Simonsbath is the centre of several converging roads, all of them waiting to help the traveller out of Exmoor before he is well in it. A drive from Lynton or some other fairly populous or fashionable resort, followed by a lunch at the Simonsbath Hotel, is many people’s conception of the proper method of “doing” Exmoor; but, while pleasant enough as an excursion, such a mode of exploration permits of only scanty guesses and imperfect glimpses of the inner fastnesses, which seem for the most part far away.

If the excitement of the chase be not too distracting, possibly the best way of acquainting oneself with the country is by following the staghounds; but should that be impracticable, the most useful advice the writer can offer is to follow the watercourses. Any one of these, if patiently traced, will usher the pilgrim into Nature’s mysterious solitudes, which, if he be at all of a contemplative turn of mind, will awaken in him many a pleasant or pensive reverie. In any case, one must get away from the roads, the very excellence of which is evil, as tempting to sloth.

I cannot, however, send forth an innocent person into the wilds without referring to the bogs. Personally, I have a considerable respect for Exmoor bogs, as I have for “they HexËmoor vogs,” which are equally treacherous, and make one wet through as sure and as fast as any rain; nor is it so many years ago that Sheardon Hutch and similar names were sounds of terror in my ears. Familiarity breeds contempt, and therefore those at home in the district—some of them, at all events—are apt to disparage these man-traps, which are not by any means confined to the low lands, but are found on the summits of hills, especially the notorious Chains. In many places black decayed vegetable matter has been accumulating for ages to a depth of several feet, and as the rocks beneath are of the transition class, impervious to water, the rain is retained and saturates the bog-mould. After much wet weather, there are spots that will not bear the weight of a man, let alone a horse, and in riding over the moor, they constitute so real and serious a danger that great care should be exercised to avoid getting into them. Otherwise it may prove an impossible task to extricate the devoted “mount.” There is one consolation—heather will not grow on those deep bogs, and wherever its purple bells show, the ground is safe.

The Exmoor hills are variously configured. Sometimes they take the form of a bold foreland, sometimes of a continuous ridge, sometimes of an isolated cone or orb. A very intelligent moorman reminded me, somewhat superfluously, when I looked in upon him on a September evening, that all the hills have names, and queer names some of them are—e.g., “Tom’s Hill,” “Swap Hill,” “Scob Hill,” etc., etc. The meaning of not a few is anything but plain, but one “termination,” if the phrase be permitted, speaks for itself. I allude to the expression “ball,” which is frequent on Exmoor, and much more likely to be derived from visual impression than any long-descended traditions of Baal, to which a late friend of mine, out of regard for the Phoenicians and their hill-altars, was anxious to assign it. Thus we have Cloutsham Ball (famous as the scene of the opening-meet of the Devon and Somerset Staghounds), Ware Ball, Ricksy Ball, Ferny Ball, and, as a gloss, Round Hill. The intersecting valleys have somewhat the character of huge corridors leading in and out of each other, and the smaller “combes,” running up into the hills, may be likened to stairways of providential appointment, for the Exmoor “sides” are not quite perpendicular. The hill-tops and slopes are dotted with sure-footed Exmoor horned sheep and Cheviots, beautiful long-tailed ponies, and a few red cattle. The grass is of two sorts—a short, close variety found in the drier parts, and tall sedge grass on wet ground, where it grows rankly. Sheep are fond of the former when it comes up green and fresh after the annual “swalings,” which take place in February or March. Exmoor sheep have faces like those of the native deer, being free from wool, while the sharp-pointed nose resembles that of a fox.

