DAYS STOLEN FOR SPORT 139 



he is minus the advantage that most men have of 

 being able to bend forward and hold their sides to 

 ease up a bit. He can hold his sides, it's true, but 

 he cannot bend forward half enough ; he is too 

 round for that. The Plymouth sailor who smote 

 at the Cockney with his kit-bag started the shaking, 

 and the St Austell porter gave it such a further 

 impetus that it did not subside for a period so 

 lengthened that we had grown uneasy long before 

 it ceased. At last came relief and the words : 

 " Bravo, St Austell." But his merriment was not 

 yet over, for he smacked his knee many a time 

 before we reached the little bay of Porthoustock 

 where our relatives were gathered to welcome us. 



Sixteen, all told, is a bunch to provide sport and 

 pleasure for in a village so remote from the world's 

 excitements as the one we had selected. Nigger 

 minstrels, or even a solitary organ grinder, were 

 little likely to find the way to the few cottages that 

 provide homes for the fisher folks and farm hands 

 and look out from a slight indentation in the rocky 

 coast to the dread Manacles those awful rocks 

 that have often filled their little bay with wreckage 

 and, more than once, their homes with dead. There 

 is a lifeboat there but "Who will man it?" is the 

 question that may occur to strangers. Gathered 

 near the house that shelters it you might see three 

 fisher-looking men, one of whom is the coxswain ; 

 you would not suspect it ; his comrades have no 

 particularly heroic look, and the remainder of the 

 crew will come from plough or barn when the gun 

 is fired that all Cornish men know is a call for help. 



On a high hill about a mile away stands St 

 Keverne, a fairly large village, whose chief at- 



