BACK TO THE WEST COUNTRY i8i 



there undiscovered for several years those who found 

 me would not believe that my remains were human, 

 but only a skeleton cunningly carved out of Ham Hill 

 stone. This sensation, or its memory, or the feeling 

 which remains in the mind when the memory and 

 images have vanished, enters in and gives an ex- 

 pression to all buildings of this same yellow material. 

 This feeling was in me when I spent a couple of hours 

 in full sight of Montacute House ; otherwise I should 

 probably have thought, as no doubt most persons do, 

 that the colour of the stone added greatly to the 

 beauty of the building, that it harmonized with its 

 surroundings, the green spaces and ancient noble trees, 

 bathed in a brilliant sunlight, and the wide blue sky 

 above. 



On my first evening in the town I went out into the 

 neighbouring wood on the steep slope above the little 

 river Yeo, and listened to a nightingale for half an 

 hour, the only one I could find in the place. On the 

 following afternoon I had sitting opposite to me at 

 the table when taking tea at the hotel a commercial 

 traveller whose appearance and speech amused and 

 interested me. A tall bony uncouth-looking young 

 man with ^antern jaws and sunburned skin, in a rough 

 suit of tweeds and thick boots ; he was more like a 

 working farmer than a " commercial," who as a rule 

 is a towny, dapper person. I ventured the remark 

 that he came from the north. Oh yes, he replied, 

 from a manufacturing town in Yorkshire ; he had 

 been visiting the West of England for the last two 



