I once had a letter from Jamrach’s informing me that they were now in a position to execute my esteemed order for antelopes. I had not ordered any antelopes or any other creatures, and found the letter was intended for a man whose name came next to mine in an alphabetical court-guide. I often have letters from foreign booksellers addressed to me as Monsieur Torresq--I suppose ‘Torr Esq’ has been misprinted in some list they use--and I have had one from a dealer in antîkas addressed to me as Torr Bey: also a local letter addressed to Thistletor Squire, as if I were a Dartmoor hill as well as being Torbay.
There is a Seven Lords’ Land four miles from here; and if you go up there from Bovey, you pass Five Witches on the way. There is a Four Lords’ Land near Combe Martin, and the four were joint lords of a manor there; and Wreyland might likewise have become Four Ladies’ Land, had the last lord Dynham’s sisters all outlived him. I suppose the seven were joint lords of a manor, but I have no record of the fact. Prosaic people say the witches were wych elms.
There were Seven Men of Chudleigh; and the wonder is they never called themselves the Septemvirs, seeing that the schoolmaster called himself Gymnasiarch. There were Four Men of Chagford, Eight Men of Moreton, and other Men of other parish towns. In 1670, when small change was scarce, tokens were issued by the Moreton Men, inscribed, “Ye 8 Men and Feeffees of Morton.” As feoffees they held the parish lands in trust; and in 1756 the sole surviving Man enfeoffed thirteen new Men, and they agreed that if ‘by their mortality’ they should ever be reduced to one, this one should enfeoff not less than seven more; but the agreement was not kept, and the parish lands passed to the last survivor’s heir-at-law as sole trustee. These parish lands were the church-house, the school-house, the almshouse, two public-houses called the White Swan and the Sun, and a rent-charge of 6_s._ 8_d._ Like many other public-houses, the White Swan became the Union in 1801 in honour of the United Kingdom and the new Union Jack. A public-house at Bovey has suffered a more drastic change. It was called the King of Prussia in 1760 in honour of Frederick the Great, but in 1914 the obnoxious word was painted out at once: for some while it was ‘The King Of,’ and now it has a brand-new name.