The young people were all wild to see Lyme. Captain Wentworth talked

of going there again himself, it was only seventeen miles from

Uppercross; though November, the weather was by no means bad; and, in

short, Louisa, who was the most eager of the eager, having formed the

resolution to go, and besides the pleasure of doing as she liked, being

now armed with the idea of merit in maintaining her own way, bore down

all the wishes of her father and mother for putting it off till summer;

and to Lyme they were to go--Charles, Mary, Anne, Henrietta, Louisa,

and Captain Wentworth.

The first heedless scheme had been to go in the morning and return at

night; but to this Mr Musgrove, for the sake of his horses, would not

consent; and when it came to be rationally considered, a day in the

middle of November would not leave much time for seeing a new place,

after deducting seven hours, as the nature of the country required, for

going and returning. They were, consequently, to stay the night there,

and not to be expected back till the next day's dinner. This was felt

to be a considerable amendment; and though they all met at the Great

House at rather an early breakfast hour, and set off very punctually,

it was so much past noon before the two carriages, Mr Musgrove's coach

containing the four ladies, and Charles's curricle, in which he drove

Captain Wentworth, were descending the long hill into Lyme, and

entering upon the still steeper street of the town itself, that it was

very evident they would not have more than time for looking about them,

before the light and warmth of the day were gone.

After securing accommodations, and ordering a dinner at one of the

inns, the next thing to be done was unquestionably to walk directly

down to the sea. They were come too late in the year for any amusement

or variety which Lyme, as a public place, might offer. The rooms were

shut up, the lodgers almost all gone, scarcely any family but of the

residents left; and, as there is nothing to admire in the buildings

themselves, the remarkable situation of the town, the principal street

almost hurrying into the water, the walk to the Cobb, skirting round

the pleasant little bay, which, in the season, is animated with bathing

machines and company; the Cobb itself, its old wonders and new

improvements, with the very beautiful line of cliffs stretching out to

the east of the town, are what the stranger's eye will seek; and a very

strange stranger it must be, who does not see charms in the immediate

environs of Lyme, to make him wish to know it better. The scenes in

its neighbourhood, Charmouth, with its high grounds and extensive

sweeps of country, and still more, its sweet, retired bay, backed by

dark cliffs, where fragments of low rock among the sands, make it the

happiest spot for watching the flow of the tide, for sitting in

unwearied contemplation; the woody varieties of the cheerful village of

Up Lyme; and, above all, Pinny, with its green chasms between romantic

rocks, where the scattered forest trees and orchards of luxuriant

growth, declare that many a generation must have passed away since the

first partial falling of the cliff prepared the ground for such a

state, where a scene so wonderful and so lovely is exhibited, as may

more than equal any of the resembling scenes of the far-famed Isle of

Wight: these places must be visited, and visited again, to make the

worth of Lyme understood.




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