rown, even when it comes
down a great swirling flood, thundering over the weirs and hurrying
along honeycombs of foam, the Creedy will have turned to a surging,
turbid volume of water, of a deep red, terra-cotta colour, that leaves
traces of red mud in the overhanging trees when the river has subsided.

The valley is a narrow one, and on the hill-sides are copses and
orchards, lovely as a sea of pink and white blossoms, and very admirable
on a bright day in September, when the bright crimson cider apples, and
golden ones with rosy cheeks, are showing among the leaves, and the hot
sunshine, following a touch of frost, brings out the clean, crisp, sweet
scent of ripe apples till it floats across roads and hedges. Leland
remarks that 'the ground betwixt _Excestre_ and _Crideton_ exceeding
fair Corn Greese and Wood. There is a praty market in Kirton.' Kirton
was the popular name for the town. Its origin is far to seek, for the
saying runs:

'Crediton was a market town,
When Exeter was a vuzzy[1] down.'

[Footnote 1: Vuzz, _i.e._ furze.]

However this may have been, it is, at any rate, certain that the Bishops
of Devon were seated at Crediton for over one hundred and forty years
before, in 1050, Leofric removed to Exeter. And nearly two and a half
centuries before the first Bishop settled at Crediton, religious feeling
was awake, as is shown by the story of St Boniface, or, as he was
originally called, Wynfrith. This saint, the great missionary to the
Germans, is believed to have been born here in the year 680, and at a
very early age he wished to become a monk. His desire was not at once
granted, for his father could not bear to part with him, and much
opposition had to be overcome before he was allowed to go to school in
Exeter. After he was ordained, Boniface won the respect and confidence
of Ina, King of the West Saxons, but feeling that his work lay in
another country, he went to Thuringia, to throw his strength into the
conversion of the heathen. Combining 'learning, excellency of memory,
integrity of life, and vivacity of spirit, he was fit for great
employment,' says an old writer, and he was chosen Archbishop of Mentz,
becoming the chief authority on all spiritual matters in Germany. In
spite of the heavy cares and toils entailed by his high office, St
Boniface still laboured personally among the recalcitrant heathen, and
in his seventy-sixth year

'Had his death by faithless Frisians slain.'

Ei