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There was a floating mass of legend ready to be appropriated by any character that might seem to deserve it; and we may take Coppinger as a kind of generic title, the clustering of varying Cornish traditions of wrecking and piracy round one name. Such being the case, he may as well be placed at Kilkhampton as anywhere else.
We came, a little before midnight, to Sir Bevill's famous great house of Stow, near Kilkhampton: that to-night was brightly lit and full of captains and troopers feasting, as well they needed to, after the great victory.
So, with Billy tramping behind us, away we rode up the combe, where Kilkhampton tower stood against the sky; and turning to wave hands at the top, found our host and hostess still by the gate, watching us, with hands rais'd to shield their eyes from the sun. The whole petty tale of this day's ride I shall not dwell upon. Indeed, I scarcely noted the miles as they pass'd.
At one turn they could catch, over the western walls, a glimpse of the blue ocean flecked with passing sails; and at the next, spread far below them, range on range of fertile park, stately avenue, yellow autumn woodland, and purple heather moors, lapping over and over each other up the valley to the old British earthwork, which stood black and furze-grown on its conical peak; and standing out against the sky on the highest bank of hill which closed the valley to the east, the lofty tower of Kilkhampton church, rich with the monuments and offerings of five centuries of Grenvilles.
Grenvile," adds in a postscript to her letter: "If you please to bestowe a plaine black Gownd of any cheape stufe on me I will thank you, and some black shoes." She died about four years after her husband fell at Lansdown. These two lie buried at Kilkhampton, but Payne, the loyal servant, is somewhere within the noble church of Stratton; there is no monument to say where.
It is very much in the spirit of the Calvinistic clergyman, James Hervey, who, when curate at Bideford, was so much impressed by Kilkhampton Church that it prompted his once famous Meditations among the Tombs.
Neptune had touched on a sore subject; and more cheeks than Amyas Leigh's reddened at the hint. "Amen, if Heaven so please!" and on rolled the monarch of the seas; and so the pageant ended. The moment Amyas had an opportunity, he asked his brother Frank, somewhat peevishly, where Rose Salterne was. "What! the mayor's daughter? With her uncle by Kilkhampton, I believe."
Their roads were called 'Coppinger's Tracks, and all met at a headland called 'Steeple Brink, a huge hollow cliff which ran three hundred feet sheer up from the beach, while the vast, roomy cave beneath it ran right back into the land. Folks said it was as large as Kilkhampton Church, and they were not far wrong.
"There my fine is paid, sirrah, to the poor of Kilkhampton: but hearken thou all the same. If thou wilt not speak an oath, thou shalt speak on compulsion; for to Launceston gaol thou goest, there to answer for Mr. Oxenham's death, on suspicion whereof, and of mutiny causing it, I will attach thee and every soul of his crew that comes home.
The Perpendicular church of Kilkhampton chiefly dates from the Elizabethan days when one of the Grenvilles was rector here; but it embodies the beautiful Norman doorway from the church supposed to have been built in the eleventh century by another Grenville. Some other Norman traces are preserved Rector Grenville was a judicious restorer.
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