Part 3

"I'm sure you're very kind, ladies, to be so pleased with everything," apologised our bright-looking handmaiden; "and since you really wish to keep this room"--a very homely parlour which we had chosen in preference to a larger one, because it looked on the sea--"I only wish things was better for you; still, if you can make shift--"

Well, if travellers cannot "make shift" with perfectly clean tidy rooms, well-cooked plain food, and more than civil, actually kindly, attendance, they ought to be ashamed of themselves! So we declared we would settle down in the evidently despised little parlour.

It was not an æsthetic apartment, certainly. The wall-paper and carpet would have driven Morris and Co. nearly frantic; the furniture--mere chairs and a table--belonged "to the year one"--but (better than many modern chairs and tables) you could sit down upon the first and dine upon the second, in safety. There was no sofa, so we gladly accepted an offered easy-chair, and felt that all really useful things were now ours.

But the ornamental? There was a paper arrangement in the grate, and certain vases on the chimney-piece which literally made our hair stand on end! After a private consultation as to how far we might venture, without wounding the feelings of our landlady, we mildly suggested that "perhaps we could do without these ornaments." All we wanted in their stead were a few jars, salt-jars or jam-pots, in which to arrange our wild flowers, of which yesterday the girls had gathered a quantity.

The exchange was accepted, though with some surprise. But when, half an hour afterwards, the parlour appeared quite transformed, decorated in every available corner with brilliant autumn flowers--principally yellow--intermixed with the lovely Cornish heath; when, on some excuse or other, the hideous "ornament for your fire-stoves" was abolished, and the grate filled with a mass of green fern and grey sea-holly--I know no combination more exquisite both as to colour and form--then we felt that we could survive, at least for a week, even if shut up within this humble room, innocent of the smallest attraction as regarded art, music, or literature.

But without doors? There Nature beat Art decidedly.

What a world it was! Literally swimming in sunshine, from the sparkling sea in the distance, to the beds of marigolds close by--huge marigolds, double and single, mingled with carnations that filled the air with rich autumnal scent, all the more delicious because we feel it is autumnal, and therefore cannot last. It was a very simple garden, merely a square grass-plot with a walk and a border round it, and its only flowers were these marigolds, carnations, with quantities of mignonette, and bounded all round with a hedge of tamarisk; yet I think we shall always remember it as if it were the Garden of Armida--without a Tancred to spoil it!

For--under the rose--one of the pleasures of our tour was that it was so exclusively feminine. We could feed as we liked, dress as we liked, talk to whom we liked, without any restriction, from the universal masculine sense of dignity and decorum in travelling. We felt ourselves unconventional, incognito, able to do exactly as we chose, provided we did nothing wrong.

So off we drove through Lizard Town into the "wide, wide world;" and I repeat, what a world it was! Full filled with sunlight, and with an atmosphere so fresh and bracing, yet so dry and mild and balmy, that every breath was a pleasure to draw. We had felt nothing like it since we stood on the top of the highest peak in the Island of Capri, looking down on the blue Mediterranean. But this sea was equally blue, the sky equally clear, yet it was home--dear old England, so often misprized. Yet, I believe, when one does get really fine English weather, there is nothing like it in the whole world.

The region we traversed was not picturesque--neither mountains, nor glens, nor rivers, nor woods; all was level and bare, for the road lay mostly inland, until we came out upon Kennack Sands.

They might have been the very "yellow sands" where Shakespeare's elves were bidden to "take hands" and "foot it featly here and there." You might almost have searched for the sea-maids' footsteps along the smooth surface where the long Atlantic waves crept harmlessly in, making a glittering curve, and falling with a gentle "thud"--the only sound in the solitary bay, until all at once we caught voices and laughter, and from among some rock, emerged a party of girls.

They had evidently come in a cart, which took up its station beside our carriage, laden with bundles which looked uncommonly like bathing gowns; and were now seeking a convenient dressing-room--one of those rock-parlours, roofed with serpentine and floored with silver sand--which are the sole bathing establishments here.

All along the Cornish coast the bathing is delightful--when you can get it; but sometimes for miles and miles the cliffs rise in a huge impregnable wall, without a single break. Then perhaps there comes a sudden cleft in the rock, a green descent, possibly with a rivulet trickling through it, and leading to a sheltered cove or a sea-cave, accessible only at low water, but one of the most delicious little nooks that could be imagined. Kynance, we were told, with its "kitchen" and "drawing-room," was the most perfect specimen of the kind; but Kennack was sufficiently lovely. With all sorts of fun, shouting, and laughter, the girls disappeared to their evidently familiar haunts, to reappear as merry mermaids playing about in a crystalline sea.

