A HOLIDAY IX DEVONSHIRE. 65 



flourishes in mid-winter ? Has it not gentle lowlands and 

 bleak highlands ? Does it not rise into open-browed moors 

 that catch the earliest snows, and sink into valleys seques- 

 tered from the storms and turmoils that roughen the rest of 

 the world ? 



These thoughts were not unwelcome as I stood apart 

 from the shifting, bustling throng at Paddington terminus, 

 mounting guard over creel and rods, until the express was 

 ready to whisk me through the night to Plymouth. The 

 confusion and bustle of this station, immortahsed in Frith's 

 picture, were positively soothing to the Devonshire-bound 

 passenger, for the contrast between the fleeting present 

 and the immediate future was a whetstone to the edge of 

 anticipation. So, let porters and grooms rush hither and 

 thither, ladies appeal in perplexing chorus to the officials, 

 and testy gentlemen rage and scold — ^what mattered ? To- 

 morrow I should be knee-deep in west country clover, my 

 flies would be sailing down Devonshire streams, and for a 

 whole week, behold, London should know me no more^ 

 The greater the hubbub around, the more placid I. 



It was a long ride in prospect, for Reading, Bath, Bristol,. 

 Taunton, Exeter, and Plymouth had to pass in review ere I 

 could exchange the iron horse for that more primitive 

 carrier tlirough whose good offices I hoped by to-morrow's 

 noon to climb up into the free air of Dartmoor. It was the 

 I St of June, a date of no significance to ordinary mortals, 

 though a red-letter day to the London angler. 'Wherefore, 

 though perchance I should sleep by-and-by, it must not be 

 until I had caught such glimpses as time would permit of 

 the stations along the Thames. The Great "Western is 

 the angler's line par excellence. The Colne, the Thames,. 