Simonsbath village is in a sheltered position on the left bank of the Barle, and, thanks to the care of the late Sir Frederick Knight and his father, it is further protected against the keen winterly gales by ample plantations of fir and other trees. Hence we again mount the hills, this time in the direction of Brendon Two Gates, where the “forest” ends. After a time we gain a point from which a good view is obtained of the Prayway (or Prayaway) Meads. There are no hedges here, and, with the inconsistency of human nature, one misses them. It seems so odd to stand and gaze over a grassy expanse that has never been enclosed, and yet has much the look of ordinary meadow. Through the midst flows the Exe, here quite a baby-stream; we are, indeed, not far from its source. To those who are familiar with its lower reaches, and call to mind the river as it appears (say) at Cowley Bridge, the sight is inexpressibly absurd. The absence of trees and shrubs makes Prayway seem bare and forsaken. The high sloping banks are like deserted ramparts or—but the name may have some influence—the nave of a vast natural cathedral haunted by the ghosts of dead Britons. Continuing our route, we arrive at a gate, inside which is a sort of quarry known as Black Pits. The gate opens into a common, at the other end of which is Brendon Two Gates. The origin of this term has been explained; it may be well to add that at present it is a misnomer.

We now for the first time catch sight of Bagworthy, lying over on the right, and Bagworthy, as the reader may happen to remember, was, or has been imputed to be, the stronghold of the savage Doones. This is, in a sense, the parting of the ways. The traveller may either quit the beaten track for the carpet of sward in quest of a shepherd’s cot, whence he may easily proceed to the traditional site of Doone Castle and down the Doone valley, along the Bagworthy Water, to Malmsmead, where the Bagworthy water unites with the East Lyn, and so by Cosgate or Brendon to Lynton; or he may stick to the road, which will take him by a shorter cut to the same destination, by Farley and Cheriton and the aforesaid Scob Hill. It may be that, like the mythical churchmen of old, when asked to state which see he preferred—Bath or Wells—the latter-day pilgrim may elect for “both.” I will assume, however, that his immediate objective is the famous valley, and that, once there, he will pursue without faltering the longest way round.

Technically we are no longer on Exmoor. Bagworthy, Badgworthy, or Badgery—all are permissible forms—is in the parish of Brendon and the county of Devon. In ancient times the wood is said to have covered a much greater area, and a century ago some of the older shepherds could point out its former limits. Within their recollection and since their time, its dimensions steadily contracted, until the disappointment with the valley, to which visitors so often and freely own, became explicable.

Now it must be admitted that in Lorna Doone there is a large spice of exaggeration, and this quality is naturally reflected in the illustrations with which the goodlier editions are adorned. Such deviations from the literal have brought it to pass that nowhere is Blackmore in so little esteem as among the hills he pictured so lovingly. Even the humble writer of the present volume probably enjoys on Exmoor a greater measure of esteem as a more trustworthy historian of the neighbourhood. But, sensible people will agree, the writer of a romance must be in a large measure a law unto himself, and he is under not the least obligation to consult the feelings of plain folk incapable of sharing his flights of imagination. It is a question of the light “borrowed from the youthful poet’s dream,” and I am inclined to apply the phrase in a somewhat distinct and definite sense. A romance—this romance in particular—may be regarded as a fairy-tale raised to a higher plane of evolution, and Blackmore seems to have possessed the godlike faculty of reflecting in his pages the shining images of his boyish fantasy, when, to copy Kingsley, every goose was a swan and every lass a queen. On this point I shall say no more, but return forthwith to the matter-of-fact. This includes the deep pool and the waterslide, but the reality of Doone Castle, or its remains, cannot for various reasons be taken for granted.

