Up at Lynton, the great thing to do, is to walk along the edge of the sea cliff to the Valley of Rocks (a kind of nature museum for statues and busts of Titans), locked in between Castle Rock and the Devil's Cheesewring. It is a startlingly magnificent walk, but when you are actually in the Valley of Rocks, it isn't quite so wonderful as when seen from a distance; the arena itself is rather like the backyard of the gods, where they threw their broken mead-cups. I had a queer feeling of having been there before, which I couldn't understand for a minute, until a scene in "Lorna Doone" flashed back to me. And a young maid in the hotel firmly believes that many of the fantastic shapes of rock were once people who (according to an old story), were turned into stone for behaving irreligiously on Sundays.
Yesterday morning we said good-bye to Lynton, and Sir Lionel, Dick, Mrs. Senter, and I walked to Watersmeet, Emily going along the upper road in the car with Young Nick, whose hand was well enough to drive. I don't know whether Dad ever talked to you about Watersmeet; but I'm surprised if he didn't, because not only is it one of the very most beautiful beauty spots of Devon, but not far beyond, on the way to Exmoor, is Brendon, our name place.
You can guess without my telling, why Watersmeet is called Watersmeet: and it is the most musical meeting you can imagine; rocks on one side, a wooded hill on the other, and down below, the singing river. We walked along an exquisite low-lying path from Watersmeet, and all about I saw the name of Brendon: Brendon village; Brendon forge, and other Brendons. I was so excited that I forgot the Lethbridge episode, and was on the point of exclaiming to Sir Lionel "How interesting to come on father's ancestral home!" I wonder what would have happened if I had? I should have had to try and blunder out of the scrape somehow, with Dick's eyes on me, sparkling with mischief, and Mrs. Senter critical.
I forgot to tell you that the Tyndals left us at Bideford, having no excuse to cling, even if they wanted to, because they had "done" Exmoor already; but since the evening when Mrs. Tyndal tried to pump me about Venice, dear Gwendolen has been restless and suspicious. She can't suspect the truth, of course, unless Dick has told her, which I'm sure he hasn't (for his own sake), but she suspects something. She has a common enough mind to spring to some horrid conclusion, such as my having been secretly in Venice with objectionable people. Perhaps she thinks me privately married! I'm sure she'd be delighted if that were the truth, because then Dick and Sir Lionel would both be safe.
As we walked, Dick kept trying to get me far enough away from the others to tell me some news, which he hurriedly whispered was important. But even if I'd wanted to give him a chance, which I didn't, fate would have denied it to him.
At Rockford Inn we took to the motor again, finding Emily limp after what she considered appalling hills; but I'm sure they were nothing to the Lynton-Lynmouth one, as this time Apollo himself had been sent down in the big lift.
Now we were coming to Doone-land; and I was all eagerness to see it, because of "Lorna Doone," and because of things I'd heard from Sir Lionel, as we walked side by side for a few minutes after Watersmeet. I had supposed that if there were any foundation for the Doone story, it was as slight as the "fabric of a dream"; but he told me of a pamphlet he had read, "A Short History of the Original Doones," by a Miss Ida or Audrie Browne, only about eight or nine years ago. She said it was extraordinary how well the author of "Lorna" had known all the traditions of her family--for she was one of the Doones; and that there really was a Sir Ensor, a wild rebellious son of an Earl of Moray, who travelled with his wife to Exmoor, and settled there, in a rage because the king would give him no redress against his elder brother.
"How does she spell her name of Audrie?" I asked, trying to look more good and innocent than Eve could possibly have been even in pre-serpentine days.
"A-u-d-r-i-e," he answered, and I trusted that Dick was too far behind to hear what we were saying. "That was the favourite name for girls in the Doone family," Sir Lionel went on. "Miss Browne thinks Sir Ensor and his wife must have crossed the Quantocks coming here, and have taken a fancy to the name of West Quantoxhead's patron saint, Audrie, also spelled that way."
"It's rather a pretty name," I ventured, feeling pink.
"One of the prettiest in the world," said Sir Lionel. I was pleased--though I ought to have been bowed down with the burden of borrowed guilt.
