THE PORCH, LAUNCESTON CHURCH.
THE PORCH, LAUNCESTON CHURCH.
SMILER'S PIOUS CAT.
SMILER'S PIOUS CAT.
St. Ivesis small for its age, but is growing now. The town divides itself into two parts, the new and the old. The new is new, and the old is fragrant. The history of St. Ives also divides itself into two, the ancient and the modern; and the ancient goes back to the time of the saints. It was a woman who founded St. Ives. It is well to keep this in mind, because the well-known St. Ives was a lawyer, and so honest that he was never once struck off the rolls. Some of the piety of the ancient lady is said to linger about the town. It was she who introduced a new breed of cats, and the old town is still famousfor cats. There are Manx cats and Persian cats and St. Ives cats. The St. Ives cat is "at home" in the streets, and may be found in corners and on doorsteps, or stretched at full length across the roads, and sidewalks when there are any. St. Ives is apparently owned by cats, so respectful are the inhabitants, and so careful not to tread on their tails or toes. If a cat is stretched out enjoying the sunshine, a man will drive his cart around it, to the danger of humans paying rates and taxes. The St. Ives cat has a well-to-do, lascivious-looking air, and is only properly awake at nights. In the daytime the animal slinks along courts and side streets, and rubs itself against water-butts and tar-barrels and fish-flaskets, until it has an odour of mixed scents as strong as a distillery of perfumes. Nothing can beat pilchard oil mixed with garbage, which the St. Ives cat loves. When the boats return in the early hours of the morning, the cats make tracks for the quay, and every cat knows its own boat, and waits for the men to come ashore, and then purrs and purrs, and rubs its scented fur against the men's long-boots. The men belong to the cats, every cat a man and every man a cat. Women and mice don't count much with St. Ives cats—it's men and fish for them.
Smiler's Pious Cat.
"Ded 'ee ever hear th' story of Smiler's cat? No? Well, then, I'll tell 'ee," said a man, gutting a fish upon an iron post, and throwing tid-bits to a long lanky tabby with one mild blue eye and one a dark grassy green. "He wadn't a fighter, egcept he was provoked, and then he was game; but he was a most orderly cat and pious. Now you may laugh, but ef iver there was a pious cat, 'twas Smiler's. Smiler wadn't pious, but Bob was. Bob was black with a white tie round his neck, so he had a respectable appearance, and was looked up to by all the cats in the parish. Bob knew when Smiler had a good week, and knew where to find him when he'd had enough and 'twas time to go home. Smiler was a peaceful man at all times, and when he'd had full 'lowance, and more, he'd sit down and talk over old times, and his father and mother, and begin to cry. Then Bob would rub against his legs and make for the door, and Smiler would follow 'zackly like a cheeld—ess he would. When 'twas dark Bob 'ud walk back-'ards and show Smiler the way by the light of es eyes—starboard and port, port and starboard—till Smiler got home. Bob was that pious he wouldn't eat no vish on a Sunday, and he was so looked up to by all the cats that not one would run down to the quay on a Saturday or a Sunday night—not sure 'nuff—not if all the boats camein chock-vull of vish. 'No Sunday vish for St. Ives!' was the motto with Bob, and all the cats followed. Smiler was that happy on Saturdays that he cudn't rise on Sundays, and Bob used to keep watch and listen to the Salvation Army services which he cud hear quite plain through the open window. Bob got to like the music and grew serious, and tuk to followin' th' band. People tuk notice, and said 'twas Smiler's Bob, and expected to see Smiler foller the cat, as he did at nights when he was well 'bowsed.'
"Bob was going after Smiler one night, as usual, after 'sharing,' and, as ill fortune would have it, he met an old friend in the cat-line, and they went off together, which was sad for Smiler, who went wrong, and slipped into the water, without being seen or heard. Bob went about like a mazed cat, and never rested till he sniffed out Smiler, caught by a mooring chain. It was wonderful to see Bob follerin' at the funeral, and many would have taken care ov him, but he had a 'call,' and follered the Salvation Army, and to the last day of his innocent life would eat no vish on a Sunday—not no vish even caught on a Saturday; no risks for Bob. If some people was only as good as some cats," said the man, resuming work and throwing a morsel to the long lanky tabby, "why, then I say there'd be no call for bad blood between East and West on the score of Sunday fishing and Sunday markets."
"How do you account for this uncommon piety in a cat?" asked Guy.
"'Twas bred in him, s'poase. Anyhow, he was uncommon pious, and his good example is follered. Thiccy theer cat wud no more ate vish catched on Sunday than he'd fly. Wad'ee, Tom?"
Tom purred.
