elf and the Nine seated on a green plat whence a waterfall
gushed down the coombe to the sandy beach . . . . This evening on my
way along the cliffs--perhaps because I had spent a day bathing in
sunshine in the company of white-flannelled youths--the old sensation
had returned to haunt me. I spoke of it.

"'Not here, O Apollo--'" murmured the Senior Tutor.

"You quote against your own scepticism," said I. "The coast is right
enough; it _is_"

Where Helicon breaks down
In cliff to the sea.

"It was made to invite the authentic gods--only the gods never found
it out."

"Did they not?" asked the Vicar quietly. The question took us a
little aback, and after a pause his next words administered another
small shock. "One never knows," he said, "when, or how near, the
gods have passed. One may be listening to us in this garden,
to-night. . . . As for the Greeks--"

"Yes, yes, we were talking of the Greeks," the Senior Tutor (a
convinced agnostic) put in hastily. "If we leave out Pytheas, no
Greeks ever visited Cornwall. They are as mythical hereabouts as"--
he hesitated, seeking a comparison--"as the Cornish wreckers; and
_they_ never existed outside of pious story-books."

Said the Vicar, rising from his garden-chair, "I accept the omen.
Wait a moment, you two." He left us and went across the dim lawn to
the house, whence by and by he returned bearing a book under his arm,
and in his hand a candle, which he set down unlit upon the wicker
table among the coffee-cups.

"I am going," he said, "to tell you something which, a few years ago,
I should have scrupled to tell. With all deference to your opinions,
my dear Dick, I doubt if they quite allow you to understand the
clergy's horror of chancing a heresy; indeed, I doubt if either of
you quite guess what a bridle a man comes to wear who preaches a
hundred sermons or so every year to a rural parish, knowing that
nine-tenths of his discourse will assuredly be lost, while at any
point in the whole of it he may be fatally misunderstood. . . . Yet
as a man nears his end he feels an increasing desire to be honest,
neither professing more than he knows, nor hiding any small article
of knowledge as inexpedient to the Faith. The Faith, he begins to
see, can take care of itself: for him, it is important to await his
marching-orders with a clean breast. Eh, Dick?"

The Senior Tutor took his pipe from his mouth and nodded slowly.

"But what is your boo