Of Dartmoor and its Borderland. 165 the grey old relic from the rude blasts of the neighbourinff hills. The cross, which is rather rudely cut, measures three feet less an inch in height, and across the arms is about one foot eleven inches. In depth the arms are nine inches, on the face which now fronts the garden. The width of the head is thir- teen inches, and it rises nine inches above the arms ; it is about five inches in thickness close to their upper surface, but grows less towards the top. Below the arms the thickness of the shaft is about seven inches, and its width fifteen inches. On one face there is an incised cross measuring about ten inches in height by five inches across. It is not placed between the arms, but below them, and is not in the centre of the shaft. It is probable that in the olden days, the dwellers in this tor-surrounded combe resorted to this cross to offer their devotions, many a prayer doubtless having been breathed, and thanksgiving poured forth before it — " This was the scene : — ^the old man there, More motionless than sculptured stone ; The moorland beacon wild and bare ; And, high upraised in stillest air, The cross against the western glare, 'Mid glory all its own. " And, like the seraph strains which flow From million harps or golden lyre, Such words as these, good angels know, Fell from that old man, grave and slow. Borne upward through the evemng glow, As incense, high and higher. « * * " * Thou art * the same,' for ever One ; And Thy Great Sign shall never die, — For when the circling years have run, A cross no human eye can shun Shall e'en out-gleam both star and sun, Bright on the eastern sky.' "* Near the gate of Widecombe churchyard we shall find the base of a cross standing in the centre of the green. The cross itself is gone, and in its place a small yew tree is growing. •T. Vernon Wollaston. Stat Crux Dum Volvitur Orbis, Lyra Devoniensis.
