region, and, to a certain extent, exercise some sort of supervision over them.

Although every tenant in Venville has an undisputed right to free pasturage, yet it is usual for him to fee the moorman for each horse or beast he sends out, and, if this be refused, he may find his cattle stray to a very remarkable extent, and be liable to get "stogged" in the bogs and be lost.

As horses, etc., that are driven on parish commons, or on moors belonging to private individuals, very often leave these quarters for the broader expanse of the Royal Forest, it is necessary, or deemed advisable, on certain days arbitrarily determined on, without notice to anyone, to have a "Drift." A messenger is sent round in the night or very early in the morning to the Venville tenants, from the moorman of the quarter, to summon them to the Drift; on certain tors are upright holed stones, through which horns were passed and loudly blown, to announce the Drift. All the neighbourhood is on the alert—dogs, men, boys are about, squires and farmers armed with long whips, and formerly with pistols and short swords and bludgeons.

All the ponies and colts on the quarter, not only on Dartmoor Forest, but on all the surrounding zone of waste land, are driven from every nook and corner by mounted horsemen and dogs, towards the place of gathering, which is, for the western quarter, Merrivale Bridge. The driving completed, a vast number of ponies and horses of all ages, sizes, colours, and breeds, and men and dogs, are collected together in a state of wild confusion. Then an officer of the Duchy mounts a stone and reads to the assembly a formal document with seals attached to it. That ceremony performed, the owners claim their ponies. Venville tenants carry off theirs without objection; others pay fines. Animals unclaimed are driven off to Dinnabridge Pound, a large walled-in field in the midst of the moor, where they remain till demanded, and if unclaimed are sold by the Duchy.[4]

To this day a Drift causes violent altercations; formerly free fights between Venville tenants and those who were outside the Venville parishes were not uncommon, and blood was not infrequently shed. That a Drift should excite a whole neighbourhood to the utmost may be imagined. The dispersion of the horses by the fire on the moor occasioned the Drift at this unusual time of early spring.

The morning was windy, clouds large and heavy were lumbering over the sky, turning the moor indigo with their shade, and where the sun shone the grey grass, as yet untinged with spring growth, was white as ashes.

On the top of Smerdon stood a gigantic moorsman, with lungs like blacksmith's bellows, blowing a blast through a cow's horn that was heard for miles around. But the yelping of dogs, the shouts of men proclaimed that the whole world was awake and abroad, and needed no horn to call to attention. Men in rough lindsey and frieze coats and leather breeches, high boots, with broad hats, wild-looking as the horses they bestrode, and the hounds that bayed about them, galloped in all directions over the turf, shouting and brandishing their long whips. Colts, ponies of every colour, with long manes and flowing tails, wild as any bred on the prairies, leaped, plunged, raced about, snorting, frightened, and were pursued by dogs and men.

Although there was apparent confusion, yet a rude order might be observed. All the men were moved by one common impulse—to drive the horses and ponies inwards, and though these frightened creatures often broke the ring that was forming and careered back to the outer downs whence they had been chased, to be pursued again by a host of dogs and men, yet there was observable a rough chain of drivers concentrating towards a point on the Walla, spanned by a bridge under Mistor.

The whole neighbourhood was there—Anthony had come, ashamed to be seen afoot, and yet unwilling not to be there. He saw one of his father's servants on his own horse, and he demanded it; the fellow readily yielded his saddle, and Anthony joyously mounted his favorite roan. Fox Crymes was there with his eye bandaged, and glancing angrily at Anthony out of the one uninjured eye. Old Squire Cleverdon did not come out, he could no longer sit at ease on horseback, and had never been much of a rider. Mr. Solomon Gibbs was out in a soiled purple coat, and with hat and wig—as was his wont—awry. And Urith was there. She could not remain at home on such an occasion as a Drift. Her uncle was not to be trusted to recognise and claim the Willsworthy cobs. He was not to be calculated on. There was a tavern at Merivale Bridge, and there he would probably sit and booze, and leave his colts and mares to take care of themselves. There was no proper hind at the manor, only day-labourers, who were poor riders. Therefore Urith was constrained to attend the Drift herself.

She was the only woman present; Julian Crymes had not come out. When Anthony saw Urith he approached her, but she drew away.

"Why, how now!" shouted Fox. "Whose horse are you riding?"

