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NANCEPEAN

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The Rhos or, as it is popularly written and pronounced, the Rose is a tract of land in the south-west of the Duchy of Cornwall, ten miles long and six at its greatest breadth, which on account of its remoteness from the railway, its unusual geological formation, and its peninsular shape possesses both in the character of its inhabitants and in the peculiar aspects of the natural scene all the limitations and advantages of an island. The main road running south to Rose Head from Rosemarket cuts the peninsula into two unequal portions, the eastern and by far the larger of which consists of a flat tableland two or three hundred feet above the sea covered with a bushy heath, which flourishes in the magnesian soil and which when in bloom is of such a clear rosy pink, with nothing to break the level monochrome except scattered drifts of cotton grass, pools of silver water and a few stunted pines, that ignorant observers have often supposed that the colour gave its name to the whole peninsula. The ancient town of Rosemarket, which serves as the only channel of communication with the rest of Cornwall, lies in the extreme north-west of the peninsula between a wide creek of the Roseford river and the Rose Pool, an irregular heart-shaped water about four miles in circumference which on the west is only separated from the Atlantic by a bar of fine shingle fifty yards across.

The parish of Nancepean, of which Mark's grandfather the Reverend Charles Elphinstone Trehawke had been vicar for nearly thirty years, ran southward from the Rose Pool between the main road and the sea for three miles. It was a country of green valleys unfolding to the ocean, and of small farms fertile enough when they were sheltered from the prevailing wind; but on the southern confines of the parish the soil became shallow and stony, the arable fields degenerated into a rough open pasturage full of gorse and foxgloves and gradually widening patches of heather, until finally the level monochrome of the Rhos absorbed the last vestiges of cultivation, and the parish came to an end.

The actual village of Nancepean, set in a hollow about a quarter of a mile from the sea, consisted of a smithy, a grocer's shop, a parish hall and some two dozen white cottages with steep thatched roofs lying in their own gardens on either side of the unfrequented road that branched from the main road to follow the line of the coast. Where this road made the turn south a track strewn with grey shingle ran down between the cliffs, at this point not much more than grassy hummocks, to Nancepean beach which extended northward in a wide curve until it disappeared two miles away in the wooded heights above the Rose Pool. The metalled coast road continued past the Hanover Inn, an isolated house standing at the head of a small cove, to make the long ascent of Pendhu Cliff three hundred and fifty feet high, from the brow of which it descended between banks of fern past St. Tugdual's Church to the sands of Church Cove, whence it emerged to climb in a steep zigzag the next headland, beyond which it turned inland again to Lanyon and rejoined the main road to Rose Head. The church itself had no architectural distinction; but the solitary position, the churchyard walls sometimes washed by high spring tides, the squat tower built into the rounded grassy cliff that protected it from the direct attack of the sea, and its impressive antiquity combined to give it more than the finest architecture could give. Nowhere in the surrounding landscape was there a sign of human habitation, neither on the road down from Pendhu nor on the road up toward Lanyon, not on the bare towans sweeping from the beach to the sky in undulating waves of sandy grass, nor in the valley between the towans and Pendhu, a wide green valley watered by a small stream that flowed into the cove, where it formed a miniature estuary, the configuration of whose effluence changed with every tide.

The Vicarage was not so far from the church as the church was from the village, but it was some way from both. It was reached from Nancepean by a road or rather by a gated cart-track down one of the numerous valleys of the parish, and it was reached from the church by another cart-track along the valley between Pendhu and the towans. Probably it was an ancient farmhouse, and it must have been a desolate and austere place until, as at the date when Mark first came there, it was graced by the perfume and gold of acacias, by wistaria and jasmine and honeysuckle, by the ivory goblets of magnolias, by crimson fuchsias, and where formerly its grey walls grew mossy north and east by pink and white camelias and the waxen bells of lapagerias. The garden was a wilderness of scarlet rhododendrons from the thickets of which innumerable blackbirds and thrushes preyed upon the peas. The lawns were like meadows; the lily ponds were marbled with weeds; the stables were hardly to be reached on account of the tangle of roses and briers that filled the abandoned yard. The front drive was bordered by evergreen oaks, underneath the shade of which blue hydrangeas flowered sparsely with a profusion of pale-green foliage and lanky stems.

