And now it came on to rain with a deadly persistence that would have daunted us from setting out for Mevagissey had not letters been awaiting us at the post-office there. We set out at five o’clock in the afternoon, conveyed by the damp and undignified medium of a carrier’s cart without a tilt, crowded with country women returning from market, whose umbrellas sent trickling streams down our necks. Great pools of rain-water collected in the depressions of the tarpaulin that covered our knees, and washed furiously about as we were driven along the steep roads to the coast, so that we mentally prayed either for shine or Mevagissey. Just as we reached that odorous port, the rain ceased. We alighted (disembarked, I was about to say) “dem’d moist unpleasant bodies,” and asked the carrier as to the hotel. He said the “Ship” was the first hotel in the place, and to that sign we went. The “hotel” proved to be an inn, and the landlord of it wore an absurd air of astonishment when we proposed to stay there: he recommended us to private lodgings. This was scarcely a promising introduction to Mevagissey. It remotely resembled the reception accorded John Taylor, the “Water Poet,” on his travels in 1649. He “trauelled twelue miles to a fisher Towne called _Mevageasie_; that Towne hath in it two Tauernes, and six Ale-houses, to euery one of which I went for lodging, and not anyone would harbour me, then I fought for a Constable to helpe me, but no Constable was to be found;[11] the people all wondring at me, as if I had been some strange Beast, or Monster brought out of _Affrica_; at which most incivill and barbarous useage, I began to be angry, and I perceiving that no body cared for my anger, I discreetely went into the house where I first demanded lodging; where the Hoste being very willing to give me the courteous entertainement of _Iack Drum_ commanded me very kindely to get me out of dores, for there was no roome for me to lodge in. I told her that I would honestly pay for what I tooke, and that if I could not haue a bed, yet I was sure of a house over my head, and that I would not out till the morning: with that a young saucy knave told me that if I would not go out, he would throw me out, at which words my choller grew high, my indignation hot, and my fury fiery, so that I arose from a bench, went to my youth, and dared to the combate: whereat the Hostesse (with feare and trembling) desired me to be quiet, and I should haue a bed, at which words my wrath was appeased, and my ire asswaged.