BY EDEN PHILLPOTTS AUTHOR OF "DANCE OF THE MONTHS," "A SHADOW PASSES," ETC. ILLUSTRATED BY A. T. BENTHALL LONDON LEONARD PARSONS PORTUGAL STREET First Published, May 1920 Leonard Parsons, Ltd. CONTENTS...

East of Exe River and south of those rolling heaths crowned by the encampment of Woodberry, there lies a green valley surrounded by forest and hill. Beyond it rise great bluffs that break in precipices upon the sea. They are dimmed to sky colour by a gentle wind from the east, for Eurus, however fierce his message, sweeps a fair garment about him. Out of the blue mists that hide distance the definition brightens and lesser hills range themselves, their knolls dark with pine, their bosoms rounded

Through the sad heath white roads wandered, trickling hither and thither helplessly. There was no set purpose in them; they meandered up the great hill and sometimes ran together to support each other. Then, fortified by the contact, they climbed on across the dusky upland, where it rolled and fell and lifted steadily to the crown of the land: a flat-headed clump of beech and oak with a fosse round about it. Only the roads twisting through this waste and a pool or two scattered upon it brought a

There is a spit of land that runs across the estuary of the Exe, and as the centuries pass, the sea plays pranks with it. A few hundred years ago the tideway opened to the West, not far from the red cliffs that tower there, and then Exmouth and the Warren were one; but now it is at Exmouth that the long sands are separated from the shore and, past that little port, the ships go up the river, while the eastern end of the Warren joins the mainland. So it has stood within man's memory; but now, as

Among the ancient, fortified manors of the West Country there is a pleasant ruin whose history is innocent of event, yet glorified with a noble name or two that rings down through the centuries harmoniously. You shall find Compton Castle where the hamlet of Lower Marldon straggles through a deep and fertile valley not many miles from Torbay. Compton's time-stained face and crown of ivy rise now above a plat of flowers. Trim borders of familiar things blossom within their box-hedges before the en

Hither, a thousand years and more ago, rode Radulphus de la Pomerio, lord of the Norman Castle of the Orchard; for William I. was generous to those who helped his conquests. Radulphus, as the result of a hero's achievements at Hastings, won eight-and-fifty Devon lordships, and of these he chose Beri, "the Walled town," for his barony, or honour. Forward we may imagine him pressing with his cavalcade, through the wooded hills and dales, until this limestone crag and plateau in the forest suddenly

Upon this seaward-facing headland the great cliffs slope outward like the sides of an old "three-decker." They bulge upon the sea, and the flower-clad scales of the limestone are full of lustrous light and colour, shining radiantly upon the still tide that flows at their feet. For, on this breathless August day, the very sea is weary; not a ripple of foam marks juncture of rock and water. The cliffs are spattered with green, where scurvy-grass and samphire, thrift and stonecrop find foothold in

Lastrea and athyrium, their foliage gone, cling in silky russet knobs under the granite ledges, warm the iron-grey stone with brown and agate brightness, and promise many a beauty of unfolding frond when spring shall come again. For their jewels will be unfolding presently, to soften the cleft granite with misty green and bring the vernal time to these silent cliffs. The quarry lies like a gash in the slope of the hills. To the dizzy edges of it creep heather and the bracken; beneath, upon its p

From the little southern salient of Bagtor at Dartmoor edge, there falls a slope to the "in country" beneath. Thereon Bagtor woods extend in many a shining plane—from wind-swept hill-crowns of beech and fir, to dingles and snug coombs in the valley bottom a thousand feet beneath. On a summer day one loiters in the dappled wood, for here is welcome shade after miles of hot sunshine on the heather above. Music of water splashes pleasantly through the trees, where a streamlet falls from step to ste

A high wind roared over the tree-tops and sent the leaf flying—blood-red from the cherry, russet from the oak, and yellow from the elm. Rain and sunshine followed swiftly upon each other, and the storms hurtled over the forest, hissed in the river below and took fire through their falling sheets, as the November sun scattered the rear-guard of the rain and the cloud purple broke to blue. A great wind struck the larches, where they misted in fading brightness against the inner gloom of the woods,

Reflection swiftly reveals the significance of a river gorge, for it is upon such a point that the interest of early man is seen to centre. The shallow, too, attracts him, though its value varies; it must ever be a doubtful thing, because the shallow depends upon the moods of a river, and a ford is not always fordable. But to the gorge no flood can reach. There the river's banks are highest, the aperture between them most trifling; there man from olden time has found the obvious place of crossin

There is a glen above West Dart whence a lesser stream after brief journeying comes down to join the river. By many reaches, broken with little falls, the waters descend upon the glen from the Moor; but barriers of granite first confront them, and before the lands break up and hollow, a mass of boulders, piled in splendid disorder and crowned with willow and rowan, crosses the pathway of the torrent. Therefore the little river divides and leaps and tumbles foaming over the mossy granite, or cree

There are two orders of ancient human monuments on Dartmoor—the prehistoric evidences of man's earliest occupation and the mediæval remains that date from Tudor times, or earlier. The Neolith has left his cairns and pounds and hut circles, where once his lodges clustered upon the hills. The other memorials are of a different character and chiefly mark the time of the stannators, when alluvial tin abounded and the Moor supported a larger population than it does to-day. Ruins of the smelting house

Life comes laden still with good days that whisper of romance, when in some haunt of old legend, our feet loiter for a little before we pass forward again. I indeed seek these places, and confess an incurable affection for romance in my thoughts if not my deeds. I would not banish her from art, or life; and though most artists of to-day will have none of her, spurn romantic and classic alike, and take only realism to their bosoms; yet who shall declare that realism is the last word, or that real

Where low and treeless hills roll out to the cliffs, and the gulls cry their sea message over farms and fields, a mighty mouth opens upon the midst of the land and gapes five hundred feet into the earth. In shape of a crater it yawns, and its many-coloured cliffs slope from the surface inwards. The great cup is chased and jewelled. Round it run many galleries, some deserted, some alive with workers. Like threads of light they circle it, now opening upon the sides of the rounded cliffs, now suspe

Ragged curtains of castellated stone climb up the northern side of a promontory and stretch their worn and fretted grey across the sea and sky. They are pierced with a Norman door, and beyond them there spreads a blue sea to the horizon; above it shines a summer sky, against whose blue and silver the ruin sparkles brightly. Beneath, a little bay opens, and the dark cliffs about it are fringed with foam; while beyond, "by Bude and Bos," the grand coastline is flung out hugely, cliff on cliff and