"My own," answered Anthony, shortly.

"Oh! I am glad to hear it. I understood that you had been bundled out of Hall without any of your belongings; but your father, I suppose, allowed you to ride off on the roan?"

"I will thank you to be silent," said Anthony, angrily.

"Why should I, when even dogs are open-mouthed? And as for Ever and his horn, he is calling everyone to speak in a scream, so as to be heard at all. Were you allowed to take off oats and hay as well?"

Anthony spurred his horse, to be out of ear-shot of his tormentor; but Fox followed him.

"What was it all about?" he asked. "All the country-side is ringing with the news that you and your father are fallen out, and that he has turned you out of doors; but opinions are divided as to the occasion."

"Let them remain divided," answered Anthony, and dug his spurs in so deeply that his horse bounded and dashed away. Fox no longer attempted to keep up with him, but turned to attach himself to Urith. She saw his intention, and drew near to her uncle, who was in conversation with Yeoman Cudlip.

They were now riding through a broad vale or dip between a range of serrated granite heights to the east, and the great trap-rounded pile of Cox Tor crowned with vast masses of cairn piled about the blistered basaltic prongs that shot through the turf at the summit. These cairns were probably used as beacons, for all were depressed in the middle to receive the heaps of fern and wood that were ignited to send a signal far away to the very Atlantic on the north, from a warning given on the coast of the English Channel.

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."

"As you like," answered the yeoman, and continued. "Well, it was thought that the parishes would have to go to law over it, to find out which would have to bury him, but after a deal o' trouble they came to an agreement to bury him where he fell, and three Peter Tavy men threw stones over him on one side, and three Tavistock men threw stones the other; and when the stone was set up the Peter Tavy men went to the expense of cutting one letter, P, and the Tavistock men went to the cost of the other letter, L."

"Come," said Mr. Solomon Gibbs, "we are fallen into the rear."

They pricked on, and descended the slope to the River Walla, that foamed and plunged over a floor of broken granite at some depth below. In the valley, where was the bridge, two or three mountain-ash trees grew; there was an inn and by it a couple of cottages. Here was now a scene of indescribable confusion and noise. The wild, frightened horses and ponies driven together, surrounded on all sides by the drivers, were leaping, plunging over each other, tossing their manes and snorting. The ring had closed about them. Every now and then a man dashed among them, on foot or mounted, when he recognized one of his own creatures, and by force or skill separated it from the rest, shouted to the drivers, who instantly opened a lane, and he drove the scared creature through the lane of men back on to the free wild moor. To effect this demanded daring and skill, and the men rivalled each other in their ability to claim their animals, and extricate them from the midst of the crowd of half-frantic creatures plunging and kicking. Neither Urith nor Solomon Gibbs had any intention of attempting such a dangerous feat, but purposed waiting till all other horses had been claimed, when they would indicate their own creatures, and the good-humoured moor-men of their quarter would discharge them. Accordingly they remained passive observers, and the sight was one full of interest and excitement; for the extrication of the horses claimed was a matter of personal danger, and demanded courage, a quick eye, great resolution, and activity.

Fox Crymes had no intention of venturing within the ring; he was standing on foot near Anthony's horse. Anthony was awaiting his time when he would rush in to the capture of his father's colts. All eyes but those of Urith were riveted on the struggle with the horses. There were some tall men, or men on large horses, between her and the herd of wild creatures, and as she could not well see what went on within the ring, she looked towards Anthony.

She was a little surprised at the conduct of Fox. In the first place, he seemed to be paying no attention to what was engrossing the minds and engaging the eyes of the rest. He held a little back from Anthony, and was striking a light with a flint and a steel which he had taken from his pocket.

What could be his purpose?

Urith was puzzled. Fox was no smoker.

She noticed that he had a piece of amadou under the flint, and the sparks fell on it; it kindled, and Fox enclosed it within his hollowed hand and blew it into a glow.

Then he looked hastily about him, but did not observe Urith. His bandaged eye was towards her, or he must have seen that she was watching him, and watching him with perplexity.

Then he took three steps forward.

Urith uttered a cry of dismay.

Fox had thrust the fragment of burning amadou into the ear of the horse Anthony rode.

[4] See an article on Venville rights on Dartmoor, by W. F. Collier, Esq, in the Devon Association Transactions for 1887.