In those remote
times there were no proper roads, and the tracks between the two places
were mainly made by the feet of the monks, with crosses placed at
intervals to prevent their losing the way, especially when the hills
were covered with snow. The track still existed, being known as the
"Abbots' Way." The distance between the two abbeys was about sixteen
miles as the crow flies, but as the track had to go partially round some
of the tors, which there rose to an elevation of about 1,500 feet above
sea-level, and were directly in the way, it must have involved a walk of
quite twenty miles from one abbey to the other. Buckfast Abbey is one of
the oldest in Britain, and ultimately became the richest Cistercian
house in the West of England. The last abbot was Gabriel Donne, who
received his appointment for having in 1536 captured Tyndale the
Reformer, who was in the same year put to death by strangling and
burning.
[Illustration: BUCKLAND ABBEY.]
One of the earliest stories of the "lost on the moors" was connected
with that road. Childe, the "Hunter of Plymstock," had been hunting in
one of the wildest districts on Dartmoor, and was returning home at
night, when a heavy snowstorm came on and the night became bitterly
cold.
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