There is an added majesty to the sea-wall and the railway when night is come. The red cliffs become black and minatory, the trees and shrubs against the skyline assuming weird shapes; and stillness reigns; for mankind is gregarious and congregates in the town, leaving the sea-wall to shy lovers; and the contemplative crickets chirp in the ballast and on the sleepers, and the wash of the waves sounds in a restful undertone until a red eye in the darkness along the line changes to green and, with a rush and a scream, the express thunders by. [Illustration: TEIGNMOUTH: THE SEA WALL.] CHAPTER XI TEIGNMOUTH Teignmouth is the “second largest watering-place in South Devon” and the most entirely delightful. It was more delightful when it was smaller; but that is a fact known only to people old enough to have acquired memories of the Has Been and to drag the clanking chains of reminiscence and unavailing regret at their heels. In the Teignmouth of yesterday there were no pavements but those made of pebbles gleaned off the beach, of the size and shape—and considerably more than the hardness—of kidney potatoes. It was a picturesque time, but painful for people with tender feet and thin shoes, for the pavements thus constructed were excruciatingly knobbly, and were only worn down to the level after some two generations and a half of wayfarers had progressed over them. To-day you shall find those old-style pavements only in the back streets and alleyways of the town: in the main thoroughfares you have paving-stones worthy of London itself. There was doubtless a time when these kidney-potato pavements were looked upon as concessions to a growing spirit of luxury, and it is conceivable that, from the time when Teignmouth first arose beside the azure main (somewhere about the time of Edward the Confessor) until the first quarter of the nineteenth century, the place did very well without pavings or sidewalks of any description. Sea-boots and shore-going footgear an inch thick in the sole, and well hobnailed, overcame any little difficulties with water, mud, or shingle; and it was only when seaside holidays first came into fashion and “visitors” appeared that any fine distinctions were drawn between roads and paths. When the railway came to Teignmouth in 1846, it found a quiet, rather out-of-the-way little town and port, of narrow and winding streets, lined with rustic Devonian cob-built cottages, alternating with what had been modish little plaster-fronted villas with skimpy little balconies and bow fronts. Many of them still remain in the older part of the town, in French Street and Hollands Road. If they were larger, they would remind one of Brighton and the Regency, but, in the miniature sort, they are oddly reminiscent of Jane Austen and Mrs. Gaskell and their ringleted heroines. [Illustration: APPROACH TO TEIGNMOUTH.]