“Woman!” What a deadly offence, what a god-addressing-a-blackbeetle effect this has! It produces rage of the foaming, abusive, incoherent order, in midst of which, with a cold-drawn, blighting smile, you retire, with the consciousness that the thing will rankle for days. But the incident renders a comparison of old times with new in Somerset unfavourable to the present age. In the olden days, before every historic spot or architectural rarity had become a show-place, resorted to by a constant stream of visitors, the farmer whose farm happened to be on the site of some ruined abbey would, as a rule, make the visitor courteously welcome at all times, in his homely fashion, and would indeed be pleased to see the rare strangers who came his way; but in these times, now that excursionists are everywhere, and in great numbers, ruins have acquired a certain commercial value, and must be hedged about with restrictions. [Illustration: THE REFECTORY, CLEEVE ABBEY.] But here we are in the twentieth century, and it were hopeless and foolish to wish ourselves back in the early years of the nineteenth; for not the most perfect examples of that old-time courtesy could recompense for other incidental discomforts. Here, then, facing the road, across the little Gothic bridge spanning the Roodwater, stands the Gatehouse. Let us enter—it being weekday—beneath the ample arch of that mingled Decorated and Late Perpendicular building. The upper storey, the work of William Dovell, the last Abbot, bears the hospitable Latin welcome: Porta patens esto Nulli claudaris honesto, metrically rendered: Gate, open be; To honest men all free. but more literally translated, “Gate, be open; and be closed to no honest man.” It was a favourite threshold invitation with the Cistercians; but the later corruption, avarice, and sloth that marked them, in common with other orders, led to a double meaning being fastened upon it, both in England and in France. The Latin construction easily admits of a cynical interpretation, figured for us by the still-surviving French punning proverb: “Faute d’un point Martin perdit son âne; _i.e._ By the mistake of a full-stop, Martin lost his ass;” the original Martin of this cryptic saw being the Abbot of Alne, who was so unscholarly that in setting up the honoured motto, he placed a full-stop after the word “nulli”; thus making the phrase read scandalously, Gate opened be to none. Closed to the honest man. That unfortunate Abbot’s lack of learning caused the enraged people of the district, headed by rival churchmen, to demolish his Abbey. But to return to the sea, at Blue Anchor, by way of Old Cleeve.