Uncle Simeon did not allow me to go for walks alone. Albert, however, who was my usual companion, got into the habit of leaving me as soon as we were away from the Quay, with a curt intimation to clear off in another direction and to meet him later at a given place and time so that we might return to the house together.

One fine day in early Autumn, I climbed to the top of one of the hills that looks down on Torribridge: a picture made up of white houses, shining river, old bridge, green bosomy hills sloping down to the stream, and over them all the sun. The scene was pleasing, yet it meant very little to me. There was the sun in my blood, and a young creature's delight in the fine bright day, and in the feeling of space and power that you may feel in high clear places; no more than that. There was no conscious enjoyment of the loveliness beneath me. The joy that beautiful scenery can give to the soul I did not know. Children, like animals, do not feel it. This emotion comes from books, pictures and art generally. As to romantic little boys who draw, or say they draw, their deepest emotions from Nature's well—if so, it must be because they are learned little boys who, taught by the magical words of fine books that Nature is beautiful, have turned to her to find it true.

Wordsworth (that lost soul) felt those things and described them in authentic terms. He could do this because he was not an ordinary, but a very extraordinary, child of the mountains. How many shepherd boys sallying forth at dawn with their flocks up the Stye or along the Little Langdale are haunted "like a passion" by the natural beauties they see? They do not share the poet's emotions because they know nothing of the lovely words and pictures and ideas that can invest poor Nature with romance.

In any case, I was neither a romantic nor a learned little boy, but a very ignorant and unromantic little girl. It was only when I became suddenly a little less ignorant of books, history and ideas, that I came to see—where before there was at most a vague unconscious sense of pleasure—that Torribridge town seen from the hills was a fair prospect.

This is how it happened.

I was leaning on a stile, idly looking down towards the far-away bridge and trying to count the arches.

"Fine!" said a quiet voice behind me.

I started, turned round, and beheld a stranger looking down at me. He was a tall young man of perhaps twenty; his face pale and rather thin. His eyes peered. A proud mouth contrasted with earnest eyes. He wore breeches and carried a gun. Half squire, half scholar; something of the studious, the aristocratic and sporting all combined. All I was sure of just then was a pair of kind brown eyes which I immediately and favourably contrasted with the steel-blue glitter of Uncle Simeon's, and something exquisite and somehow superior to myself in their owner. I had an unerring instinct of class inferiority: I knew my betters.

"Fine, isn't it?" repeated the Stranger.

"Ye-es," I said. I thought him a bit silly, and felt sillier myself.

"It's a fine sight," he said, leaning against the stile by my side. "Isn't it, little girl? Come, say Yes."

The enthusiasm I failed to understand made me combative. "What's the good of it?" I said tartly. "It hasn't a soul."

The Stranger stared. He was surprised—or amused—I was not sure which.

"Hasn't a soul! This little town that has nestled there for a thousand years, from the days when the Vikings first sailed up the Torridge till the days when the New World was found, when ships sailed forth to the Indies from that quay there and came back laden with gold and wonderful spices? This little town we're looking at now that sent many ships to the Armada and hundreds more to harry the Spaniards on all the seas? Hasn't a soul, little girl! Are you sure?"

"I didn't know all that; I have never heard of all those things and people. There's Robinson Crewjoe, who sailed away to the Indies and lived on an island, that Aunt Jael wouldn't let Mrs. Cheese finish telling me about. Did he sail from here?"

"I'm not sure, but plenty of people like him did."

"And what's the Vikings and the Great Armada? I've heard of the Great Leviathan. Is that the same?"

"Not quite. Most little girls have heard of these things. It's very strange you know nothing about them. Don't you go to school?"

"I did when I lived in Tawborough with my Grandmother and Aunt Jael: I went to Miss Glory Clinker's. But now I'm in Torribridge I do lessons at home with Aunt Martha."

"Well, hasn't either the lady with the peculiar name or your aunt ever taught you any history?"

"History? All about Saul and David and Solomon and Ahab?"

"Yes, but there's other history; the history of Torribridge for instance, and of England; the History of the Armada we have just been talking about."

"Why: did you learn about those things at school?"

"Yes. I do still."

"But you don't go to school still?"

"I do."

"But you're grown up."

"Well, I go to a school for grown-ups, don't you see?"

"I've never heard of one. Where is it?"

"In an old city a long way from here called Oxford."

"Oxford! Why I've heard of some one who's there. Do you know Lord Tawborough?"

The Stranger started.

"I do—well; very well. What do you know about him?"

"I know he was there at Oxford, that's all; I heard my Grandmother say so. What's he like?"

"That's rather a hard question, young woman."

"Well, is he like you?"

The Stranger smiled.

"Something like me perhaps; about the same age."

"Does he know about the Armada and all these wonderful things you've told me about?"

"Yes, I expect so, I expect he does, and"—he switched away from Lord Tawborough—"you must learn about them too. You shall read about them in a book I'm going to give you."

"A book? What do you mean? My Grandmother would not let me read any book but the Word, nor would Uncle Simeon. Torribridge doesn't come into the Bible, nor do the Vikings nor the Armada, because I've read it all through five times and I would remember the names."

He smiled; it was a kind smile, yet quizzical. I liked him, but was not quite sure of him. I went on a little less confidingly.

"All other books except the Bible are full of lies. Aunt Jael says so."

This was final. How loyally I quoted Aunt Jael! Sure weapon with which to combat error. I knew I was a little boorish; perhaps I meant to be.

"Well," said the Stranger, "your Grandmother and Uncle Simeon would let you read this book, I know, and as it's all quite true, Aunt Jael won't mind either. We will go down into the town and buy it."

I was proud of his company, proud of his voice, his face, his breeches, his gun, which conferred distinction upon me. I apprehended that there was something odd or special about me that amused him. He liked me and I liked him. He was from a kinder handsomer world than mine. His face was a new treasure in my heart.

I refused to go into the book-shop with him, partly through fear of being seen by Uncle Simeon, partly as a concession to Conscience. If I was going to read a worldly book at least I would not go into the evil place where it was sold. He came out and thrust a parcel into my hand. "Good-bye. Meet me on the hill some other day and tell me if you are still quite sure."

"Thank you, Sir. Sure of what?"

"That Torribridge hasn't a soul!"

I stuffed the book into my blouse and rushed to the meeting-place Albert had fixed. I was half an hour late and he swore at me. When we got home, I put the parcel still unwrapped under the mattress. This was a safe place, as I made my own bed; I must wait to begin reading till the morning. If I were to begin tonight Uncle Simeon would see the light under the door and come in to complain of the waste of candles. So I resolved to wake early.

Next morning I woke at five o'clock and undid my parcel. The book was a dark red one. On the cover was printed in gold letters "WESTWARD HO!" It was as big as an average Bible, but not so thick. The moment I opened it, I was struck by the scent of the new pages. All smells are indescribable, though smell aids the memory and quickens the imagination as much as any other sense. To this day, it is by digging my nose between those pages that I can best recall the sentiment of forty years ago: the pleasure of talking with the Stranger, the first wild rapture of reading.

I began to read. Here was Torribridge, a place I knew and lived in, described in print. I had read no other book but the Bible, which was so familiar as to have become part of myself, part of my life, something more than any book. Then, too, its glamour was of far-away folk and lands, holy places and holy people. The fact that now for the first time I saw printed words about seen and homely places—that I read of Torridge instead of Jordan, of Torribridge instead of Nineveh, of little oak ships that sailed from Tawborough Bay instead of great arks of cedar wood that went forth from Tyre and Sidon—gave me a new and exciting sensation very hard to describe. In the degree that the little Devonshire town was less sacred than the Holy City of Mount Zion, so it seemed to my eager eyes more wonderful to read about.

"All who have travelled through the delicious scenery of North Devon, must needs know the little white town of Torribridge, which slopes upwards from its broad tide-river paved with yellow sands, and many-arched old bridge where salmon wait for autumn floods, towards the pleasant upland on the west. Above the town the hills close in, cushioned with deep oak woods, through which juts here and there a crag of fern-fringed slate; below they lower, and open more and more in softly-rounded knolls, and fertile squares of red and green, till they sink into the wide expanse of hazy flats, rich salt marshes, and rolling sand-hills, where Torridge joins her sister Taw, and both together flow quickly toward the broad surges of the bar, and the everlasting thunder of the long Atlantic swell. Pleasantly the old town stands there, beneath its soft Italian sky, fanned day and night by the fresh ocean breeze which forbids alike the keen winter frosts, and the fierce thunder heats of the midland; and pleasantly it has stood there for now, perhaps, eight hundred years since the first Grenville cousin of the Conqueror, returning from the conquest of South Wales, drew round him trusty Saxon serfs, and free Norse rovers with their golden curls, and dark Silurian Britons from the Swansea shore...."

