mouth before a hotel and the passengers ens were picking about the kitchen. were climbing down the ladder amid a Several small children, also in the group of solicitous porters. After the kitchen, were quarreling in the uneasy luggage had been tumbled off, an extra way of children with nothing to occupy horse was hitched on and the coach them. Two of the boys were declarwith its few remaining passengers ing stoutly that they were going to climbed a steep zigzag up a great cliff church that evening (it was Sunday), to Lynton high above. and a sister was harassing them by snapping out over and over again, mother had to threaten to "lick the whole lot" before they would stop their religious controversy. Lynton and Lynmouth are twin villages. Each is a snug hamlet of lodg-“You beant, you beant." The ing-houses and hotels, and they are so near together that you could throw a stone from Lynton's high perch down upon the roofs of the sister village. Readers of Lorna Doone will remember that it was about a mile to the west of Lynton, in The Valley of Rocks," that 'Mother Meldrum' made her winter home under the "Devil's Cheese-wring." I stopped in Lynmouth. The deep green dell, with its huddle of houses taking up every inch of available space, the great hills towering about, and the streams that come rioting down from the heights, are very charming. The coast beyond the villages, too, is very fine. A path hewn in the hillside leads westerly and entices one on and on. The cliffs fronting the sea grow wilder as one proceeds, till they rise mountain high in pinnacles of splintered rock. The next morning was dull and misty, but here I was right on the border of Lorna Doone's own country; so I put on a rubber cape and started for a walk up the valley. The road led up a vast, crooked glen, skirting, halfway up, the sides of the big stony mountains that towered all along. A stream foamed and roared in the deep wooded ravine below and the road on that side was guarded for miles by a three-foot stone wall. In time the road took a turn down into a hollow where were several whitewashed cottages. It had been misting all the time, but now the mist turned into rain, and I stepped into an open door for shelter and had a little talk with a frowzy woman, who held a baby in her arms. A hen and chick When the sky lightened, I climbed a steep hill, passed a little church. with a sun-dial on its southern gable, and went down into a deep valley. Here was the noisy stream again and some ancient cottages. The cottages had piles of turf near them. One pile was about ten feet high and eight square, and had a bit of thatch on top. This pile was of the black, rooty surface turf called "spines," with the heather clinging in it. But spine turf is getting scarce in the forest and the people mostly have to cut "pit turf " (peat) in the bogs. There were sheep in many of the fields along the road from Lynmouth up. They seemed to pick about even on the most rocky mountain sides. Often I met them in the highway and then they would leap nimbly away up the hillside, or down, whichever was more convenient. They were of a horned variety and in their alert vigor and look of intelligence were very attractive. Eight miles miles from Lynmouth I reached Malmsmead, a group of two or three small farmhouses, which lies. directly at the entrance to the Doone Valley. The main highway continues straight on and those who choose to visit the stronghold of the Doones have to take a side road that soon dwindles to a lane and presently to a rude bridle path. As the round trip is six miles, pony-back travelers are common in the glen. I found the valley opening southward back among the high, wide sweep of the hills. The slopes were some- a little wood of scrubby oak whose times partly wooded, but in the main branches are strangely twisted and were of dull olive-brown heather. mossy. The stream here is a succesTwo hundred years ago, when John sion of pools, and slides down greenRidd's mother came here after the mossed terraces of rock. In the story murder of her husband, she found her- the boy John Ridd nearly loses his self at the head of a deep green life climbing up the slippery sides. valley, carved from out the mountains in a perfect oval, with a fence of sheer rock standing round it, eighty feet or a hundred high; from whose brink black, wooded hills swept up to the skyline." Then, as now, in the hollow "Bagworthy Water" fretting along its stony course. This stream runs into the Lynn about two miles below Plover's Barrows' and makes a real river of it." Nature only gave Mr. Blackmore hints, his imagination filled in the remainder. There is here no wild glen with a precipice-guarded entrance. At the spot where the entrance to the Doone stronghold should be is a wide stream-a modest trout brook—that tumbles down a rocky hollow through THE VALLEY OF THE LYN. But here, in real nature, there is nothing that need have kept him from picking his way along the banks, though there are certain shoulders and ledges of rocks that push out from the hill. At a certain point I crept under one of these ledges to get out of the rain and the drip of the trees. There was nothing "jagged, black and terrible ” about it or about any of them. Yet in a way the spot was very satisfactory. The germ of it all was here, and trees and rocks and banks had a moss-grown, lichened look of age full of mysterious suggestion. I went a mile up the lonely valley, beyond the water-slide, and on this whole, hilly, water-soaked heath saw not even a sheep. I kept on until I came to the end of the ra vine, where can be still discerned a few low, grass-grown ruins of walls that were once the Doone huts. "Fourteen huts my mother counted, all very much of a pattern and nothing to choose between them, unless it were the captain's," says John Ridd in describing the den. Here towards