There is such an overbrimming wealth of bushes and plants and flowers on every side, that the fact of the water in the estuary being salt scarcely seems to prevent their growing in it! Along the bank washed by the flowing tide, and almost touching the masses of tough golden-brown seaweed on the rocks, are multitudes of the daisy-flowers of sea-mayweed, flowering samphire, the stars of sow-thistle, and bright yellow bunches of charlock and straggling spires of wild-mignonette, against a darker background of blackthorn, hawthorn, ivy, and furze, lightly powdered with trails of bramble-blossom. Creeks, edged with low hills, wind away from the estuary. When the tide is low, great stretches of mud and sand lie on either side, and here may be seen black cormorants and crowds and crowds of gulls, here and there a heron, and quantities of smaller birds. The scene changes entirely at the mouth of the creek, for here the banks rise into high rugged cliffs, and the water frets restlessly over sunken rocks. Salcombe is a tiny little town, with steep, narrow streets and high-walled gardens on each side of the close lane that ends the principal street; and between the gardens the air is fragrant with sweet clematis, that, as well as red valerian, tumbles in clusters over the walls. Salcombe has a very good claim to remembrance, for on a peninsular rock at the mouth of the harbour stand the ruins of a fortress that held out for King Charles later than any other place in Devonshire. It was defended by Sir Edward Fortescue, and surrendered only on May 7, 1646. On the opposite side of the estuary, high on the cliffs, lies the small village of Portlemouth. The cross-shaped church is dedicated to a Celtic saint, St Winwaloe, locally called St Onolaus. A proverb without much point (probably only the fragment of a more coherent saying) mentions St Winwaloe amongst several saints whose days fall on windy dates. 'First comes David, next comes Chad, And then comes Winneral, as though he were mad, White or black, On old house thack [thatch].' [St David's Day, March 1; St Chad's Day, March 2; St Winwaloe's Day, March 3.] In his church here is a very finely carved screen, and of one of the figures on it Mr Baring-Gould tells an amusing story: 'The sixth is Sir John Schorne, a Buckinghamshire rector, who died in 1308, and was supposed to have conjured the devil into a boot. He was venerated greatly as a patron against ague and the gout. There is a jingle relative to him: '"To Maister John Schorne, that blessed man born, For the ague to him we apply, Which judgeth with a bote; I beshrew his heart's rote That will trust him, and it be I."'