Hartland forest : a legend of north Devon

Front matter

A LEGEND

OF

NORTH DEVON.

CHAPTER I. He that with injury is grieved

And goes to law to be relieved,

Is sillier than a sottish chouse,

Who, when a thief has robb’d his house,

Applies himself to cunning men,

To help him to his goods again.

Butler's ‘ Hudibras. ’

Old Sir Thomas Fairland, of Northleigh Hall, near Exeter, in the county of Devon, and his neighbour, both in land and residence, old Squire Goldburn,

of Southmead House, disputed, quarrelled, and went

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to law about a hedge, a gate, and a cartway between their estates, which, unhappily for themselves, and

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most happily for the gentlemen of the profession, attorneys, solicitors, and barristers, were contiguous, o' The contact, like many a one of a much higher nature, was too close for peace ; and after more than seven years’ disputation, removals from sessions to sessions and court to court, after contesting every point and splitting every straw of the contest with the most delicate tact of quibble, shift, and quirk, after some hundreds spent on both sides, with, at the end of the time, just as near an approach to the termination of the cause as there was at the beginning, the principals began to weary of that most tedious of all wars — a war of the gown instead of the sword.

Whilst both were thus heartily sick of John Doe and Richard Roe and all the costly fictions of the law, fortune did them a good turn ; she sent them a journey to London together in the same rumbling vehicle, at the time of which we write (a.D. 1720) one of the earliest and oldest stage-coaches in England. It was nothing less than one of a celebrated set which were thus described and advertised in ‘ The Evening Post ’ of the period : —

‘ London, Bath, and Bristol stage-coaches performed by Thomas Baldwin, citizen and cooper of London, living now at the Crown Inn, at Slough, near Windsor, being the Bowling

Green House; goes from the Saracen's Head in Friday Street, and from the One Bell Inn behind the New Church near the Maypole in the Strand, and Mr. John Tillies in Swan Yard at the Coach and Horses over against Somerset House, for the White Hart Inn near the Town’s End in Bristol, and at the White Hart Inn near the King’s Bath in Bath, for London; and for the better accommodation and conveniency for travellers to and from the places above said, on Monday the 28th instant April 1720, begins FLYING from the above said places every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday during the FLYING SEASON, which is a performance never before done. Likewise a THREE DAYS’ COACH. Note the same coachman goes through to Bath and from Bath to London.’*

The above-named worthies set off together on the same day, and in the same coach, which, notwithstanding all its boasted rapidity, did not get on quite so fast as the speed of a modern railway. Sir Thomas Fairland and old Squire Goldburn, after arranging their legs with much courtesy so as to sit without inconvenience opposite to each other, somehow or other conceived the bright idea that, as neither of them needed their attorney to settle

Copied from the original advertisement.

their amicable adjustment of a footing in the stagecoach, even so might they manage to settle their other difficulty without further interference on the part of the gentlemen of the long robe and still longer bills.

Sir Thomas, who was a bit of a humorist, at least so considered at the Bowling Green Club, said something to that effect to his neighbour Goldburn. As the latter worthy answered, with an encouraging allusion to the old fable (and thus used by him it was a gracious simile), that whilst two dogs were quarrelling for a bone, a mongrel intruder often managed to step in and run away with it, their friendly intercourse improved more rapidly than did the pace of the flying coach ; and that day, when they dined together on the road (ample time was then given for such a refection to the traveller), over a social bowl of punch they positively once and for ever made up the dispute. The following were the terms of agreement, viz., that as Sir Thomas Fairland had an only child, a son, and Squire Goldburn an only child, a daughter, these children should inter-

A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON.

marry, and thus, by a union of interests, make one hereafter of their estates, and so settle all difficulties.

The thing was decided ; they shook hands upon it over an extra bowl of punch ; and old Mr. Goldburn undertook to have his daughter Sarah home from school, and Sir Thomas Fairland promised to write forthwith to his son John, who was at Oxford, to bid him come down into the country with all speed. The lawyers were to be relieved of their present labours and to have a pleasanter job for all parties given them, though a far less profitable one for themselves, in drawing the marriage articles for a speedy wedding. Sir Thomas fulfilled his promise in the following epistle, which for the benefit of such of our readers as may be desirous to inspect documents of this description, we give just as it came into our own hands.

