Sheridan in the matter of moral principle, as
well as in a few other respects not worth
attending to, the idea of indulging in the
desired honour upon false pretences—if it
ever suggested itself to Captain Jemmy's
simple imagination—was too revolting to his
upright nature to be for a moment
entertained as a practical scheme.

Jemmy saved his money, got his holiday,
and travelled all the way from Penzance to
London Church Town by waggon. No joke
of a journey in those days, and for a man
who had, perhaps, spent nine-tenths of his
life incalculable fathoms under ground, must
have been rather oppressive from an excess
of daylight, fresh air, and other unwonted
inconveniences. However, waggons have
tilts; and it is to be hoped Captain Jemmy
had an opportunity of preserving his eye-sight.

Everything must have an end; and the
waggon at length entered London Church
Town; Captain Jemmy Penrose in it, of
course. Arrived at their final destination,
the waggoner naturally imagined that
Captain Jemmy would like to get out. Captain
Jemmy did not appear to have foreseen the
necessity of such a proceeding. He inquired
when the waggon was going back. He was
informed early on the following morning.
In that case, Captain Jemmy said, he would
prefer remaining where he was, being rather
fatigued, and in no need of refreshment.
Captain Jemmy slept all night in the waggon,
having thoughtfully secured his place
for the return journey. He had seen London
Church Town. His mission was
accomplished; and he returned to Cornwall in a
perfect state of contentment (his feet scarcely
having touched the pavement of the great
metropolis) to mention the ennobling circumstance.

But if I go on telling at this length all the
stories of Cornish mining captains that
crowd upon my memory, I shall have no
space left for the surprising mail-coach
adventure of Captain Billy Tregear, which I
sat down expressly to chronicle, in the belief
that it has not yet seen the colour of printing
ink.

I must admit, by way of preface, that the
story of Captain Billy Tregear is deficient
in the rather essential element of probability.
But, as it is considerably more strange than
the majority of fictions, there is proverbial
authority for assuming it to be true. I can
assert one thing positively, that such a person
as Captain Billy Tregear really had an existence.
But this is weak evidence, and establishes
the authenticity of the incidents to be
related, ascribed by popular belief to his
experience, about as clearly as Mrs. Quickly's
story of her neighbour's dish of prawns made
out a case of breach of promise of marriage
against Sir John Falstaff, or as the existence
of the horse block in front of Mr. Willet's
establishment proved that Queen Elizabeth
had once visited the Maypole.

However, I will tell the story as I used
to hear it.

Captain Billy Tregear, like his compeer,
and perhaps friend, Jemmy Penrose, was
bound on the visite de rigueur to London
Church Town. Captain Billy would seem to
have been in more comfortable circumstances,
or he may have been simply more luxurious
and extravagant than the listless Jemmy.
At any rate, Captain Billy travelled by mail,
not by waggon, outside, of course.

Billy sat behind the coachman, in company
with three rather unusual coach passengers.
But as any kind of coach or passenger would
have been unusual to Billy, he perhaps saw
no more singularity in them than in the rest
of his fellow-travellers. They were certainly
not the kind of people one is in the habit of
meeting even in mixed society. One of them
was an Italian showman. His companions
were a bear and a monkey.

Captain Billy accepted their companionship
cheerfully, as a perfectly natural and
legitimate incident in his aboveground
experiences.

At the outset of my story I confess there
is a sort of Alpine or Rubicon barrier of
improbability, which the reader may perhaps
find some difficulty in getting over. But he
is requested to make an effort, with the
assurance that this obstacle surmounted, he
will find the rest of our mutual journey
comparatively plain sailing. He must make an
effort, then, to believe—as implicitly, if possible,
as I myself did when I first heard the
story—that Captain Billy Tregear, either
from a defective knowledge of mankind or
from an impaired vision, the result of having
had the sun too much in his eyes, whether in
the literal or the metaphorical sense (both
cases being possible to a Cornish miner just
come aboveground for a holiday) mistook
the bear for a human being, outlandish
perhaps and taciturn, but undeniably human.

You must bear continually in mind that
Captain Billy had risen from the ranks to
his present distinction in the depths of a tin
mine. What could he know about man and
beast in the upper sun-lit world? I could
point out a score of gentlemen—either of
whom, happening to be Billy's travelling
companion on the occasion, might easily have
been mistaken by Billy for a bear. Is it
then a wonder that the simple untutored
Cornishman should have mistaken a bear
for a gentleman?

I fear in order to make my story at all
probable (the difficulty enlarges as I approach
it), I must fall back upon and cling to the
hypothesis that Captain Billy had mounted
the coach in a hazed and muzzy condition;
and had come armed with a case-bottle after
the manner of sagacious travellers; that he
could not have been in a state to judge by
ocular demonstration of the outlines of his
fellow-passengers; that he was merely aware
of a dark, huddled-up figure of some kind