Polchester was in those days. Even now, when the War has shaken up and
jostled together every small village in Great Britain, Polchester still
has some shreds of its isolation left to it; but then--why, it might have
been a walled-in fortress of mediaeval times, for all its connection with
the outside world!

This isolation was quite deliberately maintained. I don't mean, of course,
that Mrs. Combermere and Brandon and old Bentinck-Major and Mrs. Sampson
said to themselves in so many words, "We will keep this to ourselves and
defend its walls against every new invader, every new idea, new custom,
new impulse. We will all be butchered rather than allow one old form,
tradition, superstition to go!" It was not as conscious as that, but in
effect it was that that it came to. And they were wonderfully assisted by
circumstances. It is true that the main line ran through Polchester from
Drymouth, but its travellers were hurrying south, and only a few trippers,
a few Americans, a few sentimentalists stayed to see the Cathedral; and
those who stayed found "The Bull" an impossibly inconvenient and
uncomfortable hostelry and did not come again. It is true that even then,
in 1897, there were many agitations by sharp business men like Crosbie and
John Allen, Croppet and Fred Barnstaple, to make the place more widely
known, more commercially attractive. It was not until later that the golf
course was laid out and the St. Leath Hotel rose on Pol Hill. But other
things were tried--steamers on the Pol, char-a-bancs to various places of
local interest, and so on--but, at this time, all these efforts failed.
The Cathedral was too strong for them, above all Brandon and Mrs.
Combermere were too strong for them. Nothing was done to encourage
strangers; I shouldn't wonder if Mrs. Combermere didn't pay old Jolliffe
of "The Bull" so much a year to keep his hotel inconvenient and
insanitary. The men on the Town Council were for the most part like the
Canons, aged and conservative. It is true that it was in 1897 that