The Blackmore country . cord is taken of his dam and all his points. Until 1850 the ponies were sold by privatecontract. Sales were then established, and in1853 an auditory of two hundred personsassembled at Stony Plot, the knoll with its beltof grey quartz boulders where now stands thechurch. The following autumn the venue wasaltered to Bampton Fair. There is a curiousstory or legend-—-I hardly know what to makeof it—that after one of the Simonsbath sales aMr Lock, of Lynmouth, roasted an Exmoor ponyfor his friends, who, if they ever partook of therepast, must be credited with fine Tartar tas
The Blackmore country . cord is taken of his dam and all his points. Until 1850 the ponies were sold by privatecontract. Sales were then established, and in1853 an auditory of two hundred personsassembled at Stony Plot, the knoll with its beltof grey quartz boulders where now stands thechurch. The following autumn the venue wasaltered to Bampton Fair. There is a curiousstory or legend-—-I hardly know what to makeof it—that after one of the Simonsbath sales aMr Lock, of Lynmouth, roasted an Exmoor ponyfor his friends, who, if they ever partook of therepast, must be credited with fine Tartar taste. According to one version the original Exmoorponies, with their buffy bay colour and mealynose, were brought over by the Phoeniciansduring their visits to the shores of Cornwall totrade in tin and metals ; and ever since that timethe animals have preserved their do not propose to go so far back into therecesses of history, but will return for a momentto the now rather distant date, 1790, before. THE HEART OF THE MOOR 137 which hardly anything is known of that period there are said to have been onlyfive men and a woman and a girl on girl drew beer at the Simonsbath public-house, and the customers were a decidedly roughlot. Doones indeed there were none—their daywas past—but the illicit love of mutton wasuniversal in the West country, as was also apartiality for cheap cognac. Smugglers slungtheir kegs across their scrambling Jacks atnight, and hid their treasure in the rocks, or leftit at a certain gate till the next mystic hand inthe livinsf chain gave it a lift on the road toExeter. When they did not care to do this,there were always friendly cellars under the oldhouse at Simonsbath. The ale was decent, thelandlady wisely deaf, and who can doubt thatthe old ingle, where the date 1654 still lingers ona beam shorn or built into half its length, heardmany an exciting tale of contraband primebrandy and extra parochial liberties
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookpublisherlondonaandcblack
