Away are the
beautiful waters of the Bristol Channel, with the mountains of Wales
rising against the sky on the horizon, and all about are hills and
valleys, and woods and beautiful moors and babbling streams, with all
the loveliness of cultivated rurality merging into the wild beauties of
unadorned nature." If these was not exactly her words, they express the
ideas she roused in my mind. She said the place was far enough away
from railways and the stream of travel, and among the simple peasantry,
and that in the society of the resident gentry we would see English
country life as it is, uncontaminated by the tourist or the commercial
traveller.
I can't remember all the things she said about this charming cottage in
this most supremely beautiful spot, but I sat and listened, and the
description held me spell-bound, as a snake fascinates a frog; with
this difference, instead of being swallowed by the description, I
swallowed it.
When the old woman had given us the address of the person who had the
letting of the cottage, and Jone and me had gone to our room, I said to
him, before we had time to sit down:
"What do you think?"
"I think," said he, "that we ought to follow that old woman's advice
and go and look at this house."
"Go and look at it?" I exclaimed. "Not a bit of it. If we do that, we
are bound to see something or hear something that will make us hesitate
and consider, and if we do that, away goes our enthusiasm and our
rapture. I say, telegraph this minute and say we'll take the house, and
send a letter by the next mail with a postal order in it, to secure the
place."
Jone looked at me hard, and said he'd feel easier in his mind if he
understood what I was talking about.
"Never mind understanding," I said. "Go down and telegraph we'll take
the house. There isn't a minute to lose!"
"But," said Jone, "if we find out when we get there - "
"Never mind that," said I. "If we find out when we get there it isn't
all we thought it was, and we're bound to do that, we'll make the best
of what doesn't suit us because it can't be helped; but if we go and
look at it it's ten to one we won't take it."
"How long are we to take it for?" said Jone.
"A month anyway, and perhaps longer," I told him, giving him a push
toward the door.
"All right," said he, and he went and telegraphed. I believe if Jone
was told he could go anywhere and stay for a month he'd choose that
place from among all the most enchanting spots on the earth where he
couldn't stay so long.
