and our last at the lizard, which a week ago had been to us a mere word or dot in a map; now we carried away from it a living human interest in everything and everybody.
esther bade us a cordial farewell: mrs. curgenven, standing at the door of her serpentine shop, repeated the good wishes, and informed us that john and his boat had already started for church cove. as we drove through the bright little lizard town, and past the church of landewednack, wondering if we should ever see either again, we felt quite sad.
but sentimental considerations soon vanished in practical alarms. leaving the carriage and charles at the nearest point to the cove, we went down the steep descent, and saw john rocking in his boat, and beckoning to us with a bland and smiling countenance. but between us and him lay a sort of causeway, of the very roughest rocks, slippery with sea-weed, and beat upon by waves—such waves! yet clearly, if we meant to get into the boat at all, we must seize our opportunity and jump in between the flux and reflux of that advancing tide.
i am not a coward: i love boats, and was well used to them in my youth, but now—my heart misgave me. there were but two alternatives—to stop the pleasure of the whole party, and leave cornwall with these wonderful sea-caves unseen, or to let my children go alone. neither was possible; so i hailed a sturdy youth at work hard by, and asked him if he would take charge of an old lady across the rocks. he grinned from ear to ear, but came forward, and did his duty manfully and kindly. my young folks, light as feathers, bounded after; and with the help of john curgenven, chivalrous and careful as ever, we soon found ourselves safely in the boat.
safe, but not quite happy. "here we go up, up, up, and here we go down, down, down," was the principle of our voyage, the most serious one we ever took in an open boat with a single pair of oars. never did i see such waves,—at least, never did i float upon them, in a boat that went tossing like a bit of cork out into the open sea.
john seemed not to mind them in the least. his strong arms swept the boat along, and he still found breath to talk to us, pointing out the great gloomy cliffs we were passing under, and telling us stories of wrecks, the favourite theme—and no wonder.
this sunshiny morning that iron-bound coast looked awful enough; what must it have looked like, on the winter night when the emigrant ship brest went down!
"yes, it was about ten o'clock at night," said john. "i was fast asleep in bed, but they knocked me up; i got on my clothes and was off in five minutes. they are always glad enough to get us fishermen, the coastguard are. mine was the first boat-load we brought ashore; we would only take women and children that time. they were all in their night-gowns, and they couldn't speak a word of english, but we made them understand somehow. one woman threw her three children down to me, and stayed behind on the wreck with two more."
"were the women frightened?"
"oh, no, they were very quiet, dazed like. some of them seemed to be saying their prayers. but they made no fuss at all, not even the little ones. they lay down in the bottom of the boat, and we rowed ashore as fast as we could, to cadgwith. then we rowed back and fetched two boatloads more. we saved a lot of lives that wreck, but only their lives; they had scarcely a rag of clothes on, and some of the babies were as naked as when they were born."
"and who took them in?"
"everybody: we always do it," answered john, as if surprised at the question. "the fishermen's cottages were full, and so was the parsonage. we gave them clothes, and kept them till they could be sent away. yes, it was an awful night; i got something to remember it by, here."
he held out his hand, from which we noticed half of one finger was missing.
"it got squeezed off with a rope somehow. i didn't heed it much at the time," said john carelessly. "but look, we're at the first of the caves. i'll row in close, ladies, and let you see it."
so we had to turn our minds from the vision of the wreck of the brest, which john's simple words made so terribly vivid, to examine raven's ugo, and dolor ugo; ugo is cornish for cave. over the entrance of the first a pair of ravens have built from time immemorial. it is just accessible, the opening being above the sea-line, and hung with quantities of sea-ferns. here in smuggling days, many kegs of spirits used to be secreted: and many a wild drama no doubt has been acted there—daring encounters between smugglers and coastguard men, not bloodless on either side.
dolor ugo is now inaccessible and unusable. its only floor is of heaving water, a deep olive green, and so clear that we could see the fishes swimming about pursuing a shoal of launce. its high-vaulted roof and sides were tinted all colours—rose-pink, rich dark brown, and purple. the entrance was wide enough to admit a boat, but it gradually narrowed into impenetrable darkness. how far inland it goes no one can tell, as it could only be investigated by swimming, a rather dangerous experiment. boats venture as far as the daylight goes; and it is a favourite trick of the boatman suddenly to fire off a pistol, which reverberates like thunder through the mysterious gloom of the cave.
