of the breakwater, where it forms a very
pleasant little swimming-bath. But in time of storm, rock and pool and
breakwater are a mass of snowy, quivering foam; even in less
tempestuous times it is fine to see the waves rush seething up the
sides of the substantial little breakwater, with suggestiveness of
what they can do in wilder hours.

It must be confessed that this corner by the haven is the most
interesting portion of Bude, which some visitors have condemned as an
unattractive place. Certainly the growth of lodging-houses has not
added to its charm, as these houses have all the tameness, though
doubtless also the convenience, of modern street-architecture. It is
by the haven and on the banks of the now useless canal that there is
anything of an old-world atmosphere. As compared with places like
Polperro or Boscastle, Bude has a touch of the commonplace, but its
coast is fine, and it is an excellent centre for a district of
supreme attraction. Readers who care to see how it figures in modern
fiction should turn to the _Seaboard Parish_ of the late George
Macdonald, in which Bude is the Kilkhaven of the story. Even here the
novelist had to borrow another church for his setting; the present
Bude Church is by no means that of the romance. The town is now
reaching from the canal banks to the breezy Summerleaze Downs, and
beyond; and of course the golfer is here in all his glory. But if we
go a little more than a mile inland we find all that may be lacking in
Bude at Stratton, which may or may not be named after an old "street"
that passed this way from Devonshire. That street was almost certainly
not Roman, even if the Romans used it. There is a little stream here
called the Strat, which does not help us, for the stream _may_ have
been called after the town. Stratton shares with Stowe in the glorious
memories of Sir Beville Grenville, his wife Grace, and his servant
Anthony Payne; but Bideford has also its claim to long association
with the Grenvilles--it was from Bideford that Sir Richard sailed the
_Revenge_. Stowe, in the parish of Kilkhampton, a few miles north of
Bude, is now a farm, showing very few traces of the Grenville
manor-house, which was one of the finest and most extensive in the
West. There were two houses, an earlier and a later, but both are now
things of the past. At Stratton, however, there is still the Tree Inn,
which seems to have been the business residence of Sir Beville,
whither he came to se