and of myth brooding over this region, with its gaunt,
turf-clad headlands, its drifting sand-towans, its tracks and stone
hedges and lonely church-towns. It is easy to yield to the spirit of
dream and imagination--to see with other eyes than we use in city
life, to hear with other ears, to believe more and dispute less; the
very air is an intoxicant and a stimulant to fantastic vision. It
comes pure from the Atlantic or from the down-lands, from craggy
cliffs or grassy uplands; there is the wonderful glamour of the sea
reaching inland to possess and dominate the peaceful charm of the
country-side. The inhabitants in this quiet stretch of coast depend
rather on agriculture than on fish for their maintenance; the coast is
too unprotected, and there is no tolerable harbour to which
fisher-boats might run for safety. The cottages for the most part have
a pastoral atmosphere, and not the savour of fish and tangle of nets
that we meet in so many seaside villages. The lowing of cows comes
pleasantly, and the incessant murmur of poultry-yards; in late summer
there is the cutting and garnering of golden grain. The stone hedges
that divide the fields are generally broad enough to walk on with
comfort; very often, indeed, they are the best and quickest of
footpaths. Or one can lie on them in delightful languor, after
scrambling about the cliffs and towans, basking in the mellow
sunlight, laying in a store of warmth and beauty and fragrance as
reserve for dreary months of wet and fog. Centuries old, some of these
massive walls must be--often constructed doubtless from older
monuments of dim religious purpose, just as some of the gate-posts
were once menhirs and monoliths. The villagers have their rugged old
churches, to which they resort for baptisms and burials, but on
Sundays they go in greater numbers to the chapel or meeting-house. In
those people whom we classify, often wrongly, as Celtic, there seems
to be something that the Anglican Church does not wholly satisfy,
though it is necessary to speak with reserve on such a matter. They
can be devout Catholics, as in Ireland, or zealous Dissenters, as in
Wales and the West of England; perhaps these manifestations of the
religious spirit, seemingly so opposed, have yet a common feature in
allowing more play to the fancy. Dissent has one great charm for all
countryfolk--it gives them a large share in its activities, it allows
them to preach and to pray. This is certainly one secret