EXETER CASTLE 



313 



would have it that tlie King is a certain ' Matty the 

 Miller':— 



The people around Avould not believe 



That Matty the Miller was dead ; 



For every hour on Westgate tower, 



Matty still nods his head. 



And, in fact, the King kicks his heels against the 

 bell and nods with every stroke. 

 The Jacobean Guildhall of Exeter, 

 too, is amono- the most strikino- 

 relics of this old - world city ; 

 while away from the High Street, 

 but near the continual clashino- 



O 



of a great railway station, there 

 «tand the remains of Exeter 

 Castle, the appropriately named 

 Eouo;emont, that cruel Blunder- 

 bore, drunken in the long- ago 

 with the blood of many a gallant 

 gentleman. At the end of a 

 lono- line of those who suffered were Colonel 

 John Penruddocke and Hugh Grove, captured at 

 South Molton after that ineffectual Salisbury rising. 

 Executed in the Castle Yard, in the very heart of 

 this loyal city of Exeter, many a heart must have 

 ached on that fatal morning for these unhappy men. 

 ' This, I hope,' said Penruddocke, ascending the 

 scaffold, ' will prove like Jacob's Ladder ; though the 

 feet of it rest upon the earth, yet I doubt not but 

 the top of it reaches to Heaven. The crime for 

 which I am now to die is Loyalty, in this age 

 called High Treason,' 



MATTY THE MILLER. 



