Education, however, is not in an advanced condition. The other day I took down for preservation the following notice I saw affixed to the church gate at Post Bridge. It was written on vermilion-red paper: —
"Mary maze hencot as been and kellad
John Webb Jack daw.
and he got to pay 5s for kellad a Jack daw."
The sense is not clear. As may be noticed, Mary is a he, just as a cow is a he.
Here is a bit of conversation overheard between two Dartmoor boys: —
"I zay, Bill, 'ow many cows hev your vaither?"
"Mine – oh! dree and an oss. How many 'as yourn?"
"Mine! oh! my vaither – e's in heaven."
"Get out! mine ha' been there scöres o' times."
This is a sceptical age. The very foundations of faith in verities and trust in authorities are shaken. How far may be instanced by this anecdote: —
Two choir boys had been to a Christmas treat. There was a cake with little plaster figures on it, and two of these were presented to the aforesaid boys, Jack and Tom, by their pastor and spiritual father, with strict injunctions not to eat them, as they would be most injurious, might kill them. They took the images home, and showed them to their mother, who at once perceived that they were of plaster of Paris and not edible.
"Byes!" said she, "doant ey niver go for to ate of thickey drashey things. They'll kill yu for zure-cartain, right off on end."
Here, pray note it, was the same thing inculcated by the material as well as the spiritual parent. Some hours later the mother with a shock perceived that one of the plaster figures was gone from the mantelshelf on which she had placed it.
"Tom! Tom!" she cried to the only son who was then in the house, "where be the plaister man to?"
"Plaise, mother, Jack hev aiten 'n – and if Jack be alive this arternoon, I be goin' to ate the other wan."
When such a condition of mind exists among the young, can one expect to find a belief in Pixies still present?
The only very modern case of spectres or their congeners on the moor I have heard of is that of a moor farmer, who is wont to return from market at Moreton in a hilarious condition.
"T' other day," said he, "just as I comed to a little dip in the ground t' other side o' Merripit, who shu'd I meet but the witch o' Endor. 'Muster,' sez she, 'Yu've been drinkin' and got liquor o' board.' Now how cu'd a woman a' knawed that onless her'd been a sperrit herself or a witch I'd like to knaw."
Some of those who have been brought up on the moor cannot endure to leave it. One man named John Hamlyn, who died aged eighty years, had never in all his life been off it. Another, Jacob Gorman, aged seventy-five, had been from it only two months in all his life. At a little cot near Birch Tor, it was said that the fire had not gone out for a hundred years, as the women had never for a night left the house.
Some of the old cottages on the moor were wonderful abodes, like Irish cabins. They are gradually disappearing, but a few still remain. The influx of visitors to Dartmoor, and the money brought there, tend to their effacement. A cot that could be run up between sunrise and sunset and a fire lighted by nightfall, has been held to constitute a right for ever to the place. Some of the hovels still standing have been so erected.
The rivers on the moor are liable to freshets. In the notable storm of 1890, Merivale Bridge on the Walla, and the old bridge leading from Tavistock to Peter Tavy over the Tavy river, were swept away. But the Dart is notorious for its sudden swelling. It was due to this that the old couplet ran —
"River of Dart, O river of Dart,
Every year thou claimest a heart."
The river "cries" when there is to be a change of wind. "Us shall have bad weather, maister; I hear the Broadstones a crying." The Broadstones are boulders of granite lying in the bed of the river. The cry, however, hardly comes from them, but from a piping of the wind in the twists of the glen through which the turbulent river writhes.
In Dartington churchyard there is a tombstone to the memory of John Edmonds, who was drowned in the river on August 17th, 1840. He and his intended were coming from Staverton Church, where they had been married, when a wave of water rolled down on them, and cart, horse, and bride and bridegroom were swept away. Her body was found caught in a tree a few hundred yards below, but the body of the man was not recovered for nearly three weeks afterwards; the horse and cart were carried over the weir near Totnes bridge.
About a hundred and fifty years ago there was no stone bridge at Hexworthy, only a clapper (wooden bridge). Two men were coming down the road when they heard the roar of a freshet. "Here cometh old Dart – let's run," said one. They ran, but old Dart was too quick for them; he caught them on the clapper and carried both off and drowned them; so that year he had two hearts.
