“What a lot of pictures crowd upon my sight As I view the luscious feast of my delight! Meadows fram’d in hawthorn, coppices in green, Village-fanes on hill-tops crowning every scene, Buttercups, and cattle clad in coats of red, Flocks in daisy-pastures, couples newly wed Happy in their homesteads by a flashing stream;-- But what can be this golden, crimp’d, and bonny cream? “Quintessence of sunshine, gorse, and broomy lea, Privet and carnation, violet and pea, Meadowsweet and primrose, honeysuckle, briar, Lily, mint, and jasmine, stock, and gilly-spire, Woodruff, rose, and clover, clematis and lime, Myrtle and magnolia, daffodil and thyme Is our pearl of dainties--and, to end my theme, Nature’s choice confection is old Devon’s cream.” Two things in the above, perhaps require explanation; “squab- and mazzard-pie.” Squab-pie is a Devonshire dish composed of mutton, onions, apples, etc., and mazzards are a kind of wild cherry growing in North Devon. The original manuscript of these verses hangs in a frame in the Bideford Public Library, where there is also a fine oil-painting of Capern in middle life, by the elder Widgery. For the rest, the library contains little enough, being one of those pretentious Carnegie buildings practically without books; an absurdity on a par with a showy restaurant that should provide only the cruets for the hungry to dine upon. A vast amount of astonished comment has been penned upon the strange thing that a postman should write poetry, but surely it is not so remarkable a thing to find a cultivated mind in the body of a letter-carrier! Culture, it would seem, is held to be the prerogative of the wealthy and the leisured. How dreadful, if it really were so! CHAPTER XIII THE KINGSLEY STATUE--NORTHAM--“BLOODY CORNER”--APPLEDORE--WESTWARD HO! AND THE PEBBLE RIDGE