To Mr. John Fairland, Batchelor of Arts, Exon College, Oxford ’

Son John, — I have yours of the 25th instant, which is soe hastely wrote, soe full of blots and blurrs, that I could hardly read it Had I not formerly received from you some of the same complexion, I should have believed it writ by a school boy rather than by a Univarsity scholar and a Batchelor of Arts ; and that not to a father, but to the most ignorant of inferiors. The reasun of my not answering your former letter and sending you a bill, is your neglecting to give me a full and partickler account how you have disposed of the Thirty-seven pounds three shillings and sixpence which I have supplied you with since the ioth day of Febuarry last, which methinks you should have thought yourself obliged for to do in point both of duty and interest. Thirty-seven pounds three shillings and sixpence out of my pocket in four months time I find to be a very greate sum of money, and what I am a long time a getting together; and lastly, it is but reasunable I should know how it has been applied. Not only you, but many other things — such as making the new cart roade, my law suits, and the new pound at Goose Green — have been very expensive, and tenants don’t pay and farms don’t lett as they yused to do ; and oats and Hay are rose high since Christmas; and my law bills have come iii heavy. But I have hit upon a way to put a stop to them. For Squire Goldburn and I, happening to travil together in the Flying Coach, settled the matter between us, which will be a greate saveing of time and money to both parties — pitty we didn’t think of it before; but better late than never is an old and a true saying. And I must say Squire Goldburn behaved neighbourly and like a man of sense, who saw his own interest when clearly put before him. Soe we agreed to end law and make a match of it, and by uniting the estates hereafter in proper settlements to put an end to all difficulty about the subject of our disputes.

I am to pull down the hedge, he consents to give up the gate, and the old cart way is to be common between us both ; I to be allowed the expence incurred in cutting the new one.

You must come home as soon as you can on receipt of this to be married. Noland is drawing the settlements. You may order wedden clothes and new liveries, if you like it, in London ; for I’ve my reasuns for not wishing to be shabby on the occasion. Don't forget to jog Simmon's memory about my South Sea stock. Tell Jenkins, if you see him (and he goes up with cattle to Smithfield Fair at this time every year), to send me down the sides of Hampshire bacon as yusual.

You may buy the wedden ring at Wergman’s in St. James's Street, and any jim crack you may think proper on the occasion for Miss, not to exceed five pounds for the cost of the same. Say when you'll come. I do herewith inclose a bill for fifty pounds, though I was angry with you, as just cause was, when I begunn this letter. Soe no more at present from your father,

Thqs. Fairland.

Northleigh Hall, ended this June 1st, 172 0.

The above elegant and fatherly epistle was duly sealed and sent ; and about three weeks after, by the then weekly post, Sir Thomas received the following affectionate and dutiful reply from his son : —

-M

To Sir Thomas Fair land , Bart ., these .

Exeter College, Oxon.

Dear Father, — Many thanks for the Bill; it would, however, have been more worth saying thank you for, if another of the same amount had come along with it. I have no great fancy for marrying ; but I’ll do it to oblige you. I never saw old Goldburn’s daughter. Hope she’s pretty and has some spirit in her. Can she dance, sit a horse well, and leap a gate i But never mind that ; if she has money, the thing will do very well. That’s what we want in the matter. How black the lawyers will look when they find that you and old Goldburn have made it up. I should like to have enjoyed the fun of telling them the news; that would have been a nut worth cracking. I’ll do all in London as you wish, and will only stay there to see the new play at Lincoln’s Inn Fields — The City Wife — and the great Bear bait about to take place in Tothill fields, and will then come down and be married as soon as you like.

Dear Father,

Your dutiful son,

John Fairland.

We thought it right to give our readers copies of the above epistles, as they are highly characteristic of

A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON.

both father and son. All was prepared as directed, and in the month of July following on one fine

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morning early, there was a great stir and bustle at Southmead House. Tables groaned with the preparations for a grand dinner ; friends were arriving from far and near ; tenants were collecting, and the poor were astir ; they were to have a feast. All the fiddles the country round could produce were engaged for a ball in the evening ; and there were to be bride-cakes, and scrambling for the wedding ring in a pail of water, and throwing the stocking, and all the other old English customs on the marriage of Miss Sarah Goldburn with Mr. John Fairland, as agreed upon between their worthy fathers.

It was said that the settlements were duly prepared, and were to have been signed ere the parties set out for church. All this was said ; but whether truly or falsely we cannot at this distance of time possibly determine. Certain it is that one settlement took place on that day which, though final,, was little expected, and least of all by the party most concerned in it. This arose from the sudden presence of a guest by no means welcome, who stepped in uninvited and without more ceremony turned the house of intended joy into one of mourning ; exactly reversing what Hamlet says to Horatio, when he declares that the baked meats of his father’s funeral did coldly furnish forth his mother’s marriage board. For here the good cheer, roast or baked, prepared for the marriage feast, did indeed serve for a funeral one, and for that of no less a person than he at whose cost it had been so amply prepared. To drop all figure, the fact was this : old Mr. Goldburn was found dead in his bed on the very morning he had intended to give away his only daughter in the proposed union with the son of Sir Thomas Fairland.