A most tantalising sight to my two, who vowed never again to attempt a day's excursion without taking bathing dresses, towels, and the inevitable fish-line, to be tied round the waist,--with a mother holding the other end. For we had been warned against these long and strong Atlantic waves, the recoil of which takes you off your feet even in calm weather. As bathing must generally be done at low water, to ensure a sandy floor and a comfortable cave, it is easy enough to be swept out of one's depth; and the cleverest swimmer, if tossed about among these innumerable rocks circled round by eddies of boiling white water, would have small chance of returning with whole bones, or of returning at all.

Indeed, along this Cornish coast, life and death seem very near together. Every pleasure carries with it a certain amount of risk; the utmost caution is required both on land and sea, and I cannot advise either rash or nervous people to go travelling in Cornwall.

Bathing being impracticable, we consoled ourselves with ascending the sandy hillock, which bounded one side of the bay, and sat looking from it towards the coast-line eastwards.

What a strange peace there is in a solitary shore, an empty sea, for the one or two white dots of silent ships seemed rather to add to than diminish its loneliness--lonelier in sunshine, I think, than even in storm. The latter gives a sense of human life, of struggle and of pain; while the former is all repose, the bright but solemn repose of infinity or eternity.

But these thoughts were for older heads; the only idea of the young heads--uncommonly steady they must have been!--was of scrambling into the most inaccessible places, and getting as near to the sea as possible without actually tumbling into it. After a while the land attracted them in turn, and they came back with their hands full of flowers, some known, some unknown; great bunches of honeysuckle, curious sand-plants, and cliff-plants; also water-plants, which fringed a little rivulet that ran into the bay, while, growing everywhere abundantly, was the lovely grey-green cringo, or sea-holly.

All these treasures, to make the parlour pretty, required much ingenuity to carry home safely, the sun withered them so fast. But there was the pleasure of collecting.

We could willingly have stayed here all day--how natural is that wish of poor young Shelley, that in every pretty place he saw he might remain "for ever"!--but the forenoon was passing, and we had much to see.

"Poltesco, everybody goes to Poltesco," observed the patient Charles.

So of course we went there too. At Poltesco are the principal serpentine works--the one commerce of the district. The monotonous hum of its machinery mingled oddly with the murmur of a trout-stream which ran through the pretty little valley, crossed by a wooden bridge, where a solitary angler stood fishing in imperturbable content.

There were only about a dozen workmen visible; one of whom came forward and explained to us the mode of work, afterwards taking us to the show-room, which contained everything possible to be made of serpentine, from mantelpieces and tombstones, down to brooches and studs. Very delicate and beautiful was the workmanship; the forms of some of the things--vases and candlesticks especially--were quite Pompeian. In truth, throughout Cornwall, we often came upon shapes, Roman or Greek, proving how even yet relics of its early masters or colonisers linger in this western corner of England.

In its inhabitants too. When, as we passed, more than one busy workman lifted up his head for a moment, we noticed faces almost classic in type, quite different from the bovine, agricultural Hodge of the midland counties. In manner different likewise. There was neither stupidity nor servility, but a sort of dignified independence. No pressing to buy, no looking out for gratuities, only a kindly politeness, which did not fail even when we departed, taking only a few little ornaments. We should have liked to carry off a cart-load--especially two enormous vases and a chimney-piece--but travellers have limits to luggage, and purse as well.

Pretty Poltesco! we left it with regret, but we were in the hands of the ever-watchful Charles, anxious that we should see as much as possible.

"The driving-road goes far inland, but there's a splendid cliff-walk from Poltesco to Cadgwith direct. The young ladies might do it with a guide--here he is, a man I know, quite reliable. They'll walk it easily in half an hour. But you, ma'am, I think you'd better come with me."

No fighting against fate. So I put my "chickens" in safe charge, meekly re-entered the carriage, and drove, humbly and alone, across a flat dull country, diversified here and there by a few cottages, politely called a village--the two villages of Ruan Minor and Ruan Major. I afterwards found that they were not without antiquarian interest, that I might have gone to examine a curious old church, well, and oratory, supposed to have been inhabited by St. Rumon. But we had left the guide-book at home, with the so longed-for bathing gowns, and Charles was not of archæological mind, so I heard nothing and investigated nothing.

Except, indeed, numerous huge hand-bills, posted on barn doors and gates, informing the inhabitants that an Exhibition of Fine Arts, admittance one shilling, was on view close by. Charles was most anxious I should stop and visit it, saying it was "very fine." But as within the last twelvemonth I had seen the Royal Academy, Grosvenor Gallery, and most of the galleries and museums in Italy, the Fine Art Exhibition of Ruan Minor was not overwhelmingly attractive. However, not to wound the good Cornishman, who was evidently proud of it, I explained that, on the whole, I preferred nature to art.

And how grand nature was in this fishing-village of Cadgwith, to which after a long round, we came at last!

