reat Western line for thirty miles or so on the far
side of Plymouth runs through scenery singularly beautiful, and its many
viaducts carry it over at least a dozen coombes more strikingly
picturesque than this particular one which alone engaged his curiosity.
The secret, perhaps, lay with the road. Mr. Molesworth, who had never set
foot on it, sometimes wondered whither it led and into what country it
disappeared around the base of the slope to which at times his eyes
travelled always wistfully. He had passed his forty-fifth year, and
forgotten that he was an imaginative man. Nevertheless, and quite
unconsciously, he let his imagination play for a few moments every
morning--in the evening, jaded with business, he forgot as often as not to
look--along this country road. Somehow it had come to wear a friendly
smile, inviting him: and he on his part regarded it with quite a friendly
interest. Once or twice, half-amused by the fancy, he had promised
himself to take a holiday and explore it.

Years had gone by, and the promise remained unredeemed, nor appeared
likely to be redeemed; yet at the back of his mind he was always aware of
it. Daily, as the train slowed down and stopped at M---- Station, he
spared a look for the folks on the platform. They had come by the road;
and others, alighting, were about to take the road.

They were few enough, as a rule: apple-cheeked farmers and country-wives
with their baskets, bound for Plymouth market; on summer mornings, as
likely as not, an angler or two, thick-booted, carrying rods and creels,
their hats wreathed with March-browns or palmers on silvery lines of gut;
in the autumn, now and then, a sportsman with his gun; on Monday mornings
half a dozen Navy lads returning from furlough, with stains of native
earth on their shoes and the edges of their wide trousers. . . . The faces
of all these people wore an innocent friendliness: to Mr. Molesworth,
a childless man, they seemed a childlike race, and mysterious as children,
carrying with them like an aura the preoccupations of the valley from
which they emerged. He decided that the country below the road must be
worth exploring; that spring or early summer must be the proper season,
and angling his pretext. He had been an accomplished fly-fisher in his
youth, and wondered how much of the art would return to his hand when,
after many years, it balanced the rod again.

Together with his fly-fishing, Mr. Molesworth had forgott