The simple brevity of the account is delightful. No nerves on the part of the dame, whose motto must have been "noblesse oblige." We picture her stepping gracefully out of her narrow bed, taking that lanthorn, so conveniently left, and in her white shroud making her way to the supper-room, where no doubt her sorrow-stricken descendants were sustaining life with beef and beer and bread. Were they really and truly glad to see her? She must have been a woman, not only of great presence of mind, but of strong character, and we, at this distance, can look back admiringly; but as to her dutiful and obedient children--well, one wonders.
The New Bridge leads directly out to the high land of Hingston Down, where before stannary laws were enacted and coinage towns assigned, the tinners of Devon and Cornwall met on Kit Hill and held their parliament. During the fourteenth century difficulties arose, and after that only the Cornish came to the old earthwork for their debates. An interesting light is shed, by a speech of Sir Walter Raleigh's in Parliament, when Lord Warden of the Stannaries, on the men and their earnings. In those days it would appear that the pay of a working tinner was 4_s_. a week, finding himself. Of this Sir Walter boasts as a great change for the better inasmuch as previously the tinner had received but half that amount.
These hills used to be famous for their tin, hence the saying:
"_Hingston Down well wrought Is worth London Town, dear bought._"
In 835 the Cornish were defeated by the men of Devon on this open ground, and some centuries later Charles I. crossed it on his way to try conclusions with Lord Essex. A little beyond Callington is St. Ive, one of the most lovely churches in the duchy. The east end and north side are fourteenth-century work of great merit, and the remainder is fifteenth century. The beautiful tower has clustered pinnacles, but the chief interest lies in the chancel window with its fine tracery, and the ogee-headed niches in the jambs of the scoinson arch, while some of the glass in the east window is of the same date as the tracery.
The river no longer curves in upon itself so frequently, but the landscape, deeply wooded and with the fine Carthamartha Rocks above the junction of the Inny with the Tamar, is softly beautiful. Greston Bridge crosses the river between Lezant and Lawhitton, and at Trecarrel House in the former, Charles I., with his army sleeping round him in the fields, lay on the night of August 1, 1644. At Lewannick, west of Lezant, a cresset stone has been preserved. This structure resembles a font, but with the top hollowed out into a number of bowls to contain oil and floating wicks. Before the days of matches, a light was kept perpetually burning in the church in order that the parishioners might resort to it, if by any chance their hearth-fires, always carefully sodded up, should be extinguished. Cresset stones are now rare. The one at Calder Abbey has sixteen bowls, but that at Furness resembles the one at Lewannick in having only five.