This formall heart doth truly signify
’Twixt wife and husband cordiell unity.
If to be graccius doth requir due praise
Let Tamosin have it, she deserves ye bayes.”
It is curious to observe how the “Mrs.” has been inserted before “Tamosin,” as an afterthought. We seem to see in it a post-mortem jealousy on the part of the bereaved Peter Lyde that any one should use the name of his lost Tamosin without that formal title.
The passengers landing at Duncannon Quay are few; often there are none at all, and the few are rarely other than country-folk making for their quiet villages.
For the average tourist to land at Duncannon, instead of completing the time-honoured trip to Totnes, would be an originality never likely to enter into the mind of him. He takes the excursion trips as he finds them, and is content. And, being content, who shall blame him? Not I, for one; for his satisfaction with the well-worn round is of itself no ignoble thing in this dear Devonshire, where even the most frequented circuits are exquisite, and crowds unknown.
So it happens that the explorer making for Aish finds himself the only passenger for Duncannon, and is like to feel important when for him the steamer hoots and stops, and he goes over the side into the ferry-boat, amid the interested and wondering glances of the excursionists for Totnes.