Mark when he looked out of his window on the morning after his arrival thought that he was in fairyland. He looked at the rhododendrons; he looked at the raindrops of the night sparkling in the morning sun; he looked at the birds, and the blue sky, and across the valley to a hillside yellow with gorse. He hardly knew how to restrain himself from waking his mother with news of the wonderful sights and sounds of this first vision of the country; but when he saw a clump of daffodils nodding in the grass below, it was no longer possible to be considerate. Creeping to his mother's door, he gently opened it and listened. He meant only to whisper "Mother," but in his excitement he shouted, and she suddenly roused from sleep by his voice sat up in alarm.

"Mother, there are seven daffodils growing wild under my window."

"My darling, you frightened me so. I thought you'd hurt yourself."

"I don't know how my voice came big like that," said Mark apologetically. "I only meant it to be a whisper. But you weren't dreadfully frightened? Or were you?"

His mother smiled.

"No, not dreadfully frightened."

"Well, do you think I might dress myself and go in the garden?"

"You mustn't disturb grandfather."

"Oh, mother, of course not."

"All right, darling. But it's only six o'clock. Very early. And you must remember that grandfather may be tired. He had to wait an hour for us at Rosemarket last night."

"He's very nice, isn't he?"

Mark did not ask this tentatively; he really did think that his grandfather was very nice, although he had been puzzled and not a little frightened by his bushy black eyebrows slanting up to a profusion of white hair. Mark had never seen such eyebrows, and he wondered whatever grandfather's moustache would be like if it were allowed to grow.

"He's a dear," said Mrs. Lidderdale fervidly. "And now, sweetheart, if you really intend to dress yourself run along, because Mother wants to sleep a little longer if she can."

The only difficulty Mark had was with his flannel front, because one of the tapes vanished like a worm into its hole, and nothing in his armoury was at once long enough and pointed enough to hook it out again. Finally he decided that at such an early hour of the morning it would not matter if he went out exposing his vest, and soon he was wandering in that enchanted shrubbery of rhododendrons, alternating between imagining it to be the cave of Aladdin or the beach where Sinbad found all the pebbles to be precious stones. He wandered down hill through the thicket, listening with a sense of satisfaction to the increasing squelchiness of the peaty soil and feeling when the blackbirds fled at his approach with shrill quack and flapping wings much more like a hunter than he ever felt in the nursery at Lima Street. He resolved to bring his gun with him next time. This was just the place to find a hippopotamus, or even a crocodile. Mark had reached the bottom of the slope and discovered a dark sluggish stream full of decayed vegetable matter which was slowly oozing on its course. Or even a crocodile, he thought again; and he looked carefully at a half-submerged log. Or even a crocodile … yes, but people had often thought before that logs were not crocodiles and had not discovered their mistake until they were half way down the crocodile's throat. It had been amusing to fancy the existence of crocodiles when he was still close to the Vicarage, but suppose after all that there really were crocodiles living down here? Feeling a little ashamed of his cowardice, but glossing it over with an assumption of filial piety, Mark turned to go back through the rhododendrons so as not to be late for breakfast. He would find out if any crocodiles had been seen about here lately, and if they had not, he would bring out his gun and … suddenly Mark was turned inside out by terror, for not twenty yards away there was without any possibility of self-deception a wild beast something between an ant-eater and a laughing hyena that with nose to the ground was evidently pursuing him, and what was worse was between him and home. There flashed through Mark's mind the memories of what other hunters had done in such situations, what ruses they had adopted if unarmed, what method of defence if armed; but in the very instant of the panoramic flash Mark did what countless uncelebrated hunters must have done, he ran in the opposition direction from his enemy. In this case it meant jumping over the stream, crocodile or not, and tearing his away through snowberries and brambles until he emerged on the moors at the bottom of the valley.

