THE QUAY, CLOVELLY.
Over this little scene, the tall, sheer, tree-fringed cliff of Gallantry Bower protrudes a sheltering shoulder; the smoke from Clovelly chimneys on still days ascending perpendicularly against its dark green background, with a comforting, cosy sense of snug homesteads, sufficient though humble. The “Red Lion” stands prominently here, an odd building with something of a Swiss suggestion, and a tunnel through its heavy mass leading to a cobble-stoned courtyard, where you see an upturned boat or two, a scatter of domestic fowls searching for grains, and making shift with seaweed; and perhaps one of those patient, all-enduring little Clovelly donkeys, submitting to be loaded up with a heavy sack by a burly fisherman, who looks distinctly the better able of the two to hump the burden.
BACK OF THE “RED LION,” CLOVELLY.
Along the wall of the “Red Lion,” facing the pool, runs a bench, full in the sun, and there the fishermen of Clovelly sit. They sit there so long and so often that they have little conversation: their pipes and the mere supporting presence of each other appearing to be quite satisfying. We may not believe altogether in the alleged Roman origin of Clovelly, but I saw a fisherman, one of the company on this bench, whose clean-shaven face was the very counterpart of Julius Cæsar’s.
Clovelly fishermen are famed for their endurance and Clovelly herrings for their flavour. All through the West the fame of these herrings has gone forth. Yarmouth and Lowestoft may measure the catch of herring by the “last.” Clovelly reckons so many “maise.” A “maise” is 612, and is arrived at as follows: three herrings make one “cast,” i.e. a handful: fifty cast, with an odd cast thrown in, equal the Scriptural “miraculous draught,” and make one maund, and four maunds equal 612 fish = a “maise.”
Buildings—not merely the old limekiln that looks like a defensible blockhouse, but dwelling-houses also—come down to the very margin of “Kaay pule”: in particular the strangely picturesque cottage, with balcony perilously strutted out from its walls, known as “Crazy Kate’s,” or rather “Craazy Kaate.” The fishermen affect a supreme ignorance and indifference about “Crazy Kate.” If you ask them, they will look enquiry at one another—and will know nothing as to the name, which appears on every one of those picture-postcards that are sold, literally, by the ton every season. It is an odd discourtesy; the fact being that every one in Clovelly is perfectly well acquainted with the legend which tells how one Kate Lyall, who lived here many years ago, lost her sweetheart and went “maazed”—as we say in the West.
The “Hobby Drive” is one of the most charming features of Clovelly. It is a two and a half miles’ cliff drive, branching off from the main road at a lodge-gate, where one pays fourpence for the privilege of traversing that glorious winding-way turning and twisting back upon itself at hairpin corners, in negotiating the contours of the cliffs. It was a “hobby” of its constructor, hence the name. From this fern-bordered tree-shaded drive are obtained the finest peeps of Clovelly, down there hundreds of feet below: a toy port, an artist’s dream, a—in fact anything rather than the reality it seems, so dainty and exquisite is the view.