We had time at Bideford to go into a quaint little shop for tea before starting on our twelve-mile drive; time also to be dragged by Tommy to Bideford Bridge, that played so important a part in Kingsley's "Westward Ho!" We did not approach Clovelly finally through the beautiful Hobby Drive, laid out in former years by one of the Hamlyn ladies of Clovelly Court, but by the turnpike road, which, however, was not uninteresting. It had been market-day at Bideford and there were many market carts and "jingoes" on the road, with perhaps a heap of yellow straw inside and a man and a rosy boy on the seat. The roadway was prettily bordered with broom, wild honeysuckle, fox-glove, and single roses, and there was a certain charming post-office called the Fairy Cross, in a garden of blooming fuchsias, where Egeria almost insisted upon living and officiating as postmistress.
All at once our driver checked his horses on the brink of a hill, apparently leading nowhere in particular.
"What is it?" asked Mrs. Jack, who is always expecting accidents.
"Clovelly, mum."
"Clovelly!" we repeated automatically, gazing about us on every side for a roof, a chimney, or a sign of habitation.
"You'll find it, mum, as you walk down-along."
"How charming!" cried Egeria, who loves the picturesque. "Towns are generally so obtrusive; isn't it nice to know that Clovelly is here and that all we have to do is to walk 'down-along' and find it? Come, Tommy. Ho, for the stone staircase!"
We who were left behind discovered by more questioning that one cannot drive into Clovelly; that although an American president or an English chancellor might, as a great favour, be escorted down on a donkey's back, or carried down in a sedan chair if he chanced to have one about his person, the ordinary mortal must walk to the door of the New Inn, his luggage being dragged "down-along" on sledges and brought "up-along" on donkeys. In a word, Clovelly is not built like unto other towns; it seems to have been flung up from the sea into a narrow rift between wooded hills, and to have clung there these eight hundred years of its existence. It has held fast, but it has not expanded, for the very good reason that it completely fills the hollow in the cliffs, the houses clinging like limpets to the rocks on either side, so that it would be a costly and difficult piece of engineering indeed to build any extensions or additions.
We picked our way "down-along" until we caught the first glimpse of white-washed cottages covered with creepers, their doors hospitably open, their windows filled with blooming geraniums and fuchsias.
All at once, as we began to descend the winding, rocky pathway, we saw that it pitched headlong into the bluest sea in the world. No wonder the painters have loved it! Shall we ever forget that first vision! There were a couple of donkeys coming "up-along" laden, one with coals, the other with bread-baskets; a fisherman was mending his nets in front of his door; others were lounging "down to quay pool" to prepare for their evening drift-fishing. A little further on, at a certain abrupt turning called the "lookout," where visitors stop to breathe and villagers to gossip, one could catch a glimpse of the beach and "Crazed Kate's Cottage," the drying-ground for nets, the lifeboat house, the pier, and the breakwater.
We were all enchanted when we arrived at the door of the inn.
"Devonshire for me! I shall live here!" cried Mrs. Jack. "I said that a few times in Wales, but I retract it. You had better live here, too, Atlas; there aren't any problems in Clovelly."
"I am sure of that," he assented smilingly. "I noticed dozens of live snails in the rocks of the street as we came down; snails cannot live in combination with problems."
"Then I am a snail," answered Mrs. Jack cheerfully; "for that is exactly my temperament."
We found that we could not get room enough for all at the tiny inn, but this only exhilarated Egeria and Tommy. They disappeared and came back triumphant ten minutes later.
"We got lodgings without any difficulty," said Egeria. "Tommy's isn't half bad; we saw a small boy who had been taking a box 'down-along' on a sledge, and he referred us to a nice place where they took Tommy in; but you should see my lodging--it is ideal. I noticed the prettiest yellow-haired girl knitting in a doorway.
'There isn't room for me at the inn,' I said; 'could you let me sleep here?' She asked her mother, and her mother said 'Yes,' and there was never anything so romantic as my vine-embowered window.
Juliet would have jumped at it."
"She would have jumped out of it, if Romeo had been below," said Mrs. Jack, "but there are no Romeos nowadays; they are all busy settling the relations of labour and capital."
The New Inn proved some years ago to be too small for its would-be visitors. An addition couldn't be built because there wasn't any room; but the landlady succeeded in getting a house across the way.
