The Argosy — page 326: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

301 EXMOOR AND ITS PEOPLE. ROBABLY many people, even in London, are not aware that,- within a comparatively short day’s journey exists in England a region, the inhabitants of which in their thoughts, ways, and customs, are almost as far removed from them as the men and women of the days of Queen Anne. This region lies in the west of England, in that part of Somersetshire which borders North Devon. It com- prises the wide, uncultivated tract of Exmoor, Dunkerry—the highest point in the West—and the country which immediately surrounds it. In winter, when a heavy curtain of mist spreads far and near ; or when the rain comes sweeping along, driven by the rough hand of the west wind ; or when a bold, strong north-easter piles up the snow upon the more open ground, the moor and the heath are certainly not desirable places to find yourself upon: especially when a grey November day is growing towards itsclose. Yet, even at these times, this district has its own peculiar charms, when the hills and the moorland are turned, by storm and fog, into a strange wonderland. It is a morning of dense mist, and even the Exmoor native at our side can hardly find his way across the heather on the spur of Dunkerry over which our way is leading ts. We appear to be shut out from the whole world by this impenetrable wall around us. We can see nothing but the yard of brown heath beneath our feet, hear nothing but a faint stirring, where the wind is moving the furze bushes near at hand. The murmur of the little stream, which rises in the heather hard by, is full of vague mystery when we catch its indistinct voice, which is the next sound that reaches us. Are they the tones of some spirit warning us? We do not know what to fancy, or what to dream, or what to expect. A wondrous surprise is, in truth, being prepared for us, but a surprise which is very different from any of these. All at once, just when it seems thickest and most hopeless, there is a rift in the heavy curtain ; the fog goes rolling away on either side. Without being aware of it we have reached the slope of the hill, and are just over-hanging one of the deep valleys which form a special feature of the whole country, and which, when they are small and narrow, are called “‘combes.” As the veil of fog parts asunder, there suddenly appears before us the warm hollow, which is still green, here, in the damp, mild west, even in winter; a little homestead nestling cosily among its brown ricks, and a belt of low woodland ; a stream winding with many a capricious turn, and glint- ing, as it goes, in a gleam of sunshine which has filtered in through Gomichboo (E©) m