The first printed notice regarding these malefactors occurs in Mr Cooper’s Guide to Lynton, published in 1851, and runs as follows:—

“The ruins of a village long forsaken and deserted stand in an adjacent valley, which, before the destruction of the timber, must have been a spot exactly suited to the wants of the wild inhabitants. Tradition relates that it consisted of eleven cottages, and that here the ‘Doones’ took up their residence, being the terror of the country for many miles round. For a long time they were in the habit of escaping with their booty across the wild hills of Exmoor to Bagworthy, where few thought it safe or even practicable to follow them. They were not natives of this part of the country, but having been disturbed by the Revolution from their homes, suddenly entered Devonshire and erected the village alluded to. It was known from the first to the inhabitants of the neighbouring villages that this village was erected and inhabited by robbers, but the fear which their deeds inspired in the minds of the peasants prevented them from attacking and destroying it. The idea is prevalent that before their leaving home they had been men of distinction, and not common peasants. The site of a house may still be seen on a part of the forest called the Warren, which is said to have belonged to a person called ‘the Squire,’ who was robbed and murdered by the Doones.

“A farmhouse called Yenworthy, lying just above Glenthorne, on the left of the Lynton and Porlock road, was beset by them one night; but a woman firing on them from one of the windows with a long duck-gun, they retreated, and blood was tracked the next morning for several miles in the direction of Bagworthy. The gun was found at Yenworthy, and was purchased by the Rev. W. S. Halliday. They entered and robbed a house at Exford in the evening before dark, and found there only a child, whom they murdered. A woman servant who was concealed in an oven, is said to have heard them say to the unfortunate infant the following barbarous couplet:

“It was for this murder that the whole country rose in arms against them, and going to their abode in great haste and force, succeeded in taking into custody the whole gang, who soon after met with the punishment due to their crimes.”

This excerpt represents the legend of the Doones which Blackmore inherited, and which it is absurd to designate as his invention. What he did was to add colour and definition to an already existing, though faded, tradition. How much of the substructure of Lorna Doone is due to his imaginative genius, is a fascinating problem, which, it is to be feared, it is beyond the wit of man to solve satisfactorily. In the above quotation, for instance, no mention occurs of the heroine, but it does not follow that she found no place in the local tales, and Blackmore, quite as good an authority as the writer of the guide, and on this particular subject even better, expressly affirms the contrary.

As to the time of the Doones, Mr Cooper, it will be noticed, says “after the Revolution.” This is altogether opposed to Blackmore’s account, which sets back their advent to a date long anterior to 1688. Mr Edwin J. Rawle, whose valuable Annals of the Royal Forest of Exmoor entitles him to a very respectful hearing, is absolute in rejecting any historical basis for the tradition, the mere existence of which he tardily acknowledges. Mr Rawle’s theory is that “Doone” really stands for “Dane,” the sea-wolves in the olden times having harried the neighbourhood pretty severely. I do not know what philologers may say of this suggestion, but the vagaries of the local dialect suggest a far more plausible explanation. In the romance John Fry speaks of his “goon,” meaning his “gun.” Now “Dunn” is a fairly common patronymic in the West Country, and I am informed that the natives formerly pronounced the vowel in an indeterminate manner consistent with either spelling.

Blackmore, however, evidently regarded the name as identical with the Scottish “Doune,” and his assertion of a high North British pedigree for the robbers has been wonderfully seconded of late by the publication of Miss Ida Browne’s Short History of the Original Doones, which, if correct in every particular, proves amongst other things how extremely imperfect and untrustworthy are many of the records on which the scrupulous historian is wont to rely. Mr Rawle will not have that it is correct, and her pleasant and plausible narrative is the object of a fierce onslaught in his brochure, The Doones of Exmoor. Personally, I have always favoured the notion that the rogues were a similar set to the Gubbinses and Cheritons, little communities of moorland savages, and that their rascalities, handed down from generation to generation, were magnified and distorted in every re-telling. This solution has the advantage of being easily reconciled with Mr Rawle’s demand for authentic evidence of their monstrous doings and Blackmore’s and Miss Ida’s Browne’s insistence on their Scottish nationality. To me, however, it seems like beating the air to attempt any final settlement of the question on our present information, and if I again refer to the lady’s booklet—already I have given the substance of it in my Book of Exmoor—it is not so much from the belief that it casts any certain light on the actuality of the Exmoor marauders as on account of the possibility—which she notes—that Blackmore by some means obtained access to the evidence now in her possession.