the close of the seventeenth century lived this old band of outlaws. Traditions of their terrible strength and cruelty still linger in the neighborhood. In the end a particularly fiendish act of theirs roused the country to exterminate "the entire nest of vipers." It is pleasant to fancy, while on the spot, that John Ridd was the leader of the attack and to feel that he ordered the burning of these huts so that "not even one was left, but all made potash in the river," The afternoon was far spent when I again reached Lynmouth. I had tramped nearly twenty-four miles and was footsore and tired, but the bell of a little chapel hard by attracted me to evening service. I did not learn of what denomination the chapel was, but its members were called The Brethren." It was a tiny place with seats for fifty persons and nearly all the seats were filled. There was no organ. Some man in the pews would start the tune and then the congregation would join in and begin to get up. The hymns were long and there was a chorus to every verse. The preacher was a bushy-headed, uncultured man whose talk was shallow, wordy, and emotional, yet most of his listeners seemed interested. One small boy went to sleep and a young woman behind him amused herself by pulling sprouts of hair from the back of his head till he awoke. The next morning I went again to linger about the little valley where the Doones made their home. Late in the day I returned to Malmsmead and looked more particularly about the tiny hamlet. By the riverside was a woman kneeling on the stones, washing. There had been a pig-killing at one of the farms and when I spoke with the woman she informed me casually that she was washing out the insides" of the late pig, and I thought of Jude's first meeting with Arabella, in "Jude the Obscure." Her daughter was coming down soon to help carry up the tub. Just above this worker was a pretty double-arched stone bridge that the road climbed over as if it had been a little hill. The woman said she lived in the thatched farmhouse nearest this bridge. Not caring to walk back to Lynmouth I arranged with her for lodgings. The thick-walled, tile-floored kitchen was the living room of the family, and for the rest of the day it was there I spent most of my time. Aside from the fireplace, half filled up. with a modern grate, the chief feature of the room was a heavy plank table that ran nearly the full length of one side of the room. At the back was a long seat fastened against the wall. On the room side of the table was a ten-foot bench of home manufacture with great wide-spreading legs at each end. I sat on this bench to do some writing. Opposite me were seated two small red-headed girls who could just manage to get their elbows on the table. Part of the time they kept a silent watch of me, part of the time looked at a group of callers—friends of the family-chatting with their mother on the other side of the room, and all the time they nibbled their fingers. My excellent breakfast the next morning included Devonshire cream. Devonshire cream is a famous delicacy in England; why is it not made in America? Here is the process: When the woman of the house finished milking she put the milk in some great earthen pans. In them it stood till the following morning, when she put the pans on the fire and let the milk scald. After that the pans were set away for another day and then skimmed. The result was “Devonshire” cream, and no one who has tasted it can forget its dainty sweetness. It is eaten as a sort of sauce with bread, usually accompanied by jam or marmalade. I find myself tempted to dwell on the household life of these simple people of the Doone's country, but I must not go too far aside. The family kept two sheep dogs. Such dogs are not taxed in England. On "fancy" dogs there is a rate of seven-and-sixpence, but collies are workers—necessary members of society. Sheep are kept out in the pastures the year round, but in winter they have to be fed somewhat, with hay and oats, or, in snowy weather, with turnips. If any sheep are miss ing after a storm the shepherds go out and poke around with a stick in the spots where the snow is deep and dig out the sheep with shovels. The same practice prevailed in John Ridd's time and gave that severe test of even his mighty strength in the great snowstorm of 1685. Usually they find them under the shelter of a hedge, where they have gone for protection and have been drifted under. On Exmoor Forest, when a snowstorm threatens, the shepherds drive the sheep to the hilltops, where the snow will blow off. It is the drifts that are dangerous. After the hay Mowing among these Doone valleys. is all done by hand. The mowers start their work about three or four o'clock in the morning. By ten the dew is dried off and they stop mowing, spread their swaths and attend to the hay cut the day before. is turned and dried it is loaded on the two-wheeled carts and stacked into ricks in a corner of the meadows. Toward six o'clock in the afternoon the men begin mowing again and keep at it till ten, or, in good weather, sometimes till after midnight. The partly dried hay that is to be kept out over night is raked up in little "rackrolls," or, if it looks rainy, is stacked in pooks." 66 A laborer's daily wage on the farms here is two shillings and his "mate,' which is the Devon word for food. In the long summer days a man can earn a half crown (about sixty cents) or three shillings (seventy-two cents) and his "mate." The rent paid for firstrate land in that region is from three to four pounds an acre. Toward noon I started down the valley and left Malmsmead and the Doone country behind, but not the memory of them. In its story interest, in its picturesque scenery, and in the glimpses of life I caught among its people I nowhere in England found a region more enjoyable. Clifton Johnson. |