Nestled snugly in a bend of the coast which shelters it from north and east, leaving it open to southern sunshine, while another curve of land protects it from the dense fogs which are so common at the Lizard, Cadgwith is, summer and winter, one of the pleasantest nooks imaginable. The climate, Charles told me, is so mild, that invalids often settle down in the one inn--a mere village inn externally, but very comfortable. And, as I afterwards heard at Lizard Town, the parson and his wife--"didn't I know them?" and I felt myself rather looked down upon because I did not know them--are the kindest of people, who take pleasure in looking after the invalids, rich or poor. "Yes," Charles considered Cadgwith was a nice place to winter in, "only just a trifle dull."

Probably so, to judge by the interest which, even in this tourist-season, our carriage excited, as we wound down one side and up another of the ravine in which the village is built, with a small fishing-station at the bottom, rather painfully odoriferous. The fisher-wives came to their doors, the old fisher-men stood, hands in pockets, the roly-poly healthy fisher-children stopped playing, to turn round and stare. In these parts everybody stares at everybody, and generally everybody speaks to everybody--a civil "good-day" at any rate, sometimes more.

"This is a heavy pull for you," said a sympathetic old woman, who had watched me leave the carriage and begin mounting the cliff towards the Devil's Frying-pan--the principal thing to be seen at Cadgwith. She followed me, and triumphantly passed me, though she had to carry a bag of potatoes on her back. I wondered if her feeling was pity or envy towards another old person who had to carry nothing but her own self. Which, alas! was enough!

She and I sat down together on the hill-side and had a chat, while I waited for the two little black dots which I could see moving round the opposite headland. She gave me all kinds of information, in the simple way peculiar to country folk, whose innocent horizon comprises the whole world, which, may be, is less pleasant than the little world of Cadgwith. Then we parted for ever and aye.

The Devil's Frying-pan is a wonderful sight. Imagine a natural amphitheatre two acres in extent, inclosed by a semi-circular slope about two hundred feet high, covered with grass and flowers and low bushes. Outside, the wide, open sea, which pours in to the shingly beach at the bottom through an arch of serpentine, the colouring of which, and of the other rocks surrounding it, is most exquisite, varying from red to green, with sometimes a tint of grey. Were Cadgwith a little nearer civilisation, what a show-place it would become!

But happily civilisation leaves it alone. The tiny farm-house on the hill-side near the Frying-pan looked, within and without, much as it must have looked for the last hundred years; and the ragged, unkempt, tongue-tied little girl, from whom we succeeded in getting a drink of milk in a tumbler which she took five minutes to search for, had certainly never been to a Board School. She investigated the penny which we deposited as if it were a great natural curiosity rarely attainable, and she gazed after us as we climbed the stile leading to the Frying-pan as if wondering what on earth could tempt respectable people, who had nothing to do, into such a very uncomfortable place.

Uncomfortable, certainly, as we sat with our feet stuck in the long grass to prevent slipping down the slope--a misadventure which would have been, to say the least, awkward. Those boiling waves, roaring each after each through the arch below; and those jagged rocks, round which innumerable sea-birds were flying--one could quite imagine that were any luckless vessel to find itself in or near the Frying-pan, it would never get out again.

To meditative minds there is something very startling in the perpetual contrast between the summer tourist-life, so cheerful and careless, and the winter life of the people here, which must be so full of privations; for one half the year there is nothing to do, no market for serpentine, and almost no fishing possible: they have to live throughout the dark days upon the hay made while the sun shines.

"No, no," said one of the Lizard folk, whom I asked if there was much drunkenness thereabout, for I had seen absolutely none; "no, us don't drink; us can't afford it. Winter's a bad time for we--sometimes for four months a man doesn't earn a halfpenny. He has to save in summer, or he'd starve the rest of the year."

Which apparently is not altogether bad for him. I have seldom seen, in any part of England or Scotland, such an honest, independent, respectable race as the working people on this coast, and indeed throughout Cornwall.

We left with regret the pretty village, resolving to come back again in a day or two; it was barely three miles from the Lizard, though the difference in climate was said to be so great. And then we drove back across the bleak down and through the keen "hungry" sea-air, which made dinner a matter of welcome importance. And without dwelling too much on the delights of the flesh--very mild delights after all--I will say that the vegetables grown in the garden, and the grapes in the simple green-house beside it, were a credit to Cornwall, especially so near the sea-coast.

We had just time to dine, repose a little, and communicate our address to our affectionate friends at home--so as to link ourselves for a few brief days with the outside world--when appeared the punctual Charles.

"Don't be afraid, ladies, he's had a good rest,"--this was the important animal about whose well-being we were naturally anxious. Charles patted his shoulder, and a little person much given to deep equine affections tenderly stroked his nose. He seemed sensible of the attention and of what was expected from him, and started off, as lively as if he had been idle for a week, across the Lizard Down and Pradenack Down to Mullion.