This consists of a manuscript entitled “The Lineage and History of our Family, from 1561 to the Present Day,” compiled by Charles Doone of Braemar, 1804; the Journal of Rupert Doone, 1748; oral information, and certain family heirlooms. Assuming these to be genuine, there is obviously much likelihood, in view of the numerous points in common, that Blackmore succeeded in getting hold of the written testimony of the later Doones; and, indeed, the circumstance may have been the factor which led him to elaborate the romance on a scale transcending that of his other stories, since he must have realised that here he had struck an entirely original vein of historical fiction.

Before quitting this part of the subject, it is desirable to present the views of the Rev. J. F. Chanter, who has given much attention to the problem, and whose long and intimate acquaintance with the district invests his opinions with exceptional importance. In a letter received from him, he remarks:—

“I may say that, as far as I am concerned, I accept as genuine the main facts of Miss Browne’s story, but not its details, i.e., the relationship between Sir Ensor and Lord Moray, or even Sir Ensor being a knight. The title ‘Sir’ was given at that date to many who were neither knights nor baronets, e.g., the clergy always; and as I find in rural districts, even to this day, a lady of the manor is spoken of, and written to, as Lady so-and-so. Mr Rawle’s criticism is entirely negative; his position seems to be this:—Miss Browne’s paper states that Sir Ensor was twin brother of Lord Moray. Now Lord Moray had no twin brother; therefore the whole claim falls to the ground.”

To this I answer:

“1. If the claim of Charles Doone of Braemar, as to the ancestry of his family, is wrong, it is absurd to say he had no ancestors. We are all apt to claim as ancestors people who were not really so, and many of the published pedigrees do this, claiming as ancestors some of the same name, though there is no evidence of the link.

“2. The peerage is no evidence that Lord Moray had not other brothers, though not twins. There is, for instance, evidence that Lord Moray had a brother mentioned in no peerage I ever saw, one John Stuart who was executed for murder in 1609.

“3. There may have been merely a tribal connection between the Doones of Bagworthy and the Stewarts of Doune, and a tribal feud caused them to fly to a remote spot; and they were recalled on a later Lord Moray wanting every help when he fell from Royal favour.

“Be this as it may, Miss Browne’s story fits in so wonderfully with Blackmore’s romance that I cannot conceive he had not heard of it. This I can vouch for—Miss Browne did not invent it.

“Now as to Miss Browne’s documentary evidence, I had the original of Charles Doone’s family history, and it was undoubtedly a genuine document of the age it purported to be. I made a full copy of it. Of other documents I only saw copies. The originals she stated to be in the possession of a cousin in Scotland, and promised to get them for me as soon as she could. I have, however, not seen them as yet. The relics also seem to me genuine.”