"I knawed it," said the man, washing the fish and pushing his forefinger through its gills.
The St. Ives women always enjoyed the reputation of being well endowed with tongue. Some people think their old vivacity is the result of foreign blood, but it is singular that the "gift" of tongue should follow only in the female line. A St. Ives man is quiet enough until his blood is up, and then he wants to hit something, or throw something overboard, and make a big noise in the open air. There is the story of three young women slipping into their pattens and going to the well with their pitchers for water. Their husbands were at sea. The young women began to talk, and they talked on and on until their husbands returned, and found them just at the beginning of an argument. So they off to sea once more, and back again, and the three women were still at the well, and getting interested in the argument. Then the three men took a long voyage, and returning with well-lined purses found their wives, now grown white, still at thewell, but on the point of adjourning till the morrow to take up the thread of the old argument.
A CORNISH FISH WIFE.
A CORNISH FISH WIFE.
The St. Ives woman, however, has a turn for business. What her man catches she sells, and pays his bills for nets and barking and repairs. On land she's "boss," and has a "sharing cake" once a week when she settles accounts. The "sharing cake" is an ancient institution, and must be respected. It has its ceremonial, too, and must be broken with the fingers, not cut with a knife, because cold steel would bring bad luck. The customs of women are very different in the North and South. Like Newlyn, St. Ives is the home of artists of world-wide reputation.
A SIDE STREET.
A SIDE STREET.
A CornishSunday to a man of cities is a weariness to the flesh, and a temptation to pray for Monday to come quickly; but for the natives it is a blessed day—a day of feathers and soft down, a day for chewing the cud and being lazy without reproach. The fishermen rarely fish on Saturdays because the sacred idleness of the Sunday may be broken by the salesmen and railway porters—so the day of rest is made to stretch over as much of two days as is worth the having. Farmers are not so well off as fishers, but do what they can in the resting line, and that is something. Whenwe walked through any of the villages on a Sunday we found the people mostly looking over their garden gates, casting glances "up-along," or "down-along," or "athwart," just to see what was going on, and who was moving. They don't like cycles or cyclists on Sundays, and when one comes along all the men in their shirt-sleeves, and all the women helping them to do nothing, squirm as though wounded in a tender place. Every time it is the same—the same inward shrinking from activity on a day of rest. Those who do nothing all the week feel just the same, and lie about, and squat about, indoors, when not outside resting their ample chins upon ample arms upon gates and walls, staring "up-along," and "down-along," and "athwart," watching one another.
Whatever can sleep, sleeps, and the people don't seem properly awake until after tea, when the women make ready for chapel, and the men go after them. The men wouldn't stir but for the women, and the women make a bee-line for chapel. Sunday is given up to preaching and preachers. If you see a man driving on a Sunday, you may put him down for a "local" brother, who works at his trade all the week and is preacher on Sundays. You may know him by a certain smile of goodness that plays around his mouth, for he is going to have a good time. The lay preacher is a by-product of Methodism, and avaluable one in large and scattered circuits too poor for anything but a little chapel of four walls and a brush of whitewash. The Methodist clergy live in the towns and work around the circuit, so the people in the villages see their minister sometimes. The ordained minister is a "rounder," because of his travelling round. The lay, or "local," brothers come in and fill up gaps, and they travel from place to place according to a "plan"—a sort of calendar and time-table combined. It is a system, and it works, and congregations are not wearied with the same face and voice two Sundays in succession. It is good for the lay brother, who can run one sermon for three months without much fear of being bowled out.
The lay preacher is almost a professional once a week, and goes so far as to wear a clerical bowler, but the white necktie is reserved, as a rule, for his betters. There is no written law upon the subject, but it is understood that the white necktie is for the professional "rounder." The lay brother has privileges, and may drive proudly through the land of saints on Sundays and be welcomed, though no one else may let or hire a trap for love or money. The lay brother may not ride a bicycle, which is a pity, looked at from the side of horseflesh.
"I'll drive 'ee to plaize 'ee, but I'd rather not," said a good-tempered landlord, one Sunday,when we wished to pay respects to an ancient monument.
"Why would you rather not?"
"People talk so, and say nasty things to the children."
"But some one has just driven past, and every one smiled and how-de-doo'd him."
"That's oal right. He's goin' to praich."
"But the pony looked tired."
"I shud zay so. Six mile and stiffish hills, and not wance ded ee git out ov th' trap."
"Do you mean that a preacher of the Gospel over-drives his horse?"
"I mane that ef a hill is as stiff as a house a praicher won't never walk on a Zunday—not wan inch of th' way."
