  And now it came on to rain with a deadly persistence that would have daunted us from setting out for Mevagissey had not letters been awaiting us at the post-office there. We set out at five o’clock in the afternoon, conveyed by the damp and undignified medium of a carrier’s cart without a tilt, crowded with country women returning from market, whose umbrellas sent trickling streams down our necks. Great pools of rain-water collected in the depressions of the tarpaulin that covered our knees, and washed furiously about as we were driven along the steep roads to the coast, so that we mentally prayed either for shine or Mevagissey. Just as we reached that odorous port, the rain ceased. We alighted (disembarked, I was about to say) “dem’d moist unpleasant bodies,” and asked the carrier as to the hotel. He said the “Ship” was the first hotel in the place, and to that sign we went. The “hotel” proved to be an inn, and the landlord of it wore an absurd air of astonishment when we proposed to stay there: he recommended us to private lodgings. This was scarcely a promising introduction to Mevagissey. It remotely resembled the reception accorded John Taylor, the “Water Poet,” on his travels in 1649. He “trauelled twelue miles to a fisher Towne called Mevageasie; that Towne hath in it two Tauernes, and six Ale-houses, to euery one of which I went for lodging, and not anyone would harbour me, then I fought for a Constable to helpe me, but no Constable was to be found;11 the people all wondring at me, as if I had been some strange Beast, or Monster brought out of Affrica; at which most incivill and barbarous useage, I began to be angry, and I perceiving that no body cared for my anger, I discreetely went into the house where I first demanded lodging; where the Hoste being very willing to give me the courteous entertainement of Iack Drum commanded me very kindely to get me out of dores, for there was no roome for me to lodge in. I told her that I would honestly pay for what I tooke, and that if I could not haue a bed, yet I was sure of a house over my head, and that I would not out till the morning: with that a young saucy knave told me that if I would not go out, he would throw me out, at which words my choller grew high, my indignation hot, and my fury fiery, so that I arose from a bench, went to my youth, and dared to the combate: whereat the Hostesse (with feare and trembling) desired me to be quiet, and I should haue a bed, at which words my wrath was appeased, and my ire asswaged. “But straite wayes another storme seemed to appeare for an ancient Gentleman came suddenly out of another Roome (who had heard all the former friendly passages,) and hee told mee that I should not lodge there, for though I had sought and not found a Constable, yet I should know that I had found a Justice of Peace before I sought him; and that he would see me safely lodged: I was somewhat amazed at his words, and answered him, Let him doe his pleasure, for I submitted my selfe to his disposall. “To which he replyde, That I should go but halfe a mile with him to his house, which I did, and there his good Wife and he did entertayne me courteously, with such fare and lodging as might have accommodated any Gentleman of more worth and better quality then one that had been ten times in degree before me: There I stayd the Saturday, and all the Sunday, where I found more Protestant Religion in 2 dayes, then I had in 5 yeers before. The Gentlemans name is Mr. Iohn Carew, a Gentleman of noble and ancient descent, and a worthy Iustice of the Peace in those parts.”
We eventually found very comfortable rooms at a delightful villa-like house, looking directly on to the sea, beating in upon a rocky shore. This was the second place in which we touched the fringe of the titled aristocracy. Our landlady, upon our arrival, proudly showed us the fragments of an envelope addressed with the name of a Viscount who had been staying in the house. Eventually we paid a heavier bill than we should otherwise have done had none but miserable plebeians lodged here aforetime. We will, in future, be careful to select only the haunts of the Third Estate. We don’t (strange to say) seem to hanker after titled folk of any sort—a curious trait in Britons, who, proverbially, are said to love lords. Perhaps we are among the proverbial exceptions, and help thereby to prove the rule. For myself, I hope (and think, indeed) I am a loyal subject of Her Majesty’s (Hats off, please!); I know, also, that I have Conservative ideas of an old, not to say a mediÆval, type; but I would not go round the next street corner to catch a glimpse of the Sovereign, nor any of the Royal Family, for that matter, if they chanced to be there. As for other titled personages, from Dukes to Knights Bachelors, down to that no-account thing, a German prince, with more quarterings to his “old coat” than square miles of territory to his name, I would not, for the sake of their titles, take any pleasure in their society. Can I explain these contradictory things? No, I can’t. I will say, merely, that no man’s views are indisputably logical, while, as for women’s—well, there! Once I kept watch, as some social Lubbock, upon the thoughts and sayings and actions of a Radical by conviction, yet not by practice, for he owned ground-rents and lent money on mortgages, and ground the faces of the poor horribly when he had the chance. He took the Gutter Percher every evening, which proved his Radical bias; but he would go unconscionable distances under discouraging conditions to catch a fleeting glimpse of Royal personages. No man so proud as he when he returned one day, with stuck-out chin and air of importance, after having his hat-lifting salutation acknowledged in the Park by a very Great Personage indeed; none so constant in christening his numerous progeny after members of the Royal Family.
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