VIII. 

 IN DEVONSHIRE LANES. 



No other county throughout the length and 

 breadth of the British Islands can equal Devonshire 

 for lanes. They wind in endless mazes across the 

 green country, over hill and dale, crossing each 

 other, and branching out on either side like leafy 

 tunnels of foliage, cool and damp, mossy and 

 lichen-draped, green as emeralds. Whither all 

 this wilderness of lanes leads is ever a puzzle to 

 him who wanders through them. He may choose 

 one for his route, but is soon placed in a quandary 

 by arriving where a choice of two is presented, 

 each as attractive as the other. Whim or fancy 

 decides the point ; but a little further on a cross- 

 road, or perhaps a junction of half-a-dozen leafy 

 ways plunges him once more into a fit of hesitation. 

 More likely than not there will be no welcome 

 sign-board to point the road to anywhere. Each 

 solitary way has some particular charm to tempt 

 him into its arched green portals ; yet whichever 