Now the vent-peg was out, our host's eloquence ran freely, and much he said of the over-driving and under-feeding of hired horses by lay preachers on Sundays, and of the reluctance which people had to take on the "horse hire" contracts for the Sunday work, because the men who walked the hills fast enough in their weekday clothes would not walk an inch in their Sunday clothes when "planned" for preaching. A false standard of dignity this, which made men cruel. And then the under-feeding? There is no excuse for this. The lay brother is served with all the luxuries of the season at the tables of the brethren on whom he is billeted as a soldierof the cross, and should not forget the hard-working little animal which has dragged him the whole distance, and will have to drag him back again, and the worse the weather the quicker the pace.
Lay preaching is the homely fare of Sunday congregations, who thrive on it because it suits them and sticks in their memories. The "higher criticism" is not wanted by them. Here are a few specimens, picked up in various places.
"You'll never want friends whilst you've God and your victuals."
"Some people's religion is like badly baked dough—put in with the bread and took out with the cakes."
"What the Bible says is true, as true as I've a-got specketty stockings on."
"I do pity the poor ould devil, he lost such a good plaace oal dru catching a cold en es faith. Ess, my dears, he was like some folks along weth we, who get boilin' hot when they'm convarted, and then catch chill dru sittin' en a draught."
"There was wance a great man who gave a great supper to a braave lot of guests. And ded'm come? Not for sure, but they all sent excuses. Wan said, 'I've boughten a piece of land, an' must go an' try et;' an' another said, 'I've boughten vive yoke of oxen, an' must try they;' an' another said, 'I've married a wife, an' must stap to home to try she.'"
"Cast your bread upon the waters, and doan't 'ee luk fust to see whichee way th' wind es blawing. Aw, my dears, there's many a man wean't trust the Loard weth a penny loaf, and so they lose the blessing, like ould Timothy Tack, who spent sixpence to find thrupence."
"Love your neighbour, that is a commandment; but ef you b'lieve in him he's sure to do 'ee!"
"Some people say, 'You can't believe a thing unless you can see and feel it;' but I say you can. Look 'ee now. Here's my hand—fowr fingers an' a thum'. Well, that's fact, edn't et? Now then" (hiding his hand from view), "my hand has got fowr fingers an' a thum', but you can't see'm. Well, that's b'leef. Never say, then, you can't b'lieve what you can't see and feel."
"When I was a boy, a man used to come round crying 'Bellows to mend,' and the schoolmaster our way put up a sign, 'Manners to mend.' Now, I think we might put up that sign in chapels where people come on Sundays trapesing in as though they were going by train, and quattin' down, and spittin' on th' floor, for oal th' world 'twas a tiddly-wink. Them's manners to mend, sure 'nuff, an' would be th' better for mendin', like Jakey Luney's britches, ragged behind."
Sometimes the local brother's homily is verypointed, but no offence is taken. The preacher is one of themselves, and they will take a lot from him in good part. If a stranger were to take the same liberty there would be trouble. Here is a specimen from an address spoken from the pulpit in the free-and-easy manner of every-day conversation.
"You wean't get into heaven just because you've a pious mother or a pious father. Not for sure. Now, I'll tell 'ee a story about a man who deceived moast everybody when he was in the flesh, and he liked chateing so much that he al'ys prayed loudest after he'd tooked in somebody—an' there's more like'n down along weth we now. We'll just give him a name, an' call him Jim Tresidder. He was on the 'plan,' like me, and people said 'twas good to hear him hold forth, and I s'poase 'twas. Jim put a bold face upon it when he marched up to the golden gate, and rapped weth his knuckles upon the little shutter, till Peter looked out. 'Who ar'ee?' asks Peter. 'Doan't 'ee knaw me? Why, I'm Jim Tresidder.' Then he tunied up a bit, and began to sing, 'Heaven is my home.' Now, Peter must have liked the look of Jim—he had sich a pious look weth un, for he stretched forth his hand for the key hanging over his head to open the gate weth. 'I'm oal right now,' thinks Jim, singing louder and louder. 'Avoor I let 'ee in,' says Peter, 'I'll have a look at the book,' andhe turned over the leaves till he came to the T's. 'You'm Jim Tresidder of Trevalsa,' ses he. 'Ess,' says Jim. 'Then I'm sorry for 'ee,' says Peter, hanging up the key wance more. Then he showed Jim the book through the peep-hole, and when he seed oal the people he'd chated, and the evil he had caused, his heart sank into his shoes. 'I'll live in a dark corner, anywhere, if you'll only let me in. My poor mother is waiting for me. She was called Jane, an' was pious—now do 'ee lev me in, there's a dear man,' ses he, the great tears rolling down his chacks. 'Your mother is here weth the shining ones,' says Peter, 'but you caan't come in because of she, no, f'y, you caan't, for up here every fish do hang by his own gills. And you will hang too—on the outside.'"
