There are many pleasant short walks in the neighbourhood of Bridport and West Bay. Eype is reached from Bridport by field paths passing through Allington and the Lovers' Grove. A bridle-way takes one to Eype church, standing on the ridge, whence it leads through the village down a deep hollow to the beach. Continuing over Thorncombe Beacon, we reach Seatown, which is a seaside branch of Chideock. "Chiddick," as any Wessex man of the soil will pronounce the name, is a little less than a mile inland on the Lyme Regis road. The Anchor Inn at Seatown is an old place of entertainment I have not personally visited, but a man who knows his Dorset informs me that it is a place where the centuries mingle; with black beams in the ceiling, oak settles, shining with long usage, and ironwork full of the rough simplicity of the Elizabethan forge. I shall call there next time I fare Dorset way, if only to stand in the great bay window which looks out to the sea. Such buildings remind one, not of decay but of immutableness. Perhaps even the summons of the dark Reaper would not sound quite so sharp in an ancient inn. There are less perfect places one might die in, and if I had my wish I would choose to pass away in an inn, where all my regrets would be arrested by the stamping of feet on the sanded floor beneath, and the ancient and untutored voices of farmhands and ploughmen singing some lively song. CHAPTER XIV ROUND ABOUT BEAMINSTER Beaminster is six miles to the north of Bridport, and is reached by a pleasant walk, passing on the way the little village of Melplash. It is a sleepy country town, deeply seated among hills, near the head-waters of the _Birt_, which flows through it. It is a place of some antiquity, but not remarkable for much, if we except its sufferings by fire. In 1644, when Prince Maurice was quartered here, it was burnt completely to the ground, having been fired by a drunken soldier. The greater part of it was a second time destroyed in 1684, and again in 1788. Very prominent landmarks of the Beaminster district are Pilsdon Pen and Lewesdon Hill, two eminences of green sand remarkable for their likeness to one another. The singularity of their appearance has naturally excited much attention. Sailors, whom they serve as a landmark, call them the _Cow and the Calf_; the Rev. William Crowe has sung the praises of Lewesdon in a descriptive poem, and the two hills together have given rise to a proverbial saying current in this country and applied to neighbours who are not acquainted: "... as much akin As Lew'son Hill to Pil'son Pen."