a solemn place; an awful place, some of us thought, as we rowed in, and out again, into the sunshiny open sea. which we had now got used to; and it was delicious to go dancing like a feather up and down, trusting to john curgenven's stout arm and fearless, honest face. we felt sad to think this would be our last sight of him and of the magnificent lizard coast. but the minutes were lessening, and we had some way still to row. also to land, which meant a leap between the waves upon slippery sea-weedy rocks. in silent dread i watched my children accomplish this feat, and then—
well, it is over, and i sit here writing these details. but i would not do it again, not even for the pleasure of revisiting dolor ugo and having a row with john curgenven.
honest fellow! he looked relieved when he saw "the old lady" safe on terra firma, and we left him waving adieux, as he "rocked in his boat in the bay." may his stout arms and kindly heart long remain to him! may his summer tourists be many and his winter shipwrecks few! i am sure he will always do his duty, and see that other people do theirs, or, like the proverbial cornishmen, he "will know the reason why."
charles was ready; waiting patiently in front of a blacksmith's shop. but, alas! fate had overtaken us in the shape of an innocent leak in john curgenven's boat; nothing, doubtless, to him, who was in the habit of baling it out with his boots, and then calmly putting them on again, but a little inconvenient to us. to drive thirty miles with one's garments soaked up to the knees was not desirable.
there was a cottage close by, whence came the gleam of a delicious fire and the odour of ironing clothes. we went in: the mistress, evidently a laundress, advanced and offered to dry us—which she did, chattering all the while in the confidential manner of country folks.
a hard working, decent body she was, and as for her house, it was a perfect picture of cleanliness and tidiness. its two rooms, kitchen and bedroom, were absolutely speckless. when we noticed this, and said we found the same in many cornish cottages; she almost seemed offended at the praise.
"oh, that's nothing, ma'am. we hereabouts all likes to have our places tidy. mine's not over tidy to-day because of the washing. i hadn't time to clean up. but if you was to come of a sunday. look there!" her eye caught something in a dark corner, at which she flew, apron in hand. "i declare, i'm quite ashamed. i didn't think we had one in the house."
"one what?"
"one spider web!"
dried, warmed, and refreshed, but having found the greatest difficulty in inducing the good woman to receive any tangible thanks for her kindness, we proceeded on our journey; going over the same ground which we had traversed already, and finding pradenack down as bleak and beautiful as ever. our first halt was at the door of mary mundy, who, with her unappreciated brother, ran out to meet us, and looked much disappointed when she found we had not come to stay.
"but you will come some time, ladies, and i'll make you so comfortable. and you'll give my duty to the professor"—it was vain to explain that four hundred miles lay between our home and his. "i hope he's quite well. he was a very nice gentleman, please'm. i shall be delighted to see him again, please'm," &c., &c.
we left the three—mary, her brother, and charles—chattering together in a dialect which i do not attempt to reproduce, and sometimes could hardly understand. us, the natives indulged with their best english, but among themselves they talked the broadest cornish.
it was a very old church, and a preternaturally old beadle showed it in a passive manner, not recognising in the least its points of interest and beauty, except some rows of open benches with ancient oak backs, wonderfully carved.
"our vicar dug them up from under the flooring and turned them into pews. there was a gentleman here the other day who said there was nothing like them in all england."
most curious, in truth, they were, and suited well the fine old building—a specimen of how carefully and lavishly our forefathers built "for god." we, who build for ourselves, are rather surprised to find in out-of-the-way nooks like this, churches that in size and adornment must have cost years upon years of loving labour as well as money.
it was pleasant to know that the present incumbent, a man of archæological tastes, appreciated his blessings, and took the utmost care of his beautiful old church. success to him! even though he cannot boast the power of his predecessor, the reverend thomas flavel, who died in 1682, and whose monument in the chancel really expresses the sentiments—in epitaph—of the period:
"earth, take thine earth; my sin, let satan have it;
the world my goods; my soul my god who gave it.