It is almost unnecessary to say that the wedding could not take place ; and during the time appropriated for that mourning which natural affection, decency, and the settlement of the old gentleman’s affairs required, some very strange and, as they eventually turned out, very unfortunate circumstances occurred.

Mr. Goldburn had made his will some years before he had any thoughts of marrying his daughter, and ii in it, with the exception of a handsome life annuity to his wife, left his only child Sarah sole heiress to all his property, real and personal, and committed her to the hands of a very worthy upright man, Mr. Sheriff (a well-known lawyer in the west of England), as her guardian.

Mr. Sheriff found Mr. Goldburn’s affairs not quite so easily settled as he had at first imagined they would be. There were no incumbrances, but time was required to put many matters to rights ; and circumstances had lately come to his knowledge in the course of his legal practice which had given him a very complete insight into the concerns of Sir Thomas Fairland. He was convinced that the old baronet’s affairs were in a bad plight ; that he had completely deceived the late Squire Goldburn ; and that his son, who passed with the world for being only wild and thoughtless, was, in fact, very cunning, and a party concerned in the knavish designs of the father. In short, that both father and son had formed a plot to possess themselves, as far as they could do so, of Miss Goldburn’s fortune, in order to clear their own embarrassed estates.

Like an honest man and a faithful guardian, Mr. Sheriff did all he could to delay the marriage (to break it off was, of course, out of his power) till he could effect the following object — namely, to put the deceased Mr. Goldburn’s affairs in such a state as that the marriage articles should secure the immense fortune of Miss Sarah Goldburn, both in land and money, to her and to her children, or, failing issue, to the Goldburn family hereafter ; giving the husband (whose motives in seeking her hand were those of the most sordid nature) only a lifeinterest in her property. To effect these most meritorious objects Mr. Sheriff set hard to work ; but in the interval some very annoying circumstances occurred.

Unhappily, the widow of old Mr. Goldburn and mother of Sarah happened to be of the house of Fairland. In fact, she had been a Miss Fairland, and was a younger sister, on the father's side, of Sir Thomas. She, like himself, was born at Northleigh Hall ; and all her thoughts, feelings, and family pride were centred in the grandeur of the residence, and in the name of Fairland. Her husband, the late Mr. Goldburn, though of very respectable and wealthy parentage, had nevertheless sprung from trade and commerce ; hence she held him and his connections very cheap, and on all occasions was ready to sacrifice his interests to those of her own more aristocratic family. She was not without kindness of heart and good intention ; but she was a very weak woman — deficient in knowledge of human nature, of strong prejudices, and wholly unsuspicious of the villany and knavery of half mankind. With such a character to work upon, her half-brother and his son were able to defeat the prudent and upright plans of Mr. Sheriff, and to make her the instrument of injuring her own daughter.

They first persuaded her that the young lady’s guardian, being a lawyer, never intended to settle the late Mr. Goldburn’s affairs, but, by one delay and another, to keep them in his own hands, for his own benefit. Unhappily, they said, by the great power given him by her late husband’s will, he could very easily do so, to the serious prejudice or utter destruction of the young lady’s fortune. Almost any steps, they argued, were therefore warrantable to counteract him in such designs. In fine, so artfully did they prevail with the weak and credulous mother, that she actually joined with young Fairland in persuading her daughter to marry him without her guardian’s consent — and this she did only a few days after she came of age !

This act of folly done (before Mr. Sheriff could interfere in any way to protect the cruelly deceived young woman, who thus married without any marriage articles), on the very day after the ceremony Sarah had a deed laid before her which she was directed to sign, being told by her husband and his father it was absolutely necessary in order to enable them to take immediate steps in her behalf, and rescue her property from the rapacious hands of her guardian. In an evil hour poor Sarah complied. The Deed was one of surrender or gift of all her real estates to the husband she had just wedded ; and, as no personal property was secured to her, all the rest became likewise his own in right of his marriage.

A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON.

Thus, then, the heiress of old Mr. Goldburn, who was the mistress of thousands on the morning she gave her hand at the altar, before the close of the following day became completely dependent on an unprincipled, extravagant, selfish husband, who had used the advantages of a remarkably handsome person and a specious manner to win himself into her favour, and repaid the unlimited confidence this amiable young creature had been led to repose in him by an act of the most ungrateful deliberate villany to her and to her offspring yet unborn. Her mother lived deeply to repent the folly into which she had been drawn, and to know, too late, the honour, probity, and prudence of her daughter’s mistrusted and ill-used guardian.

