ii8 DAYS STOLEN FOR SPORT 



CHAPTER XI 



A FAMILY GATHERING ON THE CORNISH COAST — 

 BANK HOLIDAY TRAVELLERS 



There can be but one good answer to 'Where shall 

 the shoots and offshoots of a family assemble for 

 Christmas?' but where they shall forgather for 

 a summer holiday is not easily settled when they are 

 ahnost numerous enough to colonise a village. It 

 is sometimes difticult to get them together for a lengthy 

 period, but I have found it possible to indulge my 

 taste in this direction and have secured a goodly 

 company, for three weeks at a time, of my sons and 

 daughters, together \\dth the wives or husbands and 

 the children that time has brought to them. 



Such holidays linger long in the memory, but I have 

 not to go far back nor to make much call upon my 

 recollections to describe a typical — to me, ideal — 

 holiday so spent. 



It was somewhat in the nature of an invasion upon 

 the quiet httle cluster of cottages that go to make the 

 village of Porthoustock, near St Keverne, in Cornwall, 

 when the bus from Helston deposited our company of 

 fourteen upon — well ! it must be — its main street. 

 Some forewarning the inhabitants had received, and 

 homes had been provided for nearly all of us, so that 

 there was not blank dismay upon the faces of those 

 who had come out of doors to greet the coming of the 

 bus that forms with the Great Western Railway the 

 line of communication between London and Port- 

 houstock. I had secured a roof, bed, and table for a 

 large party, but my happiest guess had been over- 

 reached. The unattached amon^ us, three younger 