It was not until he had put half a dozen small streams between himself and the unknown beast that Mark paused to look round. Behind him the valley was lost in a green curve; before him another curve shut out the ultimate view. On his left the slope of the valley rose to the sky in tiers of blazing yellow gorse; to his right he could see the thickets through which he had emerged upon this verdant solitude. But beyond the thickets there was no sign of the Vicarage. There was not a living thing in sight; there was nothing except the song of larks high up and imperceptible against the steady morning sun that shed a benign warmth upon the world, and particularly upon the back of Mark's neck when he decided that his safest course was to walk in the direction of the valley's gradual widening and to put as many more streams as he could between him and the beast. Having once wetted himself to the knees, he began to take a pleasure in splashing through the vivid wet greenery. He wondered what he should behold at the next curve of the valley; without knowing it he began to walk more slowly, for the beauty of the day was drowsing his fears; the spell of earth was upon him. He walked more slowly, because he was passing through a bed of forget-me-nots, and he could not bear to blind one of those myriad blue eyes. He chose most carefully the destination of each step, and walking thus he did not notice that the valley would curve no more, but was opening at last. He looked up in a sudden consciousness of added space, and there serene as the sky above was spread the sea. Yesterday from the train Mark had had what was actually his first view of the sea; but the rain had taken all the colour out of it, and he had been thrilled rather by the word than by the fact. Now the word was nothing, the fact was everything. There it was within reach of him, blue as the pictures always made it. The streams of the valley had gathered into one, and Mark caring no more what happened to the forget-me-nots ran along the bank. This morning when the stream reached the shore it broke into twenty limpid rivulets, each one of which ploughed a separate silver furrow across the glistening sand until all were merged in ocean, mighty father of streams and men. Mark ran with the rivulets until he stood by the waves' edge. All was here of which he had read, shells and seaweed, rocks and cliffs and sand; he felt like Robinson Crusoe when he looked round him and saw nothing to break the solitude. Every point of the compass invited exploration and promised adventure. That white road running northward and rising with the cliffs, whither did it lead, what view was outspread where it dipped over the brow of the high table-land and disappeared into the naked sky beyond? The billowy towans sweeping up from the beach appeared to him like an illimitable prairie on which buffaloes and bison might roam. Whither led the sandy track, the summit of whose long diagonal was lost in the brightness of the morning sky? And surely that huddled grey building against an isolated green cliff must be grandfather's church of which his mother had often told him. Mark walked round the stone walls that held up the little churchyard and, entering by a gate on the farther side, he looked at the headstones and admired the feathery tamarisks that waved over the tombs. He was reading an inscription more legible than most on a headstone of highly polished granite, when he heard a voice behind him say:

"You mind what you're doing with that grave. That's my granfa's grave, that is, and if you touch it, I'll knock 'ee down."

Mark looked round and beheld a boy of about his own age and size in a pair of worn corduroy knickerbockers and a guernsey, who was regarding him from fierce blue eyes under a shock of curly yellow hair.

"I'm not touching it," Mark explained. Then something warned him that he must assert himself, if he wished to hold his own with this boy, and he added:

"But if I want to touch it, I will."

"Will 'ee? I say you won't do no such a thing then."

Mark seized the top of the headstone as firmly as his small hands would allow him and invited the boy to look what he was doing.

"Lev go," the boy commanded.

"I won't," said Mark.

"I'll make 'ee lev go."

"All right, make me."

The boy punched Mark's shoulder, and Mark punched blindly back, hitting his antagonist such a little way above the belt as to lay himself under the imputation of a foul blow. The boy responded by smacking Mark's face with his open palm; a moment later they were locked in a close struggle, heaving and panting and pushing until both of them tripped on the low railing of a grave and rolled over into a carefully tended bed of primroses, whence they were suddenly jerked to their feet, separated, and held at arm's length by an old man with a grey beard and a small round hole in the left temple.

"I'll learn you to scat up my tombs," said the old man shaking them violently. "'Tisn't the first time I've spoken to you, Cass Dale, and who's this? Who's this boy?"

"Oh, my gosh, look behind 'ee, Mr. Timbury. The bullocks is coming into the churchyard."

Mr. Timbury loosed his hold on the two boys as he turned, and Cass Dale catching hold of Mark's hand shouted:

"Come on, run, or he'll have us again."

