The River-Follower Must
Force His Way Through These Obstacles, In Most Cases Greatly
To The Detriment Of His Clothes And Temper; Or, Should They
Prove Impassable, He Must Undress And Go Into The Water.
Worst Of All Is The Thought That He Is A Trespasser.
The
pheasants crow loudly lest he should forget it.
Occasionally,
too, in these private places he encounters men in velveteens
with guns under their arms, and other men in tweeds and
knickerbockers, with or without guns, and they all stare at
him with amazement in their eyes, like disturbed cattle in a
pasture; and sometimes they challenge him. But I must say
that, although I have been sharply spoken to on several
occasions, always, after a few words, I have been permitted to
keep on my way. And on that way I intend to keep until I have
no more strength to climb over fences and force my way through
hedges, but like a blind and worn-out old badger must take to
my earth and die.
I found the Exe easy to follow at first. Further on
exceedingly difficult in places; but I was determined to keep
near it, to have it behind me and before me and at my side,
following, leading, a beautiful silvery serpent that was my
friend and companion. For I was following not the Exe only,
but a dream as well, and a memory. Before I knew it the Exe
was a beloved stream. Many rivers had I seen in my
wanderings, but never one to compare with this visionary
river, which yet existed, and would be found and followed at
last. My forefathers had dwelt for generations beside it,
listening all their lives long to its music, and when they
left it they still loved it in exile, and died at last with
its music in their ears. Nor did the connection end there;
their children and children's children doubtless had some
inherited memory of it; or how came I to have this feeling,
which made it sacred, and drew me to it? We inherit not from
our ancestors only, but, through them, something, too, from
the earth and place that knew them.
I sought for and found it where it takes its rise on open
Exmoor; a simple moorland stream, not wild and foaming and
leaping over rocks, but flowing gently between low peaty
banks, where the little lambs leap over it from side to side
in play. Following the stream down, I come at length to
Exford. Here the aspect of the country begins to change; it
is not all brown desolate heath; there are green flowery
meadows by the river, and some wood. A little further down
and the Exe will be a woodland stream; but of all the rest of
my long walk I shall only say that to see the real beauty of
this stream one must go to Somerset. From Exford to Dulverton
it runs, singing aloud, foam-flecked, between high hills
clothed to their summits in oak woods: after its union with
the Barle it enters Devonshire as a majestic stream, and flows
calmly through a rich green country; its wild romantic charm
has been left behind.
The uninformed traveller, whose principle it is never to look
at a guide-book, is surprised to find that the small village
of Exford contains no fewer than half a dozen inns. He asks
how they are kept going; and the natives, astonished at his
ignorance, proceed to enlighten him. Exford is the
headquarters of the stag-hunt: thither the hunters flock in
August, and spend so much money during thir brief season that
the innkeepers grow rich and fat, and for the rest of the year
can afford to doze peacefully behind their bars. Here are the
kennels, and when I visited them they contained forty or fifty
couples of stag-hounds. These are gigantic foxhounds,
selected for their great size from packs all over the country.
When out exercising these big vari-coloured dogs make a fine
show. It is curious to find that, although these individual
variations are continually appearing - very large dogs born of
dogs of medium size - others cannot be bred from them; the
variety cannot be fixed.
The village is not picturesque. Its one perennial charm is
the swift river that flows through it, making music on its
wide sandy and pebbly floor. Hither and thither flit the
wagtails, finding little half-uncovered stones in the current
to perch upon. Both the pied and grey species are there; and,
seeing them together, one naturally wishes to resettle for
himself the old question as to which is the prettiest and most
graceful. Now this one looks best and now that; but the
delicately coloured grey and yellow bird has the longest tail
and can use it more prettily. Her tail is as much to her,
both as ornament and to express emotions, as a fan to any
flirtatious Spanish senora. One always thinks of these dainty
feathered creatures as females. It would seem quite natural
to call the wagtail "lady-bird," if that name had not been
registered by a diminutive podgy tortoise-shaped black and red
beetle.
So shallow is the wide stream in the village that a little
girl of about seven came down from a cottage, and to cool her
feet waded out into the middle, and there she stood for some
minutes on a low flat stone, looking down on her own wavering
image broken by a hundred hurrying wavelets and ripples. This
small maidie, holding up her short, shabby frock with her
wee hands, her bright brown hair falling over her face as she
bent her head down and laughed to see her bare little legs and
their flickering reflection beneath, made a pretty picture.
Like the wagtails, she looked in harmony with her
surroundings.
So many are the villages, towns, and places of interest seen,
so many the adventures met with in this walk, starting with
the baby streamlet beyond Simonsbath, and following it down to
Exeter and Exmouth, that it would take half a volume to
describe them, however briefly.
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