go. The saying is
double-edged:

'The people are poor, as Hatherleigh Moor,
And so they have been for ever and ever.'

But the people of the little town are able to graze their cattle and cut
furze for fuel on it. Hatherleigh parish has two holy wells. St John's
Well stands on the moor, and there used to be a pretty custom of
fetching its water for a baptism. The water of St. Mary's Well was good
for the eyes, and within the memory of persons still alive pagan
traditions were observed around it on Midsummer Eve. Amidst 'wild scenes
of revelry ... fires were lit, feasting and dancing were indulged in.'

For some years, in this part of the country, while he was curate to his
father, who had the neighbouring living of Iddesleigh, the renowned
'Jack' Russell preached on Sundays and hunted on weekdays. He was
immensely popular, and so many stories are told of him and his hounds
that it has been already said, 'Russell is fast becoming mythical.' He
was not the ideal of a modern parish priest, but this is the opinion of
one who remembers him. The writer begins by speaking of a friend of
Russell's as a man who 'seems ... to have been as good a Christian as he
was a gentleman; not ecstatic perhaps, but in the sense of leading a
godly, righteous and sober life. And,' he goes on, 'the same may with
certainty be predicated of Russell ... Russell, like a wise man, got
right home to Nature. It was not for nothing that the gipsy chieftain
left him his rat-catcher's belt, and begged for burial at his hands in
Swymbridge churchyard.'

Perhaps the following story of him is not quite so well known as many
others:

Mr Russell once advertised for a curate: 'Wanted, a curate for
Swymbridge: must be a gentleman of moderate and orthodox views.'

Soon after this advertisement had appeared Mr Hooker, Vicar of
Buckerell, was standing in a shop door in Barnstaple, 'when he was
accosted by Will Chapple, the parish clerk of Swymbridge, who entered
the grocer's shop. "Havee got a coorate yet for Swymbridge, Mr Chapple?"
inquired the grocer, in Mr Hooker's hearing. "No, not yet, sir," replied
the sexton. "Master's nation purticler, and the man must be orthodox."
"What does that mean?" inquired the grocer. "Well, I reckon it means he
must be a purty good rider."

Here we must leave the Torridge altogether, and go eleven miles
south-east to the point where the Taw leaves the uplands of Dartmoor.
Almost the first village that the river p