"I hope Mary will be at home," said Charles, turning round as usual to converse; "she'll be sure to make you comfortable. Of course you've heard of Mary Mundy?"

Fortunately we had. There was in one of our guide-books a most glowing description of the Old Inn, and also an extract from a poem, apostrophising the charms of Mary Mundy. When we said we knew the enthusiastic Scotch Professor who had written it, we felt that we rose a step in the estimation of Charles.

"And Mary will be so pleased to see anybody who knows the gentleman"--in Cornwall the noted Greek Professor was merely "the gentleman." "She's got his poem in her visitors' book and his portrait in her album. I do hope Mary will be at home."

But fate was against us. When we reached Mullion and drove up to the door of the Old Inn, there darted out to meet us, not Mary, but an individual concerning whom Fame has been unjustly silent.

"It's only Mary's brother," said Charles, with an accent of deep disappointment.

But as the honest man who had apparently gone through life as "Mary's brother" stood patting our horse and talking to our driver, with both of whom he seemed on terms of equal intimacy, his welcome to ourselves was such a mixture of cordiality and despair that we could scarcely keep from laughing.

"Mary's gone to Helstone, ladies; her would have been delighted, but her's gone marketing to Helstone. I hope her'll be back soon, for I doesn't know what to do without she. The house is full, and there's a party of eleven come to tea, and actually wanting it sent down to them at the Cove. They won't get it though. And you shall get your tea, ladies, even if they have to go without."

We expressed our gratitude, and left Charles to arrange all for us, which he did in the most practical way.

"And you think Mary may be back at six?"

"Her said her would, and I hope her will," answered the brother despondently. "Her's very seldom out; us can't get on at all without she."

This, and several more long and voluble speeches given in broad Cornish, with the true Cornish confusion of pronouns, and with an air of piteous perplexity--nay, abject helplessness, the usual helplessness of man without woman--proved too much for our risible nerves. We maintained a decorous gravity till we had driven away, and then fell into shouts of laughter--the innocent laughter of happy-minded people over the smallest joke or the mildest species of fun.

"Never mind, ladies, you'll get your tea all right. If Mary said she'd be back at six, back she'll be. And you'll find a capital tea waiting for you; there isn't a more comfortable inn in all Cornwall."

Which, we afterwards found, was saying a great deal.

Mullion Cove is a good mile from Mullion village, and as we jolted over the rough road I was remorseful over both carriage and horse.

"Not at all, ma'am, he's used to it. Often and often he comes here with pic-nic parties, all the way from Falmouth. I'll put him in at the farm, and be down with you at the Cove directly. You'll find the rocks pretty bad walking, but there's a cave which you ought to see. We'll try it."

There was no resisting the way the kindly young Cornishman thus identified himself with our interests, and gave himself all sorts of extra trouble on our account. And when after a steep and not too savoury descent--the cove being used as a fish cellar--we found ourselves on the beach, shut in by those grand rocks of serpentine, with Mullion Island lying ahead about a quarter of a mile off, we felt we had not come here for nothing.

The great feature of Mullion Cove is its sea-caves, of which there are two, one on the beach, the other round the point, and only accessible at low water. Now, we saw the tide was rising fast.

"They'll have to wade; I told them they would have to wade!" cried an anxious voice behind me; and "I was ware," as ancient chroniclers say, of the presence of another "old hen," the same whom we had noticed conducting her brood of chickens, or ducklings--they seemed more like the latter now--to bathe on Kennack Sands.

"Yes, they have been away more than half an hour, all my children except this one"--a small boy who looked as if he wished he had gone too. "They would go, though I warned them they would have to wade. And there they are, just going into the cave. One, two, three, four, five, six," counting the black specks that were seen moving on, or rather in, the water. "Oh dear, they've _all_ gone in! I wish they were safe out again."

Nevertheless, in the midst of her distress, the benevolent lady stopped to give me a helping hand into the near cave, a long, dark passage, with light at either end. My girls had already safely threaded it and come triumphantly out at the other side. But what with the darkness and the uncertain footing over what felt like beds of damp seaweed, with occasional stones, through which one had to grope every inch of one's way, my heart rather misgave me, until I was cheered by the apparition of the faithful Charles.

"Don't go back, ma'am, you'll be so sorry afterwards. I'll strike a light and help you. Slow and steady, you'll come to no harm. And it's beautiful when you get out at the other end."

So it was. The most exquisite little nook; where you could have imagined a mermaid came daily to comb her hair; one can easily believe in mermaids or anything else in Cornwall. What a charming dressing-room she would have, shut in on three sides by those great walls of serpentine, and in front the glittering sea, rolling in upon a floor of the loveliest silver sand.