That afternoon I climbed the hill again, and saw for the first time something of the romance of the little white town; the bright roofs, the line of masts and great brown sails in the harbour, the old bridge, the yellow sands, the fields green golden or red with pasture harvest or loam, the dark velvet forests, deep blue sky and quiet silver river. I could imagine now the fierce Atlantic not far away, to which the gentle stream was flowing. I saw that it was beautiful, in the same way that the lilies and roses in Solomon's Song are beautiful; or Heaven in Revelation, the city of jasper and pure gold, that has set in its midst the great white throne. This change was wrought by a book. My Grandmother's oft-repeated words that the salvation of God could only have been revealed in the Book came into my mind.

When I came to the story proper of men who sailed

I was enthralled. The idea of a story, of a narrative of doings that never took place, of invented events, had never entered my head. Goldilocks, Rumplestiltskin and Little Red Riding Hood were not of my world. I had never begged "Tell me a story," nor heard the magical antiphone "Once upon a time."

Had Grandmother ever heard of Westward Ho!? Did she know there were books like this; true, yet about familiar places? Surely she must. Would she approve? I doubted for a moment, remembering the picture-book Uncle John had once sent to me, which Aunt Jael destroyed while my Grandmother looked on consenting; but was reassured by the godly sentiments which I found everywhere: by familiar phrases, even on the second page, such as "heathen Roman and Popish tyranny." Were there other books like this? If so, I should like to read them. Were they about the Indies too? A world of ideas possessed me, a new planet had swum into my skies. I read hard, wildly. I woke up at four that I might have a good long read before getting up; I went to my bedroom at odd hours of the day to snatch a few moments' delight.

One day just after dinner Uncle Simeon came in in his usual noiseless cat-like way. I just had time to stuff the book under the mattress and to begin pretending to do my hair. He did not seem to have seen anything.

I began to compare or contrast everything I read with myself or my own experiences. Flogging, for instance,—as practised by Sir Vindex Brimblecombe, whilom servitor of Exeter College, Oxford, and master of the Grammar School of Torribridge. I read with interest that flogging is the "best of all punishments" (I inclined to doubt this), "being not only the shortest" (indeed!) "but also a mere bodily and animal punishment" (why mere?), "though for the punisher himself pretty certain to eradicate from all but the noblest spirits every trace of chivalry and tenderness for the weak, as well as all self-control and command of temper." How true! How Aunt Jael's chivalry had waned! How Uncle Simeon's tenderness for the weak had withered and wilted away! Surely this book too was inspired. I enjoyed Amyas' encounter with Sir Vindex Brimblecombe. I loved to read how Sir Vindex jumped up, ferula in hand, and exhorted Amyas to "come hither, sirrah, and be flayed alive"; how the latter "with a serene and cheerful countenance" took up his slate, and brought it down on the skull of Sir Vindex "with so shrewd a blow" that slate and pate cracked on the same instant, and Sir Vindex dropped down upon the floor and "lay for dead." Oh vicarious joy, oh borrowed plumes of valour that I wore for that incident! I shut my eyes and visualized Aunt Jael in the stead of Sir Vindex Brimblecombe. "Minx!" she said (not sirrah), as she advanced upon me "stick in hand," for although I did not know what a ferula was, I felt it was somewhat too light and lissom a description of thorned stick or ship's rope. How I envied Amyas' "serene and cheerful countenance" and revelled in the crash. I rehearsed the scene also with Uncle Simeon in the villain's part and with an even dearer joy brought down the avenging slate on his honey-coloured coxcomb.

To every character in the book I tried to give a face. Amyas, the hero, was my difficulty; I had met no heroes. Don Guzman I pictured as Uncle Simeon, though statelier and nobler. Mrs. Leigh was naturally Mrs. Lee, my Grandmother; in name and character alike. Salvation Yeo I pictured as Brother Brawn, Frank Leigh,—tall, pale and distinguished—was of course the Stranger. I did not care very much for the Rose of Torridge herself, and had little interest in any of the ladies' doings. Theirs was a secondary part. They did not do things themselves; they stayed at home in Torribridge to think about and wait for and be loved by the men who did the valiant deeds. Love affairs, so-called, failed to interest me at all, though the passionate affection between Mrs. Leigh and her sons made me husky and envious. It never occurred to me to visualize myself as Rose; if I took any part it was Amyas'.

I was much interested in the description of Christmas Day. "It was the blessed Christmas afternoon. The light was fading down; the even-song was done; and the good folks of Torribridge were trooping home in merry groups, the father with his children, the lover with his sweetheart, to cakes and ale, and flap-dragons and mummers' plays, and all the happy sports of Christmas night." Why blessed Christmas afternoon, I wondered? Was the word used in Mrs. Cheese's naughty sense or Miss Glory Clinker's noble one? In either case I didn't see how it applied to the hideous 25th of December at Bear Lawn.

