We left Kingsbridge as evening drew on, for the five miles’ voyage to Salcombe. The steamer was full of country folk, and a few tourists were observable amid the market baskets. Next to us sat a young fellow and his newly married wife, evidently on their honeymoon, and desperately ill at ease. Every one on board, although none of them were acquainted with those young people, knew their case, and they were the centre to which all eyes were directed. Few noticed the scenery while this human interest was on view, although that scenery was most impressive.

The quasi river of Salcombe, seen under a gorgeous sunset with lowering clouds, is not so much lovely as weird, its lonely creeks and inlets running between hills almost treeless, and black against the sky. We passed the excursion steamer coming home to Kingsbridge from Plymouth, with its white mast-head light, and green and red side-lights, the hull of her looming hugely as she rushed by.

Presently our engines stopped, and in sight of Salcombe lights across the water, we landed a party in the darkness of a lonely shore for Portlemouth. Passengers and luggage were tumbled into the boat, and soon were lost to view in the gloom; only the splashing of the oars, the rattle of rowlocks, and the murmur of voices indicating their neighbourhood. When the boat returned we steamed across to Salcombe Quay, and landed under the glittering lights of the precipitous town; glittering, that is to say, from a distance: near at hand they have more the shine of glow-worms.

It is a thrilling experience to land thus, on a Saturday night, in an entirely strange place, and to have, perforce, to hunt immediately for a night’s lodging. We traversed the long narrow street of Salcombe without success, and finally arrived opposite the glare of an imposing house.

“Do you want the hotel, sir?” inquired a Voice.

“Yes; which hotel is this?” demanded the Wreck, directing his voice at the place generally, failing to see any one.

“The Marine Hotel, sir!”

Now, we had heard something of the palatial character of this hotel, and recollecting the traditional shortness of the artist’s purse, we trembled!

“Oh!” said the Wreck, replying to the Voice, “rather expensive hotel, is it not?”

“Yes, sir,” replied the Voice, suddenly becoming endowed with a body—Boots apparently—“first-class hotel, sir.”

This meant waiters in evening dress and haughty chambermaids. What should we dusty wayfarers do in this galley, who carried our luggage on our backs? No landlord of a “first-class hotel” respects a visitor who has not piles of portmanteaux. We faded away from the glance of that candid Boots into the (comparatively) utter darkness, and so down the street again, presently to find that haven where we would be.

We supped, and the Wreck discovered a crumb-brush. “A brush at last!” he exclaimed, vigorously brushing his hat with it. “But that’s not a hat-brush,” said I, astonished.

“No matter,” said he, “brushes are so jolly scarce down here that I’d take this chance if it were a hearth-brush.”

Salcombe streets are of the most break-neck character: full of tragic possibilities and large stones. Only Fore Street is approximately level, and in Fore Street are the shops. Such shops! We looked into one window, about three feet square, and made a mental inventory of its contents:—Six Spanish onions; a plateful of wooden dolls, leering with vacuous glances at a tin of sardines; four tin money-boxes; three plates of apples (incarnate stomach-aches); a cake of blacking; two cakes of soap (whose name wild horses shall not drag from me); five peg-tops; one plum cake; and, casting a greasy light over all, a tallow dip in a brass candlestick. Other shops there were which rejoiced in large frontages and wide expanses of window, and, displayed in those windows, were goods disposed at rare and rhythmic intervals, so that one had not the heart to destroy their symmetry by making purchases.

Salcombe is a port of great possibilities. Were it not so near a neighbour of Plymouth Sound, that haven par excellence, it had been, one may surmise, a well-frequented harbour, with a town rivalling Dartmouth. For here is safe anchorage for ships of deepest draught, and sea-room in plenty within the gullet formed between precipitous cliffs. Even yet, Salcombe may become a harbour where masts will cluster thickly. True, the channel is beset with rocks, but what do rocks avail against dynamite? Now it is seldom visited save by pleasure yachts and stray coasting-vessels, with the Kingsbridge Packet calling periodically at its quay en route to or from Plymouth. Salcombe village has grown into a small town of quiet residents, and equally quiet holiday-makers, and possibly in the near future the Kingsbridge Railway, now building, may push on these few miles further, bringing to the solitary coast scenery of the Bolt Head—the grandest in Devon—a crowd of tourists, with the inevitable consequences.

On this Sunday we stayed at Salcombe, and with due Sabbatical languor explored the fantastic pinnacles of Bolt Head, beautiful with the lowering beauty of a dark and sullen savagery. It is a wild and storm-tossed promontory on the seaward side of a beautiful estate belonging to the Earl of Devon—a place bearing the singular name of The Moult. Down in the bottom, where the Moult homestead stands sheltered, the tall elms grow straight and comely; but on the hillside, trees of all kinds cling tenaciously in gnarled, twisted, and stunted forms, all bent in the direction in which stormy winds most do blow. Down beside the water, facing the entrance to the harbour, stand the remains of Salcombe Castle, washed with the waves of every high tide. Salcombe Castle was the scene of a four months’ defence against the beleaguering Roundheads, and when it at last surrendered, the garrison marched out with all the honours of war, “with thire usuall armes, drumes beating, and collars flyinge, with boundelars full of powder, and muskets apertinable.”