The county is honeycombed with dissent, and the fat of the land is labelled "Wesleyan." The beneficed clergy are beautifully housed, with gardens and stables, and all the appointments of gentlemen; but the "livings" are not fat. Some country clergy take "paying guests," and some let their houses in the summer. The orthodox Wesleyan ministers are fairly well off, and live rent free; and the others live as best they can, and get commissions on the sale of books and periodicals. One of the brethren left a record of thirty thousand teeth drawn during his professional career. As a rule, they "draw" well, and willdraw coin from the most unlikely places. A child having swallowed a piece of silver, the doctor, in despair, sent for the minister, saying the case was hopeless if he failed to get it. The coin was recovered.[D]
There is a good deal of "religion" to be met with, and not so much need for Salvation Army music as in some places. There are certain times when people want to feel good, but they don't all feel the same way at the same time, which saves monotony. They say that at St. Agnes the people start being good when the cold weather sets in, and the feeling lasts until potato-planting time, and then, somehow, the good feeling sloughs off. I don't know what becomes of it, only it is put on one side for the next season, just like a boy puts on one side his bag of marbles and brings out tops. It's the same boy, but a new game. In the summer it's a struggle to be good anywhere, there's so many fairs and feasts and frolics, and the young men and maidens are so fond of courting on the cliffs and downs. It's the custom of the country and suits well enough, so strangers may turn their heads on one side—it's none of their business. In the autumn the good feeling comes again and extends along the coast, especially when the fishing is "slight." The young men get tired of the maidens about this time, andwant to be good for evermore, and the want grows with the badness of the season. One sign of goodness in the country is thrift. The man who neither chews, nor smokes, nor drinks beer, and who never spends a copper without looking on both sides of it, is sure to be good.
You always know when the good season is coming on by the people singing. They are pretty good, in spots, at singing, but the "gift," as they call it, is not universal. A gift is supposed to run in families, and a man with the voice of a crow will insist on singing because his great-grandfather once played the double bass in a church choir. There is a musical zone in the West, and the young women who work in the open air have very sweet voices. These are the "bal" maidens, and work on the dressing-floors of the mines. When the time comes round for them to feel good they "tuney up" a bit, and take the young men who work underground along with them to the love-feasts and prayer-meetings in the little Bethels scattered all about the moors.
They call themselves "Weslums" when they are not something ending in "ists" or "ite," and are bursting with goodness every Whit-Monday, just as sure as the day comes round. Why Whit-Monday more than any other day in the year would puzzle any one who did not know that on a certain day the cuckoo must sing. It's a sort of something which makes the bird sing, and it's a sortof something which makes the "Weslums" feel good on Whit-Monday, and draws them with invisible bands towards Gwennap Pit. Whit-Monday is the anniversary of an occasion when John Wesley,theJohn Wesley,ourJohn Wesley preached in the pit—- not the pit as it is, but the pit as it was.
John Wesley wouldn't know the pit, or the people who flock there now on Whit-Mondays. The old pit was an abandoned mine of no particular shape, but inclined to be round, like a bowl warped in the firing. Then the miners came with pickaxe and shovel, and cut terraces against the land, and made the ring quite round, with its terraces rising one above another, until it became a sort of county monument to which the "Weslums" are drawn in their tens of thousands as to a shrine. John Wesley is a "Saint" in Cornwall, and all those who went before him have to take back seats; and Whit-Monday, at the Pit, is now a sort of religious carnival, with picnic combined, at which Saint John would have shied when in the flesh, like good St. Anthony at a Pleasant Sunday Afternoon, with fiddles and a ballet. When Wesley first came among the people they had an unpleasant trick of throwing stones and turves at him, and hustling him out of one parish into another, and then out upon the downs, where he might live upon frosty turnips when there wereno blackberries. "Starring" in the country was not pleasant at times; and cold, wet, and starving, the little-great man often had the appearance of a scarecrow riding upon a tough little nag as starved as himself. But he caught on, and emptied the cock-pit and wrestling ring, and provided entertainments wherein were mighty wrestlings with the invisible for immortal stakes. So he reached the natural cravings of a dramatic people for excitement and scenic change, and made them actors, with the blue heavens above, the earth trembling, and the hill-sides lined with living faces, wet and radiant. Greater than he have tramped the county since, but conditions have altered, and onlyoneWesley is possible. And that is why people are drawn as to a shrine to Gwennap Pit, and the feeling comes upon them every Whit-Monday that they must go there, for there is a troubling of the waters then, and they may be healed. The old spirit of votive offerings survives in the land of saints and holy wells.
