78 SEA-SIDE STUDIES. 



hill ; or the woods of Chambercombe lure you into 

 their coolness. When the sun is broiling in cloudless 

 blue, the coolness of a wood, in which the sunbeams 

 only flicker through branches, and elicit all their 

 beauties, forms a pleasant retreat ; and before you 

 reach Chambercombe the eye has been delighted with 

 perpetual landscapes. There is a lane leading into a 

 farmyard — a Devonshire lane, remember — which will 

 long hold a place in my memory. Close to the gate 

 of this farmyard there is a spring which is a perfect 

 miniature of some Swiss " falls." It spreads itself like 

 a crystal fan on successive ledges of the hedge-bank, 

 until it reaches a much broader ledge, where it forms 

 a little lake on a bed of brown pebbles ; then down it 

 goes again till it reaches the road, where it runs along 

 a tiny, happy, babbling stream. One of the endless 

 charms of these lanes — as of all mountainous districts 

 — is the frequency of the springs, glossy with liverwort 

 and feathery with fern, making a pleasant music day 

 and night. Passing through the farmyard, where the 

 pigs wallow, and grunt sensual satisfaction, and the 

 cows look at you with bovine stupidity, you come 

 upon a widening of the lane, where several gateways 

 meet, and here the exquisite mid-flowers, everywhere 

 so abundant, seem more than ever luxuriant. What a 

 perfect bit of foreground is that ! A few rough mossy 

 trunks Ijning against the tufts of fern, and a quiet don- 

 key stretched across the lane in " maiden meditation, 

 fancy free ;" it is one of those exquisite nothings which 

 somehow affect you more than a fine landscape. At 