They were too quick for the old man's wooden leg, and scrambling over the wall by the south porch of the church they were soon out of danger on the beach below.

"My gosh, I never heard him coming. If I hadn't have thought to sing out about the bullocks coming, he'd have laid that stick round us sure enough. He don't care where he hits anybody, old man Timbury don't. I belong to hear him tap-tapping along with his old wooden stump, but darn 'ee I never heard 'un coming this time."

The old man was leaning over the churchyard wall, shaking his stick and abusing them with violent words.

"That's fine language for a sexton," commented Cass Dale. "I'd be ashamed to swear like that, I would. You wouldn't hear my father swear like that. My father's a local preacher."

"So's mine," said Mark.

"Is he? Where to?"

"London."

"A minister, is he?"

"No, he's a priest."

"Does he kiss the Pope's toe? My gosh, if the Pope asked me to kiss his toe, I'd soon tell him to kiss something else, I would."

"My father doesn't kiss the Pope's toe," said Mark.

"I reckon he does then," Cass replied. "Passon Trehawke don't though. Passon Trehawke's some fine old chap. My father said he'd lev me go church of a morning sometimes if I'd a mind. My father belongs to come himself to the Harvest Home, but my granfa never came to church at all so long as he was alive. 'Time enough when I'm dead for that' he used to say. He was a big man down to the Chapel, my granfa was. Mostly when he did preach the maids would start screeching, so I've heard tell. But he were too old for preaching when I knawed 'un."

"My grandfather is the priest here," said Mark.

"There isn't no priest to Nancepean. Only Passon Trehawke."

"My grandfather's name is Trehawke."

"Is it, by gosh? Well, why for do 'ee call him a priest? He isn't a priest."

"Yes, he is."

"I say he isn't then. A parson isn't a priest. When I'm grown up I'm going to be a minister. What are you going to be?"

Mark had for some time past intended to be a keeper at the Zoological Gardens, but after his adventure with the wild beast in the thicket and this encounter with the self-confident Cass Dale he decided that he would not be a keeper but a parson. He informed Cass of his intention.

"Well, if you're a parson and I'm a minister," said Cass, "I'll bet everyone comes to listen to me preaching and none of 'em don't go to hear you."

"I wouldn't care if they didn't," Mark affirmed.

"You wouldn't care if you had to preach to a parcel of empty chairs and benches?" exclaimed Cass.

"St. Francis preached to the trees," said Mark. "And St. Anthony preached to the fishes."

"They must have been a couple of loonies."

"They were saints," Mark insisted.

"Saints, were they? Well, my father doesn't think much of saints. My father says he reckons saints is the same as other people, only a bit worse if anything. Are you saved?"

"What from?" Mark asked.

"Why, from Hell of course. What else would you be saved from?"

"You might be saved from a wild beast," Mark pointed out. "I saw a wild beast this morning. A wild beast with a long nose and a sort of grey colour."

"That wasn't a wild beast. That was an old badger."

"Well, isn't a badger a wild beast?"

Cass Dale laughed scornfully.

"My gosh, if that isn't a good one! I suppose you'd say a fox was a wild beast?"

"No, I shouldn't," said Mark, repressing an inclination to cry, so much mortified was he by Cass Dale's contemptuous tone.

"All the same," Cass went on. "It don't do to play around with badgers. There was a chap over to Lanbaddern who was chased right across the Rose one evening by seven badgers. He was in a muck of sweat when he got home. But one old badger isn't nothing."

Mark had been counting on his adventure with the wild beast to justify his long absence should he be reproached by his mother on his return to the Vicarage. The way it had been disposed of by Cass Dale as an old badger made him wonder if after all it would be accepted as such a good excuse.

"I ought to be going home," he said. "But I don't think I remember the way."

"To Passon Trehawke's?"

Mark nodded.

"I'll show 'ee," Cass volunteered, and he led the way past the mouth of the stream to the track half way up the slope of the valley.

"Ever eat furze flowers?" asked Cass, offering Mark some that he had pulled off in passing. "Kind of nutty taste they've got, I reckon. I belong to eat them most days."

