a
motor, to come to the brown; for our road was fairy-like as far as Holne,
Charles Kingsley's birthplace. We got out there, of course, and looked
at his memorial window in the charming village church. At Holne Bridge
I thought of the beautiful way to the Grande Chartreuse; so you can
imagine it was far from sterile, although we were on the fringe of the
moor. And ah, what a lovely green fringe the brown moor wears! It is all
trimmed round the edge with woods, and glens, where the baby River Dart
goes laughing by. And there's a most romantic Lover's Leap, of course.
Strange how so many lovers, though of different countries, have all that
same wild desire to jump off something! If I were a lover I should much
rather die a flat, neat death.

We saw this Lover's Leap only at a distance when going toward the moor,
but coming back--however, I will tell you about it afterward, when I
come to Buckland Chase, on the way home.

It was at Holne that the big hills, of which we'd been warned, began;
but Apollo merely sniffs at gradients that make smaller, meaner motors
grunt with rage. We had a car behind us (which had started ahead), but
it was rather an ominous sign to see no "pneu" tracks in the white dust
of the road as we travelled. Other days, we have always had them to
follow; and it makes a motor feel at home to know that his brethren have
come and gone that way. This must have seemed to Apollo like isolation;
and as if to emphasize the sensation which we all shared, suddenly we
began to _smell_ the moor.

I can't describe to you exactly what that smell was like, but we _knew_
it was the moor. The air became alive and life-giving. It tingled with a
cold breath of the north, and one thought of granite with the sun on it,
and broom in blossom, and coarse grass such as mountain-sheep love,
though one saw none of those things yet. The scenery was still gentle
and friendly, and the baby Dart was singing at the top of its voice.
Really, it was almost a tune. I felt, as I listened, that it would be
easy to set it to music. The moss-covered stones round which purled the
clear water looked like the whole notes and half notes, all ready to be
pushed into place, so that the tune might "arrange itself." And the
amber brown of the stream was mottled with gold under the surface, as if
a sack full of sovereigns had been emptied into the river.

The first tor on our horizon was Sharp Tor, which the Dart evidently
feared. The poor littl