Sir Lionel wanted to put me inside the car, but I pleaded that I had been so lonely and sad all day, I must be close to someone now. This plea instantly broke down his determination, which had been very square-chinned and firm till I happened to think of that argument.
He knew my coat to be waterproof, because he chose it himself in London, and I tied on a perfectly sweet rain-hood, which I'd never needed before, because this was the only real storm we'd had. It is a crimson hood, and I knew I was nice in it, from the look of Sir Lionel's eyes.
This was my first night run in the car, and the first time since starting on the tour that I'd sat on the front seat by his side. Early as it was, it "made night," and Sir Lionel lit the great lamps. Instantly it was as if a curtain of darkness unrolled on either side, leaving only the road clear and pale, spouting mud, and the rain in front like a silver veil floating across black velvet. I sat close to Sir Lionel. I can't tell you how good the sense of his nearness and protection was, and how glad I felt to know that he hadn't really wanted to send me away from him. I would have given up anything--no, _everything_ else in the world just then, for the sake of that knowledge--except, of course, your dear love. We didn't talk much, but he is one of those men to whom you don't need to talk. The silence was like that unerring kind of speech when you can't say the wrong thing if you try; and if Sir Lionel had said in the wind and darkness: "I have got to drive the car into the sea, and you and I must die together in five minutes," I should have answered: "Very well. With you I'm not afraid." And it would have been true.
The hills looked stupendous before we quite came to them; great bunchy black humps of night; but they seemed to kneel like docile elephants as we drew near, to let Apollo mount upon their backs. We passed lovely old cottages, which in the strange white light of our Bleriots looked flat, as stage scenery, against that wide-stretched "back-cloth" of inky velvet. It was like motoring in a dream--one of those dreams born before you've quite dropped asleep, while your eyes are still open. We tore through Boscastle, and on to Bude, along an empty road, with the trees flying by like torn black flags, and the rain giving a glimpse now and then of tall cliffs, as its veil blew aside. I was never so happy in my life, and when I just couldn't help saying so to Sir Lionel, what do you suppose he answered? "That's exactly what I was thinking." And then he added: "Good girl! Grand little sportswoman! I'm proud of you!"
Presently, once in a while the dazzling radiance of our lamps would die down and threaten to fail. At last it did fail altogether, and we were blotted out in the night, as if we had suddenly ceased to exist. "Carbide all used up," explained Sir Lionel. By this time we were near Hartland Point (the promontory of Hercules for the ancients) and Sir Lionel said that the best thing to do was to crawl on slowly until we should come to Clovelly. There we could leave the car at the top of the hill, go down to the village, rouse someone at a hotel, get hot coffee, and wait until dawn, when the lamps would no longer be needed.
We could distinguish nothing in the night, except a glimmer of road between dark banks, until suddenly, looking far down toward the moaning sea, we caught sight of a few lights like yellow stars which seemed to have been tossed over a precipice, and to have caught on a steep hillside, as they rolled. "That's Clovelly," said Sir Lionel. He stopped the car on a kind of natural plateau and lifted me lightly down, so that I shouldn't splash into unseen abysses of mud. Apollo would be safe there, he said, though in old days the folk of Clovelly used to be not only desperate smugglers, but wreckers, and would entice ships upon the rocks by means of lure-lights. They were very different now, and as honest and kind-hearted as any people in the world.
There was no dawn yet, but the wind had dropped a little, and the long crystal spears of rain seemed to bring with them an evanescent, ethereal glitter, reflected from unseen stars above the clouds. The trembling silver haze dimly showed us how to pick our way down a steep, narrow street of steps, over which fountains of water played and swirled. There were lights of boats in a little harbour, far, far below, and the extraordinary village of tiny white houses appeared to have tumbled down hill, like a broken string of pearls fallen from a goddess's neck.
Sir Lionel held my arm to keep me from tripping, and we descended the steps slowly, the rain that sprayed against our faces smelling salt as the sea, its briny "tang" mingling with the fragrance of honeysuckle and fuchsias. The combination, distilled by the night, was intoxicating; and if I ever smell it again, even at the other end of the world, my thoughts will run back to Sir Lionel and the fairy village of Clovelly.
