It is not usual for a village to lie a full mile beyond its inn:  yet I never doubted this must be the case with Pitt’s Scawens.  Nor was I in the least surprised by the appearance of this lonely tavern, with the black peat-pool behind it and the high-road in front, along which its end windows stare for miles, as if on the look-out for the ghosts of departed coaches full of disembodied travellers for the Land’s End.  I knew the sign-board over the porch:  I knew—­though now in the twilight it was impossible to distinguish colours—­that upon either side of it was painted an Indian Queen in a scarlet turban and blue robe, taking two black children with scarlet parasols to see a blue palm-tree.  I recognised the hepping-stock and granite drinking-trough beside the porch; as well as the eight front windows, four on either side of the door, and the dummy window immediately over it.  Only the landlord was unfamiliar.  He appeared as the gig drew up—­a loose-fleshed, heavy man, something over six feet in height—­and welcomed me with an air of anxious hospitality, as if I were the first guest he had entertained for many years.

“You received my letter, then?” I asked.

“Yes, surely.  The Rev. S. Wraxall, I suppose.  Your bed’s aired, sir, and a fire in the Blue Room, and the cloth laid.  My wife didn’t like to risk cooking the fowl till you were really come.  ’Railways be that uncertain,’ she said.  ’Something may happen to the train and he’ll be done to death and all in pieces.’”

It took me a couple of seconds to discover that these gloomy anticipations referred not to me but to the fowl.

“But if you can wait half an hour—­” he went on.

“Certainly,” said I.  “In the meanwhile, if you’ll show me up to my bedroom, I’ll have a wash and change my clothes, for I’ve been travelling since ten this morning.”

I was standing in the passage by this time, and examined it in the dusk while the landlord was fetching a candle.  Yes, again:  I had felt sure the staircase lay to the right.  I knew by heart the Ionic pattern of its broad balusters; the tick of the tall clock, standing at the first turn of the stairs; the vista down the glazed door opening on the stable-yard.  When the landlord returned with my portmanteau and a candle and I followed him up-stairs, I was asking myself for the twentieth time—­’When—­in what stage of my soul’s history—­had I been doing all this before?  And what on earth was that tune that kept humming in my head?’

I dismissed these speculations as I entered the bedroom and began to fling off my dusty clothes.  I had almost forgotten about them by the time I began to wash away my travel-stains, and rinse the coal-dust out of my hair.  My spirits revived, and I began mentally to arrange my plans for the next day.  The prospect of dinner, too, after my cold drive was wonderfully comforting.  Perhaps (thought I), there is good wine in this inn; it is just the house wherein travellers find, or boast that they find, forgotten bins of Burgundy or Teneriffe.  When my landlord returned to conduct me to the Blue Room, I followed him down to the first landing in the lightest of spirits.