The Cornish must have been a very well-meaning folk at one time, estimated by the number of churches which they built. They built little else, perhaps, but they did build good and substantial churches, mostly with square towers and four pinnacles, to be seen of men far and near. In the parish of Paul, near Penzance, the towers of fifteen parish churches may becounted from one spot, and, though not so thick everywhere, the minds of the people centred around the churches for more reasons than one. In the old days, when roads were few and detestably bad, people reckoned church towers as guides, and calculated distances from church tower to church tower. Every man who ventured far from home knew the church towers by sight and the bells by sound; they were marks at sea as well, and mariners knew them and their bells as well as now they know bell-buoys and lighthouses upon the charts. A hamlet with a church became a "town," so a man says he's going to Church-town, and still measures the distance between places by saying it is so far from one church tower to the other.
Then came the little chapel, four-square and whitewashed, with plain glass windows, winking and blinking in the daytime, but a place of joy. Some people measure distances as from Bethel to Zion, and then no other question is needed on the point of worship. It's all there, when the chapel comes before the church. The day of bitterness is passing, but the preference comes out accidentally.
Now there is a third building seen from far and seen everywhere, and that is the school which has been raised by the people with more hardship and self-denial than in the rest of the kingdom, because of the smallness of means, which oftenmakes the dividing line with downright poverty very fine indeed. Only the thrift of the people would have enabled them to uprear schools finer in every respect than chapels, and first and foremost amongst the buildings of the county. The schools rank next the churches, and are usually built where they may be seen.
The parsons had to fight tooth and nail for their tithes of cows and calves and pigs and other things, and had to look sharp that butter and cheese were not palmed off on them as of like value. The Vicar of Zennor made a note in the parish register that three of his tithe-paying parishioners had planted butter and cheese in the chancel of the church, where he let it stay until it became too ripe for endurance, and then he ordered the churchwardens to remove it, which they did; and the three smart farmers lost their produce, and the vicar got his tithe of living animals, after all. A vicar wanted knowledge not included in university curricula to make the two ends meet in a Cornish parish in the good old times. They have to struggle now to hold their own and make a bit, which some say they are doing, and some shake their heads, so one may think what he likes.
OLD COINAGE STREET, PENZANCE.
OLD COINAGE STREET, PENZANCE.
TheCornish are born actors and actresses, but the natural talent is suppressed early, and it is not considered respectable to do or say anything like a "play-actor." But the talent breaks bounds and shows itself even in the last moments of the aged, composing their features, so as to "look 'ansum" after death.
The county has no theatre, no vaudeville,nothing in which to develop the dramatic instincts of a dramatic people. Now and again a travelling company, or piece of one, gives a performance in a hall licensed for dramatic presentations; but the people have become shy of being seen with uncovered faces at plays not labelled "sacred." Susannah, with realistic touches, would be popular, if the Lord Chamberlain could see his way to license the performance. When away from home the people patronize theatres and music-halls, and, on their return, sing favourite hymns to comic opera. Dancing is prohibited in places, and is "taboo" even when winked at; but some of the day schools are now teaching children how to use their feet and legs to music, under the head of "exercises" or "physical instruction." When an Italian organ-grinder comes into a village, the children dance as though they like it. The Flora, or Flurry, dance has some claim to be Cornish, and in time may be danced well again in the open air at fairs and feasts.
