Part 4

But the only mermaid there was an artist's wife, standing beside her husband's easel, at which he was painting away so earnestly that he scarcely noticed us. Very picturesque he looked, and she too, in her rough serge dress, with her pretty bare feet and ankles, the shoes and stockings lying in a corner as if they had not been worn for hours. Why should they be? they were quite unnecessary on those soft sands, and their owner stood and talked with me as composedly as if it were the height of the fashion to go barefoot. And far more than anything concerning herself, she seemed interested in my evident interest in the picture, which promised to be a remarkably good one, and which, if I see it on the R. A. walls next year will furnish my only clue to the identity of the couple, or theirs to mine.

But the tide was fast advancing; they began to take down the easel, and I remembered that the narrow winding cave was our only way out from this rock-inclosed fairy paradise to the prosaic beach.

"Look, they are wading ashore up to the knees! And we shall have to wade too if we don't make haste back."

So cried the perplexed mother of the six too-adventurous ducklings. But mine, more considerate, answered me from the rocks where they were scrambling, and helped me back through the cave into safe quarters, where we stood watching the waders with mingled excitement and--envy?

Alas! I can still recall the delicious sensation of paddling across the smooth sea-sand, and of walking up the bed of a Highland burn. But "Oh! the change twixt Now and Then," I sat calmly on a stone, dry-shod; as was best. Still, is it not a benign law of nature, that the things we are no longer able to do, we almost cease to wish to do? Perhaps even the last cessation of all things will come naturally at the end, as naturally as we turn round and go to sleep at night?

But it was not night yet. I am proud to think how high and steep was the cliff we re-ascended, all three of us, and from which we stood and looked at sky and sea. Such a sea and such a sky: amber clear, so that one could trace the whole line of coast--Mount's Bay, with St. Michael's Mount dotted in the midst of it, and even the Land's End, beyond which the sun, round and red, was just touching the top of the waves. We should have liked to watch him drop below them--that splendid sea-sunset of which one never tires, but we had some distance to walk, and we began to rejoice in the prospect of Mary Mundy's tea.

"I'll go on ahead and have the carriage ready," said the ever thoughtful Charles. "You can't miss your way, ladies. Just follow the hedges"--that tempting aerial promenade, to which we were now getting accustomed, becoming veritable Blondins in petticoats--"then cross the cornfield; and take to the hedges again. You'll be at the farm-yard directly."

Not quite--for we lingered, tempted by the abundance of corn-flowers, of which we gathered, not handfuls but armfuls. When we reached it, what a picture of an English farm-yard it was! With a regular old-fashioned English milk-maid--such as Izaak Walton would have loved to describe--sitting amidst her shining pails, her cows standing round her, meekly waiting their turn. Sleek, calm creatures they were, Juno-eyed and soft-skinned--of that peculiar shade of grey which I have seen only in Cornwall. And, being rather a connoisseur in cows, I have often amused myself to notice how the kine of each country have their own predominant colour, which seems to harmonise with its special landscape. The curious yellow tint of Highland cattle, the red, white, or brown of those of the midland counties, and the delicate grey of Cornish cows, alike suit the scene around them, and belong to it as completely as the dainty little Swiss herds do to their Alpine pastures, or the large, mild, cream-coloured oxen to the Campagna at Rome.

But we had to tear ourselves away from this Arcadia, for in the midst of the farm-yard appeared the carriage and Charles. So we jolted back--it seemed as if Cornish carriages and horses could go anywhere and over everything--to the Old Inn and Mary Mundy.

She _had_ come home, and everything was right. As we soon found, everything and everybody was accustomed to be put to rights by Miss Mary Mundy.

She stood at the door to greet us--a bright, brown-faced little woman with the reddest of cheeks and the blackest of eyes; I have no hesitation in painting her portrait here, as she is, so to speak, public property, known and respected far and wide.

"Delighted to see you, ladies; delighted to see any friends of the Professor's; and I hope you enjoyed the Cove, and that you're all hungry, and will find your tea to your liking. It's the best we can do; we're very homely folk here, but we try to make people comfortable," and so on and so on, a regular stream of chatty conversation, given in the strongest Cornish, with the kindliest of Cornish hearts, as she ushered us into a neat little parlour at the back of the inn.

