DARTMOOR, DEVONSHIRE,
THE GREY TOR INN,
_Tuesday, May 18th, 19--_
I wish I had brought winter flannels with me. It is all very well to
call it the middle of May on Dartmoor, but it is as cold as the middle
of winter in Aberdeen. There may be something odd about the red soil
that accounts for flowers coming out in spite of it, for certainly
there are primroses and violets on the banks, a good many,--very like
flowers in a hat.
We met Miss Pomeroy, the American girl, in the lobby of the hotel. She
said that her mother was resting in the drawing-room. Like me, she
seems to suffer from shivering fits. 'I can't imagine,' I said, 'why
any doctor should have ordered me to such a place as this to recover
from influenza, which is just another form of cold.' The windows look
straight out on Grey Tor. It is, of course, as the guide-books say, 'a
scene of great sublimity and grandeur,' but very dreary; it is not
mountain, and not what we would call moor, either, in Scotland--just a
crumpled country, with boulders here and there. Grey Tor is the
highest point we can see--not very lonely, I am glad to say, for
little black people are always walking up and down it, like flies on a
confectioner's window, and there is a railing on the top.
There is a young man here, who, I was surprised to find, is a nephew
of the uncle of my poor brother-in-law, Colonel Forsyth, who died in a
moment at Agra. Sir William Maxwell Mackenzie used to be often at the
Forsyths, before his death. This young man's name is Archibald, and he
drives a motor. I sat next him at dinner, and we had quite a pleasant
little chat about my poor brother-in-law's sudden death and funeral.
Miss Pomeroy ate everything on the table and talked a great deal.
Cecilia said she wasn't able to come down to dinner, but, as usual,
ate more than I could, upstairs. Like me, Mrs. Pomeroy finds the
Devonshire cream very heavy. The daughter and Sir Archibald finished
nearly the whole dish, although it was a large china basin.