It must not be supposed that these were Blackmore’s only sources of information—they deal in the main with merely one side of the story. Other material, both written and oral, was available on the spot. Mr Chanter observes on this point: “I myself can perfectly recall that, when I first went to a boarding-school in 1863, there was a boy there from the Exmoor neighbourhood who used to relate at night in the dormitories blood-curdling stories of the Doones.” That boy, it is interesting to know, is still alive. At any rate, he was alive in July 1903, when he addressed to the Daily Chronicle the following letter in answer to a sceptical effusion from a correspondent signing himself “West Somerset.” “‘West Somerset’ could never have known Exmoor half so intimately as was the case with myself during my boyhood, youth, and early manhood, or he must have heard of the Doones. During the ‘fifties’ and ‘sixties’ of last century I lived on Exmoor, knew it thoroughly, and rarely missed a meet of the staghounds. The stories or legends of the Doones were perfectly familiar to me. They varied much, but the germs of the great romance were so well known and remembered by me that when it was issued, one of its many charms was the tracing of the writer’s embroidery of the current tales. I have hardly been in the district since 1868, but my memory is sufficiently good to remember the names of several from whom I heard the traditional annals. Among them were John Perry, the old ‘wanter’ or mole-catcher of Luccombe; Larkham, the one-armed gamekeeper of Sir Thomas Acland, and above all, Blackmore, the harbourer of the deer.[15] The name of another old man, who allowed me on two occasions to take down Doone stories at the inn at Brendon, has escaped me. So familiar were these stories to me when I was a boy that I used to retail them with curdling embellishments of my own in the dormitory of a West-country boarding-school. The result of this was that a room-mate of mine, either just before or just after he went to Oxford, wove my yarns (he had not himself then ever visited Exmoor) into a story, which he called ‘The Doones of Exmoor.’ This tale was eventually published in some half-dozen consecutive numbers of the Leisure Hour. My copy of it has long been lost, but I remember that, though it was delayed some time by the editor, it appeared three or four years before Lorna Doone. Moreover, I had a letter from Mr R. D. Blackmore, soon after his immortal work was issued, wherein he acknowledged that it was the accidental glancing at the poor stuff in the Leisure Hour that gave him the clue for the weaving of the romance, and caused him to study the details on the spot. I have never been across Exmoor since Lorna Doone was published, but I am sure that I could at once find my way either on foot or horseback to the very place that I knew so well as the stronghold of the Doones, either from the Porlock or the Lynton side.”

I am permitted to quote also a passage from a private letter of Miss Gratiana Chanter (now Mrs Longworth Knocker), author of Wanderings in North Devon, who is a firm believer in the Doones.

“I wish you could have a talk with old John Bate of Tippacott [he is dead]; he gave me a most exciting description one day of how the Doones first ‘coomed in over.’ No dates, of course; you never get them. He said there was a farmhouse in the Doone Valley where an old farmer lived with his maidservant. ’Twas one terrible snowy night when the Doones first ‘coomed.’ They came to the house and turned the farmer and his maid out into the black night. Both were found dead—one at the withy bank and the other somewhere else. He said, ‘They say, Miss, they was honest folk in the North, but they took to thieving wonderful quick.’

“Bate, and one John Lethaby, a mason, were both at work at the building of the shepherd’s cot in the Doone Valley, and had tales of an underground passage they found that fell in, and that they took a lot of stones from the huts for the shepherd’s cot.”

To return to Mr Chanter, we learn that, even before those nightly entertainments in the dormitory, he had read about the Doones in an old manuscript belonging to his father, and he adds that there were to be found at that period in North Devon several such manuscripts, which, he thinks, had a common origin, and might be traced to the tales of old people living in and around Lynton seventy or eighty years ago. In range of information and power of memory none might compare with a reputed witch, one Ursula Johnson, who, though now practically forgotten, can be proved from the parish register to have been born a Babb in 1738—not forty years after the exeunt of the Doones. The family of Babb were servants to Wichehalses, and one may recall the circumstance that in chapter lxx. of Lorna Doone John Babb is represented as shooting and capturing Major Wade. Ursula was not so ignorant as many of her gossips, and upon her marriage to Richard Johnson, a “sojourner,” could sign her name—a feat of which the bridegroom was incapable. Her long life reached its termination in 1826, when she was, so to speak, within sight of ninety.

Seven years later a locally well-remembered vicar, the Rev. Matthew Murdy, came to Lynton, and being keenly interested in the old lady’s stories, began a collection of them. Subsequently two friends of his, Dr and Miss Cowell, entered into his labours by “pumping” Ursula Fry, a native of Pinkworthy on Exmoor, and Aggie Norman. Both were tough old creatures, the former dying in 1856, at the age of ninety, and the latter in 1860, when she was eighty-three. In Mrs Norman, who passed a good deal of her time in a hut built by her husband on the top of the Castle Rock, in the Valley of

Rocks, Lynton, Mr Chanter identifies the original Mother Meldrum.