The Cornish are imaginative, vivacious, quick to realize situations. When there is any difficulty about words, a man or woman will get over it by acting the part. Watch the men disputing, and you see unrehearsed comedy—and very good comedy in its way. The old Cornish were very fond of mysteries and miracle-plays, which were performed in the open, and for the love of the thing. If one may believe, tens of thousands ofpeople used to tramp over the pathless downs to see a miracle-play, or a series of plays, performed in some natural amphitheatre. The plays speak for themselves. Some still exist, and we have only to fancy the tens of thousands standing and squatting around, gazing rapt and full-eyed upon the stage hour after hour, and then day by day, until the mysteries were finished for the season. Men, women, and children all "trapsed" to these plays, and, like the Japs of to-day, never left the scene as long as there was anything to see. The performances were realistic enough, and angels and devils took their parts in a manner to upset any respectable system of theology. The actors learned their parts, and the prompter, book in hand, followed the actors and told them what to say when they were at a loss. The prompter was known as the "ordinary," and on one occasion the ordinary, being a pleasant conceited gentleman, played "a merry prank" with a poor actor who was not well up in his part. The story runs: "His turn came: quoth the ordinary, 'Go forth, man, and show thyself.' The gentleman steps out upon the stage, and, like a bad clerk in Scripture matters, cleaving more to the letter than the sense, pronounced those words aloud. 'Oh,' says the fellow softly in his ear, 'you mar all the play.' And with this his passion the actor makes the audience in like sort acquainted. Hereon the prompter falls to flat railing andcursing in the bitterest terms he could devise; which the gentleman with a set gesture and countenance still soberly related, until the ordinary, driven at last into mad rage, was fain to give all over; which trousse, though it break off the interlude, yet defrauded not the beholders, but dismissed them with a great deal more sport and laughter than twenty such guaries could have afforded."[E]
In former times, Midsummer Eve festivities were celebrated with much joyousness and dancing through the streets, and the lighting of bonfires at night, so that, seen from the sea, the coast-line showed a blaze of light. This was originally a pagan celebration of the summer solstice, and the Romish Church took it over and rechristened it, calling the rejoicing the festivals of St. John and St. Peter. The Reformed Church took over the festivals as a legacy, and they lingered on in the land until dissent brought out their fire brigades and at last extinguished them. There is another "pagan" celebration which will not die. The public May-time rejoicings were nearly extinguished once, but are active again, and the good people of Helston dress up, and sing and dance from morn to night, because the spring has come again, and the land may once more be made beautiful with flower andcorn. At one time the Church encouraged these public rejoicings, and gave them as much of a religious appearance as possible, but now there is nothing to suggest religion except the "collection" which the dancers make for their own benefit.
When the Cornish language fell into disuse, fell also all prospect of a drama indigenous to a land of which one can never say how much is real. The sad autumn leaves fell upon the literary remembrances of the people when old Dolly Pentreath died, and as some one must have been the last to speak the language, as well Dolly as another, and better, perhaps, as we can see her portrait and her monolith. The old popular performances under the blue sky died out with the tongue, and then followed the travelling showman and the lady in tights and spangles, and then the old Christmas mummers with their diabolrie and three-men songs. The English drama in no form has any hold in the county now, and even Shakespeare is caviare to the general. Only one Cornishman made his mark upon the stage, and of no great credit he, so we let him pass; but the county is foster-mother to Sir Henry Irving, fittest of all men to have been a son, so well he "loved the fancies and legends of the people."[F]
"There are comedies and tragedies withscenes laid in Cornwall in plenty, but no Cornish drama or dramatist," said the Bookworm. And yet there might have been.
BOSCASTLE HABOUR.
BOSCASTLE HABOUR.
Tregeagle is the Cornish Faust. The story took a few centuries to develop, and there is nothing to be added now to heighten its dramatic effect. Tregeagle was a young man of ambition, with a vein of discontent running through his composition. One day, when brooding over what he was, and what he would be, seeing all things in false perspective, Old Artful made his acquaintance, and there was the usual bargain, signed, sealed and delivered. "This is my act and deed," said Tregeagle, putting his finger on the red seal drawn from his own veins. Tregeagle was to live in airy-fairy palaces, and have the run of every man's preserves until such time as Old Artful choose, and then—well, what was left of his tissue-paper soul would be wanted in another place. Old Artful behaved in the handsomest manner, and Mr. Tregeagle lived in a palace in up-to-date splendour, with men-servants and maid-servants, and every one took off his hat or curtsied as he passed, and he was as hard to the poor as a landlord's agent, and rode roughshod over whom he would. In fact, he couldn't be a greater swell before the days of motors. All went gaily with him, until, one day, he consulted his diary and found that his lease under the contract had nearly expired, and then he became"hurried in his mind," and lost appetite, and cast about to see if he could save himself, and pay no forfeit. Now, Old Artful was a good judge of character and knew his man, so, when the time was up, he let the fairy palace, with all its beautiful gardens and stables and greenhouses, sink into the earth, and covered them over with water so deep that some said no plummet could find bottom. Having trapped his man so nicely, Old Artful was in good humour, and gave Tregeagle a limpet-shell with a hole in it, and told him he might work out his redemption by emptying the lake; for, said he, "you can't expect to have all the good things of this world without paying for them, either in money or marbles." Tregeagle looked at the limpet-shell, so small that a thimbleful of water would overflow it, and then at the hole in the bottom, but he cared little for that as he could stop it up with his finger. It was a hopeless task, yet he was comforted by the thought that in the matter of the hole, by stopping it with his finger, he would score one off Old Artful. Then he commenced baling the water from the lake; and when he would rest, Old Artful's imps spurred him on and on until he shrieked and roared, so that all the people round about him shook in their shoes. "To roar like Tregeagle," became a saying when one was groaning under deserved punishment. The unhappy man is still working at his task, and it issaid there is not so much water in the lake as aforetime.
