And now let’s get back to Penzance. We walked here, but it’s raining so hard that we must ride back. The brakes are just starting. “Hi, there! wait a minute: we’re coming along.” “Can’t take you, sir, we’re full up.” “But we _must_ get back. Come now, we’ll give you five shillings a-piece for the single journey.” “Couldn’t do it, sir: ’much as my license’s worth.” “Well, look here, we’ll spring a sov. between us.” “Jump up, then, gentlemen; but pay first, y’know.” “Oh! go on, we can’t do that--we haven’t so much between us; pay you when we get to Penzance.” “No; if you can’t pay now, you’ll have to stop here or walk. I know what paying afterwards means: _I_ couldn’t get it by law, and _you_ wouldn’t pay without being obliged. No, thanky: drive up, Bill.” [Illustration: CARN KENIDJACK.] “Bless you! To the Hesperides with all brake proprietors. Never mind, we’ll sleep at the hotel here.” ... “Can you put us up for the night?” “No, sir, we’re full up. There’s two gentlemen sleeping on the billiard-table, an’ I’m going to sleep on the kitchener, as I’m rather short and a bit chilly. The chambermaid’s going to sleep in the wash’us, and Boots is camping out in Deadman’s Cave, in the cliffs down there. One gentleman, a nantiquarian feller, he’s borrowed a railway-rug and gone for the night to the British Bee-’ive ’uts on Windy Downs: better keep him company, it’s rather lonely for him, poor gentleman.” [Illustration: SAINT LEVAN.] “Thanks, we’re not hankering for company. We’re going to walk back to Penzance. Good night to you.” A ten miles’ walk through pelting rain and along lonely roads is scarcely a cheering experience. The whisky with which we strove to keep out the chills was “exhibited” neat; water was not needed, for we were speedily wet through. Supper that night was partaken of in a manner strictly private, for we were wrappaged round about in our lodgings at Penzance in a fashion, dry and comfortable perhaps, but too classically picturesque for aught but a prim and proper seclusion. LXVIII. Something of this description, though perhaps not so pronounced, is always going forward at Land’s End in the tourist season. Land’s End is effectually vulgarised, and despite Kingsley’s verses, it is impossible to come to it in any other than a scoffing spirit. Read of Land’s End, and retain the majestic ideal conjured up by the name of it. Visit the place, and you find nothing but sordid surroundings. [Illustration: Saint Germoe’s Chair.] _We_ visited, on another day of happier auspices, Carn Kenidjack and Cape Cornwall,--those grand and lonely bulwarks of the land,--and returned by way of the little township of Saint Just-in-Penwith to Penzance, regaining by this unfrequented route something of the lost romance which had lured us to take this alliterative trip from Paddington to Penzance.