DEVON LANES AND THEIR ASSOCIATIONS. 5 



which, when once you are in, there is no getting out, is mani- 

 festly indigenous. 



Autumn brings a beauty of its own to these quiet lanes. 

 Heather and golden gorse stray from the moorland down their 

 banks the last bright flowers of the year just as two or three 

 purple and pink cloud-flakes often linger in the West long after 

 a glorious sunset. The tall hedges are a tangle of convolvulus 

 and honeysuckle, filling the calm evening hours with fragrance. 

 Mid-day, which, sooth to say, is during July somewhat oppres- 

 sive in these still retreats, has now its own clear, sharp breeze. 

 Deeper shades of red and yellow are passing over the leaves. 

 You may often meet here two or three bare-armed children 

 from the cottage on the hill-side, staring at you with round blue 

 eyes as they gather blackberries, which have left numerous 

 specimens of nature-printing on their cheeks. The biggest 

 boy maybe stands on a donkey's back under the nut-trees, 

 clutching at their treasures, with no fear of the patient animal 

 beneath him moving on. Mother is far away on the moors 

 gathering " worts" (whortleberries), to sell to visitors at the 

 neighbouring seaside village. Home life is very uneventful to 

 these cottagers. The children tell you, "Vather be to the 

 zyder-press," and this answer will apply equally well to him, 

 good, honest man, any day from August to November. 



The stranger rambling in these Devon lanes is frequently 

 surprised at a turn of the road to find before him in its sheltered 

 "combe" an old mansion now converted into a farmhouse. 

 Very picturesque does the transformation render it, with its 

 thatched gables, deeply sunk dormer windows, and large lower 

 casements, lighting what was the common hall, but is now the 

 goodwife's kitchen. Merry beards once wagged there, and the 

 best families of Devon the Mohuns, Carews, Champernounes 

 may have flourished in the massive walls, whose heavy mul- 

 lioned windows you see blinking in the sunshine. Gilbert and 

 Drake may have circumnavigated the world there to an admir- 