for from these four, earth, satan, world, and god,
my flesh, my sin, my goods, my soul, i had."
but it does not mention that the reverend gentleman was the best ghost-layer in all england, and that when he died his ghost also required to be laid, by a brother clergyman, in a spot on the down still pointed out by the people of mullion, who, being noted for extreme longevity, have passed down this tradition from generation to generation, with an earnest credulity that we of more enlightened counties can hardly understand.
from mullion we went on to gunwalloe. its church, "small and old," as charles had depreciatingly said, had been so painfully "restored," and looked so bran-new and uninteresting that we contented ourselves with a distant look. it was close to the sea—probably built on the very spot where its pious founder had been cast ashore. the one curious point about it was the detached belfry, some yards distant from the church itself. it sat alone in a little cove, down which a sluggish river crawled quietly seaward. a sweet quiet place, but haunted, as usual, by tales of cruel shipwrecks—of sailors huddled for hours on a bit of rock just above the waves, till a boat could put out and save the few survivors; of sea treasures continually washed ashore from lost ships—indian corn, coffee, timber, dollars—many are still found in the sand after a storm. and one treasure more, of which the recollection is still kept at gunwalloe, "a little dead baby in its cap and night-gown, with a necklace of coral beads."
after this our road turned inland. our good horse, with the dogged persistency of cornish horses and cornish men, plodded on mile after mile. sometimes for an hour or more we did not meet a living soul; then we came upon a stray labourer, or passed through a village where healthy-looking children, big-eyed, brown-faced, and dirty-handed, picturesque if not pretty, stared at us from cottage doors, or from the gates of cottage gardens full of flowers and apples.
those apples! they were a picture. hungry and thirsty, we could not resist them. after passing several trees, hung thickly with delicious fruit, we attacked the owner of one of them, a comely young woman, with a baby in her arms and another at her gown.
"oh yes, ma'am, you may have as many apples as you like, if your young ladies will go and get them."
and while they did it, she stood talking by the carriage door, pouring out to me her whole domestic history with a simple frankness worthy of the golden age.
"no, really i couldn't," putting back my payment—little enough— for the splendid basket of apples which the girls brought back in triumph. "this is such a good apple year; the pigs would get them if the young ladies didn't. you're kindly welcome to them—well then, if you are determined, say sixpence."
on which magnificent "sixpenn'orth," we lived for days! indeed i think we brought some of it home as a specimen of cornish fruit and cornish liberality.
helstone was reached at last, and we were not sorry for rest and food in the old-fashioned inn, whence we could look out of window, and contemplate the humours of the little town, which doubtless considered itself a very great one. it was market day, and the narrow street was thronged with beasts and men—the latter as sober as the former, which spoke well for cornwall. sober and civil too was every one we addressed in asking our way to the house of our unknown friend, whose only address we had was helstone. but he seemed well known in the town, though neither a rich man, nor a great man, nor—no, i cannot say he was not a clever man, for in his own line, mechanical engineering, he must have been exceedingly clever. and he was what people call "a great character;" would have made such an admirable study for a novelist, manipulated into an unrecognisable ideal—the only way in which it is fair to put people in books. when i saw him i almost regretted that i write novels no more.
we passed through the little garden—all ablaze with autumn colour, every inch utilised for either flowers, vegetables, or fruit—went into the parlour, sent our cards and waited the result.
in two minutes our friend appeared, and gave us such a welcome! but to explain it i must trench a little upon the sanctities of private life, and tell the story of this honest cornishman. it will not harm him.
when still young he went to brazil, and was employed by an english gold-mining company there, for some years. afterwards he joined an engineering firm, and superintended dredging, the erection of saw-mills, &c., finally building a lighthouse, of which latter work he had the sole charge, and was exceedingly proud. his conscientiousness, probity, and entire reliableness made him most valuable to the firm; whom he served faithfully for many years. when they, as well as himself, returned to england, he still kept up a correspondence with them, preserving towards every member of the family the most enthusiastic regard and devotion.
he rushed into the parlour, a tall, gaunt, middle-aged man, with a shrewd, kindly face, which beamed all over with delight, as he began shaking hands indiscriminately, saying how kind it was of us to come, and how welcome we were.
it was explained which of us he had specially to welcome, the others being only humble appendages, friends of the family, this well-beloved family, whose likenesses for two generations we saw everywhere about the room.