Mark acquired the habit and agreed with Cass that the blossoms were delicious.

"Only you don't want to go eating everything you see," Cass warned him. "I reckon you'd better always ask me before you eat anything. But furze flowers is all right. I've eaten thousands. Next Friday's Good Friday."

"I know," said Mark reverently.

"We belong to get limpets every Good Friday. Are you coming with me?"

"Won't I be in church?" Mark inquired with memories of Good Friday in Lima Street.

"Yes, I suppose they'll have some sort of a meeting down Church," said Cass. "But you can come afterward. I'll wait for 'ee in Dollar Cove. That's the next cove to Church Cove on the other side of the Castle Cliff, and there's some handsome cave there. Years ago my granfa knawed a chap who saw a mermaid combing out her hair in Dollar Cove. But there's no mermaids been seen lately round these parts. My father says he reckons since they scat up the apple orchards and give over drinking cider they won't see no more mermaids to Nancepean. Have you signed the pledge?"

"What's that?" Mark asked.

"My gosh, don't you know what the pledge is? Why, that's when you put a blue ribbon in your buttonhole and swear you won't drink nothing all your days."

"But you'd die," Mark objected. "People must drink."

"Water, yes, but there's no call for any one to drink anything only water. My father says he reckons more folk have gone to hell from drink than anything. You ought to hear him preach about drink. Why, when it gets known in the village that Sam Dale's going to preach on drink there isn't a seat down Chapel. Well, I tell 'ee he frightened me last time I sat under him. That's why old man Timbury has it in for me whenever he gets the chance."

Mark looked puzzled.

"Old man Timbury keeps the Hanover Inn. And he reckons my pa's preaching spoils his trade for a week. That's why he's sexton to the church. 'Tis the only way he can get even with the chapel folk. He used to be in the Navy, and he lost his leg and got that hole in his head in a war with the Rooshians. You'll hear him talking big about the Rooshians sometimes. My father says anybody listening to old Steve Timbury would think he'd fought with the Devil, instead of a lot of poor leary Rooshians."

Mark was so much impressed by the older boy's confident chatter that when he arrived back at the Vicarage and found his mother at breakfast he tried the effect of an imitation of it upon her.

"Darling boy, you mustn't excite yourself too much," she warned him. "Do try to eat a little more and talk a little less."

"But I can go out again with Cass Dale, can't I, mother, as soon as I've finished my breakfast? He said he'd wait for me and he's going to show me where we might find some silver dollars. He says they're five times as big as a shilling and he's going to show me where there's a fox's hole on the cliffs and he's … "

"But, Mark dear, don't forget," interrupted his mother who was feeling faintly jealous of this absorbing new friend, "don't forget that I can show you lots of the interesting things to see round here. I was a little girl here myself and used to play with Cass Dale's father when he was a little boy no bigger than Cass."

Just then grandfather came into the room and Mark was instantly dumb; he had never been encouraged to talk much at breakfast in Lima Street. He did, however, eye his grandfather from over the top of his cup, and he found him less alarming in the morning than he had supposed him to be last night. Parson Trehawke kept reaching across the table for the various things he wanted until his daughter jumped up and putting her arms round his neck said:

"Dearest father, why don't you ask Mark or me to pass you what you want?"

"So long alone. So long alone," murmured Parson Trehawke with an embarrassed smile and Mark observed with a thrill that when he smiled he looked exactly like his mother, and had Mark but known it exactly like himself.

"And it's so wonderful to be back here," went on Mrs. Lidderdale, "with everything looking just the same. As for Mark, he's so happy that—Mark, do tell grandfather how much you're enjoying yourself."

Mark gulped several times, and finally managed to mutter a confirmation of his mother's statement.

"And he's already made friends with Cass Dale."

"He's intelligent but like his father he thinks he knows more than he does," commented Parson Trehawke. "However, he'll make quite a good companion for this young gentleman."

As soon as breakfast was over Mark rushed out to join Cass Dale, who sitting crosslegged under an ilex-tree was peeling a pithy twig for a whistle.

The Altar Steps

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