To brood and be still."
From this wild spot Ann Garland watched the Victory depart with Bob Loveday on board. Turning inland we see Pennsylvania Castle. This was the home of Pierston, and near it is the cottage wherein Avice dwelt; while, in the adjoining Ope Churchyard, Jocelyn wooed the granddaughter of the first Avice. The castle is comparatively modern, having been built by John Penn in 1800, from designs by Wyatt.
From numberless points on the tableland of Portland many exquisite views may be obtained, some looking seaward to where the distant St. Aldhelm's Head marks the eastern limit of Weymouth Bay. Inland, the prospect includes the town of Weymouth, with the heights of Dorset stretching into the heart of the county. Away to the west the waves of the Channel moan unceasingly, where Chesil lifts her pebbly ridge, and Golden Cap, with its summit of yellow sand, marks the site of Lyme Regis, with its memories of Charles II, Monmouth, Jane Austen, and Mary Mitford. Westward, too, over an expanse of southern sea, the sun sinks behind the belt of blue, and flushes the golden glow of sky with varying hues of rose and amethyst, until the overarching heaven seems etherealized into a transparent canopy that veils the mystic radiance of some hidden glory.
WEYMOUTH TO POOLE
The visitor to the Hardy country will quickly realize that, in spite of railways, motor cars, and cycles, more than half of South Dorset is a closed book to those who do not walk; while the beautiful coast scenery of this historic land is for the pedestrian alone. The iron road conveys the conventional tourist from an inland to a maritime town, motor cars and cycles thread the great highways, now stripped of their high and shade-giving hedges for the convenience of their mechanically propelled travellers. Contrast this with a tramp over a succession of grassy downs where the salt sea-mist fills the natural amphitheatres made by the hollows in the retreating hills, and across sandy bays eaten out of the soft chalk by the ceaseless action of the sea. There is an indefinable charm in a view combining sea and cliff, hill and dale, the near orchard and the distant down, within the field of vision.
GATEWAY, POXWELL MANOR HOUSE
It is impossible by mere words to convey any idea of the wealth of colour exhibited along the Dorset coast, where the brilliant tints of the sea-worn rocks are contrasted with hues of vivid green; for here verdure triumphs over decay, and drapes the wrecks of time with the richest vegetation. In a wide open country such as this, great clouds sweep over the hills, casting as they travel moving shadows over land and sea; so that before long we are perfectly intoxicated with the charms of the district, where idlers forget their ennui, and invalids gain strength in its invigorating air.
Leaving Weymouth by the Wareham Road, and past the low-lying but picturesque marshlands of Lodmoor, we arrive at Preston, where the much-disturbed tessellated floor of a good Roman villa may be seen for the payment of sixpence. Near the roadside is a small one-arched bridge that has been claimed by some antiquaries to be of Roman, and by others of Norman, date. Many think it to be a mediaeval pack-horse bridge.
Preston's sister village of Sutton Poyntz is the "Overcombe" of The Trumpet-Major, with its millpond, which Ann Garland surveyed from her chamber window. "Immediately before her was the large, smooth millpond, overfull, and intruding into the hedge and into the road." On the hillside at the back of the village is the gigantic figure of George III on horseback, cut out of the chalk in 1808. This work of art is 280 feet in length and 323 feet in height, and there is no better way to reach it than from Sutton. Should we make the ascent we can act as Ann Garland did on her visit here with the Trumpet-Major, namely, pace "from the horse's head down his breast to his hoof, back by way of the King's bridle-arm, past the bridge of his nose, and into his cocked hat", or we can follow the example of the Trumpet-Major, and stand, "in a melancholy attitude within the rowel of his majesty's right spur".