Meanwhile, the way is obviously across that river, but how to win to that other side? No one, nor any house, is in sight, but here, by fortunate chance, is a fisherman’s boat, and I up-anchor, cast off, and row myself to the opposite shore, expectant all the while of an angry shout from somewhere. But anything, rather than stay the night over yonder with the sand-fleas. No one, however, witnessed that little act of piracy, and I walked up out of that steamy laundry-like hollow, where one is reduced to the limpness of washing hung over a clothes-line, and wondered what yon fisherman said and thought when he found himself on the one side of the river and his boat on the other. I hope it is not many miles round to the first bridge, or ford. CHAPTER XXV MOTHECOMBE—REVELSTOKE—NOSS MAYO—THE YEALM—WEMBURY—THE MEWSTONE Mothecombe is a place where explorers and visitors of any kind are severely discouraged, the local landowners, the Mildmays of Flete, a magnificent modern mansion whose park extends for several miles along the Erme and the Pamflete creek, having abolished the inns, while their tenants dare harbour no such chancey thing as a stranger. It seems rather mediæval. Far from being aggrieved at this, the chance wayfarer is so impressed that he is only too grateful to be allowed to live, instead of being shot at sight. It is, in any case, a difficult matter to explore the coast at beautiful Mothecombe, for the summer atmosphere is that of a stewpot, and merely to gently walk the shortest distance bathes one in perspiration. The only thing to do is to enquire the way to Revelstoke, the next place marked on the map, and to make for it under as easy conditions as may be. [Illustration: THE RUINED CHURCH OF REVELSTOKE.] When at last, after leaving inhospitable Mothecombe, the explorer comes to Revelstoke, whose name, at any rate, promises something better, he finds himself in rather worse case, and understands why it was the country-people, even within a few miles of it, put their heads together and consulted with one another so deeply, and with so little result. For, beyond a ruined church, solitary on the verge of the cliffs, and at the end of a tangled footpath, overgrown with brambles and nettles, there is _no_ Revelstoke at all, and the hospitality foreshadowed by its name is seen to be a thing impossible. It is a very pleasant and romantic place to come to on a bright summer’s morning, but to come strange to it at night——! Praise be to the powers that took me, after Mothecombe, inland to Holbeton instead. This ruined church of St. Peter, near Stoke Point, nearly overhangs the cliffs of a rocky inlet, but the building itself is so shrouded with ivy, even to the apex of its saddle-backed roof, that it is almost reduced to terms of vegetation, and is, moreover, so overhung with trees that neither from the sea nor from any distance inland is it visible.