290 EARLY REMINISCENCES folk would say—he enjoyed very poor health. He never married. After his father's death and the sale of the house in which the family had lived, he removed to Medland, in the same parish, that belonged to the Pennells. It was a stately mansion of the Queen Anne period, in the midst of a noble park. It had belonged to the Davey family, and their arms were emblazoned over the principal entrance. The fittings, ceilings, panellings and chimney-pieces were good of the period, but the whole mansion was sadly out of repair, and Edward Pennell had not the means to enable him to restore it. He lived in a couple of the front rooms, and was attended by the wife and daughters of the farmer who occupied the back premises. I have stayed at Medland with him, and he has visited me at Lew. When I was writing John Herring, he greatly assisted me with the dialect, as I was then liable to mix up with the Devon folk-speech scraps of Yorkshire lingo. Moreover, he knew much about the wild men or the " North Devon Savages " whom I have named Cobbledick in that novel, and I was able to utilize his knowledge of them. Edward Pennell's great efforts, after his father's death, were directed to counteract the evil done in the parish, mediately through curates appointed by the rector, a Froude, who drew from it £365 per annum, never visited the place, and put in curates cheap and nasty, who were a scandal in the parish and neighbourhood. Edward Pennell had repeatedly to write to the Bishop (Temple), and complain. His letters were acknowledged, but not acted upon, and, more than once he had to go to Exeter, and hobble to the palace, there to offer person?! remonstrance . He was most ungraciously received, not that Dr. Temple was purposely rude, but that he found it difficult to deal with the rector of Cheriton, who had the legal right to appoint hi" own curates, and the Bishop could not refuse unless some gros" charge were brought against them, nor could he very well force Froude to accept a man of his (the Bishop's) recommendation. However, by persistence and by determination not to be put off, Mr. Pennell did at last succeed in obtaining a resident curate who led a respectable life, did his duty in a perfunctory way both in church or out of it, and who, if no spiritual pastor to the parish, refrained from lowering its moral and religious tone. Edward died, May 14, 1884, when on a visit to his sister
