Here, where the Dare ran into the sea, was a fishing village as yet untouched, and almost unknown even to wandering tourists, and offering indeed no accommodation whatever to the stranger beyond what he might, perchance, obtain in the fishermen's cottages. The one drawback to Carnesford, as its visitors declared, was the rain. It certainly rained often, but the villagers scarcely noticed it. It was to the rain, they knew, that they owed the bright green of the valley and the luxuriousness of their garden crops, which always fetched the top price in Plymouth market; and they were so accustomed to the soft mist brought up by the south-west wind from over the sea that they never noticed whether it was raining or not. Strangers, however, were less patient, and a young man who was standing at the door of the "Carne's Arms," just as the evening was closing in at the end of a day in the beginning of October, 1850, looked gloomily out at the weather. "I do not mind when I am fishing," he muttered to himself; "but when one has once changed into dry clothes one does not want to be a prisoner here every evening. Another day like this, and I shall pack up my traps and get back again on board." He turned and went back into the house, and, entering the bar, took his seat in the little sanctum behind it; for he had been staying in the house for a week, and was now a privileged personage. It was a snug little room; some logs were blazing on the hearth, for although the weather was not cold, it was damp enough to make a fire pleasant. Three of the landlord's particular cronies were seated there: Hiram Powlett, the miller; and Jacob Carey, the blacksmith; and old Reuben Claphurst, who had been the village clerk until his voice became so thin and uncertain a treble that the vicar was obliged to find a successor for him. "Sit down, Mr. Gulston," the landlord said, as his guest entered. "Fine day it has been for fishing, and a nice basket you have brought in." "It's been well enough for fishing, landlord, but I would rather put up with a lighter basket, and have a little pleasanter weather." The sentiment evidently caused surprise, which Jacob Carey was the first to give expression to. "You don't say, now, that you call this unpleasant weather, sir? Now I call this about as good weather as we could expect in the first week of October--warm and soft, and in every way seasonable." "It may be all that," the guest said, as he lit his pipe; "but I own I don't care about having the rain trickling down my neck from breakfast-time to dark." "Our fishermen about here look on a little rain as good for sport," Hiram Powlett remarked. "No doubt it is; but I am afraid I am not much of a sportsman. I used to be fond of fishing when I was a lad, and thought I should like to try my hand at it again, but I am afraid I am not as patient as I was. I don't think sea life is a good school for that sort of thing."