MYSTERY OF A FOND. 73 



countryman, taking his siesta by looking at nothing over 

 a gate. 



" Here's a pond ! " I exclaimed, when reason got the 

 better of emotion. 



" Ah ! " responded my companion, profoundly sympa- 

 thetic. 



The countryman was bewildered. Were we insane? or 

 only Cockneys ? There was a pond, sure enough, and as 

 dirty a bit o' water as you'd wish to see ; and what then ? 

 Were we frogs from the desert, that a pond should 

 agitate us ? 



While he was cracking this very hard nut, harder than his 

 own Devonshire skull, I had emerged from the bitterness of 

 self-reproach at having forgotten a phial, into the clearness of 

 triumphant resource. Seizing a large dock-leaf and con- 

 verting it into the rude resemblance of a bag, I hooked up 

 with my stick a string of tempting scum, packed it up in 

 the leaf, and walked away wealthy. To his dying jday that 

 countryman will recount, to all who will listen, the incon- 

 ceivable fancy of the gentry folks, who carried off the filth 

 of a pond in a dock-leaf. A queer start, warn't it ? 



Where shall we ramble ? At Ilfracombe the question is 

 really puzzling, because so many lovely walks solicit you. 

 Go where you will, you cannot miss a lovely walk, that is 

 some comfort ; but there is an embarrassment of riches. 

 Towards the close of spring, when the trees are in full leaf, 

 but still keep their delicate varieties of colour — varieties lost 

 in the fulness of summer, to be regained with even greater 

 beauty in autumn, — at this time, when the furze is m all its 



G 



