60 
PEEKS' COMBES. 
soul! I would go and show you the way, hut I’m 
deaf, and I can’t walk. Good bye, I wish ye well 
and she held out her hand, and gave ours a hearty 
shake. Hearty old Druidess, with your grove! 
there was a kind, warm heart under that wrinkled, 
rugged form. We drove through “the grove,” a 
dim avenue of ancient trees, to the farm. There 
was a way, but not for wheels ; so again we thread 
the grove, and descending by a terrible hill to pretty 
Ward Bridge, toil up a perfect precipice to Samp- 
ford Spiney, a melancholy place, consisting of a 
church and a house, high, high up in the air, look¬ 
ing down like a sentinel from its altitude on the 
earth below. 
Let us get out of it to the high-road as quick 
as possible, for the shades of evening are closing 
round us. 
More quickly said than done. We came to a 
place where two roads diverged; which are we to 
follow ? The map says this one to the right, which 
will lead us by Vixen Tor to Merrivale Bridge in 
little more than two miles. 
We inquired of a boy, who happened to pass, if 
we could get that way. 
“Ho,” was his answer; “at no time is there a 
regular road, only a track; and at present it is so 
cut up with the peat-carts, your carriage would be 
