Читать книгу An Unsentimental Journey through Cornwall - Dinah Maria Mulock Craik - Страница 4

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Is there anything more delightful than to start on a smiling morning in a comfortable carriage, with all one's impedimenta (happily not much!) safely stowed away under one's eyes, with a good horse, over which one's feelings of humanity need not be always agonising, and a man to drive, whom one can trust to have as much sense as the brute, especially in the matter of "refreshment." Our letters that morning had brought us a comico-tragic story of a family we knew, who, migrating with a lot of children and luggage, and requiring to catch a train thirteen miles off, had engaged a driver who "refreshed himself" so successfully at every public-house on the way, that he took five hours to accomplish the journey, and finally had to be left at the road-side, and the luggage transferred to another vehicle, which of course lost the train. We congratulated ourselves that no such disaster was likely to happen to us.

"Yes; I've been a teetotaller all my life," said our driver, a bright-looking, intelligent young fellow, whom, as he became rather a prominent adjunct to our life and decidedly to our comfort, I shall individualise by calling him Charles. "I had good need to avoid drinking. My father drank through a small property. No fear of me, ma'am."

So at once between him and us, or him and "we," according to the Cornish habit of transposing pronouns, was established a feeling of fraternity, which, during the six days that we had to do with him, deepened into real regard. Never failing when wanted, never presuming when not wanted, straightforward, independent, yet full of that respectful kindliness which servants can always show and masters should always appreciate, giving us a chivalrous care, which, being "unprotected females," was to us extremely valuable, I here record that much of the pleasure of our tour was owing to this honest Cornishman, who served us, his horse, and his master—he was one of the employés of a livery-stable keeper—with equal fidelity.

Certainly, numerous as were the parties he had driven—("I go to the Lizard about three times a week," he said)—Charles could seldom have driven a merrier trio than that which leisurely mounted the upland road from Falmouth, leading to the village of Constantine.

"Just turn and look behind you, ladies" (we had begged to be shown everything and told everything); "isn't that a pretty view?"

It certainly was. From the high ground we could see Falmouth with its sheltered bay and glittering sea beyond. Landward were the villages of Mabe and Constantine, with their great quarries of granite, and in the distance lay wide sweeps of undulating land, barren and treeless, but still beautiful—not with the rich pastoral beauty of our own Kent, yet having a charm of its own. And the air, so fresh and pure, yet soft and balmy, it felt to tender lungs like the difference between milk and cream. To breathe became a pleasure instead of a pain. I could quite understand how the semi-tropical plants that we had seen in a lovely garden below, grew and flourished, how the hydrangeas became huge bushes, and the eucalyptus an actual forest tree.

But this was in the sheltered valley, and we had gained the hill-top, emerging out of one of those deep-cut lanes peculiar to Devon and Cornwall, and so pretty in themselves, a perfect garden of wild flowers and ferns, except that they completely shut out the view. This did not much afflict the practical minds of my two juniors. Half an hour before they had set up a shout—

"Stop the carriage! Do stop the carriage! Just look there! Did you ever see such big blackberries? and what a quantity! Let us get out; we'll gather them for to-morrow's pudding."

Undoubtedly a dinner earned is the sweetest of all dinners. I remember once thinking that our cowslip tea (I should not like to drink it now) was better than our grandmother's best Bohea or something out of her lovely old tea-caddy. So the carriage, lightened of all but myself, crawled leisurely up and waited on the hill-top for the busy blackberry-gatherers.

While our horse stood cropping an extempore meal, I and his driver began to talk about him and other cognate topics, including the permanent one of the great advantage to both body and soul in being freed all one's life long from the necessity of getting "something to drink" stronger than water.

A FISHERMAN'S CELLAR NEAR THE LIZARD.

"Yes," he said, "I find I can do as much upon tea or coffee as other men upon beer. I'm just as strong and as active, and can stand weather quite as well. It's a pretty hard life, winter and summer, driving all day, coming in soaked, sometimes in the middle of the night, having to turn in for an hour or two, and then turn out again. And you must look after your horse, of course, before you think of yourself. Still, I stand it well, and that without a drop of beer from years end to years end."

