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| Bishop of Exeter Frederick Temple by James Joseph Jacques Tissot [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons |
"Dr. recently held a visitation at Torrington, North Devon, and while his carriage was being harnessed for the return journey to Barnstaple, intimated that he would walk on. The bishop took the old hilly road, which is now but little used, and the coachman, unaware of this fact, drove off, via Bickford [Bideford?], quite in another direction. For five miles his lordship trudged on, and becoming fatigued, and seeing no sign of carriage, on arriving at Newton Tracey he asked a respectable publican and farmer there to give him a lift. Boniface had a cart, but the cart was unlicensed, and he pleaded this objection against complying with Dr. 's wish. But the bishop was equal to the emergency ; he was desirous to proceed, and would pay the cost of a license. This anxiety aroused the publican's suspicions, who rejoined that if his visitor " would zit down and take a drap ov zummut 'e wid go tii Barum and get a lishens." But for this preliminary the bishop could not wait and urged his host to harness his cart at once, and take out a license on reaching Barnstaple.
More convinced than ever of the character and occupation of the pedestrian, Boniface broke out, emphasizing his denunciations with strong expletives.
"I knaw thee. Thee art wan ov they supervisor fellers that be alwes agwaine about the country, a-trying tii trap poar men awver their lishenses and their carts."
The astonished prelate mildly endeavoured to assuage the wrath of the irate publican, by the statement that he was the Bishop of Exeter.
"Tez a d lie and nothing of the zort," retorted the other, "yii want tii trick me, zames yii did my neighbour tother day. Why, Bill Smith was armed five pound and yii wan'th tii git me intii the zame box, but I'm burned if yii dii."
So the bishop had again to sally forth, until he was picked up about four miles from his destination by the carriage, which had meanwhile been sent out in quest of him from Barnstaple. The publican chuckled over his own cuteness in doing the supervisor, and to a friend who called a few days later, he narrated the incident with great glee.
"I knawed," said he, "who the chap was ! He was a-dressed up like a zort of genelman varmer with a pair of black gaiters and breeches, and a rummy zort of a hat 'pon his head ; but he didden git awver me, I cude zee by the twinkle of his eye he was wan of they excise chaps and he wanted to zar me zames he did Bill Smith. He, poor blid, was fined five pound tuther day for just a-taking his missus who'd been bad for just a little bit of a turn round a bit." Shortly after, Boniface learnt the true state of the case, when he said, "Bless my sawl, what a fiile I've abin, mayhap if I'd diied what his lordship axed me, he mid a-made me Dean of the Katheydral !"
Slightly altered from report in the Tiverton Gazette" [1872]
Hewett 1900
Map - Barnstaple
Map - Exeter
Map - Newton Tracey
Map - Torrington
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