Having narrated these circumstances at large, we shall pass in silence much that is painful, and briefly recount the events of several ensuing years. The marriage so iniquitously brought about proved an unhappy one to both parties. The husband was dissatisfied and tyrannical, for he plainly saw that he did not long retain a place in the affeci6 tions of his wife. That wife was at once suffering and patient. Three daughters, Nancy, Diana, and Patty, were the fruit of the marriage. Their father hated them all, and wished for a son ; yet from no motive of tenderness, only because a man of an old family with a good estate ought to have a son ; it was usual, a thing looked for, and it ought to be.

The least remarkable events, and, indeed, the least painful, because they were not contrary to nature, that we have to record during this period, are the deaths of the mother of the unhappy wife and of old Sir Thomas Fairland. After a long and very suffering illness, the latter at last died suddenly, even whilst giving instructions to his son how to get the highest interest from a widow surrounded with a numerous offspring, whose necessities had driven her to have recourse to the ruinous system of mortgaging in order to meet some pressing claims on account of her late husband’s debts.

His son dutifully attended his death-bed, and reverently observed his father’s instructions, particularly those about the mortgage. He saw the old gentle-

A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON.

man breathe his last ; and his man-servant, Tom Wakeum, who stood behind him, said very civilly, as he turned away from the corpse, ‘ Sir, you are now Sir John Fairland ; but, nevertheless, I’m sorry for you, sir, that old master is gone. And, dear me! to think that he should die just before Lady-day ! He was always asking, in his illness, how soon it would come ; thinking, no doubt, of the rents and the tenants. I’m sorry for you, sir, that your father is gone.’

‘ And yet, Tom,’ said the new baronet, with solemn composure, ‘you know the saying: It is better to have a fat sorrow than a lean one. All the Fairland property comes clear now since my marriage. Send for Shroud, the undertaker, and let every possible respect be paid to my father’s memory in the funeral. Bury in lead, Tom; hearse, horses, escutcheons, and black plumes.’

So saying, the son closed the bed-curtains on the dead, and retired to his deceased father’s closet. What were his contemplations there on the late scene nobody knew. But the nurse who passed the C i8 door, hearing a slight noise within the room, and being very curious, listened at the keyhole, and said that she heard distinctly a rumpling like the turning over of parchments and papers.

A few days after, a pompous funeral train bore the mortal remains of old Sir Thomas Fairland to their last resting-place in the parish church. A still more pompous epitaph, engraved on an enormous slab of white marble, standing more than fifteen feet high, on the walls of the church, with a full-cheeked cherub at each corner, blowing a trumpet, recorded his birth, his ancient family, and all his grand connections ; his having served twice in Parliament and once as sheriff of the county ; his many virtues, real and imaginary, were not forgotten ; his strict integrity was set forth ; and, as a last item of the account, the tablet stated he had been a liberal benefactor to the poor. This was a mistake ; it should have said to the lawyers.

We have before stated that Sarah (whom we must henceforth call Lady Fairland) was not happy in her married life. As time glided on, experience taught

A LEGEND OF NORTH DEVON.

*9 her to reflect justly on the past. She was scarcely surprised at the melancholy result of the connection she had formed in so rash and imprudent a manner. Too late did she find that, in seeking to win her youthful heart, Sir John Fairland had been more studious to please than to benefit her ; and that in respect to advantage he had looked only to his own. But, whatever may have been her disappointment, she had of late years kept it much within her own bosom. Well did she know that in a married life there is little dignity in complaint, and that in censuring a husband a woman in some measure reflects upon herself. She was also aware that none but the great events of life are those which arrest the eye of the world. So long as a wife keeps her station, without experiencing any violent ill-treatment or glaring deprivation of her rights, those feelings of tenderness wounded by the cold neglect, the slights, or the daily unkindness of a husband in minor things, that render her most unhappy, meet with no sympathy from others. The common order of men and women are wholly devoid of those finer feelings which constitute

HARTLAND FORES 7 :

the principal source of happiness or misery with the delicate and susceptible in mind. What, therefore, is injury, insult, and even agony to the latter, would be little understood by the former, or, if known, would be treated by them only as themes for laughter and contempt.

