“In heat the top, in cold the deepe,
In springe the mouth, the mids in neap;
With changelesse change by shoales they keepe,
Fat, fruitfull, ready, but not cheap;
Thus meane in state, and calme in sprite,
My fishfull pond is my delight.”
Antony village is considerably more than a mile distant from the park. It stands picturesquely on the road to Liskeard, on rising ground, entered past a communal tree, encircled with seats, after a good old fashion that seems nowadays but rarely perpetuated.
In the little street of Antony is a library of the most rudimentary type, a little reading-room supported by small subscriptions, and supplied with a few weekly and daily newspapers. We turned the door-handle and walked into this room of 10 × 7 feet; but, alas! there instantly came across the road a woman in whom (evidently) was invested the care of the place, who informed us that this was not a public reading-room, and who held the door open in the most suggestive way. We went.
“I’m sorry,” observed the Wreck upon going, “that we have intruded: I hope we have not injured your shanty.”
“No harm done,” replied the janitress, who was plainly acting upon a painful sense of duty. We adjourned to the church, and after ascending the many steps leading to it, sat down to argue the matter in the porch.
“See,” said the Wreck bitterly, “how despitefully one is used when tramping about on a walking-tour and carrying these abominable things,” and he unstrapped his knapsack with a vicious tug. “That woman ... took us for tramps, and that sort of thing hurts one’s amour propre.”
“Very correct estimate, too,” said I, flicking the dust off my boots with my handkerchief, “and one unlikely to tax her powers of discernment to an inconvenient extent.”
“’Been swallowing a dictionary lately?” inquired the Wreck with biting sarcasm.
“No, Ollendorff, that is not my method.” And then relations became strained.