Further Information About The Unknown Village Came
To Me In A Very Agreeable Way In The Course Of My Tramp.
A
hotter walk I never walked - no, not even when travelling
across a flat sunburnt treeless plain, nearer than Devon by
many degrees to the equator.
One wonders why that part of
Devon which lies between the Exe and the Axe seems actually
hotter than other regions which undoubtedly have a higher
temperature. After some hours of walking with not a little of
uphill and downhill, I began to find the heat well-nigh
intolerable. I was on a hard dusty glaring road, shut in by
dusty hedges on either side. Not a breath of air was
stirring; not a bird sang; on the vast sky not a cloud
appeared. If the vertical sun had poured down water instead
of light and heat on me my clothing could not have clung to me
more uncomfortably. Coming at length to a group of two or
three small cottages at the roadside, I went into one and
asked for something to quench my thirst - cider or milk. There
was only water to be had, but it was good to drink, and the
woman of the cottage was so pretty and pleasant that I was
glad to rest an hour and talk with her in her cool kitchen.
There are English counties where it would perhaps be said of
such a woman that she was one in a thousand; but the Devonians
are a comely race.
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