blind
and worn-out old badger must take to my earth and die.

I found the Exe easy to follow at first. Further on exceedingly
difficult in places; but I was determined to keep near it, to have it
behind me and before me and at my side, following, leading, a beautiful
silvery serpent that was my friend and companion. For I was following
not the Exe only, but a dream as well, and a memory. Before I knew it
the Exe was a beloved stream. Many rivers had I seen in my wanderings,
but never one to compare with this visionary river, which yet existed,
and would be found and followed at last. My forefathers had dwelt for
generations beside it, listening all their lives long to its music, and
when they left it they still loved it in exile, and died at last
with its music in their ears. Nor did the connection end there; their
children and children's children doubtless had some inherited memory of
it; or how came I to have this feeling, which made it sacred, and drew
me to it? We inherit not from our ancestors only, but, through them,
something, too, from the earth and place that knew them.

I sought for and found it where it takes its rise on open Exmoor; a
simple moorland stream, not wild and foaming and leaping over rocks, but
flowing gently between low peaty banks, where the little lambs leap
over it from side to side in play. Following the stream down, I come at
length to Exford. Here the aspect of the country begins to change; it
is not all brown desolate heath; there are green flowery meadows by
the river, and some wood. A little further down and the Exe will be a
woodland stream; but of all the rest of my long walk I shall only say
that to see the real beauty of this stream one must go to Somerset. From
Exford to Dulverton it runs, singing aloud, foam-flecked, between high
hills clothed to their summits in oak woods: after its union with
the Barle it enters Devonshire as a majestic stream, and flows calmly
through a rich green country; its wild romantic charm has been left
behind.

The uninformed traveller, whose principle it is never to look at a
guide-book, is surprised to find that the small village of Exford
contains no fewer than half a dozen inns. He asks how they are kept
going; and the natives, astonished at his ignorance, proceed to
enlighten him. Exford is the headquarters of the stag-hunt: thither
the hunters flock in August, and spend so much money during thir brief
season that the innkeepers grow rich and fa