Mr Mundy reduced the tales to something like literary shape, and they were then transcribed by the older girls in the National School, whose mistress, Miss Spurrier, saw that the copies were properly executed. An old lady residing at Lynton possesses one of the documents, dated 1848, of which the contents include a description of the neighbourhood, reference to Ursula Johnson, and three “legends”: those of De Wichehalse, the Doones of Bagworthy, and Faggus and his Strawberry Horse. In the Western Antiquary of 1884, part xi., may be found an excellent account of the manuscript by the late Mr J. R. Chanter, who quotes the following observations by the editor:—

“The recent introduction of candles into the cottages of the neighbouring poor has tended greatly to produce the most lamentable decay of legendary lore: the old housewife, crouching over the smouldering turf, no longer enlivens the tedious winter evening with well-remembered tales of the desperate deeds of the outlaws or the wonders wrought by the witches or wisemen, and many of the curious legends are in danger of being consigned to utter oblivion, unless immediately collected from the old peasants, who are falling fast: their children being by far too much engrossed by the Jacobin publications of the day, to pay any attention to these memorials of the days of yore. From these causes much has already been lost.”

That R. D. Blackmore obtained a sight of one of these MSS. is, on the face of it, extremely probable, but for certain elements of the story he might well have been indebted to his grandfather, the Rector of Oare. Such are the account of the great frost, the mining and wrestling incidents, and the tales of the Doones, in chapters v. and lxix., which the notes pronounce to be authentic, and which differ from other versions.

I come now to the facts of the Wade episode mentioned in chapter lxx. of Lorna Doone. In this same parish of Brendon is a hamlet called Bridgeball, and on a hill just above the hamlet is Farley farm, where a comparatively new house occupies the site of an older structure pulled down in 1853. It was on this farm that Major Wade, one of the leaders in the Monmouth Rebellion, was captured after the battle of Sedgemoor. Driven ashore in an attempt to escape down the Channel, he succeeded in concealing himself for several days among the rocks at Illford Bridges, and made a confidante of the wife of a little farmer named How, who lived at Bridgeball in a house of which he was the owner, while the field behind it and a portion of land near the present parsonage were also his property. The good woman provided him with food so long as he continued in his rocky hiding-place, and interceded for him with a farmer at Farley named Birch, who consented to harbour him for a time. Situated on the verge of Exmoor, no refuge could have appeared more secure than this isolated spot, but the event proved that Wade might have been as safe, or safer, in a great and populous centre. To his credit it must be recorded that, after obtaining his pardon, the gallant gentleman did not forget his benefactress, on whom he settled an annuity. The particulars of his capture have been preserved in the Lansdowne MS., No. 1152, which contains the following rather dramatic reports:—

“To the Right Hon. the Earl of Sunderland, Principal Secretary of State.

“To the Honourable Sir Bourchier Wrey, K^t. and Bart., in London.

The addressee was Sir Bourchier Wrey, of Tawstock, Bart., son of another Sir Bourchier, and grandson of Sir Chichester Wrey, who married Ann, youngest daughter of Edward Bourchier, Earl of Bath.