"yes, miss, there they all are, your dear grandfather" (alas, only a likeness now!), "your father, and your uncle. they were all so good to me, and i would do anything for them, or for any one of their name. if i got a message that they wanted me for anything, i'd be off to london, or to brazil, or anywhere, in half-an-hour."
and he really looked as if he would.
"but what will you take?" added the good man when the rapture and excitement of the moment had a little subsided, and his various questions as to the well-being of "the family" had been asked and answered. "you have dined, you say, but you'll have a cup of tea. my wife (that's the little maid i used to talk to your father about, miss; i always told him i wouldn't stay in brazil, i must go back to england and marry my little maid), my wife makes the best cup of tea in all cornwall. here she is!"
and there entered, in afternoon gown and cap, probably just put on, a middle-aged, but still comely matron, who insisted that, even at this early hour—3 p.m.—to get a cup of tea for us was "no trouble at all."
"indeed, she wouldn't think anything a trouble, no more than i should, miss, if it was for your family. they never forget me, nor i them."
it was here suggested that they were not a "forgetting" family. nor was he a man likely to be soon forgotten. while the cup of tea, which proved to be a most sumptuous meal, was preparing, he took us all over his house, which was full of foreign curiosities, and experimental inventions. one, i remember, being a musical instrument, a sort of organ, which he had begun making when a mere boy, and taken with him all the way to brazil and back. it had now found refuge in the little room he called his "workshop," which was filled with odds and ends that would have been delightful to a mechanical mind. he expounded them with enthusiasm, and we tried not to betray an ignorance, which in some of us would have been a sort of hereditary degradation.
"ah! they were clever—your father and your uncle!—and how proud we all were when we finished our lighthouse, and got the emperor to light it up for the first time. look here, ladies, what do you think this is?"
he took out a small parcel, and solemnly unwrapped from it fold after fold of paper, till he came to the heart of it—a small wax candle!
"this was the candle the emperor used to light our lighthouse. i've kept it for nearly thirty years, and i'll keep it as long as i live. every year on the anniversary of the day i light it, drink his majesty's health, and the health of all your family, miss, and then i put it out again. so"—carefully re-wrapping the relic in its numerous envelopes—"so i hope it will last my time."
here the mistress came behind her good man, and they exchanged a smile—the affectionate smile of two who had never been more than two, darby and joan, but all sufficient to each other. she announced that tea was ready. and such a tea! how we got through it i hardly know, but travelling is hungry work, and the viands were delicious. the beneficence of our kind hosts, however, was not nearly done.
"come, ladies, i'll show you my garden, and—(give me a basket and the grape-scissors,)" added he in a conjugal aside. which resulted in our carrying away with us the biggest bunches in the whole vinery, as well as a quantity of rosy apples, stuffed into every available pocket and bag.
"nonsense, nonsense," was the answer to vain remonstrances. "d'ye think i wouldn't give the best of everything i had to your family? and so would my missis too. how your father used to laugh at me about my little maid! but he understood it for all that. oh yes, i'm glad i came home. and now your father and your uncle are home too, and perhaps some day they'll come to see me down here—wouldn't it be a proud day for me! you'll tell them so?"
it was touching, and rare as touching, this passionate personal fidelity. it threw us back, at least such of us as were sentimentally inclined, upon that something in cornish nature which found its exposition in arthur and his faithful knights, down to "bold sir bedevere," and apparently, is still not lost in cornwall.
with a sense of real regret, feeling that it would be long ere we might meet his like—such shrewd simplicity, earnest enthusiasm, and exceeding faithfulness—we bade good-bye to the honest man; leaving him and his wife standing at their garden-gate, an elderly adam and eve, desiring nothing outside their own little paradise. which of us could say more, or as much?