A few years ago the Meavy suddenly rose and caught a man and his horse as they were crossing a ford below the village. The man was not drowned, but died of the consequences.
Up to 1702 there were on Dartmoor but thirty-five tenements in fifteen localities, some two or three being grouped together in certain places. These ancient farms are situated in the best and most favoured portions of the Forest of Dartmoor, and have been occupied from prehistoric times, as is evidenced by the quantity of flint tools that are turned up at these spots.
There is an account of the tenants of Dartmoor as early as 1344-5, from which it appears that they were then forty-four in number. In 1346 the forty-four tenants depastured no less than 4700 oxen and thirty-seven steers, a very respectable total, and one showing that the favoured spots in the forest some five and a half centuries ago carried considerable herds of cattle.
The names of the ancient tenements are: Hartland, Merripit, Runnage, and Warner; Dury, Pizwell, Bellever, Reddon, and Babenay; Princehall, Dunnabridge, Brounberry, Sherberton, Hexworthy, Huccaby, and Brimpts.
Formerly all these tenements were held as customary freeholds or copyholds, but many of them have been purchased by the Duchy.20
Where the miners lived in the old times, when tin mining was in vigour on the moor, is not very clear, as very few ruins of quadrangular buildings remain that could have served as houses, and it is quite certain that they did not inhabit the hut circles, as they have not left their traces therein. They, in all likelihood, lodged in the farmhouses and their outbuildings during the week, and returned to their homes for the Sundays.
In 1806 the vast range of prisons was erected at Princetown, on the bleakest and one of the loftiest sites on Dartmoor, for the accommodation of French prisoners of war. From 1816, when peace was proclaimed, the buildings stood empty till 1850, when they were converted into a convict establishment, and since then the prisoners have been employed in enclosing and reclaiming the moor.
As may well be imagined, many attempts at escape have been made. I remember one, especially daring, which was nearly successful, some forty years ago. A prisoner succeeded in creeping along one of the beams sustaining the roof of the hall in which were the warders eating their supper, without attracting their attention. He got thence over the wall, and next broke into the doctor's house. There he possessed himself of a suit of clothes, and left his convict suit behind. Next he entered the doctor's stable, and took his horse out. But he was unable to enter the harness-room, owing to the strength of the lock, and so was obliged to escape, riding the horse, indeed, but without saddle, and directing it not with a bridle, but with a halter.
He rode along at a swinging pace till he reached Two Bridges, where there is an ascent rather steep for a quarter of a mile, and then he necessarily slackened his pace. To his great annoyance, as he passed the Saracen's Head (the inn which constitutes the settlement of Two Bridges) a man emerged from the public-house and jumped on his horse. This was a moorman. The morrow was appointed for a drift, and he was going to make preparations to drive his quarter of the moor. He leaped on his horse and trotted after the convict, little knowing who he was.
That night was one of moonlight. The moorman saw a gentleman in black riding a good horse before him, and he pushed on to be abreast with him and have a little talk.
"Whom have I the honour of riding with at night?" asked the moorman.
"I'm the new curate," said the convict, "going round on my pastoral duties."
"Oh, indeed, without saddle and bridle?"
"I was called up to a dying person. My groom was away. For souls one must do much."
"Indeed, and your clothes don't seem to fit you," observed the moorman.
Now the doctor was a fat man, and the man who wore his clothes was lean.
"My duties are wearing to the carnal man," said the rider.
"And the horse. By ginger! it's the doctor's," exclaimed the moorman.
The convict kicked the flanks of his steed, and away he bounded. The hill had been surmounted. The moorman gave chase.
Then he recollected that the doctor's horse was an old charger, and he thundered out, "Halt! Right about face!"
Instantly the old charger stopped – instantly – stopped dead, and away over his head like a rocket shot the soi-disant curate.
In another moment the moorman was on him, had him fast, and said grimly, "You're a five-pounder to me, my reverend party."
Five pounds is the reward for the apprehension of an escaped convict.
The moorman got his five pounds, and the convict got something he didn't like. He forfeited all the years of his imprisonment past, and got seven in addition for the theft of the horse and clothes.
Some years ago a convict escaped and concealed himself in a mine. Impelled by hunger, he showed himself to the men there engaged. He told them that he was, like them, a toiler underground. They agreed to shelter him, and he was kept concealed in the mine till the search for him was past. Then they gave him old clothes, and each subscribed a sum of money to help him to leave the country. He got away, and some year or two after he sent back all the money he had been given, to be repaid to the men who had subscribed to get him off, and a good present into the bargain.
