and his boots, like those of the Emperor Frederick, were rather heavy.  We could not persuade our friend to come with us a yard farther than the village.  As a fellow bandsman, he confided the reason why to my brother; he had seen a nice young lady at the “Flurry” who came from that village, and he was going to see her now.  He was standing in the street on the “Flurry” day when the lady came along, and stopped to look at the bandsmen, who were then at liberty, and he said to her jocularly, “Take my arm, love—­I’m in the band,” and, “By Jove,” he said, “if she didn’t come and take it,” to his great astonishment and delight.  Apparently his heart went at the same time, and we surmised that everything else would shortly follow.  After bidding him good-bye, we looked round the church, and then my brother began to walk at an appalling speed, which fortunately he could not keep up, and which I attributed in some way to the effect of the bandsman’s story, though he explained that we must try to reach Penzance before dark.

The church of St. Breage was dedicated to a saint named Breaca, sister of St. Enny, who lived in the sixth century and came from Ireland.  There was a holed sandstone cross in the churchyard, which tradition asserted was made out of granite sand and then hardened with human blood!  The tower was said to contain the largest bell in Cornwall, it having been made in the time of a vicar who, not liking the peals, had all the other bells melted down to make one large one.  The men of St. Breage and those of the next village, St. Germoe, had an evil reputation as wreckers or smugglers, for one old saying ran: 

  God keep us from rocks and shelving sands,
  And save us from Breage and Germoe men’s hands.

Opposite Breage, on the sea-coast, was a place named Porthleven, where a Wesleyan chapel, with a very handsome front, had been built.  No doubt there are others in the country built in a similar way, for to it and them the following lines might well apply: 

  They built the church, upon my word,
    As fine as any abbey;
  And then they thought to cheat the Lord,
    And built the back part shabby.

After a walk of about two miles we arrived at the village of St. Germoe.  The saint of that name was said to have been an Irish bard of royal race, and the font in the church, from its plain and rough form, was considered to be one of the most ancient in the county.  In the churchyard was a curious structure which was mentioned by Leland as a “chair,” and was locally known as St. Germoe’s Chair, but why it should be in the churchyard was a mystery, unless it had been intended to mark the spot where the saint had been buried.  It was in the form of a sedilium, the seat occupied by the officiating priest near the altar in the chancel of a church, being about six feet high and formed of three sedilia, with two pillars supporting three arches, which in turn supported the roof; in general form it was like a portion of the row of seats in a Roman amphitheatre.