First Steps in Life, Tales and Sketches [Ed by T Geldart]

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: A HOUSEHOLD STORY. Did you ever see Barnstaple in Devonshire ? A curious old town it is, and unlike any that I have ever seen in England. It is prettily situated in a wide valley on the banks of the river Taw, and if you are curious to know the reason of its name, I will tell you that it is supposed to be...
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: A HOUSEHOLD STORY. Did you ever see Barnstaple in Devonshire ? A curious old town it is, and unlike any that I have ever seen in England. It is prettily situated in a wide valley on the banks of the river Taw, and if you are curious to know the reason of its name, I will tell you that it is supposed to be derived from the British bar, or river's mouth, and the Saxon staple, or market town. We must fancy ourselves in Barnstaple, the town of merchandise, some fifteen or twenty years ago. Not that the town is greatly changed at present. New houses have sprung up, indeed, both in and around the place, but many of the old ones remain, and the stage-coaches still rattle through the stony streets, to Exeter and Ilfra- combe, as they did in days of yore, for railway there is none.'' Written in 1851. It is a pity that our visit cannot be in summertime, and on a market day, when the stalls are gay with fruit and flowers, and the Devonshire farmers' wives, according to primitive custom, expose their goods for sale along the narrow street?and a fine display they make. Such fresh chickens, geese, and turkeys, as, if you have not been into Devonshire, you have never seen, and at such prices as you would scarcely believe if. you chance to live in London. But you are not yet arrived at the. age to think more of geese and turkeys, than of the business of eating them, therefore it will be of little use to give you, in this place, a history of the price of a fine fat goose. The townsfolk of Barnstaple kept early hours in those days, and I believe they do so still; and Mr. and Mrs. Gretton, who lived in the handsome red brick house, at the entrance of the town, commanding a noble view of the Taw, from its upper window, and from its lower, looking out on a pleasant lawn and well-plant...