boy and gave him another coin. But before we parted, he gave the young man something else as well.
"Look, lad," he said confidentially. "I shouldn't worry too much about the girl. Best to find out now how undependable she is, instead of later, when there are children underfoot. No, you look around for a woman with brains and spirit. You'll never be bored." He clapped the boy hard on the back and walked off; it would have been hard to say whether the lad or myself was the more nonplussed.
***
It was by now late afternoon, and although in the still-long days of August we might just have reached Lew Trenchard before darkness fell, we should certainly never do so on an already dim October's day. We made for the nearest inn, which Holmes said was in the hamlet of Two Bridges.
We passed a number of prehistoric settlements, now mere grass-grown foundations of the original circular huts, and picked our way over three streams. The fourth we followed downstream rather than cross, and entered into an extraordinarily weird area, a long strip of strewn boulders and stunted oaks that seemed to writhe in the half-light of the approaching evening.
"Odd to see trees again," I commented, more to hear a voice than from any real need to communicate.
"A fey sort of place, isn't it? Wistman's Wood, it's called, which is either the corruption of a Celtic name meaning something along the lines of 'rocky woods along the water' or else the corruption of a Saxon term for 'foreigners,' indicating it was a Celtic wood, which in turn may be supported by the name 'Welshman's Wood' that some of the old people still use. You may take your choice of corruptions. Ah," he said, as we emerged from the wood, "nearly there."
Along the river and past a farmyard, and indeed we were nearly there—but not before the most extraordinary thing we had seen all day passed in front of our eyes. Indeed, it nearly ran us down, as we stepped confidently out onto the black surface of an actual macadamised road, only to leap back aghast into the safety of the walls as a furious black mechanical monstrosity came roaring around the bend straight at us. After two days spent among sheep and standing stones, this reminder of the twentieth century came as a considerable shock.
SIX
I may be mistaken, but it seems to me that cooking done over a peat fire surpasses cooking at the best club in London. But it may be that on the moor one relishes a meal in a manner impossible elsewhere.
—A Book of Dartmoor
The inn at Two Bridges, on the other hand, when finally we navigated the dangers of the road and passed beneath the sign of the Saracen's Head, was more akin to the sheep and the prehistoric stone circles than it was to the motorcar. The air was dense with the fragrance of dinner and beer, pipe tobacco and long generations of peat fires, and I immediately felt every cell in my body relax, secure in the knowledge that my needs would be well cared for.
A smiling boy whisked our disreputable packs upstairs, a smiling girl invited us to choose between a late service of afternoon tea and an early service of dinner, or just a quiet glass of something while we thought about it.
Greedily, I pounced on the offer of tea, asking only that it be delayed briefly so I might go upstairs and make myself presentable. Ten minutes later, I trotted back down and found Holmes (who had somehow contrived to tidy himself with neither bath nor possessions to hand) seated in a comfortable chair in front of a glowing fire, one hand holding a cup of tea, the other the remnants of a scone piled high with clotted cream and jam.
"I thought you didn't like cream and scones, Holmes," I said mildly, wasting no time to claim the larger of the two remaining on the plate and setting to with cream and jam. Holmes poured me a cup of tea and put the milk jug where I could reach it.
"Very occasionally, after a cold and strenuous day, I welcome a scone with Devonshire cream."
"Or
"Look, lad," he said confidentially. "I shouldn't worry too much about the girl. Best to find out now how undependable she is, instead of later, when there are children underfoot. No, you look around for a woman with brains and spirit. You'll never be bored." He clapped the boy hard on the back and walked off; it would have been hard to say whether the lad or myself was the more nonplussed.
***
It was by now late afternoon, and although in the still-long days of August we might just have reached Lew Trenchard before darkness fell, we should certainly never do so on an already dim October's day. We made for the nearest inn, which Holmes said was in the hamlet of Two Bridges.
We passed a number of prehistoric settlements, now mere grass-grown foundations of the original circular huts, and picked our way over three streams. The fourth we followed downstream rather than cross, and entered into an extraordinarily weird area, a long strip of strewn boulders and stunted oaks that seemed to writhe in the half-light of the approaching evening.
"Odd to see trees again," I commented, more to hear a voice than from any real need to communicate.
"A fey sort of place, isn't it? Wistman's Wood, it's called, which is either the corruption of a Celtic name meaning something along the lines of 'rocky woods along the water' or else the corruption of a Saxon term for 'foreigners,' indicating it was a Celtic wood, which in turn may be supported by the name 'Welshman's Wood' that some of the old people still use. You may take your choice of corruptions. Ah," he said, as we emerged from the wood, "nearly there."
Along the river and past a farmyard, and indeed we were nearly there—but not before the most extraordinary thing we had seen all day passed in front of our eyes. Indeed, it nearly ran us down, as we stepped confidently out onto the black surface of an actual macadamised road, only to leap back aghast into the safety of the walls as a furious black mechanical monstrosity came roaring around the bend straight at us. After two days spent among sheep and standing stones, this reminder of the twentieth century came as a considerable shock.
SIX
I may be mistaken, but it seems to me that cooking done over a peat fire surpasses cooking at the best club in London. But it may be that on the moor one relishes a meal in a manner impossible elsewhere.
—A Book of Dartmoor
The inn at Two Bridges, on the other hand, when finally we navigated the dangers of the road and passed beneath the sign of the Saracen's Head, was more akin to the sheep and the prehistoric stone circles than it was to the motorcar. The air was dense with the fragrance of dinner and beer, pipe tobacco and long generations of peat fires, and I immediately felt every cell in my body relax, secure in the knowledge that my needs would be well cared for.
A smiling boy whisked our disreputable packs upstairs, a smiling girl invited us to choose between a late service of afternoon tea and an early service of dinner, or just a quiet glass of something while we thought about it.
Greedily, I pounced on the offer of tea, asking only that it be delayed briefly so I might go upstairs and make myself presentable. Ten minutes later, I trotted back down and found Holmes (who had somehow contrived to tidy himself with neither bath nor possessions to hand) seated in a comfortable chair in front of a glowing fire, one hand holding a cup of tea, the other the remnants of a scone piled high with clotted cream and jam.
"I thought you didn't like cream and scones, Holmes," I said mildly, wasting no time to claim the larger of the two remaining on the plate and setting to with cream and jam. Holmes poured me a cup of tea and put the milk jug where I could reach it.
"Very occasionally, after a cold and strenuous day, I welcome a scone with Devonshire cream."
"Or
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