cock, a small tenant farmer, and, in rage at finding nothing in the
poor home but a little bacon and cheese, murdered her baby in a fit of
senseless brutality, reciting over it this couplet:

"If any man asketh who killed thee,
Say 'twas the Doones of Bagworthy."

And so we come to Heddon's Mouth, and of the seven miles from there to
Lynton I shall speak in the next chapter.

[Illustration: The Shepherd's Cottage, Doone Valley]

But the twenty miles of hilly road may prove too much even for good
walkers, and as the coach service between Ilfracombe and Lynton is
suspended at present, owing to the war, it is best to take the little
narrow-gauge railway that runs from Barnstaple to Lynton. There might be
many more unfavourable ways, too, of seeing this stretch of country. The
narrow line twists and winds across the hills, seeming to hang,
sometimes, on a tiny viaduct, while many feet below a mountain stream
pours down its rocky bed, and, owing to the narrowness of the gauge and
the steepness of the gradients, the train progresses hardly quicker than
a horse-drawn carriage, and one has leisure and opportunity to observe
all that one is passing.

From Barnstaple to Chelfham the railway runs along the valley of the Yeo,
through the woodyards and past the whitewashed cottages of the town, and
then alongside of the river itself. This valley is most beautiful. I
came through it on a hot afternoon in spring. Just beside me ran the
clear brown water, breaking into swirls and eddies over the white stones;
on my right hand the hills rose, steeply wooded, with the lovely and
various colours of many trees, the rich brown of the yet unopened
beech-buds, the black buds of the ash, the twisted grey of alders, the
green of hawthorn, and yet more vivid green of early larches, the
delicate silver of palm, the bare branches of oak; on my left hand lay
the rich green pasture of the valley, and beyond the bare hills, brown in
the afternoon sunshine. Ten minutes away from Barnstaple Station, and I
saw a hawk hovering above the hillside, so quickly do the signs of
habitation drop away among these hills and valleys.

We leave the valley of the Yeo, and climb the steep gradients to Bratton
Fleming and Blackmoor Gate, across the wind-swept open moors, bare and
brown in the afternoon sunshine. Fold behind fold lies the countryside
in great brown curves, here a cluster of trees in a sheltered valley,
there a lonely farm; sometimes a