A very different case was this.
A man got out, escaped from the moor, and made his way to his wife's cottage. She gave him up and claimed the five pounds reward for her treachery.
A friend was spending some months at Beardown. One evening he returned late from Tavistock, and to give notice that he was arriving fired off a pistol as he crossed the little bridge over the river below. Little did he then imagine, what he learned later, that a couple of convicts who had escaped were hiding under the bridge; they would have sprung out on him and despoiled him of his clothes and money, possibly have murdered him, but were deterred by his chance firing of the pistol. They were captured a day or two later, and this was their confession.
It is not by any means easy for a convict to escape. When they are at work there are two rings of warders about them armed with rifles, and there is moreover a signal-station that commands where they are at work, from which watch is kept upon them.
Our criminal class costs the nation a prodigious sum. The prison population for England and Scotland is about 30,000, and the prison expenditure last year (1898) was £604,696, so that the cost annually to the country of each convict is about £20.
But there are indirect costs. If we put down: —
and add to this the cost of the prisons, we reach the frightful expenditure of over ten millions. Surely the nation is penny wise and pound foolish. If instead of spending so much to get men into prison, and keep them there, it would but concern itself with keeping them out, there would be a great reduction in cost.
The convict is not such an utter black sheep as we might be disposed to think him. That which forms the class is the sending back among their fellows men who have been in prison. They cannot get out of the association, and consequently they return again and again to their cells.
There is indeed a society for helping prisoners on leaving to get into situations, but this is a duty that should be undertaken by the nation; and very often the only way to really give a poor fellow a chance is to move him entirely away from this country. It is a difficult problem, and we could not, of course, send them to our colonies; but all social problems are difficult, yet should be faced, and there is a solution to be found somewhere.
All that the convict really requires is a certain amount of discipline, a strong hand, and a clear head in a leader or master, and he may yet be made a man of, useful to his fellows.
"You don't think I'm such a fool as to like it, do you?" said a convicted burglar to the chaplain. "I do it because I can't help myself. When I leave prison I have nowhere else to go but to my old pals and the old diggings."
If it could be contrived to give these fellows, after a first conviction, a start in a new country, nine out of ten might be reclaimed. They are like children, not wilfully given to evil, but incapable of self-restraint, and cowards among their fellows, whose opinions and persuasion they dare not oppose.
There is one institution connected with Dartmoor that must not be passed over – Bellever Day.
When hare-hunting is over in the low country, then, some week or two after Easter, the packs that surround Dartmoor assemble on it, and a week is given up to hare-hunting. On the last day, Friday, there is a grand gathering on Bellever Tor. All the towns and villages neighbouring on Dartmoor send out carriages, traps, carts, riders; the roads are full of men and women, ay, and children hurrying to Bellever. Little girls with their baskets stuffed with saffron cake for lunch desert school and trudge to the tor. Ladies go out with champagne luncheons ready. Whether a hare be found and coursed that day matters little. It is given up to merriment in the fresh air and sparkling sun. And the roads that lead from Bellever in the afternoon are careered over by riders, whose horses are so exhilarated that they race, and the riders have a difficulty in keeping their seats. Their faces are red, not those of the horses, but their riders – from the sun and air – and they are so averse to leave the moor, that they sometimes desert their saddles to roll on the soft and springy turf.
Trout-fishing on Dartmoor is to be had, and on very easy terms, but the rivers are far less stocked than they were a few years ago, as they are so persistently whipped. The trout are small and dark, but delicious eating.
There would be more birds but for the mischievous practice of "swaling" or burning the heather and gorse, which is persisted in till well into the summer, and, walking over a fresh-burned patch of moor, one may tread on roasted eggs or the burned young of some unhappy birds that fondly deemed there was protection for them in England.
The "swaling" is carried on upon the commons round the forest as well as on the forest itself, so that the blame is not wholly due to the representatives of the Duchy.
One is disposed to think that the moor must be a desolate and altogether uninhabitable region in the winter. It is not so – at no time do the mosses show in such variety of colour, and when the sun shines the sense of exhilaration is beyond restraint.
To all lovers of Dartmoor I dedicate the song with which I conclude this chapter.