I was pleased with the sound views on Popery, described as frantic, filthy, wily, false, cruel. Papists were skulkers, dogs, slanderers, murderers, devils. To be brought up by Catholics was to be taught the science of villany on the motive of superstition, to learn that "all love was lust" and all goodness foul. A Romanist was not a man, but a thing, a tool, a Jesuit. I did not understand it all, but I approved highly. That bigotry which mars the book in the eyes of fair-minded men was the quality that sealed it with the mark of virtue in my zealot eyes. Critics (I have since learnt) forgive the slanderous religious hate of this book for the sake of the fresh spirit and the fine story: I excused these dangerous delights to my conscience and to my Grandmother's conscience by the author's pious attitude towards Rome and error. I felt that the book, in spite of the wild pleasure it gave me, must nevertheless be godly, because of the pious plenitude with which it anathematized the Bad Old Man of the Seven Hills, the Scarlet Woman, the Great Whore of Babylon, the Blatant Beast, the great HIM-HER. There was self-deceiving here.

The story was the thing: the most chivalrous adventure of the good ship "Rose"; how they came to Barbados, and found no men therein; how they took the pearls at Margarita; what befell at La Guayra; Spanish Bloodhounds and English Mastiffs; how they took the Communion under the tree at Higuerote; the Inquisition in the Indies; the banks of the Meta; how Amyas was tempted of the devil; how they took the gold train. I lived in a world of gold and silver, ships and swords, Dons and Devils. I saw the great Cordillera covered with gigantic ferns, and the foamless blue Pacific. I caught my breath as I stumbled on the dim ruins of dead Indian Empires; and I wiped my eyes when I read of Salvation Yeo and his little maid. I liked to read of the Queen of England, of Drake, Raleigh and Sir Richard Grenville, Devon men all, and John Oxenham swaggering along Torribridge Quay. I was interested most of all by Don Guzman, with his sweet sonorous voice, his woman's grace and his golden hair, as of a god. He had been everywhere and seen all. He knew the two Americas, the East Indies and the West, Old Spain, the seven cities of Italy, the twilight-coloured Levant and the multitudinous East....

I skimmed through each chapter quickly, and then read it slowly to drink in every word. Excitement of another kind was added by the difficulties of reading; I had to stop sometimes in the middle of an exciting passage and hide the book hastily away, when I heard Uncle Simeon on the staircase. However, I managed to get three-quarters way through without mishap: as far as the attack on the gold train. Amyas and his men were hiding in the forest. The long awaited Spaniards and their treasure were just in sight. "Suddenly"—my heart beat fast, then stood still at the sound of a stealthy foot-fall. The door opened and Uncle Simeon came in. I had no time to stuff the book under the mattress properly. I leaned against the place where the clothes were ruffled and pretended to be making my bed. This, I thought bitterly, was the only sort of excitement my life afforded: not splendid bravery and adventure in South American forests but mere feeble cunning to save myself from this whey-faced cringing wretch. He smiled blandly.

"Your aunt wants you to go for a walk with her," he said.

He tried to appear unconcerned, but I feared he had seen something. The moment he had gone I hid the book carefully under the mattress, right in the very middle of the bed. When I came back from the walk with Aunt Martha I went straight up to my room. The book was not there. My first rage at losing my treasure gave place, upon reflection, to fear. What would he do? At tea he smiled in a sneering way and said "What is worrying you, little one? You are pale." His manner frightened me. The very fact that he said nothing about the matter was unusual and presaged something exceptionally bad. Would he use the whip, or make the worst of it to Aunt Jael and Grandmother? And what had he done with the book? The answer to these questions, though I did not know it till much later, is lying before me as I write. It is written on faded yellow paper, in a neat hand, with old-fashioned pointed characters.

No 1, The Quay,
Torribridge,
Sept. 17th 1858.

Dear Kinswomen and Sisters in the Lord,—

One hopes the fine weather the Lord is sending finds both of you as well in body and mind and as thankful in spirit for our manifold blessings from above as I rejoice to say it finds dear Martha and one's own poor self. Dear little Mary too is well: the happy result of the good air of Torribridge and of the plenteous, if plainly, fare one's table affords. But the little one is not, alas, so thankful in spirit as her Aunt and oneself could wish. She has just done a deed which displays but poor gratitude, dear sisters, for your loving spiritual training of her early years and for one's own godly, if humble, care. She has, alas, committed a grievous sin; though it pains one to speak thus, one had best speak openly. A grievous sin—one shrinks from writing the words, but there is one's duty to you, to the child, to her aunt and to one's own afflicted self. The facts are these.