Half-way down the cleft in the cliff, which is Clovelly's one street, we stopped at a house where a faint light burned sleepily. It was the New Inn, and when Sir Lionel knocked loudly, I was doubtful as to the reception we were likely to have at such an hour. But I needn't have worried--in Devon! Even if you wake people out of pleasant dreams to disagreeable realities, and demand coffee, and trail wet marks over their clean floors, they are kind and friendly. A delightful man let us in, and instead of scolding, pitied us--a great deal more than I, at any rate, needed to be pitied. He lit lights, and we saw a quaint room, whose shadows threw out unexpected gleams of polished brass, and blues and pinks of old china.
Though the calendar said August 13th, the temperature talked it down, and insisted on November, so an invitation into a clean, warm kitchen was acceptable. The nice man poked up the dying fire, put on wood and coals, and soon got a kettle of water to boiling. We should have some good hot coffee, he cheerily promised, before we could say "Jack Robinson." But when it leaked out that we had had no dinner except a sandwich at Tintagel, and nothing since, his warm Devonshire heart yearned over us; and to the hot coffee he added eggs and bacon.
While the dear things fizzled and bubbled, we were allowed to sit by the stove and toast our feet; and if anything could have smelled more heavenly than the salt rain and sweet honeysuckle out of doors, it would have been the eggs and bacon in the New Inn kitchen.
We begged to eat in the kitchen, too, and even that was permitted us, at a table spread with a clean cloth which must have been put away in a lavender cupboard. By the time the coffee, with foaming hot milk, and the sizzling eggs and bacon were ready, the early daylight was blue on the window panes. The rain had stopped with the first hint of sunrise, and in Clovelly at least (Clovelly means "shut in valley," a name not worthy of its elfin charm) the wind had gone to sleep.
I don't know how much Sir Lionel suggested paying for that breakfast, but it must have been something out of the way, for our Devonshire benefactor protested that it was far too much. He would accept the regular price, and no more. Why, we had only got him up an hour before his usual time. That was nothing. It would do him good; and he would have no extra pay.
Warm, comfortable, and refreshed, Sir Lionel and I bade our host good-bye, meaning to continue our journey to Bideford; but what we saw outside was too beautiful to turn our backs upon in that unappreciative, summary fashion. It was not sunrise yet, but was just going to be sunrise, and the world seemed to be waiting for it, hushed and expectant.
The white village glimmered in the pearly light, like a waterfall arrested in its rush down a cleft in a hill. Not having seen Clovelly, you may think that a far-fetched simile; but really it isn't. If a young cataract could be turned into a village, that would be Clovelly. The marvellous little place is absolutely unique; yet if one could liken it to anything else on earth, it might be to a corner of Mont St. Michel, or a bit of old Bellagio, going down to the sea; and certainly it is more Italian than English in atmosphere and colouring, only it is perfectly clean, as clean as a toy, or a Dutch village; so _that_ part of the "atmosphere" isn't entirely Italian! I even saw waste-paper pots; and if that isn't like Broek in Waterland, what is? Down in the harbour, the fishing boats lay like a flock of resting birds; and as we descended the cobbled steps of the street, to go to the shore, the early morning donkeys began to come up, laden with heavy bags and panniers, just as you and I saw them in Italy, and driven by just such boys and old men as I remember there, dark-eyed, picturesque, one or two with red caps. The doors of the little low-browed houses huddled on either side opened here and there, up and down the path, giving glimpses of pretty, neat interiors; bits of old furniture, the glint of a copper kettle, a brass jug, or a bit of mended blue china. A gossipy Devonshire cat came out and begged for caresses, mewing the news of the night--such a chatty creature!--and down on the beach, we made friends with the oldest man of the village, born in 1816. He was a handsome old fellow, with pathetic, faded eyes in a tanned, ruddy face; and the queer little harbour (everything is little at Clovelly, except the inhabitants) with its rustic sort of pier, and red-sailed fishing boats, looked as if it had been designed entirely as a background for him. However, it's much more antique even than he--six hundred years old, instead of something short of a hundred, and made by the famous Carey family. We stopped there talking to the ancient sailor-man, hearing how the Clovelly fishermen go out with black nets by day in good weather, and at night with white ones, to "attract the fish." "That is trew, Miss," said he, when I laughed, thinking it a joke. I love the Devonshire way of saying "true," and other words that rhyme. Their soft voices are as gentle, as kindly, as the murmur of their own blue sea.