152 
THE FERN PARADISE. 
Royal Fern, taking the precaution to provide 
ourselves with the necessary digging implements. 
Away we drove for seven miles amidst ever 
varying landscapes, by copse, hedgerow, stream 
and meadow ; now climbing the upland road ; 
now — arrived on the upland crest — catching a 
momentary glance of the wide landscape, spread, 
in its mingled loveliness, over many a long mile ; 
now diving down a steep declivity, under the 
darkening shadow of overhanging woods. Still 
descending, on we went. Now we crossed the 
glancing waters of the winding Dart ; and now 
again ascending and descending upland after up- 
land, we arrived at length at a point of our road 
within a few hundred yards of our destination. 
Then we turned round to the right and, before 
descending a carriage road just wide enough to 
admit our barouche, we paused a moment spell- 
bound by the transcendent loveliness of the 
scene. A valley of woods of varying hues of 
green, and in the deepest gorge of the valley 
the beautiful Dart, its winding course — where 
the glancing water is hidden from view — shown 
