“ I lived for a time near Padstow,” said Somers.
“ Padstow! Ay, I’ve been to Padstow,” said William James. And they talked for a while of the bleak, lonely northern coast of Cornwall, the black huge cliffs with the gulls flying away below, and the sea boiling, and the wind blowing in huge volleys: and the black Cornish nights, with nothing but the violent weather outside.
“ Oh, I remember it, I remember it,” said William James. “Though I was a half-starved youngster on a bit of a farm out there, you know, for everlasting chasing half a dozen heifers from the cliffs, where the beggars wanted to fall over and kill themselves, and hunting for a dozen sheep among the gorse-bushes, and wading up to my knees in mud most part of the year, and then in summer, in the dry times, having to ha