There lay spread, not one of your dainty afternoon teas, with two or three wafery slices of bread and butter, but a regular substantial meal. Cheerful candles--of course in serpentine candlesticks--were already lit, and showed us the bright teapot full of that welcome drink to weary travellers, hot, strong and harmless; the gigantic home-baked loaf, which it seemed sacrilegious to have turned into toast; the rich, yellow butter--I am sure those lovely cows had something to do with it, and also with the cream, so thick that the spoon could almost have stood upright in it. Besides, there was a quantity of that delicious clotted cream, which here accompanies every meal and of which I had vainly tried to get the receipt, but was answered with polite scorn, "Oh, ma'am, it would be of no use to _you_: Cornish cream can only be made from Cornish cows!"

Whether this remarkable fact in natural history be true or not, let me record the perfection of Mary Mundy's cream, which, together with her jam and her marmalade, was a refection worthy of the gods.

She pressed us again and again to "have some more," and her charge for our magnificent meal was as small as her gratitude was great for the slight addition we made to it.

"No, I'll not say no, ma'am, it'll come in handy; us has got a young niece to bring up--my brother and me--please'm. Yes, I'm glad you came, and I hope you'll come again, please'm. And if you see the Professor, you'll tell him he's not forgotten, please'm."

This garniture of "please'm" at the end of every sentence reminded us of the Venetian "probbedirla," _per ubbedirla_, with which our gondolier Giovanna used to amuse us, often dragging it in in the oddest way. "Yes, the Signora will get a beautiful day, probbedirla," or "My wife has just lost her baby, probbedirla." Mary Mundy's "please'm" often came in with equal incongruity, and her voluble tongue ran on nineteen to the dozen; but her talk was so shrewd and her looks so pleasant--once, no doubt, actually pretty, and still comely enough for a middle-aged woman--that we departed, fully agreeing with her admiring Professor that

"The brightest thing on Cornish land Is the face of Miss Mary Mundy."

Recrossing Pradenack down in the dim light of a newly-risen moon, everything looked so solitary and ghostly that we started to see moving from behind a furz-bush, a mysterious figure, which crossed the road slowly, and stood waiting for us. Was it man or ghost, or--

Only a donkey! A ridiculous grey donkey. It might have been Tregeagle himself--Tregeagle, the grim mad-demon of Cornish tradition, once a dishonest steward, who sold his soul to the devil, and is doomed to keep on emptying Dozmare Pool, near St. Neots (the same mere wherein Excalibur was thrown), with a limpet-shell; and to spend his nights in other secluded places balancing interminable accounts, which are always just sixpence wrong.

Poor Tregeagle! I fear some of us, weak in arithmetic, had a secret sympathy for him! But we never met him--nor anything worse than that spectral donkey, looming large and placid against the level horizon.

Soon, "the stars came out by twos and threes,"--promising a fine night and finer morning, during which, while we were comfortably asleep, our good horse and man would be driving across this lonely region to Falmouth, in time to take the good people to church on Sunday morning.

"And we'll do it, too--don't you be anxious about us, ladies," insisted Charles. "I'll feed him well, and groom him well. I likes to take care of a good horse, and you'll see, he'll take no harm. I'll be back when you want me, at the week's end, or perhaps before then, with some party or other--we're always coming to the Lizard--and I'll just look in and see how you're getting on, and how you liked Kynance. But take care of the tide."

We thanked our kindly charioteer, bade him and his horse good-bye, wished him a pleasant journey through the moonlight, which was every minute growing more beautiful, then went indoors to supper--no! supper would have been an insult to Mary Mundy's tea--to bed.

DAY THE FOURTH

Sunday, September 4th--and we had started on September 1st; was it possible we had only been travelling four days?

It felt like fourteen at least. We had seen so much, taken in so many new interests--nay, made several new friends. Already we began to plan another meeting with John Curgenven, who we found was a relation of our landlady, or of our bright-faced serving maiden, Esther--I forget which. But everybody seemed connected with everybody at the Lizard, and everybody took a friendly interest in everybody. The arrival of new lodgers in the "genteel" parlour which we had not appreciated was important information, and we were glad to hear that Charles had started about four in the morning quite cheery.

