m! couldn't you take the train across country to Cardiff, when
you'd all ha' more time for getting ready, and I could see to mending
all the poor dearie's things before he goes for--it'll be the last sight
I'll ever see of his blessed face?"

Jane Pengelly said this timidly, wiping her eyes carefully, with each
corner of her apron in turn; for, she well knew her brother's horror of
the railway, and all conveyances--indeed, he disliked any mode of land
travelling, save on foot, or "on Shank's mare," as he called it, which
was the plan he invariably adopted for reaching such places which he
could not get to by water.

"Why, Jane, my woman," Sam indignantly rejoined; "your brains must all
be a wool-gathering! Catch me and the lad agoing by that longshore
schreechin', smokin', ramshacklin' fire engine, when we can ha' a boat's
sound plank under our foot, and sail over the sea in a nat'ral sort o'
way, such as we're born to! You're the last person to think as how Sam
Pengelly 'd desart his colours and bringing-up, for to go over to such
an outlandish way o' fetching the port for which he's bound! No, Jane--
I ain't angry, but I feels hurt a bit on the h'insinivation--but there,
let it be. We'll go round to Cardiff in the schooner, as is as smart a
little craft for a passage boat as ere a one could wish to clap eyes on,
though I says it as shouldn't, and we'll start, laddie, this arternoon,
as soon as the tide sets down Channel; so, you'd better see after your
traps, and stow your chest when dinner's over--and then, we'll get under
weigh, and clear outwards!"

Little dinner, however, was eaten that day at the cottage,
notwithstanding the fact that Jane Pengelly, as a reward for my industry
in making up and remoulding her asparagus bed, had concocted a favourite
Cornish dish for our repast, y'clept a "Mevagissey pie"--a savoury
compound consisting of alternate slices of mutton and layers of apples
and onions cut into pieces, and symmetrically arranged, the whole being
subsequently covered with a crust, pie-fashion, and then baked in the
oven until well browned; when, although the admixture seems somewhat
queer to those unused to a Cornish cuisine, the result is not by any
means to be despised; rather is it uncommonly jolly!

Generally, this dish would have been considered a _tour de force_ on the
table, and not much left of it after our united knife and fork play when
operations had once begun; but now, albeit Sam Penge