I congratulated and sympathised; in return for which Charles entered heart and soul into the blackberry question, pointed out where the biggest blackberries hung, and looked indeed—he was still such a young fellow!—as if he would have liked to go blackberry-hunting himself.

I put, smiling, the careless question, "Have you any little folks of your own? Are you married?"

How cautious one should be over an idle word! All of a sudden the cheerful face clouded, the mouth began to quiver, with difficulty I saw he kept back the tears. It was a version in every-day life of Longfellow's most pathetic little poem, "The Two Locks of Hair."

"My wife broke her heart after the baby, I think. It died. She went off in consumption. It's fifteen months now"—(he had evidently counted them)—"fifteen months since I have been alone. I didn't like to give up my home and my bits of things; still, when a man has to come in wet and tired to an empty house——"

He turned suddenly away and busied himself over his horse, for just that minute the two girls came running back, laughing heartily, and showing their baskets full of "the very biggest blackberries you ever saw!" I took them back into the carriage; the driver mounted his box, and drove on for some miles in total silence. As, when I had whispered that little episode to my two companions, so did we.

There are two ways of going from Falmouth to the Lizard—the regular route through the town of Helstone, and another, a trifle longer, through the woods of Trelowarren, the seat of the old Cornish family of Vyvyan.

"I'll take you that road, ma'am, it's much the prettiest," said Charles evidently exerting himself to recover his cheerful looks and be the civil driver and guide, showing off all the curiosities and beauties of the neighbourhood. And very pretty Trelowarren was, though nothing remarkable to us who came from the garden of England. Still, the trees were big—for Cornwall, and in the ferny glade grew abundantly the Osmunda regalis, a root of which we greatly coveted, and Charles offered to get. He seemed to take a pride in showing us everything, except what he probably did not know of, and which, when I heard of too late, was to me a real regret.

At Trelowarren, not far from the house, are a series of subterranean chambers and galleries, in all ninety feet long and about the height of a man. The entrance is very low. Still it is possible to get into them and traverse them from end to end, the walls being made of blocks of unhewn stone, leaning inward towards the roof, which is formed of horizontal blocks. How, when, and for what purpose this mysterious underground dwelling was made, is utterly lost in the mists of time. I should exceedingly have liked to examine it, and to think we passed close by and never knew of it will always be a certain regret, of which I relieve my mind by telling it for the guidance of other archæological travellers.

One of the charms of Cornwall is that it gives one the sense of being such an old country, as if things had gone exactly as they do now, not merely since the days of King Arthur, but for ever so long before then. The Romans, the Phœnicians, nay, the heroes of pre-historic ages, such as Jack the Giantkiller and the giant Cormoran, seemed to be not impossible myths, as we gradually quitted civilisation in the shape of a village or two, and a few isolated farm-houses, and came out upon the wild district known as Goonhilly Down.

Certainly not from its hills, for it is as flat as the back of your hand, and as bare. But the word, which is old Cornish—that now extinct tongue, which only survives in the names of places and people—means a hunting ground; and there is every reason to believe that this wide treeless waste was once an enormous forest, full of wild beasts. There St. Rumon, an Irish bishop, long before there were any Saxon bishops or saints, is said to have settled, far away from the world, and made a cell and oratory, the memory of which, and of himself, is still kept up by the name of the two villages, Ruan Major and Ruan Minor, on the outskirts of this Goonhilly Down.

In later times the down was noted for a breed of small, strong ponies, called "Goonhillies." Charles had heard of them, but I do not suppose he had ever heard of St. Rumon, or of the primeval forest. At present, the fauna of Goonhilly is represented by no animal more dangerous than a rabbit or a field-mouse, and its vegetation includes nothing bigger than the erica vagans—the lovely Cornish heath, lilac, flesh-coloured and white which will grow nowhere else, except in a certain district of Portugal.

"There it is!" we cried, at the pleasant first sight of a new flower: for though not scientific botanists, we have what I may call a speaking acquaintance with almost every wild flower that grows. To see one that we had never seen before was quite an excitement. Instantly we were out of the carriage, and gathering it by handfuls.

