86 APRIL. 



roses are everywhere, clustering in great masses, or 

 studding the green banks in single stars ; the bright 

 rose-campion smiles, and the ever lovely germander 

 speedwell, brightest, sweetest of spring flowers, glad- 

 dens us here and there, like " angels' eyes," as our rustics 

 poetically call these pretty azure flowers. 



As we proceed, we pause to wipe our foreheads, and 

 turning round, see Torquay behind us, covering and 

 crowning its amphitheatre of hills, like a queenly city, 

 surely the most beauteous of all our watering-places ; 

 and beyond it on the left, we see the old church tower 

 of Marychurch, on its elevated plateau, standing out 

 massive and dark against the sky. 



We pass through the outskirts of the long straggling 

 village of Paignton, and mark how picturesquely it is 

 embosomed in the midst of its apple orchards ; the old- 

 fashioned cottages buried in the trees, so that only the 

 time-stained roofs of brown thatch rise here and there, 

 like islets in a wide sea of blushing blossom. And 

 now extensive osier grounds lie on either side ; the 

 young tender-green shoots, the hope of the harvest, 

 rising thickly from the uncouth pollard stumps ; 

 while the still water glimmers everywhere around 

 their roots. 



A narrow lane leads off abruptly on our left, into 

 which we turn, and in a moment are in a mossy, flowery, 