"Then Old Artful will have outwitted himself after all, for he gave the fellow a task intended to be endless," said Guy.
"There is hope; and that is where the Cornish story differs from many variations of Faust," said the Bookworm.
"I like the Cornish all the better for that," said Guy.
BRETON ONION-BOY.
BRETON ONION-BOY.
Wealways removed our hats before entering a church: it is the custom of the country, and we were without prejudices. If we saw a clergyman wondering at the rapid growth of nettles and docks and wild heliotrope over his little freehold, we took off our hats to him. I don't mention this in a vain-glorious spirit, only once or twice we were looked on with suspicion, and shown dirty finger-marks upon walls, and scratches made with knives upon monuments, and detestable rhymes scribbled in pencil, where they could be seen. We wereshown some writing which was discovered pinned to the altar after a strange "gentleman and lady" had made the round of the church, and gone away. The verger apologized when showing us the writing, which he did only in order to justify his looking upon us with some degree of suspicion. We felt sorry for the "lady and gentleman," and they might have been sorry for themselves, if we could have talked to them for a few minutes in a convenient place.
The vicar came in and insisted on showing us his "treasures." They were not many, and we wished them more, for his sake, he was so anxious to make us forget having been told that a "gentleman" with a soft cap, and a "lady" with no cap at all, should have been guilty of pinning an indecent writing to God's altar. He pitied them; and Guy felt that he would like to have the chance of pitying the gentleman with the soft cap after a strictly private interview.
The vicar tapped the Bookworm, and would have us stay to luncheon. They exchanged views, and talked book catalogues, and dry goods like that. We got out into the grounds, which were a little paradise. Something from all quarters of the world grew there, and in the open, too—nothing to hurt them, winter or summer, in this charming place. We got away from books and dry stuff at last, and found that our genial vicar could talk other things.
"Thebien entente, orentente cordiale, or whatever you like to call it, which startled Europe, is so old a thing amongst us, that we were set laughing when told of the new discovery—the diplomatic radium of the hour," said the vicar, laughing.
"I thought you Cornish were very alarmed at French invasions, and hated Frenchmen like the lost archangel holy water. What were the popular stories with which you sent children sobbing to bed, about the Great Napoleon?" asked the Bookworm.
"Stories innumerable, and they served a purpose. A thousand such stories might be invented to-morrow, and some would be believed, with a German, a Russian, or a yellow bug-a-boo for figurehead. But, let me tell you, there has always been a link between England and France, and that is the Cornu-Breton link. Cornish boats were often safe in French harbours when Napoleon was fitting out his great Armada, and Nelson driving Frenchmen from the seas. We wanted brandy and silks, and the French merchants wanted money, so thebien ententewas all serene. Then we wanted salt for curing, and there was nothing more common in our harbours than Frenchchasse-maréesladen with sea-salt; and who more popular than the Breton sailor in a Cornish port, in blue blouse and sabots, and pockets stuffed full of prunes, which he shook out as he walked,followed by a queue of children singing, 'How do you do, Johnny Crapaud?' And then, most touching, when Frenchy and the littlemousse, trusting themselves alone in Cornish lanes, gathered bucketfuls of esculent snails for soup. Thebien ententewas all right still, though there were wars and rumours of wars. The Cornu-Breton link held fast when Cornwall raised its volunteers when Napoleon the Third sent a thrill of fear through the land, when Fashoda was a burning word, and when the Paris journals made the English blood boil during the Boer war. And what was the Cornu-Breton link?"
The vicar paused, and then added: "The link is here. It is knocking at my gate."
There was a chubby-faced youngster at the back door, in blue smock and knitted cap, bending under the weight of the onions he was carrying suspended from a pole on his shoulder.
"This is the Cornu-Breton link—onions followed salt, and salt brandy. These chubby-faced boys invade us every year and 'dump' all the spare onions they grow in their little gardens at home. It is their harvest, and the brave little hearts, trudging in a strange land, with raw shoulders, are welcomed everywhere, whatever the party passions of the hour. It is a small link, but it is steel, and when London and Paris were drinking champagne to the new sensation, we were buying our onions off our little Breton friends,giving them milk to drink, and sharing pasties, and giving them ointments with which to rub their poor little raw shoulders, and then resting them in barns so that they might be up and off with sunrise to sell their onions."
The vicar beckoned to the boy, who came and told us of his home at Paimpol; this was his second season here, and next year he would not come because he was conscript, and would serve on board a man-of-war. His eyes glistened when he talked of meeting British ships, and the Cornish bluejackets who knew him as a little onion boy. And they would be friends!
Guy tipped the boy when no one was looking, and so did his best to keep the Cornu-Breton link intact.
