ove?" said Harry, aghast; "but you can't. It's been
there for hundreds of years; it's one of the most picturesque places in
Cornwall."

"That's the only thing," said Barbour regretfully. "It acts rather
well as a draw for painters and that sort of person, and it makes some
pretty picture postcards that are certain to sell. Oh, I suppose
they'll keep it for a bit, but it will have to go ultimately.
Pendragon's changing."

There was no doubt that it was, and Harry left the club some quarter of
an hour later with dismay in his heart. He had dreamed so long of the
old times, the old beauties, the old quiet spirit of unprogressive
content, that this new eagerness to be up-to-date and modern, this
obvious determination to make Pendragon a watering-place of the most
detestable kind, horrified him.

As he passed down the crooked, uneven stone steps that led to the Cove,
he felt indignant, almost unhappy. It was as if a friend had been
insulted in his presence and he had been unable to defend him. They
said that the Cove must go, must make way for modern jerry-built
lodging-houses, in order that middle-class families from London and
Manchester might be sufficiently accommodated.

The Cove had meant a great deal to him when a boy--mystery, romance,
pirates and smugglers, strange Cornish legends of saints and sinners,
knights and men-at-arms. The little inn, "The Bended Thumb," with its
irregular red-brick floor and its smoke-stained oaken rafters, had been
the theatre of many a stirring drama--now it was to be pulled down. It
was a wonderfully beautiful morning, and the little, twisting street of
the Cove seemed to dance with its white shining cobbles in the light of
the sun. It was mysterious as ever, but colours lingered in every
corner. Purple mists seemed to hang about the dark alleys and twisting
ways; golden shafts of light flashed through the open cottage doorways
into rooms where motes of dust danced, like sprites, in the sun; smoke
rose in little wreaths of pearl-grey blue into the cloudless sky; there
was perfect stillness in the air, and from an overflowing pail that
stood outside "The Bended Thumb," the clear drip, drip of the water
could be heard falling slowly into the white cobbles, and close at hand
was the gentle lap of the sea, as it ran up the little shingly beach
and then dragged slowly back again with a soft, reluctant hiss.

It was the Cove in its gentlest mood. No one was about; the women we