Botanists know this heath well—it has the peculiarity of the anthers being outside instead of inside the bell—but we only noticed the beauty of it, the masses in which it grew, and how it would grow only within a particular line—the sharp geological line of magnesian earth, which forms the serpentine district. Already we saw, forcing itself up through the turf, blocks of this curious stone, and noticed how cottage-walls were built, and fences made of it.

"Yes, that's the serpentine," said Charles, now in his depth once more; we could not have expected him to know about St. Rumon, &c. "You'll see plenty of it when you get to the Lizard. All the coast for miles and miles is serpentine. Such curious rocks, reddish and greenish; they look so pretty when the water washes against them, and when polished, and made into ornaments, candlesticks, brooches and the like. But I'll show you the shops as we pass. We shall be at Lizard Town directly."

So it was a town, and it had shops. We should not have thought so, judging by the slender line of white dots which now was appearing on the horizon—Cornish folk seemed to have a perfect mania for painting their houses a glistening white. Yes, that was the Lizard; we were nearing our journey's end. At which we were a little sorry, even though already an hour or two behind-hand—that is, behind the hour we had ordered dinner. But "time was made for slaves"—and railway travellers, and we were beyond railways.

"Never mind, what does dinner matter?" (It did not seriously, as we had taken the precaution, which I recommend to all travellers, of never starting on any expedition without a good piece of bread, a bunch of raisins, and a flask of cold tea or coffee.) "What's the odds so long as you're happy? Let us linger and make the drive as long as we can. The horse will not object, nor Charles either."

Evidently not; our faithful steed cropped contentedly an extempore meal, and Charles, who would have scrambled anywhere or dug up anything "to please the young ladies," took out his pocket-knife, and devoted himself to the collection of all the different coloured heaths; roots which we determined to send home in the hope, alas! I fear vain, that they would grow in our garden, afar from their native magnesia.

THE CORNISH COAST: FROM YNYS HEAD TO BEAST POINT.

So for another peaceful hour we stayed; wandering about upon Goonhilly Down. How little it takes to make one happy, when one wants to be happy, and knows enough of the inevitable sorrows of life to be glad to be happy—as long as fate allows. Each has his burthen to bear, seen or unseen by the world outside, and some of us that day had not a light one; yet was it a bright day, a white day, a day to be thankful for.

Nor did it end when, arriving at the "ideal" lodgings, and being received with a placidity which we felt we had not quite deserved, and fed in a manner which reflected much credit not only on the cook's skill, but her temper—we sallied out to see the place.

Not a picturesque place exactly. A high plain, with the sparkling sea beyond it; the principal object near being the Lizard Lights, a huge low building, with a tower at either side, not unlike the Sydenham Crystal palace, only dazzling white, as every building apparently was at the Lizard.

"We'll go out and adventure," cried the young folks; and off they started down the garden, over a stile—made of serpentine of course—and across what seemed a field, till they disappeared mysteriously where the line of sea cut the line of cliffs, and were heard of no more for two hours.

Then they returned, all delight and excitement. They had found such a lovely little cove, full of tiny pools, a perfect treasure-house of sea-weeds and sea-anemones; and the rocks, so picturesque, and "so grand to scramble over." (I must confess that to these, my practically-minded "chickens," the picturesque or the romantic always ranked second to the fun of a scramble.) The descent to this marine paradise also seemed difficult enough to charm anybody.

"But you wouldn't do it. Quite impossible! You would break all your legs and arms, and sprain both your ankles."

Alas, for a hen—and an old hen—with ducklings! But mine, though daring, were not rash, and had none of that silly fool-hardiness which for the childish vanity of doing, or of saying one has done, a dangerous thing, risks health, comfort, life, and delights selfishly in making other people utterly miserable. So, being feeble on my feet, though steady in my head, I agreed to sit like a cormorant on the nearest cliff, and look down placidly upon the young adventurers in their next delightful scramble.

It could not be to-night, however, for the tide was coming in fast; the fairy cove would soon be all under water.

"Shall we get a boat? It will soon be sunset and moon-rise; we can watch both from the sea."

