shoulder, or even, in an amphitheatre of the cliffs, to surprise
Apollo himself and the Nine seated on a green plat whence a waterfall
gushed down the coombe to the sandy beach . . . . This evening on my
way along the cliffs--perhaps because I had spent a day bathing in
sunshine in the company of white-flannelled youths--the old sensation
had returned to haunt me. I spoke of it.

"'Not here, O Apollo--'" murmured the Senior Tutor.

"You quote against your own scepticism," said I. "The coast is right
enough; it _is_"

Where Helicon breaks down
In cliff to the sea.

"It was made to invite the authentic gods--only the gods never found
it out."

"Did they not?" asked the Vicar quietly. The question took us a
little aback, and after a pause his next words administered another
small shock. "One never knows," he said, "when, or how near, the
gods have passed. One may be listening to us in this garden,
to-night. . . . As for the Greeks--"

"Yes, yes, we were talking of the Greeks," the Senior Tutor (a
convinced agnostic) put in hastily. "If we leave out Pytheas, no
Greeks ever visited Cornwall. They are as mythical hereabouts as"--
he hesitated, seeking a comparison--"as the Cornish wreckers; and
_they_ never existed outside of pious story-books."