There was a bad motor road from Oare to the gateway of the moor, but Apollo didn't mind, though I think he was glad to stop outside Malmsmead Farm, where we had lunch. I suppose you can't expect such modern creatures as motors and chauffeurs, especially Bengali ones, to appreciate farmhouses seven hundred years old! I loved the place, though, and so did Sir Lionel. Nothing ever tasted better than the rosy ham, the crisp cottage bread, the thick cream, and wild honey the farm people gave us. And the honey smelt like the moor, which has just as individual and haunting a fragrance as Dartmoor, though different.
After lunch I wanted to see the Doone Valley, and the ruins of the Doone houses (which, by the way, my namesake Miss Browne says were not the Doone houses, but only the huts where the brigand-band used to keep stolen cattle), so Sir Lionel said I must have a pony. I wasn't tired, though he thought I ought to be, after our walk; but the idea of riding a rough Exmoor pony was great fun, and I didn't object. Sir Lionel asked Mrs. Senter (who had been making fun of the Doone story at lunch) rather coolly if she would care to go, too; and to his evident surprise, though not at all to mine, she instantly said she would.
They have several ponies at the farm, and Sir Lionel hired two, he and Dick meaning to walk, and Emily intending to stop in the farm sitting room nodding over the visitors' book, full of interesting names, no doubt.
No sooner had our dear, roughly fringed little beasts been saddled, and we swung on to their backs, than there arose a great hue and cry in the farmyard. The stag hunt was passing!
Such an excitement you never saw. Nobody would have thought the same thing had happened many times a year, for generations. The big, good-natured farmer raced about, waving his arms, and adjuring us to "Coom on!" The postman darted by on his bicycle, forgetful of letters, thinking only of the stag; pretty girls from the neighbouring Badgeworthy Farm, and Lorna Doone Farm tore up a hill, laughing and screaming. "They'm found! They'm found!" yelled the farm hands. Everybody shouted. Everybody ran, or at least danced up and down; and wilder than all was the joy of our Exmoor ponies, Mrs. Senter's and mine.
They didn't intend to let the hunt go by without them, the stanch little sporting beasts! We hadn't the least idea what they meant to do, or perhaps--just perhaps!--we might have stopped them; but before Mrs. Senter and I knew what was happening to us, off we dashed on pony-back after the hunt.
I laughed so much I could hardly keep my seat, but I did somehow, though not very gracefully, and in about five minutes Sir Lionel's long legs had enabled him to catch my little monster, which he grabbed by the reins and stopped, before we'd got mixed up with the staghounds. Dick was slower about rescuing his aunt, because his legs are shorter than Sir Lionel's; and her pony had not the pleasant disposition of mine. Dick vowed afterward that it spit at him.
After reading "Lorna" the Doone Valley looked rather too gentle, with its grassy slopes, to be satisfactory to my brigand-whetted mind; and the ruins of the Doone houses would have been disappointing, too, if it hadn't been for Miss Audrie Browne's tale of the distant dwellings, in the Weir Water Valley; but I liked hearing that all the hills have names of their own, and that you can be sure you are not going to fall into a treacherous bog, if only you see a sprig of purple heather--a good, honest plant, which hates anything secret. Our ponies didn't need the heather signal, though; they shied away from bogs as if by instinct, they knew the moor so well. If we had stumbled into a pitfall, our only hope would have been to lie quite flat, and crawl along the surface with the same motion that you make in swimming.
It was late afternoon by the time we had seen all that the ponies wanted us to see of the Doone Valley, and then our way led us back to Lynmouth, by the appalling Countisbury Hill; on to Parracombe, Blackmore Gate, Challacombe, romantic little Simonsbath (sacred to the memory of Sigmund the dragon-slayer, and two outlaws, of whom Tom Faggus, of the "Strawberry horse," was one), and pretty, historic Exford, and so to Dunster. A beautiful road it was to the eye, but not always to the tire, and half the hills of England seemed to have lined up in a procession. But Apollo smiled in his bonnet at them all, and appeared rather pleased than otherwise to show what he could do.