ed trunk of some
old tree, sweet and incessant sound.

CHAPTER VII

IN SOMERSET

"In Somerset," says Miss Celia Fiennes with considerable severity,
"they are likewise as careless when they make cider; they press all
sorts of Apples together, else they might have as good sider as in any
other parts, even as good as the Herriforshire."

This young lady, with her keen criticisms, her spirit of intrepidity,
and her variable spelling, betook herself on a tour on horseback
through England in the reign of William and Mary, and kept a diary of
her travel, noting with equal solemnity the state of agriculture or the
quality of pastry which she encounters in her journey. She was the
daughter of Colonel Fiennes, a Parliamentary soldier, and being a
delicate girl, was recommended fresh air and exercise by her doctor.
"My journeys, as they were begun to regain my health by variety and
change of air and exercise, so whatever promoted, that was
pursued . . .," she says, rather elliptically, in her preface, and
admonishes Ladies and Gentlemen to follow her example, and profit by
the spectacle of their own country--advice which we of this generation
have taken _au serieux_, and of which the present book and those akin
to it are sufficient witness!

Her remarks on Somerset are not all strictures, for it is here, she
tells us, that she had the best tarts and "clouted cream" that she ever
had in her life; and this although Devon has given its name to this
excellent dainty, while Cornwall fiercely asserts that it is a Celtic
recipe, and stolen from them by the Saxons of Devon, after they were
driven over the Tamar.

With Somerset, however, we are not dealing in the limits of this book,
neither with its characteristics of scenery or of speech--which, to the
observant eye and ear, make every county in England rich in
individuality and infinitely various, so that Hampshire can never be
confounded with Sussex, nor Somerset with Dorset--but only with that
small strip of it between Porlock and Dunster which lies on the borders
of Exmoor, and belongs to it geographically. After leaving Porlock,
however, the six miles of road that runs across the moor to Minehead is
on a lower level, and (as the aesthetic writers would say), in a lower
key than the magnificent barren stretch of uplands from Lynton to
Porlock. The way still lies across Exmoor, but the "forest" lands are
beginning to lose their wildness; they run down to about five hu