"So this is what you call a good road here-abouts, is it?" said Dr. Jenkins.

He had stopped half-way up the hill, to look about him, and to let Timothy, the fisherman who had met him at the station, put down the heavy bag and rest a bit before climbing any further. Behind them the steep road wound in and out between rough granite blocks and tussocks of dwarf gorse. Before them it rose up sharply, a stony track bordered by wet and withered heather tufts; and turned, passing out of sight round the shoulder of a lichened rock. For the rest, a waste of barren moor­land; an angry sun going down, red in a fiery glow; a fierce north wind that rushed by, shrieking curses; and below the cliffs a sullen, moaning, desperate sea; that was all. On summer days the moor might wear a brighter face among the gold and purple glories of its flowering time; even this ashen sea had doubtless green or blue delights to show on sunny mornings after rain; but this was the doctor's first glimpse of Cornwall, and in the December evening every thing seemed to him chill and bleak and desolate.

The sun dipped, leaving a long red trail across the water, a bloody finger-mark that the waves made haste to wash out. Timothy picked up the bag again.

"It's not so far now, sir; we shall be in before dark. Eh, why surely that be Maaster Richards from Gurnard's Head, and the old woman with him. Good evening, maaster!"

A pony-cart laden with apples jogged round the projecting shoulder of the granite rock. Farmer and pony walked side by side; but for the difference in the number of legs they might have been twin brothers, so much alike they were in expression, in roundness of com­fortable figure, in solid evenness of tread. In the cart, among the apples, sat an old woman, half asleep.