Local gossip tells how Miss Corelli informed Norman he was to be made a prominent character in the story, and that the circumstance would make his fortune, as sexton. It proved the ruin of him, instead; for imagining himself a public character, he took himself and the increased tips he obtained from curious visitors, off to the “King’s Arms,” or, maybe, the “Castle”; and, what with too much drink and a consumptive tendency, he did not long remain to pose for the inquisitive. His knowledge of ancient ecclesiastical arrangements and the uses and purport of things, does not appear--judging from the novel, which is understood to report him “as nearly as possible” in his own words--to have been more reliable than that of the average sexton, or verger, and we all know what broken reeds they are, to rely upon for information. According to his tale, sufficient for the many simple folk who are ready for any legend, the “altar gates”--he meant the doors in the rood-screen--“Do what ye will wi’ ’em, they won’t shut, see. That shows they was made ’fore the days o’ Cromwell. For in they times all the gates o’ th’ altars was copied arter the pattern o’ Scripture which sez: ‘An’ the gates o’ Heaven shall never be shut, either by day or by night.’” So now we know! [Illustration: GREAT HANGMAN HILL, AND ENTRANCE TO COMBEMARTIN HARBOUR. [_After W. Daniell, R.A._ ] The road to Ilfracombe winds round Combemartin Bay, and, rising and falling abruptly, comes down to Watermouth. Here an almost land-locked bay, with a little strand, and hills on either side, partly wooded, forms a haven, where it is almost always calm, even when storms are raging and a heavy sea running outside Widemouth Head and Burrow Nose, the two enclosing points. The headlands are honeycombed with caves, prominent among them Smallmouth and Briary caves. Like most things in the neighbourhood of Ilfracombe, they are to be visited only by payment. In every respect the best way to reach them is by taking one of the rowing-boats that, with competitive boatmen, are always to be found here in summer. Watermouth Castle, looking grandly out from its sloping lawns upon the sea, should have a story. The ivy-clad, romantic-looking, turreted pile wears as genuine an air of antiquity as Lee “Abbey” itself, but candour--we must all be candid when the local guide-books are so explicit--obliges me to confess it was built in 1826, when feudal castellans were things of a remote past. [Illustration: WIDEMOUTH BAY.]