The “doing up” or the “renovation”—whichever you will—of Duncannon Quay is certainly thorough. Its two houses are faced with that pallid stucco of which they are so alarmingly fond in modern Devon; neat little white brick piers stand in a neat little row, with neat little railings in between, on the quayside; and a corrugated tin hut is posted at the end. The Philistines have descended upon Duncannon, with a vengeance; and although the ferryman, with his intimate knowledge of the moist Devon climate, is of opinion that the newness will not last long, we venture to think that when the edge of novelty has been taken off by the weather, it is shabbiness, and not picturesqueness, that will result. One thing is certain; neither moss nor lichen ever yet grew on galvanized corrugated iron. Aish, we know, means Ash, and is merely the old-world style of pronunciation crystallised in writing, and perpetuated on many maps, but our boatman styles it “Ash.” Yet even he is not without some lingering relics of the old rustic inflections, for he directs the enquirer to it by advising him to “volley” the telephone wire. A few years ago, one would have “volleyed” the “telegraft”; yet another few years, with wireless communication everywhere and all the poles and wires abolished, and the chief landmark and standby of local guides gone, what will the stranger do then but lose his way? There really are unusual numbers of ash trees on the way to Aish, and fine ones, bordering the road, or “Parliament Lane” as the rustics yet know it, between Brixham, Yalberton, and this historic hamlet. Two or three country seats or villas, with a number of modern cottages, and two or three ancient thatched dwellings: such is Aish; but “Parliament House” is, after all, not in Aish, but away, through it, considerably on the other side, in a fine solitary situation at the foot of a steep hill, in what is, with a peculiar appropriateness, called Longcombe. It is not difficult to see into the minds of those who selected this cottage for that meeting. Aish is a small hamlet now, and must have been very tiny then, but that place was far too large and crowded, where one house commanded another and where the foregathering of fine gentlemen could be noted and remembered against a possible day of reckoning. So, through Aish and to Longcombe, those cautious negotiators came and conducted their parley in this leafy solitude. And although it is on the direct road to Totnes, it is solitary still; a place where on your approach you hear a child say, in the softly reverberant Devon speech, “Mothurr, here’s a man”; and mother, thus advised, gazes long after the unwonted sight. [Illustration: “PARLIAMENT HOUSE.”] I wish, for the sake of completeness, I could say that an ash overhangs the road at this point: but I cannot. It is an oak, and a very fine oak, which here frames in the picture made by the old cottage at the foot of the hill.