The Blackmore Country

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1906. Excerpt: ... THE BLACKMORE COUNTRY CHAPTER I THE APPROACH R. D. Blackmore was about ten years of age when his father took up his abode at Culmstock, a village in East Devon, at the foot of the Blackdowns. Notwithstanding an inclination to wander, evidence of which has been adduced in the previous section, the boy must have passed a fair amount of time at home; and wherever Blackmore tarried, he became imbued with the spirit of the place, wrested all its secrets, and acquired an intimate acquaintance with its arts and crafts such as would do credit to a committee of experts. Above all, he had the enviable gift of being able to distil from the rude realities their poetic essence--the prize of loving intelligence. So far as Culmstock and the neighbourhood are concerned, the fruits of his observation are to be seen in Perlycross, and in a much lesser degree in Tales from the Telling House. The former, by no means so rdpandu as Lorna Doone, labours under the disadvantage, which is yet not all disadvantage, of fictitious names; consequently but few are aware that Perliton, Perlycross, and A Perlycombe are pretty, but deceptive aliases of Uffculme, Culmstock, and Hemyock. These little places--Uffculme, however, claims to be a town--are tapped by a light railway of serpentine construction, which branches from the main line at Tiverton Junction. The trains are appallingly slow, chiefly on account of the curves; and just outside the junction is a stiff gradient, the ascent of which, especially in frosty weather, is problematical. Often there is nothing for it but to drop back to the station and try again, or, as the French have it, se reculer pour mieux sauter. The level champaign traversed by the caricature of locomotion is remarkable for its fertility, and for many other thin...