his hands. Here, they laugh at trifles,
keeping what is serious behind a veil of conventional manners, lest,
appearing in broad daylight, it should damp their spirits. There, they
laugh too, and at countless trifles; but also courageously, in the face
of fate itself. By daring Nemesis, they partially disarm her. With a
laugh and a jest--no matter if it be a raucous laugh and a coarse
jest--they assert: "What will be, will be; us can't but du our best,
for 'tis the way o'it." Here, they skate over a Dead Sea upon the ice
of convention; but there, they swim in the salted waters, swallow great
gulps, and nevertheless strike out manfully, knowing no more than
anyone else exactly where the shore lies, yet possessing, I think, an
instinct of direction. Here, comfort is at stake: there, existence.
Coming here is like passing from a birth and death chamber into a
theatre, where, if the actors have lives of their own, apart from
mummery, it is their business not to show them. It is like watching a
game from the grand stand, instead of playing it; betting on a race
instead of running it. The transition hither is hard to make. Retired
athletes, we know, suffer from fatty degeneration of the heart; retired
men of affairs decay. I have walked lately at five miles an hour with
the Widgers, and I do not relish dawdling at the rate of two with these
people here. Better risk hell for heaven than lounge about paradise for
ever.

V

UNDER TOWN, SEACOMBE,
_September_.

1

A fine tramp from Totnes--and such a welcome back! Jimmy met me
three-quarters of a mile up the road, very much farther than he usually
strays from the beach. "I thought as yu was coming this way 'bout now,
Mister Ronals. Dad's been out hooking an' catched five dozen mackerel
before breakfast. Mam's sick. I be coming out wiv yu t'morrow morning.
Dad couldn't go out after breakfast, 'cause it come'd on to blow. I've
'schanged my pencil, what yu give'd me, for a knife wi' two blades." So
anxious was he to take me in house that he scarcely allowed me time to
go down to the Front and look at the sea and at the boats lying among a
litter of nets and gear the length of the sunny beach.

Mrs Widger hastened to bring out the familiar big enamelled teapot,
flung the cloth over the table and began to cut bread and butter.
"Coo'h! tay!" exclaimed Jimmy. "That's early