Bagworthy and Farley are both in the parish of Brendon, but we must not forget that, as regards bodily presence, we are still in the Doone valley, and not far from Oare, where, according to Rupert Doone’s Diary, his ancestors, on quitting Scotland in 1627, first fixed their residence. They then removed to the upper part of the Lyn valley, on an estate bounded on one side by Oare and on the other by Bagworthy. The Doone valley, which used to be called Hoccombe, is a glen lying between Bagworthy Lees and Bagworthy, and Mr Chanter expresses the belief that this name and that of “Lorna’s Bower” were first applied to the small sidecombes by his cousins, the Misses Chanter, soon after the publication of Lorna Doone. Ruins of the traditional “Castle,” rectangular in form, are still to be traced, and consist of two groups. Unfortunately, stones were taken from them to build an adjoining wall, and now it is impossible to state the character of the buildings, some of which were probably houses, and others cattle-sheds. Miss Browne, indeed, is of opinion that they were all of the latter description, and that the real home of the Doones was in the Weir Water valley, between Oareford and the rise of the East Lyn. So far as Hoccombe is concerned, Blackmore has idealised it with a vengeance. The “sheer cliffs standing around,” the “steep and gliddening stairway,” the rocky cleft or “Doone-gate,” the “gnarled roots,” are all purely imaginary. As regards “Doone track” or “Doones’ path,” it directly faces the valley, and after crossing the Bagworthy Water, ascends the Deer Park and Oare Common, and so to Oare. Being covered with grass or hidden by heather and scrub, it is not easy to follow, but viewed at a little distance it presents the appearance of a broad terraced roadway, not improbably Roman, and connecting Showlsborough Castle, near Challacombe, with the coast. The site of the house where the “Squire” was robbed and murdered by the Doones is still visible in the part of the forest known as the Warren (Lorna Doone, chapter lxxii.).

Exmoor was once a paradise of yeomen, thrifty sons of the soil, who owned their own farms. They consisted of two classes: those who did the work themselves, with the assistance of their family and jobbing workmen, to whom they paid good wages; and the owners of large farms, where labourers were constantly employed at a shilling a day. The former sort is entirely extinct. Many of their descendants have been merged in the mass of common labourers; a few have risen to the rank of large farmers; others have emigrated.

The more substantial class of yeomen is still represented in the district. The late Mr W. L. Chorley, Master of the Quarme Harriers, was an excellent specimen of the order, but the most relevant example is that of the Snows, whom Blackmore treats somewhat unfairly. The family may not have been rich in what Counsellor Doone described as the “great element of blood,” but a genuine yeoman of the type in question would hardly have been dubbed “Farmer Snowe,” and he certainly would not have perpetrated such an awful lapse as “pralimbinaries.” I have been informed by a correspondent that Blackmore apologised to the family for his painful caricature, which was only just, in view of their actual status and the esteem in which they are held by their neighbours. About the year 1678, two-fifths of the manor of Oare belonged to the family of Spurrier, and passed by marriage at the beginning of the eighteenth century into the possession of Mr Nicholas Snow, who left it to a son of his own name. The latter, in 1788, purchased the other three-fifths, and, at his death in 1791, bequeathed the manor to his youngest son, John Snow, who died without issue, leaving the property to his nephew, Nicholas Snow—the “Farmer Snowe” of Lorna Doone.

It will be noticed that the Snows did not become landowners at Oare until long after the period of the story. As for the Ridds, or Reds, the only mention of the name in the parish register occurs in the year 1768, when John Red was married to Mary Ley. The real Plover’s Barrows was Broomstreet Farm, in the neighbouring parish of Culbone; at any rate, a John Ridd was resident there. A John Fry, no mere farm-servant, was churchwarden of Countisbury, of which Jasper Kebby was likewise a parishioner. Plover’s Barrows has been identified by Mr Page with Mr Snow’s residence—“according to Blackmore, anciently the farm of the Ridds.” But in Lorna Doone (chapter vii.) the two farms are represented as adjoining, and Plover’s Barrows is evidently further upstream (see Lorna Doone, chapter xiv.: “In the evening Farmer Snowe came up.”) The same writer speaks of the Snows as having been seated at Oare since the time of Alfred. Can Mr Page be thinking of John Ridd’s boast to King Charles (Lorna Doone, chapter lxviii.)?

Oare Church, where the elder Ridd lay buried, where his son stole the lead from the porch to his subsequent shame, and where the brute Carver shot Lorna on her bridal morn, has received an addition in the shape of the chancel

since the last disastrous event—which, as things are, rather falsifies the narrative. Graced with ash and sycamore, the little cemetery is as Blackmore describes it, “as meek a place as need be.”