gratefully we "talked them over," as we drove on through the pretty country round helstone—inland country; for we had no time to go and see the loe pool, a small lake, divided from the sea by a bar of sand. this is supposed to be the work of the cornwall man-demon, tregeagle; and periodically cut through, with solemn ceremonial, by the mayor of helstone, when the "meeting of the waters," fresh and salt, is said to be an extremely curious sight. but we did not see it, nor yet nonsloe house, close by, which is held by the tenure of having to provide a boat and nets whenever the prince of wales or the duke of cornwall wishes to fish in the loe pool. a circumstance which has never happened yet, certainly!
other curiosities en route we also missed, the stones of tremenkeverne, half a ton each, used as missiles in a notable fight between two saints, st. just of the land's end, and st. keverne of the lizard, and still lying in a field to prove the verity of the legend. also the rock of goldsithney, where, when the "fair land of lyonesse" was engulfed by the sea, an ancestor of the trevelyans saved himself by swimming his horse, and landing; and various other remarkable places, with legends attached, needing much credulity, or imagination, to believe in.
but, fearing to be benighted ere reaching marazion, we passed them all, and saw nothing more interesting than the ruins of disused tin mines, which charles showed us, mournfully explaining how the mining business had of late years drifted away from cornwall, and how hundreds of the once thriving community had been compelled to emigrate or starve. as we neared marazion, these melancholy wrecks with their little hillocks of mining debris rose up against the evening sky, the image of desolation. and then st. michael's mount, the picture in little of mont st. michel, in normandy, appeared in the middle of mount's bay. lastly, after a gorgeous sunset, in a golden twilight and silvery moonlight, we entered marazion;-and found it, despite its picturesque name, the most commonplace little town imaginable!
we should have regretted our rash decision, and gone on to penzance, but for the hearty welcome given us at a most comfortable and home-like inn, which determined us to keep to our first intention, and stay.
so, after our habit of making the best of things, we walked down to the ugly beach, and investigated the dirty-looking bay—in the lowest of all low tides, with a soppy, sea-weedy causeway running across to st. michael's mount. by advice of charles, we made acquaintance with an old boatman he knew, a norwegian who had drifted hither—shipwrecked, i believe—settled down and married an english woman, but whose english was still of the feeblest kind. however, he had an honest face; so we engaged him to take us out bathing early to-morrow.
"and to-night, ladies?" suggested the faithful charles. "wouldn't you like to row round the mount?—when you've had your tea, i'll come back for you, and help you down to the shore—it's rather rough, but nothing like what you have done, ma'am," added he encouragingly. "and it will be bright moonlight, and the mount will look so fine."
so, the spirit of adventure conquering our weariness, we went. when i think how it looked next morning—the small, shallow bay, with its toy-castle in the centre, i am glad our first vision of it was under the glamour of moonlight, with the battlemented rock throwing dark shadows across the shimmering sea. in the mysterious beauty of that night row round the mount, we could imagine anything; its earliest inhabitant, the giant cormoran, killed by that "valiant cornishman," the illustrious jack; the lovely st. keyne, a king's daughter, who came thither on pilgrimage; and, passing down from legend to history, henry de la pomeroy, who, being taken prisoner, caused himself to be bled to death in the castle; sir john arundel, slain on the sands, and buried in the chapel; perkin warbeck's unfortunate wife, who took refuge at st. michael's shrine, but was dragged thence. and so on, and so on, through the centuries, to the family of st. aubyn, who bought it in 1660, and have inhabited it ever since. "very nice people," we heard they were; who have received here the queen, the prince of wales, and other royal personages. what a contrast to the legendary cormoran!
yet, looking up as we rowed under the gloomy rock, we could fancy his giant ghost sitting there, on the spot where he killed his wife, for bringing in her apron greenstone, instead of granite, to build the chapel with. which being really built of greenstone the story must be true! what a pleasure it is to be able to believe anything!
some of us could have stayed out half the night, floating along in the mild soft air and dreamy moonlight, which made even the commonplace little town look like a fairy scene, and exalted st. michael's mount into a grand fortress, fit for its centuries of legendary lore—but others preferred going to bed.
so we landed, and retired. not however without taking a long look out of the window upon the bay, which now, at high tide, was one sheet of rippling moon-lit water, with the grim old mount, full of glimmering lights like eyes, sitting silent in the midst of the silent sea.