That sea! Its broad circle had no other bound than the shores of America, and its blueness, or the strange, changing tint often called blue, almost equalled the blue of the Mediterranean.

"Yes, ma'am, it's a fine evening for a row," said the faithful Charles. "And it isn't often you can get a row here; the sea is so rough, and the landing so difficult. But there's a man I know; he has a good boat, he knows the coast well, and he'll not go out unless it's really safe."

This seemed ultra-prudent, with such a smiling sky and sea; but we soon found it was not unnecessary at the Lizard. Indeed all along the Cornish coast the great Atlantic waves come in with such a roll or a heavy ground-swell, windless, but the precursor of a storm that is slowly arriving from across the ocean, that boating here at best is no child's play.

We had been fair-weather sailors, over shut-in lochs or smooth rivers; all of us could handle an oar, or had handled it in old days, but this was a different style of thing. Descending the steep zigzag path to the next cove—the only one where there was anything like a fair landing—we found we still had to walk through a long bed of sea-weed, and manage somehow to get into the boat between the recoil and advance of a wave. Not one of the tiny waves of quiet bays, but an Atlantic roller, which, even if comparatively small and tame, comes in with a force that will take you off your feet at any time.

However, we managed it, and found ourselves floating among an archipelago of rocks, where the solemn cormorants sat in rows, and affectionate families of gulls kept swimming about in a large flotilla of white dots on the dark water. Very dark the sea was: heaving and sinking in great hills and valleys, which made rowing difficult. Also, for several yards round every rock extended a perfect whirlpool of foaming waves, which, if any boat chanced to be caught therein, would have dashed it to pieces in no time. But our boatmen seemed used to the danger, and took us as near it as possible, without actually running into it.

They were both far from commonplace-looking men, especially the elder, our stroke-oar. Being rather given to ethnological tastes, we had already noticed the characteristic Cornish face, not unlike the Norman type, and decidedly superior to that of the inland counties of England. But this was a face by itself, which would have attracted any artist or student of human nature; weather-beaten, sharp-lined, wrinkled as it was—the man must have been fully sixty—there was in it a sweetness, an absolute beauty, which struck us at once. The smile, placid and paternal, came often, though words were few; and the keen, kindly eyes were blue as a child's, or as Tennyson describes King Arthur's.

"I can imagine," whispered one of us who had imaginative tendencies, "that King Arthur might have looked thus, had he lived to grow old."

"I don't believe King Arthur ever lived at all," was the knock-me-down utilitarian answer, to which the other had grown accustomed and indifferent. Nevertheless, there was such a refinement about the man, spite of his rough fisherman's dress, and he had been so kind to the young folks, so considerate to "the old lady," as Cornish candour already called me, that, intending to employ him again, we asked his name.

"John Curgenven."

"John what?" We made several hopeless plunges at it, and finally asked him to spell it.

"Cur-gen-ven," said he; adding, with a slight air of pride, "one of the oldest families in Cornwall."

(I have no hesitation in stating this, because, when we afterwards became great friends, I told John Curgenven I should probably "put him in a book"—if he had no objection. To which he answered with his usual composure, "No, he did not think it would harm him." He evidently considered "writing a book" was a very inferior sort of trade.)

But looking at him, one could not help speculating as to how far the legend of King Arthur had been really true, and whether the type of man which Tennyson has preserved—or created—in this his "own ideal knight," did once exist, and still exists, in a modified modern form, throughout Cornwall. A fancy upon which we then only argued; now I, at least, am inclined to believe it.

"There is Lord Brougham's head, his wig and his turn-up nose, you can see all distinctly. At least, you could if there was light enough."

But there was not light, for the sun was setting, and the moon only just rising. Black looked the heaving sea, except where rings of white foam encircled each group of rocks, blacker still. And blackest of all looked the iron-bound coast, sharp against the amber western sky.

"Yes, that's Kynance Cove, and the Gull Rock and Asparagus Island. Shall we row there? It's only about two miles."

Two miles there, and two back, through this angry sea, and then to land in the dim light about 9 p.m.! Courage failed us. We did not own this; we merely remarked that we would rather see Kynance by daylight, but I think each of us felt a sensation of relief when the boat's head was turned homewards.