Yesterday one found her in her bedchamber—a homely if humble apartment to which one has always trusted her to retire at will—one found her in the act of reading a vile and worldly book. She hid it craftily under the bed-clothes when she heard one coming into the room as one chanced to do the other day. One let her see plainly one had detected all, looking at her sadly, as though to say "Ah, if Miss Vickary and dear Mrs. Lee knew what a viper they have nourished in their respective bosoms!", and gave her one more chance to conquer her sin by herself and destroy the noisome thing. But no! "As a dog returneth to his vomit so a fool to his folly" (Prov. xxvi, II—your own favourite Proverbs, dear Miss Vickary)—and yesterday once again found her flushed with the carnal pleasure of those evil pages. One opened the book, not without a silent prayer that the Lord would cleanse one from its touch. Feeling it one's plain, if painful, duty to see more clearly the nature of the evil thing, one perused a few pages. One found it to be a licentious novel, treating of haughty women "with stretched-forth necks and wanton eyes" (Isaiah iii, 16), of men who spend their days "in rioting and drunkenness, chambering and wantonness (Romans xiii, 13) and of drunkards, roisterers, sinners and blasphemers. Here and there the writer, who is, one is told, a Church of England minister in this town—so what could one hope?—strives to beguile the unwary by striking a godly attitude towards Rome. Sounding brass and tinkling cymbals—wolfish pretence to lead poor sheep astray. There is even worse than this; foul and wanton language abounds. A bad word on page 74 pained one much.

Nothing has been said to the child yet, awaiting your wishes. One hopes you will not wish her to be punished too severely. "Whom the Lord loveth he correcteth!" (Prov. iii, 12). One knows! one knows! Yet forgiveness may do much. One's heart shrinks from blows; nothing but the direst sin ever drives one to bodily correction. No! One will simply burn the book before her, add a few godly words and read a Psalm together.

Apart from this, the child's spiritual state is not without hope, but she is a tree that needs careful pruning, if she is to take up her cross, as one hopes, in the foreign field. She holds special place in our hearts (dear Martha's and one's own), nor do we cease to pray for her. God has blessed her in the past, and bestowed many gifts and advantages, but one longs to know that she has received better things than this poor world can give, even joy and peace, the result of sin forgiven and the assurance of eternal life by faith in God's Son as revealed in His Word. You will bear with one in speaking thus. One's love for her is great, and one dares to hope, dear Mrs. Lee, that your regard for one's self is considerable too, when you compare one with that other son-in-law, whose evil qualities, alas, seem to be showing in his little daughter despite her Christian environment.

Our Meetings lately have been very helpful. A new sister has been won from Error; formerly a Wesleyan Methodist, a Miss Towl. Am deriving great consolation from a careful study of the prophet Joel.

Forgive the length of this letter; one would have come to Tawborough had not the Lord's work detained one. Accept Martha's loving greetings and believe me in the Brotherhood of the Lord,

One who is less than the least of all the Saints,

Simeon Greeber.

P.S. The poor wayward child refuses to tell how she came by the abomination. It was new, so she must have bought it in a shop where such things are sold. Her money should be watched. Little though she is so wisely allowed, would it not be better for one to take charge of it, to ensure that it be not spent in sin?

P.P.S. Hoping that the Lord is granting you both the best of health and strength. Dear little Albert has a slight touch of quinsy, but this is yielding to treatment and prayer.

The flattering creeping hound! His letter describes him better than any words of mine. At the time I knew nothing of it; I was merely uneasy and wondered why nothing was happening.

A few days later, just as we had finished evening prayers, he called me over to the fireside and said, "There's a duty to the Lord, little one, and to your dear Great-Aunt and Grandmother that has to be fulfilled. One has their orders and one's Lord's to obey." He rummaged in his cupboard and brought forth my dear book. He looked at me, the lowest meanest triumph in his eyes, then flung the book savagely into the midst of the flames. In the fire-light he looked livid with spite. "So shall they burn who go a-whoring after strange gods," he hissed.

How I hated him. Yet for a moment as the dear book burned, I did not think of him. I was wondering how Amyas captured the Gold Train, and if Salvation Yeo found his little maid, and what the Stranger would say if I met him again.