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We who were left behind discovered by more questioning that one cannot drive into Clovelly; that although an American president or an English chancellor might, as a great favour, be escorted down on a donkey's back, or carried down in a sedan chair if he chanced to have one about his person, the ordinary mortal must walk to the door of the New Inn, his luggage being dragged "down-along" on sledges and brought "up-along" on donkeys.
He peered out at them almost anxiously, Ishmael thought, and seemed rather upset at sight of him. "Who's that there?" he asked sharply; then, as Killigrew stepped forward round the porch: "I thought maybe Phoebe was weth 'ee." "Phoebe? Oh, no!" said Ishmael; "why, is she out?" "'Tes of no account," replied the miller. "I reckon she'm just gone down-along to see to the fowls or semthen.
Here, "down-along," was the old, the true Cornwall a land that had changed scarcely at all since those early heathen days that to the rest of the world are dim, mysterious, mythological, but to a Cornishman are as the events of yesterday. High on the moor behind the Cove stand four great rocks wild, wind-beaten, grimly permanent.
Spinks tried to look not in the least startled "I say that we all move down-along straight as a line to Pa'son Mayble's when the clock has gone six to-morrow night. There we one and all stand in the passage, then one or two of us go in and spak to en, man and man; and say, 'Pa'son Mayble, every tradesman d'like to have his own way in his workshop, and Mellstock Church is yours.
What do you say?" For a little time Gryson said nothing. When he spoke it was evident that the lust for vengeance and a guilty conscience were fighting an even-handed battle. "I could get the affidavits maybe," he said. "There's a dozen 'r more of the cullies down-along got their notice to fade away when I got mine, and they'd jump at th' chance to get back at the bosses.
He cooled down arter a bit, when I'd spoke to him pretty straight, axin' who'd pay for the mess he'd made, and he went down-along to village, sayin' he'd take a bed there for hisself and his man, and pay me what was fair.
"Down-along" it was a game of unending surprises and a gossamer web shot with the golden light of romance. High-falutin perhaps, but to Harry, as he sat before the fire with the strange dog and those ten wild men, words and pictures came too speedily to admit of a sense of the absurd. An old man, with a long white beard and a shaking hand, knew strange tales of the moor.
This manual work interested me, and, I dare say, bettered my health, though I was ashamed to note the poor staying power I had as compared with Isaiah Fetch, who, whilst fully ten years my senior, was greatly my superior in toughness and endurance. Wages for labour had soared and soared again since my day in Australia, even for elderly and 'down-along more than up-along 'men like Isaiah Fetch.
"What is it?" asked Mrs. Jack, who is always expecting accidents. "Clovelly, mum." "Clovelly!" we repeated automatically, gazing about us on every side for a roof, a chimney, or a sign of habitation. "You'll find it, mum, as you walk down-along." "How charming!" cried Egeria, who loves the picturesque.
You've been sittin' here thinkin' and writin' till you've given yerself blue devils down-along, too, with all them poor creatures hittin' each other and drinkin' I oughtn't to have left yer up here so much alone " "No you couldn't help it, Stephen it's nothing to do with you. It's all more than you can manage and nobody in the world can help me.
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