74 SEA-SIDE STUDIES. 



golden gloiy, perpetually tempting one to pluck a tuft of 

 blossoms as the largest specimen ever seen, and scenting the 

 air all round, Ilfracombe is enchanting. So it is in summer ; 

 but the loss of the furze is almost like the fading away of 

 the evening red. Contemporary with the furze is the lovely 

 primrose, here seen to perfection, covering the hill-sides with 

 pale stars, almost as plentifully as buttercups and daisies 

 elsewhere. In such a season, the walk to Lee seduces with 

 its beauties of rocky coast and wooded inland hill ; or the 

 woods ofChamljercombeiure you into their coolness, ^^^len 

 the sun is broiling in cloudless blue, the coolness of a wood, 

 in which the sunbeams only flicker tlirough branches, and 

 elicit all their beauties, forms a pleasant retreat ; and before 

 you reach Chambercombe the eye has been delighted with 

 perpetual landscapes. There is a lane leading into a farm- 

 yard — a Devonshire lane, remember — which will long 

 hold a place in my memory. Close to the gate of this farm- 

 yard there is a spring which is a perfect miniature of some 

 Swiss " falls." It spreads itself like a crystal fan on succes- 

 sive ledges of the hedge-bank, until it reaches a much broader 

 ledge, where it forms a little lake on a bed of brown pebbles ; 

 then down it goes again till it reaches the road, where it runs 

 along a tiny, happy, babbling stream. One of the endless 

 charms of these lanes — as of all mountainous districts — is 

 the frequency of the springs, glossy with livenvort and 

 featheiy with fern, making a pleasant music day and night. 

 Passing through the farmyard, where the pigs wallow, and 

 grunt sensual satisfaction, and the cows look at you -with 

 bovine stui^idity, you come upon a widening of the lane. 



