ractive. Life seems quieter, more peaceful there out of sight of the
ocean's turbulence, out of hearing of its "accents disconsolate." The
cottages are seen ranged in a double line along the narrow crooked
street, like a procession of cows with a few laggards scattered behind
the main body. One is impressed by its ancient character. The cottages
are old, stone-built and thatched; older still is the church with
its grey square tower, and all about are scattered the memorials of
antiquity--the chantry on the hill, standing conspicuous alone, apart,
above the world; the vast old abbey barn, and, rough thick stone walls,
ivy-draped and crowned with beautiful valerian, and other fragments that
were once parts of a great religious house.

Looking back at the great round hill from the village it is impossible
not to notice the intense red colour of the road that winds over its
green slope. One sometimes sees on a hillside a ploughed field of
red earth which at a distance might easily be taken for a field of
blossoming trifolium. Viewed nearer the crimson of the clover and red of
the earth are very dissimilar; distance appears to intensify the red of
the soil and to soften that of the flower until they are very nearly
of the same hue. The road at Abbotsbury was near and looked to me more
intensely red than any ordinary red earth, and the sight was strangely
pleasing. These two complementary colours, red and green, delight us
most when seen thus--a little red to a good deal of green, and the more
luminous the red and vivid the green the better they please us. We see
this in flowers--in the red geranium, for example--where there is no
brown soil below, but green of turf or herbage. I sometimes think the
red campions and ragged-robins are our most beautiful wild flowers when
the sun shines level on the meadow and they are like crimson flowers
among the tall translucent grasses. I remember the joy it was in boyhood
in early spring when the flowers were beginning to bloom, when in our
gallops over the level grass pampas we came upon a patch of scarlet
verbenas. The first sight of the intense blooms scattered all about the
turf would make us wild with delight, and throwing ourselves from our
ponies we would go down among the flowers to feast on the sight.

Green is universal, but the red earth which looks so pleasing amid the
green is distributed very partially, and it may be the redness of
the soil and the cliffs in Devon have given