THE SONG OF THE MOOR
'Tis merry in the spring time,
'Tis blithe on Dartimoor,
Where every man is equal,
For every man is poor.
I do what I'm a minded,
And none will say me nay,
I go where I'm inclinèd,
On all sides – right of way.
O the merry Dartimoor,
O the bonny Dartimoor,
I would not be where I'm not free
As I am upon the moor.
'Tis merry in the summer,
When furze be flowering sweet;
The bees about it humming,
In honey bathe their feet.
The plover and the peewit,
How cheerily they pipe,
And underfoot the whortle
Is turning blue and ripe.
O the merry Dartimoor, etc.
'Tis merry in the autumn,
When snipe and cock appear,
And never see a keeper
To say, No shooting here!
We stack the peat for fuel,
We ask no better fire,
And never pay a farden
For all that we require.
O the merry Dartimoor, etc.
'Tis merry in the winter,
The wind is on the moor,
For twenty miles to leeward
The people hear it roar.
'Tis merry in the ingle,
Beside a moorland lass,
As watching turves a-glowing,
The brimming bumpers pass.
O the merry Dartimoor,
O the bonny Dartimoor,
I would not be where I'm not free
As I am upon the moor.
Note. – Articles to be consulted: —
Collier (W. F.), "Dartmoor," in Transactions of the Devonshire Association for 1876.
Collier (W. F.), "Venville Rights on Dartmoor," ibid., 1887.
" "Dartmoor for Devonshire," ibid., 1894.
" "Sport on Dartmoor," ibid., 1895.
CHAPTER XII.
OKEHAMPTON
Origin of Okehampton obscure – The Ockments – Moor seekers – Okehampton Castle – French prisoners – Church – Belstone and Taw Marsh – Cranmere Pool – Tavy Cleave – South Zeal – Prehistoric monuments – An evening at the "Oxenham Arms" – The Oxenham white bird – Mining misadventures – "Old vayther" – Ecclesiological excursions – Early Christian monuments.
What brought Okehampton into existence? It is not fathered by the castle, nor mothered by the church. Both have withdrawn to a distance and repudiated responsibility in the stunted bantling. It "growed not of itself," like Topsy, for it did not grow at all; it stuck.
Sourton Down on the west, Whiddon Down on the east – where the devil, it is reported, caught cold – Dartmoor on the south, shut Okehampton in. It was open only to the wintry north, where population is sparse.
Formerly, once in the day, once only did the mail coach traverse the one long street, ever on the yawn, and this was the one throb of life that ran through it. No passenger descended from the coach, no meals were taken, no lodging for the night was sought. The mails were dropped and the coach passed away.
There were, in Okehampton, no manufacture, no business, no pleasure even, for it had no assembly balls, no neighbourhood. Okehampton was among towns what the earth-worm is in the order of animated nature, a digestive tube, but with digestive faculty undeveloped. Now all is changed. The War Office has established a summer barrack on the heights above it, and life – in some particulars in undesirable excess – has manifested itself. Trade has sprung up: a lesson in life – never to despair of any place, any more than of any man. It has an office to fill, a function to perform, if only patience be exercised and time allowed. But if Okehampton in itself considered as a town be ugly and uninteresting, the neighbourhood abounds in objects of interest, and the situation is full of beauty.
Two brawling rivers, the East and the West Ockments, dance down from the moors and unite at the town; and if each be followed upwards scenes of rare wildness and picturesque beauty will be found.
It is towered over by Yes Tor and Cosdon, two of the highest points on Dartmoor, and some of the moor scenery, with its tumbled ranges of rocky height, is as fine as anything in the county of Devon.
The Ockment (uisg-maenic)21 or stony water, gives its name to the place; the Saxon planted his tun at the junction of the streams, whereas the earlier dun of the Briton was on the height above the East Ockment. Baldwin the Sheriff was given a manor there, and he set to work to build a castle, in the days of the Conqueror. Some of his work may be seen in the foundations of the keep. He took rolled granite blocks out of the river bed and built with them. But later, when the neck of slate rock was cut through on which the castle stands, so as to isolate it from the hill to which it was once connected, then the stone thus excavated was employed to complete the castle keep. Baldwin de Moels, or Moules, was the sheriff, and his descendants bore mules on their coat armour. The castle and manor remained in the hands of the de Moels and Avenells till the reign of Henry II., when they were given to Matilda d'Avranches, whose daughter brought it into the Courtenay family.