Our readers will not be surprised to learn that on the death of her mother (which occurred within six weeks after that of her father-in-law) Lady Fairland found herself ill, low-spirited, lonely, and incapable of taking the active part she could have wished in the care of her family and children. A very poor but beloved cousin (for whom she had always intended to provide had she retained power over her own fortune), who lived with her some years as a companion, a friend, and a sister, had lately married a young curate, and consequently left her. The newly-made baronet was always out, either hunting, shooting, or feasting with his boisterous and not very reputable associates, and some said that he was often found in worse company ; and as he had either quarrelled with or given offence to all his most respectable neighbours of his own rank and standing, very little company resorted to the house. To assist her in her family cares, and somewhat to relieve her loneliness, Lady Fairland sought for what was then far more common for married ladies to seek than it is at the present time — a female companion.

One was soon found, a gentlewoman about twentyone years old, well-looking, of more information than such persons generally possess, insinuating in her address, a shrewd observer, with a fluent and plausible tongue, not at all scrupulous in any matter where her own interests were concerned, and, as it too soon proved, profoundly artful. Sir John Fairland could not have had a worse companion for his wife than Miss Ellen Gilbard ; such was her name. Lady Fairland, of an open, kind, and unsuspicious nature, was but too easy a prey for artifice or cunning ; whilst for Sir John the companion was a far more dangerous associate, since he had none of the armour of proof that high principle becomes to a man in the familiar society of a woman who has the power to please and the will to corrupt.

Her first care was to gain a footing with Lady Fairland ; and by being active, useful, and much disposed to save her all trouble or exertion (an indolent temper was her ladyship’s principal, if not only, fault), she soon found herself in a position not to be dismissed without great inconvenience to Lady Fairland, who could not do without her. This object gained fast seated in her saddle/ as Tom Wakeum used to say when he talked of Miss Gilbard), she next turned her attention to the baronet, and opened a masked battery upon him without further delay.

What first prompted her to do so we cannot say ; possibly it might arise from the love of intrigue, which is as meat and drink to some persons, necessary to keep them alive ; or possibly her hawk’s eye detected that Sir John Fairland was more than indifferent towards his wife, and that Lady Fairland’s constitution was gradually giving way under the slow but sure effects of bitter disappointment and secret sorrow. Possibly, if Lady Fairland died, she, Miss Ellen Gilbard, who had perfect confidence in the strength of her own bodily constitution, and no less in that of her woman’s wit, might step into her place and herself become Lady Fairland. Who could say it should not be so ? Many no better than she was had married the widowed husbands of the women to whom they had originally been companions ; and as for her person and address ! — a look in the glass, and a very free and unembarrassed chit-chat which she held with the baronet on the very afternoon of the day these thoughts first engaged her attention, soon satisfied her that she had nothing to fear.

When persons accustomed to plot and intrigue once fix on a point to attack it they never rest till it is carried, more especially where a motive of paramount self-interest leads them on. Even so was it now. Every whim, every little caprice of Sir John was studied by Miss Ellen, in order to accommodate herself to his humour, his ease, his complacency ; whilst her uncommon talent for amusing and furnishing subjects for amusement was a perpetual source of relief to him from what he had hitherto detested — his own fire-side, and the tedium of wet days and unemployed hours in the country. All this Miss Ellen saw, and she played on his feelings to bring them into harmony with her own. She understood the key-note by which they were governed, and never touched them with a discord. The perpetual sunshine of Miss Ellen’s temper towards him, with her unwearied efforts to please, formed, in his prejudiced view, a striking contrast to the manner and the conduct of his unfortunate wife.

Lady Fairland could not conceal her unhappiness, and that she considered herself a most ill-used woman. To her repeated remonstrances that he ought in honour and in justice to make a settlement on her and on her children (knowing in what way he had possessed himself of all her fortune), he would not only turn a deaf ear, but in his hours of ill humour would often threaten, as he had no son, to leave whatever he possessed to strangers ; or else he would cut short her supplications and suddenly quit the room with the most harsh and unmerited reproaches on his lips.

The repetition of these injuries at last so wore her feelings and irritated her wounded spirit, that she became peevish, at times even fretful, in her manner towards Sir John ; and being powerless in those great matters in which he refused her all justice, she grew somewhat obdurate in little things, and in the hope to move him, for the sake of her dear girls hereafter, had recourse to the worst of all expedients — teazing him by constant reproach and petty opposition.

Great was the excuse for her conduct, for great had been its provocation ; but it was unwise in the extreme. By so acting she laid herself open to the attack of the serpent she had fostered in her bosom ; and when she would indignantly have shaken it off, before it inflicted the most deadly wound, she had no longer the power to do so. Not only did Miss Ellen Gilbard refuse to quit Lady Fairland’s service, though engaged solely as her companion, but Sir John threatened his wife that if she sent away the only person who made his home pleasurable to him, he would turn her and her children out of doors.