OARE—MALMSMEAD—THE BADGWORTHY VALLEY—THE “DOONE VALLEY”—GLENTHORNE AND now, after having fully considered the evidence for and against the much-debated existence of these old reprobates and masterless men, let us advance into their country, and into that of the romantic Lorna, who was, of course, an adopted Doone merely. [Illustration: OARE CHURCH.] The way to Oare, branching off to the left, plunges immediately down into the profound valley of the Oare Water. “Hookway Hill” is the name of this abominable road, bad enough in its own native vileness, but rendered worse by the strange humour of the local road-repairing authority, always at pains to deposit cartloads of stones on it in the summer, so that there shall be plenty of opportunity for the tourist traffic to roll this loose material in by the autumn. Thus the literary pilgrim to the scenes of “Lorna Doone” is made to earn that title, eloquent as it is of suffering and difficulties encountered, wrestled with, and overcome. Long is the way and steep and winding, and he who, cycling, would seek to avoid the prodigious stones by tracking to the side, must make his account with the yard-long projecting blackberry brambles, armed with monstrous thorns, that curry-comb the face, clutch off the cap, or take one by the arm in a confidential grip, like some old friend who would bid you “wait a bit.” Later on in the year, possibly, hedgers will be at work with their “riphooks,” slashing off these terrors of the way, and then woe to the cyclist’s tyres! It is a nice point, where and when the blackberry bramble is most offensive; when it is in a position to scarify the traveller’s person, or when, shorn off and lying in the road, its thorns play havoc with india-rubber. [Illustration: NEAR ROBBER’S BRIDGE.] At the foot of Hookway Hill, the peaty little Oare, or Weir, water, rushing over a pebbly bed is crossed by Robber’s Bridge, and thenceforward the road runs level, past Oareford, and then as an exceedingly narrow lane, to Oare; passing two or three solitary farms that in these latter days provide for summer visitors whose humour is for a fortnight or a month in the wilds. One of these is identified, more or less accurately, with the “Plovers Barrows’ Farm” of the novel.