[Illustration: LOSTWITHIEL ANCIENT BRIDGE AND LANDING PLACE.]
Here we rejoined the Liskcard highway, which crossed the river by an
ancient bridge said to date from the fourteenth century. At this point
the river had long ago been artificially widened so as to form a basin
and landing-place for the small boats which then passed to and fro
between Fowey and Lostwithiel.
The derivation of the last place-name was somewhat doubtful, but the
general interpretation seemed to be that its original form was
Lis-guythiel, meaning the "Palace in the Wood," which might be correct,
since great trees still shut in the range of old buildings representing
the remains of the old Palace or Duchy House. The buildings, which were
by no means lofty, were devoted to purposes of an unimportant character,
but they had a decidedly dungeon-like appearance, and my brother, who
claimed to be an authority on Shakespeare because he had once committed
to memory two passages from the great bard's writings, assured me that
if these old walls were gifted with speech, like the ghost that
appeared to Hamlet, they "could a tale unfold, whose lightest word would
harrow up our souls; freeze our young blood; make our eyes, like stars,
start from their spheres; our knotted and combined locks to part, and
each particular hair to stand on end like quills upon the fretful
porcupine"; but fortunately "this eternal blazon must not be to ears of
flesh and blood," and so we hurried away up the town.
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