For all the use it was, the sign-post need not have existed. After we had taken what looked the most likely road, and after another mile had been tramped, we came to another and more promising affair, which, we found, directed us, in the way we were going, to Grampound, a place we had not the remotest idea of visiting. There was nothing for it but to turn about and retrace our steps. This we did, and presently met some country folk. We could have embraced them, so long was it since we had seen any fellow-creatures, but we refrained, and merely asked the road and the distance to Veryan. Four and a half miles farther, it seemed. With what haste and with how many more wrong turnings we pursued our way I will not speak. We reached that village eventually, and only just before closing time. The windows of the one inn that Veryan possesses streamed brightly into the road as we fearfully crossed the threshold, and doubtfully begged (that is the word) a lodging for the night, and a meal to go to bed upon. I cannot call to mind the sign of that inn, but I have not forgotten the name of Mrs. Mason, our hostess. That were inexcusable, for surely no one could have been kinder to wearied wayfarers than she. We had tea (a high tea, to be sure) at that hour of night, and tea that night seemed ambrosia fit for gods. What a delightful tea that was! Cornish cream, new bread, apricot jam, and a mysteriously delicious preserve, whose name we never knew, but whose savour remains a fond and fast memory. And while tea progressed, we had music from the bar-parlour on the other side of the passage. Some one played upon a violin, and the airs he played were old sea-songs, that were new when Dibdin wrote, and popular when British sailors wore pig-tails, and fought the Frenchman and the Spaniard from youth to age; times when every man had his fill of fighting, and the stomach for it, too. So it befell that, even with that crazy fiddle and that unfinished performer, the songs he played were melodies that went straight to the heart, even as they originally came from that seat of a throbbing patriotism; tunes that made the pulses dance, the eyes to sparkle, and the cheek to flush. We have no need for such songs now, for we meet no foreign foe to-day. No storms rend the branches of the oak: the tree, alas! is rotting at the heart. Ah! the pity, the misery of it. LXI. Judge of our surprise when we found this morning that Veryan was not upon the sea, but over a mile removed from it. We had carelessly noted Veryan Bay marked on the map, and thus concluded that of course the village of the same name was seated beside the sea. We left our inn and Veryan with our pockets filled with the apples our kindly hostess pressed upon us at parting. My hostess, I salute you!