A hospital for lepers, founded as early as the fourteenth century, was
now used for the deserving poor; and near the old chapel, attached to
the hospital cottages, the place was pointed out to us where the local
followers of the Duke of Monmouth who were unfortunate enough to come
under the judgment of the cruel Judge Jeffreys were boiled in pitch and
their limbs exhibited on the shambles and other public places.
We had a comparatively easy walk of sixteen miles to Exeter, as the road
was level and good, with only one small hill. For the first four miles
we had the company of the small river Otter, which, after passing
Honiton, turned here under the highway to Ottery St. Mary, on its course
towards the sea. The county of Devon is the third largest in England,
and having a long line of sea-coast to protect, it was naturally warlike
in olden times, and the home of many of our bravest sailors and
soldiers. When there was no foreign enemy to fight they, like the Scots,
occasionally fought each other, and even the quiet corner known as the
Fenny Bridges, where the Otter passed under our road, had been the scene
of a minor battle, to be followed by a greater at a point where the
river Clyst ran under the same road, about four miles from Exeter.
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