Page:Ambulance 464 by Julien Bryan.djvu/241

 July 27th, 1917. London was new and interesting and I liked it; but this is really England here. Cardiff lies across the channel, in Wales, and Bristol lies on one side of us and the old forest of Exmoor on the other. Then south of us is Cornwall, the land of King Arthur and of Jack-the-Giant-Killer. We're just outside of Crowcombe and the hills behind the house overlook the sea. I am visiting Mrs. Rowcliffe, an old friend of my mother's whom the family had told me about before I left home. She and her husband have a wonderful estate here, with a quaint old manor, part of which was built in the thirteenth century. When I came here, I intended to stay only one night, but this is the third day now, and I am still here. Everything is new to me, from the heather and the bracken on the hills behind the manor to the low thatched cottages and the people themselves. Then there is the age of all the buildings. To think of living in a house built seven hundred years ago! But there are landmarks far older than this. The carpenter who drove me up from Stogumber Station to the Rowcliffe's, showed me a crude circle on the hillside, the remains of a Roman encampment;