Our map made the road from here to Polperro look like two miles; imagine our joy therefore when, after climbing the steepest hill we have seen in these parts, and after walking about a mile, we became aware of the imminence of that fishing village (or, as Jonathan Couch would have said—town) by seeing the blue smoke from its unseen houses rising in a clearly defined bank from an abyssmal ravine into the calmness of the evening air. “This,” said the Wreck, “must be—the devil.” This emphatic and earnest ending to his sentence had no reference to Polperro, I hasten to add, except in so far as it was occasioned by Polperro stones, one of which had turned my luckless companion’s ankle almost to spraining point. After this we proceeded cautiously, for not only were stones large and loose withal, but they were plentiful as well, and the descending lane was of a preposterous steepness.

Country folks gave us good night as we passed them, and several women-artists we overtook, going home after the day’s daubing; then we ended our descent.

It was quite dark when we at length sounded the depths of this narrow valley, and so into the miserable streets of Polperro. We turned to the left, and came upon the harbour. “No inn to be seen,” said I, as we climbed some rock stairs, and presently came out of the farther end of Polperro, upon the cliffs. So we turned back, and after groping on to an approximate level, came in a little while within sight and hearing of the sign of the “Three Pilchards,” swinging noisily overhead, and saw the little window of the inn, not yet shuttered, giving glances into the cavernous interior.

We adventured into the murk of the place, and our boots scratched gratingly upon the sanded-stone floor. A bulky form came noisily, with the clumping of sea-boots, along the passage, from regions of which the darkness gave no hint.

“Can we put up here for the night?” quoth I somewhat dubiously of this dimly seen figure, capped, blue jerseyed, and trousered in soiled ducks, that confronted us.

“Sure-ly,” said he, and disappeared to trim and light a lamp. This was evidently the landlord.

“And tea?” chorussed the Wreck.

“Yes, sir,” replied the landlord’s voice, apparently from the remote recesses of some distant cupboard. So we sat down in the combination of bar-kitchen-parlour and living-room, and studied the beer-rings on the table in the gloaming of the window, until, under favour of Providence, our host should return. This he did eventually, bearing a lighted lamp, which he proceeded to hang from the ceiling. Then came another journey, and a return with sticks, paper, and matches, when he lighted the fire and put the water on to boil, blowing up the sticks and coals with bellows of a prodigious bigness. There was something diverting in the spectacle of this rough, grizzled, seafaring innkeeper making up the fire for tea like any housewife.

Meanwhile we sat and waited and chatted with our host until the water boiled, when, after much preparation, we were ushered into a room on the other side of the entrance passage, and left to tea and ourselves. “If you want anything more, please to ask for it,” said the landlord as he shut the door.

Ye gods! the chilling dampness of that room, and the fustiness of it, with ancient reeks of the sea! It was whitewashed, and hung with brightly coloured almanacs from the grocer’s, and here and there, startlingly black and white, appeared framed memorial-cards commemorating domestic losses. We required no skeleton at the feast after this, but sat down to tea, sufficiently damped by the dismal light of—yes—a long-wicked dip in a brass candlestick!

“Hang it,” remarked the Wreck, observing no teapot, “where’s the tea?” and just then his eye lighted on what should have been the hot-water jug. There was the tea, sure enough, in the jug! But not the most diligent search could discover any milk, so I put my head out o’ door and asked for some. The landlord was doubtful of procuring any in Polperro that night, but would send his boy out on the chance, unless, indeed, we would like condensed milk.

But our souls sickened at the thought of it, and fortunately some decent milk was had at last. Said the landlord again, as he closed the door, “If you want anything more, please to ask for it.” It occurred to us, however, that we had better make content with what we had, for by the time our very ordinary wants had been satisfied, the night would have been far spent indeed.

There was a nasty indescribable tang about that tea, and even the bread and butter was horrid. We were very hungry, and so made shift to eat a little bread and butter, but the tea we poured out of window.

Then we went out in the darkness of the lanes to see how Polperro showed at night. To walk along those lanes was an experience analogous to getting one’s sea-legs on an ocean-going sailing craft. The night was so dark, and the cobble-stone pavements so uneven, that the taking of each step was a problem of moment.

This was a Saturday night, and much business (for Polperro) was being transacted. Little shops shed glow-worm lights across the roadways, and on to rugged walls, which acted in some sort the part of the sheet in magic-lantern entertainments; that is to say, the little patches of comparative brilliancy exhibited exaggerated replicas of the window’s contents. Loaves of bread on the baker’s shelves assumed, in this sordid magic, the gigantic size of the free loaf in old-time Anti Corn-Law demonstrations; the sweetstuff bottles in the windows of the general shops argued, not ounces, but pounds of stickinesses; and the wavering shadows of customers’ and shopkeepers’ figures seemed like the forms of giants, alternately squat and long-drawn, contending for these gargantuan delicacies. I burned to picture these things, not in words, but by other methods. My companion hungered still, and truth to tell, so did I; and so we bought some biscuits and munched them as we went. We eventually returned to the “Three Pilchards” and went to bed, escorted by the landlord with a dip stuck in a ginger-beer bottle. I must say, though, that we were given candlesticks.

The next morning, being Sunday, the landlord had “cleaned” himself with more than usual care, and appeared resplendently arrayed in a suit of glossy black cloth, of the kind which I believe is called “doe-skin.” He shut us in the sitting-room to breakfast, which was waiting, and, before disappearing, repeated his usual formula.

After breakfast, we covenanted to return at one o’clock for dinner, and went out upon the headlands that guard with jagged rocks the narrow gut of Polperro. It was the quietest of days; even the screaming sea-gulls’ cries were less persistent than on week-days; and the male population of the place lay idly on the rocks, or lounged, gossiping, at sunny corners of the lanes, while the mid-day meal cooked within doors. But above all the grateful kitchen odours rose the scent of the fish offal that, with the ebbing of the tide, lay stranded in the ooze of the harbour, and bubbled and fermented in the heat of the sun, vindicating the country folk, who call the place Polstink.

Down in the lanes, as we returned, the wafts of the fish-cellars filled the air. One hundred and twenty-four years ago—on Friday, September the sixteenth, 1760, to be particular—the Rev. John Wesley “rode through heavy rain to Paulperow,” as he tells us in his “Journal.” “Here,” says he, “the room over which we were to lodge, being filled with pilchards and conger-eels, the perfume was too potent for me, so that I was not sorry when one of our friends invited me to lodge at her house.” But, indeed, Polperro did not show its best face to Wesley at any time, for, of his first visit here, which happened six years before this, he says, “Came about two to Poleperrow, a little village, four hours’ ride from Plymouth Passage, surrounded with huge mountains. However, abundance of people had found their way thither. And so had Satan too: for an old, grey-headed sinner was bitterly cursing all the Methodists just as we came into the town.”

To pass a Sunday at Polperro is to experience how empty and miserable a day of rest may become. We dined off the homely fare offered us at the “Three Pilchards,” and sighed for tea-time, and at tea-time sighed for bed. Arrived between the sheets, we fell asleep, longing for the morrow, when the hum of this work-a-day world would recommence.