I do believe the good vicar was sorry when we went.
The people are not given to "hustle;" if the word has reached the county, the thing hasn't in any great quantity. There is still a blessed refuge in the world for men and women tired of "hustle" in all its moods and tenses. Being on time at a railway station is genuine distress to natives until they get used to it, and the language is not strong in equivalents for "hustle." To make moderate haste is to "hurry-all," to be in a genuine hurry is to be "stark-staring-mad." The idea of smoothness resulting from leisure suits the Cornish geniusat home, and he has a pleasing word for it in "suant." When everything is as "suant as oil," it is perfection itself. "Who carries the broth must go suant," gives the idea of abundance of time in which to perform an errand without mishap. To be too slow for anything is only to be "asleep"—there is no anger in the reproach, just a gentle reminder, that is all. Anything mouldy and vinewed is said to be "sleeping"—in a delicious state of rest which it would be a pity to disturb. A Cornishman only does one job at a time; when he talks he rests from all other work.
MEVAGISSEY.
MEVAGISSEY.
Guy said he must have his hair cut; the Bookworm might please himself; it might suit his style of beauty to be mistaken for an ancient bard. The first town we came to we looked out for the striped pole, and there was one outside a tobacco shop. It was afternoon when we entered the shop with a partition running through it, so one half was sacred to the "weed," and the other half to the performance of ancient rites. A green curtain divided the double shop from the rear. The shop was empty, but the curtain was half drawn, and we saw a man polishing his boots. This was the barber, who finished his job, and met us, smiling. Guy induced the Bookworm to take the chair first, because his hair being darker would not show the illustrative finger-marks so clearly as his own. Guy talked to the barberabout boot-polish, and so interested him that he stopped operations and talked. A man came in and propped up the partition with a shoulder, and Mr. Figaro left his job and served a packet of cigarettes. Then the new-comer began a story about one Billy Tregarne who, falling down a clay-pit, was mistaken for the miller by his own wife, who turned him to doors with much abuse and a "scat in the chacks." It was all very interesting, but took time, and the Bookworm was only half trimmed. The new-comer suddenly remembered that he had left his shop open with no one to "mind" it, and walked away as leisurely as he came. Then Mr. Figaro worked away, only stopping occasionally to enjoy an inward chuckle; and when Guy went off without being operated on, he seemed quite glad at having no more to do just then.
In towns, tradesmen spend a good deal of time in their shop doors, looking "up-along" and "down-along," or across the street, and hold conversations with each other in their several shop doors.
The inhabitants live long and die leisurely. When one is a trifle over-anxious people tell him not to worry, for "you'll live till you die, like Nicketty Booth."
The man in the highway never misses a chance for a gossip, and will give old nuts for news, to any extent.
"Holloa! my man; which is the way to Church-town?" Guy shouted to a labourer, who seemed to be doing his best to prop up a hedge.
The man struck work at once and came forward leisurely. He eyed us up and down, making a mental register of our marks. Then he seemed to take an interest in us and our business.
"Going Church-town, art a?"
"Yes, and which is the way?"
"Want to see Farmer? Well, then, a ed'n home. Farmer had fine field of wheat in ten-acre field, sure 'nuff, and he's gone to market. He was drashing yesterday, and the drashing machine cut off Tom Curnow's fingers. Ess sure, 'e ded."
"We don't want Farmer," said Guy, cutting in.
"Well, then, Tom Trebilcock? Tom's cow calved last week, and she's a good milker. Didn't know Tom was going to sell."
"Never mind Tom; tell us the road, the way, the what-you-like-to-call-it, to Church-town."
"There's passun's house close by the church, and passun's little mare is a good un to travel. They do say——"
"How do we get there?"
"Ef so be you'm in a hurry you need'n go, cos Farmer's drivin' mare to market."
"We'd like to get there in daylight," said Guy, gravely.
"Sartinly;" and then the man gathered himself together for a supreme effort. "You do go through meadow-close, and plain-close, and then into high-lane, and volly on, an' there you be, sure."
"But where is meadow-close?"
"Oh, back along."
"But where?"
"Back along to stile."
"Thanks very much, my good man, and may your shadow never grow less."
We left the man apparently wondering what sort of animals there were at large who didn't know the way to Church-town. Gradually he unbent himself, and went back to prop up the hedge.
In conversation a good deal of ground is covered in a non-committal sort of way by illustrations well understood by the parties, but Greek to any stranger. A worthy person who does mischief with the best intentions is said to be like "Aunt Gracie's vear"—which means that the little pig, with the best intentions in the world, sucked the old sow to death. Few would suspect that "Betsy Bowden's leg" tells a tragedy, but it does:—