dawlish looks its very best from the railway station; not the least doubt of it, and looks best of all to passengers bound elsewhere. from the train you have on one side the blue sea, the red rocks, the yellow-brown sands; and on the other the lovely lawns and gardens in midst of the town, with the little stream called “dawlish water,” tamed and trimmed, and made to tumble over half a hundred little cascades, in between. in short, like any tradesman, dawlish displays its best goods—nay, more, its entire stock-in-trade—in the shop window.
the name of dawlish is rather by way of being a calamity. antiquaries declare it derives from the celtic dol isc; that is to say, “the meadow by the water”—and as we have seen, the stream and the gardens are the chief feature of the place—but the modern form of the name is fatally attractive for cheap wits. even great minds have declined to the remark that “dawlish is dawlicious”; and as the excursion trains in summer draw up to the platform and strangers step out from the carriages, to stretch their legs for a[81] moment before going on, the idiot jape trips off a hundred tongues.
at dawlish, however, the traveller first realises himself fully in the west. the view, the colour, the speech, all proclaim it.
ah! the old familiar cries of the west, they warm the heart with the fires of remembrance. as the traveller comes down the line, so insensibly he comes into the districts where the soft slurring burr of the west of england prevails. you first notice it, if you are travelling by a stopping train, at swindon, on whose platforms the newspapers—in the speech of the bookstall imps—become “londun pay-purr”; and when the train draws up to the seaside platforms of dawlish, the shibboleth has become “lundee pay.” long, too, may the fishwives of teignmouth continue their rounds, with their endearing “any nice fresh whiting to-day, my dear?” to old and young, gentle or simple.
there are wild and beautiful valleys away behind dawlish; in especial that vale down whose leafy gullies flows the clear stream of dawlish water, which, rising out of the green bosom of great haldon, up harcombe way, comes down by ashcombe and, reaching dawlish, is made to perform quite a number of parlour tricks before it is allowed to straggle out over the sands and pebbles of the beach, and find a well-earned rest in the sea.
there are folk of primitive ways of thought and rugged speech up the valley of dawlish water,[82] and their characteristics are those of old devon, of whose peasantry it has been truly said: “they work hard, live hard, hold hard, and die hard.”
“my tongue has two sides to et, like a bull’s; a rough an’ a smuthe,” said a sharp-spoken woman up at harcombe—or i should say, “up tu harcume”—and up tu ashcombe they talk in a way that no mortal man coming fresh to devon can understand. there is a picturesque rustic church high up on a knoll in the dwindling village of ashcombe, and there is a quaint old smithy with an equally quaint old couple of bachelor brothers, the smiths of it, who have the simplicity of children, the richest brogue in all devon, and the unaffected courtesy we associate with great nobles. “we’m plazed tu zee ’ee, ye knaw, ye bain’t a stranger tu ashcume, they tell me”; while their housekeeper says, “zittee down, do ’ee,” and with her apron vigorously dusts a chair which, like all else in this spotless interior, is absolutely innocent of dust. it is the rustic way of showing politeness.
as for their speech, all devonians have that characteristic rich twist of the tongue which one cannot well convey in all its richness in paper and print, and for “stranger” say “strangurr.” similarly, when, during a conversation with them, an insect of sorts bites you painfully, they inform you it is a “hoss-stingurr.”
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there is a prized possession at the smithy, in the shape of an old bureau, which has been in the family for goodness knows how many generations, and the visitor will probably be invited to see the “sacred” drawer they discovered. here, in the cold medium of print it is obvious enough that a “secret” drawer is meant, but i assure you it is by no means so immediately obvious on the spot, and you quite expect an introduction to some holy of holies.
