WIDEMOUTH BAY.
But stay, there is something of a story belonging to Watermouth Castle, for it was here that one of Miss Marie Corelli’s funny villains, the “Sir Charles Lascelles, Baronet,” of “The Mighty Atom,” stayed, as one of a house-party. You know at once, on being introduced to him in those pages, that he is a bad Bart. We must not blame him for that; the baronets of fiction are always bad: they can’t help it; it has to be. Moreover, he drawls, and acknowledges his “doosid habits of caprice”: so it is at once perceived that he is bad after the ancient formula of fifty years ago. Any modern wicked baronet would in the like circumstances describe himself, in up-to-date style, as an “erratic rotter.” Which is the better phrase, I will not pretend to say.
In between Widemouth Head and the succeeding headland of Rillage Point lies Samson’s Bay, followed by Hele Bay, enclosed on the side nearest Ilfracombe by Hillsborough, i.e., “Helesborough” Hill. Hele beach and its hamlet are now practically part of Ilfracombe town.
There is not, as a rule, much entertainment in local guide-books, but occasionally some precious ore may be mined, out of the extravagant but barren language they commonly employ. There are, however, very few pennyweights of amusement to be extracted from such tons of boredom. But here, for once in a way, is a little nugget, taken sparkling from an otherwise very empty vein, descriptive of Hele: “Hele, with its picturesque limekiln and cottages, almost hugging one another around the village school, deep down in a dell and surrounded by flourishing trees.” It is a pleasing picture, this, of the love of the amorous, but coy, limekiln, for the equally ardent but bashful cottages, and it moves me to lyrically celebrate the neglect of opportunities suggested:
Behind the school and trees they stood,
And almost hugged—the scene was so secluded;
Just as, in ferny grot, or flow’ry wood
(When we were younger, be it understood,
And ardent), sometimes I and you did.
The kiln was hot and eager, and
The cottages themselves were rather forward;
And, you must now most clearly understand,
It was a quiet, most secluded strand,
With none in sight, or land or shoreward.
When love and I roamed far away,
In quiet dell, I’d fondly kiss and squeeze her.
Did I refrain those tributes. Well-a-day!
There was the very deuce to pay:
I found my conversation failed to please her.
* * * * *
And yet I hear, with shoulders sharply shrugged,
They only—“almost hugged!”