The castle stands half a mile from the town. "Okehampton Castle," says Mr. Worth, "differs from the other ancient castles of Devon in several noteworthy features. Most of the Norman fortalices, whether in this county or in Cornwall, have round shell keeps, as at Plympton and Totnes, Restormel and Launceston, may be seen to this day. The typical Norman castles, with the true square keeps, were fewer in number, but, as a rule, of greater comparative importance. Among them, that of Okehampton occupies what may be regarded as a middle position. More important than Lydford in its adjuncts, it must have been much inferior to Exeter – Rougemont; nor in its later phases can it ever have compared with the other Courtenay hold at Tiverton, as a residence, with their present seat at Powderham, or in extent and defensive power with the stronghold of the Pomeroys at Berry. Nevertheless, in the early Middle Ages it must have been regarded as a place of no little strength and dignity, when the Courtenays had completed what the Redverses began."
The keep is planted on a mound that has been artificially formed by paring away of a natural spur of hill; it is approached by a gradual slope from the east, along which, connected with the mound by curtain walls, are the remains of two ranges of buildings, north and south. On the north is the hall, and adjoining it the cellar; on the south guard-rooms and chapel, and above the former were the lord's rooms. A barbican remains at the foot of the hill. The whole is small and somewhat wanting in dignity and picturesqueness. All the buildings except the keep were erected at the end of the thirteenth century.
In the chapel may be seen, cut in the Hatherleigh freestone, "Hic V…t fuit captivus belli, 1809." In the churchyard are graves of other French prisoners. Many were buried, or supposed to have been buried, at Princetown, where the prisons were erected for their accommodation. Recently, in making alterations and enlarging the churchyard there, several of their graves have been opened, and the coffins were discovered to be empty. Either the escape of the prisoners of war was connived at, and they were reported as dead and buried, or else their bodies were given, privately, for dissection.
Okehampton Church was burnt down in 1842, with the exception of the fine tower. It was rebuilt immediately after, and, considering the period when this was done, it is better than might have been expected. The chapel of S. James in the town was "restored" in a barbarous manner some thirty years later.
Finely situated, with its back against rich woods, is Oaklands House, built by a timber merchant named Atkyns, who made his fortune in the European war, and who changed his name to Saville. It is now the property of Colonel Holley. On the ridge above the station is a camp. The East Ockment should be followed up to Cullever Steps. On the slope of the Belstone Common is a circle called the Nine Maidens, but there are a good many more than nine stones. These are said to dance on Midsummer night, and to be petrified damsels who insisted on dancing on a Sunday when they ought to have been at church. The circle is no true "sacred circle," but the remains of a hut circle consisting of double facing of upright slabs, formerly filled in with smaller stone between.
One of the most interesting excursions that can be made from Okehampton is to Belstone and the Taw Marsh. This was once a fine lake, but has been filled up with rubble brought down from the tors. At the head of the marsh stands Steeperton Tor, 1739 feet, rising boldly above the marsh, with the Taw brawling down a slide of rock and rubble on the right. This is one way by which Cranmere Pool may be reached. Cranmere is popularly supposed to derive its name from the cranes that it is conjectured may have resorted to it, but as no such birds have been seen there, or would be likely to go where there is neither fish nor spawn, the derivation must be abandoned.
It is more probably derived from cren, Cornish "round," or from crenne, to quake, as the pool is in the heart of bogs. It lies at the height of over 1750 feet, in the midst of utter desolation, where the peat is chapped and seamed and is of apparently great depth. But the pool itself is nothing. Gradually the peat has encroached upon it, till almost nothing but a puddle remains.
In this vast boggy district rise the Tavy, the two Ockments, the Taw, the North Teign, and the two Darts. The nearest elevation is Cut Hill, that reaches 1981 feet, and Whitehorse Hill, 1974. Across this desolate waste there is but one track from Two Bridges to Lydford, narrow, and only to be taken by one, if on horseback, who knows the way. On each hand is unfathomed bog. Cut Hill takes its name from a cleft cut through the walls of peat to admit a passage to Fur Tor.
