r to put clean sheets on his
own bed, and then came out to tell us that if we failed to obtain
admission at the public-house, a lodging for the night was ready for us
under his own roof. We found on inquiry, afterwards, that he had looked
out of window, after getting home, while we were still disturbing the
village by a continuous series of assaults on the inn door; had
recognised us in the moonlight; and had thereupon not only offered us
his bed, but had got out of it himself to do so. When we finally
succeeded in gaining admittance to the inn, he declined an invitation to
sup with us, and wishing us a good night's rest, returned to his home. I
should mention, at the same time, that another bed was offered to us at
the vicarage, by the clergyman of the parish; and that after this
gentleman had himself seen that we were properly accommodated by our
landlady, he left us with an invitation to breakfast with him the next
morning. Thus is hospitality practised in Cornwall--a county where, it
must be remembered, a stranger is doubly a stranger, in relation to
provincial sympathies; where the national feeling is almost entirely
merged in the local feeling; where a man speaks of himself as _Cornish_
in much the same spirit as a Welshman speaks of himself as Welsh.

In like manner, another instance drawn from my own experience, will best
display the anxiety which we found generally testified by the Cornish
poor to make the best and most grateful return in their power for
anything which they considered as a favour kindly bestowed. Such little
anecdotes as I here relate in illustration of popular character, cannot,
I think, be considered trifling; for it is by trifles, after all, that
we gain our truest appreciation of the marking signs of good or evil in
the dispositions of our fellow-beings; just as in the beating of a
single artery under the touch, we discover an indication of the strength
or weakness of the whole vital frame.

On the granite cliffs at the Land's End I met with an old man,
seventy-two years of age, of whom I asked some questions relative to the
extraordinary rocks scattered about this part of the coast. He
immediately opened his whole budget of local anecdotes, telling them in
a quavering high-treble voice, which was barely audible above the dash
of the breakers beneath, and the fierce whistling of the wind among the
rocks around us. However, the old fellow went on talking incessantly,
hobbling along before m