Page:Robert Barr - Lord Stranleigh Philanthropist.djvu/181

 a couple of hundred miles, although to-day we shall go but fifty or thereabouts."

The spot where this conversation took place was Stranleigh's estate in Dorsetshire. The party of three ran to Exeter, where they enjoyed their midday meal, then along the excellent south-west high road to Ashburton, and south-east to lovely Totnes, next south-west again to Kingsbridge, celebrated for white beer and the peppery Peter Pindar. From this point Salcombe Estuary was skirted, until the road turned directly eastward. At Chillington the car deflected straight south over a somewhat inferior road to Chivelstone, next east through South Allington, and finally southward, past a water-mill, through a deep valley, and along a lane by the stream, so rough that the automobile made very slow and difficult progress. The hills on either side were densely wooded. It seemed as if the motorists had come to the end of all things, and indeed, they were at the end of England, approaching its most southerly point excepting only the Lizard and Land's End.

At last the valley widened, and there broke gloriously upon the tourists a view of the blue sea, with a wild, rocky headland jutting into it to the east. Here Blake sprang out to open an