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dawlish is shut in on the west by the great cliff of lea mount, which forms, both in colour and shape, an unforgettable feature.
lea mount owes its formal, straight-cut outline to the anxieties that followed the falling of a portion of the cliff on august 29th, 1885, when over fifty tons of rock buried a party of seven women and children, killing three of them. to prevent further accidents, all overhanging portions were cut away.
through this vivid red mass plunges the main line of the great western railway, in a series of five longer or shorter tunnels, emerging through parson tunnel upon the long sea wall that brings it into teignmouth. from dawlish sands the long and bold range of cliffs ending in hole head and the parson and clerk rocks is distinctly seen, but there has ever been some considerable doubt as to which of these rocks of hole head is the clerk. commonly the solitary wave-washed pillar standing out to sea has been given the name, but there are certainly the likenesses of two faces on the cliff itself, one immediately under the other; and there have always been those who have pointed them out as the unworthy pair.
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from one of the little coves that notch the cliffs between dawlish and teignmouth, those giant profiles are seen with advantage. they are impressive at a distance and even in calm weather, but near at hand, and when the clouds lower and the screaming winds tear off the crests of the waves and dash them in clouds of flying spume over the hurrying trains, they are not a little awesome. the parson, with round, bullet-like head, looks sternly out, with calm, inscrutable face, and all the dignity of a colossal rameses, upon the whirl of wind and water. the clerk, beneath him, a senile, doddering countenance, with wide-open mouth and thick, pendulous lips, seems to laugh and gibber maniacally at the racket of the elements, and is a little dreadful to behold.
there is no way round hole head to teignmouth. sheer walls of rock and a stark descent into the sea forbid; but some day, when local authorities take the hints that nature and latter-day circumstances have thrown out, a road will be made under those cliffs, and the sundered towns made neighbours.
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meanwhile, there are two prime ways of getting to teignmouth: the one a threepenny journey by train from dawlish station, the loveliest threepenny railway ride in the kingdom; the other a shockingly hilly climb up by the high road that goes over lea mount, and so, in a series of sharp rises and falls brings you, at one mile from teignmouth, to a breakneck descent into the town, usually ending, for cyclists some few years ago, in a pantomime-trick disappearance through the window of the “dawlish inn” and a removal, as the case might be, to the hospital or the cemetery. but more scientific brakes have happily neutralised these dangers.
there is, however, a delightful variant of this road journey that cannot too greatly be praised. this is found when coming to the cross-lanes in the hollow at holcombe, one mile from lea mount, by turning to the left down a tree-shaded way known as “smugglers’ lane.” a short distance brings the explorer to a sight of the sea again, glimpsed between the stone arches of a railway-bridge spanning a tiny cove or inlet. a walk through the arches on to the sands, if the tide be out, or the ascent of a dozen steps up to the sea-wall, if it be in, brings the stranger into the best and easiest, and certainly, into the most beautiful, approach to teignmouth, by the sea the whole way and under the shadow of the tremendous red cliffs, at whose foot the railway, by the daring of brunel, is made to run along the most massive of sea-walls. the engineer here wrought more picturesquely than he knew, and performed an inestimable service to the public by providing a ten-foot wide masonry pathway nearly two miles and a half long, where the contemplative visitor has the trains on one side and the sea on the other; and where he may, when it blows great guns off the sea, witness such a spouting and a buffeting of furious waves against the wall as scarce to be equalled around the coast.
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the railway has here, at any rate, left the shore more picturesque than it found it, and the trains themselves give a last touch of romance. you see them, in summer, coming down from london, a wondering and expectant face thrust from every window: the faces of holiday-makers enraptured with the scene. you see the holiday-makers again, a little later, with a deep tan colour, but with expressions wistful and melancholy; returning home, and taking a long lingering glance before the parson tunnel finally occults the view.
there is an added majesty to the sea-wall and the railway when night is come. the red cliffs become black and minatory, the trees and shrubs against the skyline assuming weird shapes; and stillness reigns; for mankind is gregarious and congregates in the town, leaving the sea-wall to shy lovers; and the contemplative crickets chirp in the ballast and on the sleepers, and the wash of the waves sounds in a restful undertone until a red eye in the darkness along the line changes to green and, with a rush and a scream, the express thunders by.
