204 MOSTLY ABOUT TROUT 



coast-line away past Clovelly to Hartland Point 

 and Lighthouse. In the near foreground a wide 

 expanse of wet sand, opal-tinted like the neck 

 feathers of a dove, and numberless sea birds 

 following up the wavelets of the receding tide 

 or wading in the shallow pools that it has left 

 behind. Excited children crowding to the train 

 windows to greet with delight each well remem- 

 bered object in the view. Those are the first 

 impressions of an August holiday in North Devon. 

 It is well to make the best of them. 



At each station the train discharges its load 

 of families of all sizes, piles of luggage, perambu- 

 lators, little cots, and bundles of spades, buckets 

 and butterfly-nets. Strings of vehicles, from 

 the donkey-drawn governess-cart to the opulent 

 motor, wait to distribute them to their des- 

 tinations. The coast road skirts round Saun- 

 ton Hill, now a blaze of crimson heath and wild 

 flowers ; a glorious view of the sands, of the 

 bluff granite headlands across the bay, of Lundy 

 Island to seaward, and soon we come to our 

 goal, a cluster of small farms and a little village 

 of whitewashed cottages straggling up a narrow 

 valley with a miniature trout-stream babbling 

 over pebbles by the roadside. The little gardens 

 are bright with fuchsias, nasturtiums and pinks, 

 and the banks of the tiny stream with yellow 



