Chideock was named from a once powerful family that bore this singular name, but now long since extinct. They had their castle here, of which no sign now remains, saving only in the name of the Chideock Castle Inn, where we stayed the night. It was a night close and intolerably warm, and I could not sleep. All through the night and the earliest morning hours the place within and the countryside without were quiet to a degree. Only once was the stillness of the country road broken—toward the stroke of one—by the old clock on the stairway. Then some one who rode horseback went past at a trot, and the clatter of hoofs rang out clearly in the stillness of the air for some minutes. I lay and wondered whom he could be who was called abroad at this hour, and so, weaving little romances around that unconscious rider, presently fell asleep.

In these remote country places every footfall in the night seems to carry an especial significance, and each infrequent sound creates a little eddy of thought in the receptive mind. I accompanied that rider in my dreams, which wove an extraordinary tangle of fact and fancy together. The horse became winged Pegasus, the rider an editor, to whose skirts I was clinging in an agony of desperation, and we were going like the wind. We rose above such sordid things as earthly roads, and soared into the empyrean. Presently we were talking to a lady of classic features and manner of dress. The editor, in an aside to me, said her name was Clio, and he had called to see her with reference to a weekly fashion column which she had promised to contribute to the ——. I had never respected women journalists so much as now. The editor concluded his interview and mounted his horse. “Jump up,” said he, and, so saying, caught me by the arm.

“No hurry,” said I. “Your horse is a good one to go.”

“What the deuce are you talking about?” said he.

I rubbed my eyes and stared at him, and, lo! it was the Wreck, half-dressed and smoking a cigarette, who had waked me.

“I’ve been awake all night,” he said; “it has been too warm for sleeping. It’s five o’clock now, and a lovely morning. Better put on your things, and we’ll go out for an early morning walk.” We dressed and let ourselves quietly out of the house.

Next the inn was the church, which was locked of course at this early hour. In the churchyard was a thing that spoke of Chideock Castle, the tomb of Thomas Daniell, who, as a brass plate informed us, was “Steward of the Manor and Lordship of Chideock, who, loyal to his king, and true to his master, gallantly defended the Castle of Chideock.” The inscription ends with the quotation from Holy Writ—

which reads somewhat humorously, for surely never before has any one so finely confused secular loyalty with religious constancy, and never was blasphemy so unconscious as this.

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