10 COUNTRY ESSAYS. 



night before Christmas day, according to the beautiful legend of 

 the county, to bid 



"Each fettered ghost slip to his several grave," 



and the very oxen at midnight will fall down on their knees 

 before the manger. The next turn brings us to the Otter, 

 rushing along some forty feet below with angry stream, very 

 different to the pleasant murmur with which it glides through 

 the land in summer. Notice how abrupt are the transitions of 

 the lanes. We can now catch the distant roar which tells of 

 the sea chafing awfully amidst the rocks of the Salterton reef. 

 How changed, too, are its waves from those which in August 

 ripple gently over the many-coloured pebbles on the beach, 

 much as some gigantic Viking might have dallied with the 

 yellow curls of his princess. Now they form a black, seething 

 torrent, flashing here and there into huge foam-crested rollers, 

 that chase each other wildly on, and leap, and strike, and roar 

 again with rage as the sturdy rocks stand firm, and they can 

 only swirl round and break against their next neighbours in 

 the mighty charge. Fully to appreciate the Devon sea, it 

 should be visited from one of the quiet lan^ ll. ~ien on to 

 the beach, when a good southerly breeze brings it in, and all 

 the green expanse is flecked with many a white " sea-horse " 

 riding gallantly on, as though after some imaginary hero 

 of Ivry. 



One more Christmas association, and then we will pass to a 

 brighter scene. Curiously enough, the blue-scented violet 

 which lends such a charm to the lanes of other counties, is 

 very rare in Devon, and the mistletoe is never found there. 

 Glastonbury seems its headquarters in England, and whole 

 truck-loads of it are imported every Christmas for the festivities 

 of the West. Its absence in Devon and Cornwall calls up an 

 awful picture of the womankind of other days, when such 

 amatory trifles as violets and mistletoe were not encouraged in 



