[BY EXPRESS PERMISSION.] TO HER MAJESTY The Queen of the Netherlands. MADAME, THE following pages, permitted the distinction of appearing under your Majesty's august auspices, exhibit some phases of rural life existing in spots visited by your Majesty not long since. I venture to hope the book may thus recal to your Majesty some agreeable memories; though, conscious of many defects, I should feel more diffident in dedicating it to your Majesty, who is so versed in the literature of Europe, if your Majesty's judgment of it DOWN IN DEVON. CHAPTER I. ON THE HIGHROAD. THE village of Chesney and the hamlet of Lorton, its little dependency, are about a mile apart, on the high road from Exeter to Plymouth. The country is open, with the undulations characteristic of Devon, and is visible over the luxuriant hedges, here of moderate height. Thus the eye scans a wide expanse of field and meadow, wood and verdant slope, and everywhere meets a picture, any mark-a cottage, or barn, or clump of trees-forming a centre of effect in such a scene. Midway the hamlet and village are both in view-the one in a hollow, VOL I. 1 |