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CHAPTEE IX. 



BY SEVERN, TAFF, AND TOWY. 



The first holiday that Lord Colchester, her Majesty's 

 Postmaster-General, enabled a certain young clerk 

 to take, was partly spent in what was then the 

 little-known but jpicturesque seaside town of Ilfra- 

 combe. So small was this watering-place forty years 

 ago, and so sparsely was it visited in the spring- 

 time, that the arrival of a stranger, however young 

 and inconsiderable, fluttered the public mind. 



While at Ilfracombe I received a letter in an official 

 cover, referring, no doubt, to some merely trifling 

 matter ; but the fact of its arrival — I had been seen 

 reading the letter, or must have dropped the cover, 

 * On Her Majesty's Service,' in the street — caused 

 much speculation. The Customs or the Commis- 

 sioners of Excise had evidently sent down an emissary 

 to look after malpractices affecting the revenue. 

 Amateur smugglers and the keepers of private stills, 

 if any, may be supposed to have held their breath. 



It was here, half a century ago (when a scare 

 prevailed about bank-notes, because of forgeries which 



