i8o MY DEVON YEAR 



blossom and fruit, after their kind, though reduced to 

 a miniature habit. Here are the little burnet-rose, the 

 vernal squill, the pimpernel, cudweed, euphrasy, sea 

 stork's-bill, the frail flax, and the thyme. Blackthorns 

 and hawthorns, all bending East like sun-worshippers, 

 stand here above the sea ; the thistle and the teasel 

 spring in colonies on giddy slopes, and from nooks 

 and crannies the samphire and bladder-campion peep 

 down at the green combing seas and snowy breakers 

 below. Far beneath spreads the valley, and meadows 

 and cornfields extend beside a trout stream, that winds 

 like a brown and silver snake in the heart of the 

 combe. Here spring alders, sallows, oaks ; and lift- 

 ing from the sweet grasses in June you shall find dark 

 spires of purple monk's-hood, beds of the yellow iris, 

 and fair lacework of bryony and dog-rose where they 

 trail and climb along the banks of the little river. If 

 you are a fisherman, you may take a trout here within 

 fifty yards of the beach, for the stream is well stocked, 

 and the fish inhabit even the last pool that stands 

 above high-water mark. From this spot the combe 

 rivulet leaps an apron of stones, and having twinkled 

 over the beach awhile, it vanishes amid ribbed sands 

 and limpet-covered boulders. 



Turn with your back to the sea and look inland, 

 and you note the head of this valley bowered in noble 

 hanging woods that roll with each undulation of the 

 combe, and make a deep semicircle of green. Above 

 them, one square grey church tower stands in the dip 

 of the hills ; beneath them, are scattered a cot or two 