Even in this wilderness there are cairns covering the dead. One is led to suppose that they cover peculiarly restless beings, who were taken as far as possible from the habitations of men. I remember seeing a cairn in Iceland in a howling waste that in historic times was raised over one Glâmr who would not lie quiet in his grave, but walked about and broke the backs of the living, or frightened them to death. He was dug up and transported as far as could be into the wilderness, his head cut off and placed as a cushion for his trunk to sit on, and then reburied.
Cranmere Pool, though but a puddle, deserves a visit. The intense desolation of the spot is impressive. On such solitary stretches, where not a sound of life, not the cry of a curlew, nor the hum of an insect is heard, I have known a horse stand still and tremble and sweat with fear. Here a few plants becoming rare elsewhere may still be found.
There is a story told in Okehampton of a certain Benjamin Gayer, who was mayor there in 1673 and 1678, and died in 1701, that he is condemned nightly to go from Okehampton to Cranmere to bale out the pond with a thimble that has a hole in it.
Tavy Cleave may be visited from Okehampton or from Tavistock. There is but one way in which it ought to be visited to see it in its glory. Take the train to Bridestowe and walk thence to the "Dartmoor Inn." Strike thence due east, cross the brawling Lyd by steps to Doe Tor Farm, and thence aim for Hare Tor: keep to the right of the head of the tor and strike for some prongs of rock that appear south-east, and when you reach these you have beneath you 1000 feet, the ravine of the Tavy as it comes brawling down from the moor and plunges over a bar of red granite into a dark pool below. Far away to the north comes the Rattle Brook, dancing down trout-laden from Amicombe Hill and Lynx Tor, and to the east in like desolation rises Fur Tor, set in almost impassable bogs.
Between the Cleave rocks and Ger Tor is a settlement with hut circles well preserved, but one in a far better condition lies beyond the Tavy on Standon.
Tavy Cleave is fine from below, but incomparably finer when seen from above.
In June it is a veritable pixy fruit garden for luxuriance and abundance of purple whortleberries.
All the veins of water forming depressions have been at some remote period laboriously streamed.
Another interesting excursion may be made to South Zeal. The old coach-road ran through this quaint place, but the new road leaves it on one side. A few years ago it was more interesting than it is now, as some of the old houses have recently been removed. It, however, repays a visit. Situated at the opening of the Taw Cleave, under Cosdon Beacon, it is a little world to itself. The well-to-do community have extensive rights of common, and of late have been ruthlessly enclosing. None can oppose them, as all are agreed to grab and appropriate what they can. This has led to much destruction of prehistoric remains. There was at one time a circle of standing stones from eight to nine feet high. This has gone; so has an avenue of upright stones on the common leading to West Week. But another of stones, that are, however, small, starting from a cairn that contains two small kistvaens, is beside and indeed crosses the moor-track leading towards Rayborough Pool; and on Whitmoor is a circle still fairly intact, though three or four of the largest uprights have been broken and removed to serve as gate-posts. Near this is the Whitmoor Stone, a menhir, spared as it constitutes a parish boundary.
In South Zeal is a little granite chapel, and before it is a very stately cross. The inn, the "Oxenham Arms," was formerly the mansion of the Burgoynes. I spent there an amusing evening a few winters ago. I had gone there with my friend Mr., now Dr., Bussell collecting folk-songs, for I remembered hearing many sung there when I was a boy some forty years before. I had worked the place for two or three days previously, visiting and "yarning" with some of the old singers, till shyness was broken down and good-fellowship established. Then I invited them to meet me at the "Oxenham Arms" in the evening.
But when the evening arrived the inn was crowded with men. The women – wives and daughters – were dense in the passage, and outside boys stood on each other's shoulders flattening their noses, so that they looked like dabs of putty, against the window-panes. Evidently a grand concert was expected, and the old men rose to the occasion, and stood up in order and sang – but only modern songs – to suit the audience.
However, the ice was broken, and during the next few days we had them in separately to sup with us, and after supper and a glass, over a roaring fire, they sang lustily some of the old songs drawn up from the bottom-most depths of their memory. There were "Lucky" Fewins, and old Charles Arscott, and lame Radmore, James Glanville, and Samuel Westaway, the cobbler. I remember one of them was stubborn; he would not allow me to take down the words of a song of his – not a very ancient one either – but did not object to the "pricking" of the tune. It was not till two years after that he gave way and surrendered the words.