and innocent-looking place had ever been the abode of smugglers or pirates; yet so it was, for hiding-holes existed there which belonged formerly to what were jocularly known as the early “Free Traders.”  Near Anstey’s Cove, in Torbay, we had seen a small cave in the rocks known as the “Brandy Hole,” near which was the smuggler’s staircase.  This was formed of occasional flights of roughly-hewn stone steps, up which in days gone by the kegs of brandy and gin and the bales of silk had been carried to the top of the cliffs and thence conveyed to Cockington and other villages in the neighbourhood where the smugglers’ dens existed.

[Illustration:  COCKINGTON VILLAGE.]

Possibly Jack Rattenbury, the famous smuggler known as “the Rob Roy of the West,” escaped to Cockington when he was nearly caught by the crew of one of the King’s ships, for the search party were close on his heels when he saved himself by his agility in scaling the cliffs.  But Cockington was peaceful enough when we visited it, and in the park, adorned with fine trees, stood the squire’s Hall, or Court, and the ivy-covered church.  Cockington was mentioned in Domesday Book, and in 1361 a fair and a market were granted to Walter de Wodeland, usher to the Chamber of the Black Prince, who afterwards created him a knight, and it was probably about that time that the present church was built.  The screen and pews and pulpit had formerly belonged to Tor Mohun church, and the font, with its finely carved cover and the other relics of wood, all gave us the impression of being extremely old, and as they were in the beginning.  The Cary family were once the owners of the estate, and in the time of the Spanish Armada George Cary, who was afterwards knighted by Queen Elizabeth, with Sir John Gilbert, at that time the owner of Tor Abbey, took charge of the four hundred prisoners from the Spanish flagship Rosario while they were lodged in the grange of Tor Abbey.

[Illustration:  COMPTON CASTLE.]

From Cockington we walked on to Compton Castle, a fine old fortified house, one of the most interesting and best preserved remains of a castellated mansion in Devonshire.  One small portion of it was inhabited, and all was covered with ivy, but we could easily trace the remains of the different apartments.  It was formerly the home of the Gilbert family, of whom the best-known member was Sir Humphrey Gilbert, a celebrated navigator and mathematician of the sixteenth century, half-brother of Sir Walter Raleigh, and knighted by Queen Elizabeth for his bravery in Ireland.  Sir Humphrey afterwards made voyages of discovery, and added Newfoundland, our oldest colony, to the British Possessions, and went down with the Squirrel in a storm off the Azores.  When his comrades saw him for the last time before he disappeared from their sight for ever in the mist and gloom of the evening, he held a Bible in his hand, and said cheerily, “Never mind, boys! we are as near to Heaven by sea as by land!”