Yet how beautiful it all was! Many a night afterwards we watched the same scene, but never lovelier than that night, the curved line of coast traceable distinctly up to Mount's Bay, and then the long peninsula which they told us was the Land's End, stretching out into the horizon, where sea and sky met in a mist of golden light, through which the sun was slowly dropping right from the sky into the sea. Beyond was a vague cloud-land, which might be the fair land of Lyonesse itself, said still to lie there submerged, with all its cities and towers and forests; or the "island-valley of Avillion," whither Arthur sailed with the three queens to be healed of his "grievous wound," and whence he is to come again some day. Popular superstition still expects him, and declares that he haunts this coast even now in the shape of a Cornish chough.

Modern ghosts, too, exist, decidedly more alarming.

"Look up there, ladies, that green slope is Pistol Meadow. Nobody likes to walk there after dark. Other things walk as well."

"What things?"

"Two hundred and more of foreign sailors, whose ship went to pieces in the little cove below. They're buried under the green mounds you see. Out of a crew of seven hundred only two men were washed ashore alive, and they were in irons, which the captain had put on them because they said he was going too near in shore. It was called Pistol Meadow because most of 'em were found with pistols in their hands, which may have been true or may not, since it happened more than a hundred years ago. However, there are the green mounds, you see, and Lizard folk don't much like passing the place after dark."

"But you?"

John Curgenven smiled. "Oh, us and the coast-guards! Us goes anywhere, at all hours, and never meets nothing. D'ye see those white marks all along the coast every few yards? They're rocks, kept white-washed, to guide the men of dark nights between here and Kynance. It's a ticklish path, when all's as black as pitch, with a stiff wind blowing."

I should think it was! One almost shuddered at the idea, and then felt proud of the steady heads and cool courage of these coast-guard men—always the pick of the service, true Englishmen, fearless and faithful—the business of whose whole lives is to save other lives—that is, now that smuggling has abated, and those dreadful stories once current all along the coast of Cornwall have become mostly legends of the past. No tales of wreckers, or of fights between smugglers and revenue officers, reached our ears, but the stories of shipwrecks were endless. Every winter, and many times through the winter, some ghastly tragedy had happened. Every half-mile along this picturesque shore was recorded the place where some good ship went to pieces, often with the brief addendum, "all hands lost."

"The sun's just setting. Look out for the Lizard Lights," called out Charles, who sat in the bow of the boat in faithful attendance upon his "ladies,"—another Knight of the Round Table in humble life—we met many such in Cornwall. "Look! There they are."

And sure enough, the instant the sun's last spark was quenched in the sea, into which he dropped like a red round ball, out burst two substitute suns, and very fair substitutes too, making the poor little moon in the east of no importance whatever. The gleam of them extended far out upon the darkening ocean, and we could easily believe that their light was "equal to 20,000 candles," and that they were seen out at sea to a distance of twenty, some said even thirty, miles.

"Except in a fog; and the fogs at the Lizard are very bad. Then you can see nothing, not even the Lights, but they keep sounding the fog-horn every minute or so. It works by the same machinery as works the Lights—a big steam-engine; you can hear it bum-bumming now, if you listen."

So we could, a mysterious noise like that of a gigantic bumble-bee, coming across the water from that curious building, long and white, with its two towers and those great eyes in each of them, at either end.

"They're wonderful bright;" said John Curgenven; "many's the time I've sat and read my newspaper by them a quarter of a mile off. They're seen through the blackest night, the blacker the brighter, seen through everything—except fog. Now, ladies, d'ye think you can jump ashore?"

Some of us did, airily enough, though it required to choose your moment pretty cleverly so as to escape the incoming wave. And some of us—well, we accepted the inevitable, and were only too thankful to scramble anyhow, wet or dry, on terra firma.

And then we had to ascend the zigzag path, slippery with loose stones, and uncertainly seen in the dim half-twilight, half-moonlight. At last we came out safe by the life-boat house, which we had noticed in passing, with the slit in its door for "Contributions," and a notice below that the key was kept at such and such a house—I forget the man's name—"and at the Rectory."