284 FIELD AND HEDGEROW. 
show sport. The otter, I fear, is going; I hope the 
sportsmen of Somerset will see that it remains in their 
county, at all events, when it has become a tradition 
elsewhere. Otter hounds frequently visit the rivers, and 
first-rate sport is obtained. In these villages, two hun- 
dred miles from London, and often far from the rail, 
some of the conditions resemble those in the United 
States, where, instead of shops,‘stores’ supply every 
article from one counter. So here you buy everything 
in one shop ; it is really a ‘store’ in the American sense. 
A house which seems amid fields is called ‘The Dragon ;’ 
you would suppose it an inn, but it is a shop, and has 
been so ever since the olden times when every trader put 
out a sign. The sign has gone, but the name remains. 
Somewhere in a wood there is a stone, supposed to 
be a tombstone of the prophetess Mother Shipton, 
and bearing an undecipherable inscription. One of her 
rhymes is well remembered in the neighbourhood :— 
When Watchet is all washed down 
Williton shall be a seaport town, 
This is founded on the gradual encroachment of the sea, 
which is a fact, but it will be some time yet before masts 
are seen at Williton. 
At Dunster there is a curious mill which has two 
wheels, overshot, one in front of the other, and both! 
driven by the same sluice. It was very hot as we stood 
by the wheels; the mill dust came forth and sprinkled 
the foliage so that the leaves seemed scarce able to 
breathe ; it drifted almost to the stream hard by, where 
trout were watching under a cloud of midges dancing 
over the ripples, They look as if entangled in an inextri- 
cable maze, but if you let your eye travel, say to the 
right, as you would follow the flight of a bird, you find 
