SHUTE HILL 297 



are repcopled with the excited peasantry who, in that 

 fatal summer of 1685, flocked to the standard of the 

 Duke of Monmouth, whom ' the Lord raised vp ' as 

 the still existing manuscript narrative of an Ax- 

 minster dissenting minister says, to champion the 

 Protestant religion — with what results we already 

 know. 



Pleasant meadow-lands lead by flat and shaded 

 roads from Axminster by the river Axe to Axmouth, 

 Seaton, and the sea, but our way continues inland. 



XLII 



There are steep ups and downs on the nine miles 

 and a half between Axminster, the byegone home of 

 carpets, and Honiton, once the seat of the lace in- 

 dustry, where all routes from London to Exeter 

 meet. 'Honiton lace ' is made now in the surround- 

 ing villages, but not in the town itself 



The first hill is soon met with, on passing over 

 the river Yart. This is Shute Hill, where the coaches 

 generally were upset, if either the coachman or the 

 horses were at all 'fresh.' Then it is a lon^ run 

 down to Kilmington, where the travellers, having 

 recovered their hearts from their boots or their 

 throats, according to their temperaments, and found 

 their breath, promptly cursed those coachmen and 

 threatened them with all manner of pains and penal- 

 ties for reckless driving. Thence, by way of Wil- 

 mington, to Honiton. 



