the
pastor had from home to church,' she 'gave to him and his successors the
manor-house with lands thereto': and on this site of the manor-house
stands the present vicarage. Besides making this gift, 'on every
occasion a friend to learning, even in its infancy, she built a room for
a library, and furnished it with the most useful books then to be had.'

Torridge Castle, a building of the fourteenth century, stood on the
verge of a steep descent to the river. In Risdon's day it was almost
gone, the ruins had 'for many years hovered, which, by extreme age, is
almost brought to its period;' and in 1780 the chapel, the only part
left, was partly pulled down and afterwards turned into a school.

About a mile or so to the east stands Stevenstone--a new house, in the
midst of a fine deer-park. For over three centuries Stevenstone was
owned by the Rolles, and when Fairfax's troops advanced on Torrington,
two hundred dragoons were being entertained by 'Master Rolls,' and the
advance was disputed by these dragoons, who, after a long and straggling
fight in the narrow and dirty lanes, eventually fell back on the town.
Here Fairfax took up his quarters after the town had been taken.

A few miles upstream the Torridge passes Potheridge, the birthplace of
General Monk, whose ancestors had owned property here since the reign of
Henry III.

The character of George Monk is extraordinarily interesting, a curious
point being that, though he was essentially cautious, level-headed, and,
as Clarendon says, 'not enthusiastical,' and therefore unlikely to rouse
very vivid sentiments in others, as a matter of fact he awoke violent
feelings either of glowing enthusiasm or of extreme bitterness. It is
easy to understand his unpopularity with keen partisans who looked on
their opponents and all their ways with abhorrence, and therefore failed
to understand how an honest man could fight for the King, then accept a
command from Cromwell, and finally become the prime mover of the
Restoration. But--'If a man does not keep pace with his companions,
perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer'; and it may well be
that the beat that ruled Monk's steps was the peaceable government and
welfare of the people, and especially of the army, and to the personal
claims and rights of the rulers he was indifferent. The general state of
things needed reform badly enough. Monk's acts were never inconsistent,
but he had a genius for silence. When war in En