And what a morning it was!--a typical Sabbath, a day of rest, a day to rejoice in. Strolling round the garden at eight o'clock, while the dew still lay thick on the grass, and glittered like diamonds on the autumnal spider-webs, even the flowers seemed to know it was Sunday, the mignonette bed to smell sweeter, the marigolds--yes! æsthetic fashion is right in its love for marigolds--burnt in a perfect blaze of golden colour and aromatic scent. The air was so mild that we could imagine summer was still with us: and the great wide circle of sea gleamed in the sunshine as if there never had been, never could be, such a thing as cloud or storm.

Having ascertained that there was no service nearer than Grade, some miles off, until the afternoon, we "went to church" on the cliffs, in Pistol Meadow, beside the green mounds where the two hundred drowned sailors sleep in peace.

And such a peaceful place! Absolutely solitary: not a living creature, not even a sheep came near me the whole morning:--and in the silence I could hear almost every word said by my young folks, searching for sea-treasures among the rocks and little pools far below. Westwards towards Kynance, and eastwards towards Landewednack--the church we were to go to in the afternoon--the cliff path was smooth and green, the short grass full of those curious dainty flowers, some of which were new to our eager eyes. At other times the road was so precipitous that we did not wonder at those carefully white-washed stones every few yards, which are the sole guide to the coastguard men of dark nights. Even in daylight, if the wind were high, or the footing slippery with rain, the cliff-walk from the Lizard to Kynance would be no joke to uninitiated feet.

Now, all was so still that the wind never once fluttered the letter I was writing, and so warm that we were glad to escape the white glare of the wall of the Lizard Lights and sit in a cool hollow, watching sky and ocean, with now and then a sea-bird floating lazily between, a dark speck on the perpetual blue.

"If it will only keep like this all week!" And, as we sat, we planned out each day, so as to miss nothing, and lose nothing--either of time or strength: doing enough, but never too much--as is often the fatal mistake of tourists. And then, following the grand law of travelling, to have one's "meals reg'lar"--we went indoors and dined. Afterwards in honour of the day

"that comes between The Saturday and Monday,"

we dressed ourselves in all our best--very humble best it was!--to join the good people going to church at Landewednack.

This, which in ancient Cornish means "the white-roofed church of St. Wednack"--hagiologists must decide who that individual was!--is the name of the parish to which the comparatively modern Lizard Town belongs. The church is in a very picturesque corner, close to the sea, though both it and the rectory are protected by a sudden dip in the ground, so that you see neither till you are close upon them. A fine Norman doorway, a curious hagioscope, and other points, interesting to archaeologists--also the neatest and prettiest of churchyards--make note-worthy this, the most southerly church in England. A fine old building, not spoiled though "restored." The modern open pews, and a modern memorial pulpit of serpentine, jarred less than might have been expected with the carefully-preserved remains of the past.

In Landewednack church is said to have been preached the last sermon in Cornish. This was in 1678. Since, the ancient tongue has completely died out, and the people of King Arthur's country have become wholly English.

Still, they are not the English of the midland and northern districts, but of a very different type and race. I have heard it said that a seaboard population, accustomed to wrestle with the dangers of the coast, to move about from place to place, see foreign countries, and carry on its business in the deep waters, is always more capable, more intelligent, as a whole, than an inland people, whether agricultural or manufacturing. It may be so: but certainly the aborigines of Lizard Town, who could easily be distinguished from the visitors--of whom there was yet a tolerable sprinkling--made a very interesting congregation; orderly, respectable, reverent; simple in dress and manner, yet many of them, both the men and women, exceedingly picturesque. That is, the old men and the old women: the younger ones aped modern fashion even here, in this out-of-the-way corner, and consequently did not look half so well as their seniors.

I must name one more member of the congregation--a large black dog, who walked in and settled himself in the pew behind, where he behaved during half the service in an exemplary manner, worthy of the Highland shepherds' dogs, who always come to church with their masters, and conduct themselves with equal decorum.

There is always a certain pathos in going in to worship in a strange church, with a strange congregation, of whom you are as ignorant as they of you. In the intervals of kneeling with them as "miserable sinners," one finds oneself speculating upon them, their possible faults and virtues, joys and sorrows, hopes and fears, watching the unknown faces, and trying to read thereon the records of a common humanity. A silent homily, better perhaps than most sermons.

Not that there was aught to complain of in the sermon, and the singing was especially good. Many a London choir might have taken a lesson from this village church at the far end of Cornwall. When service was over, we lingered in the pretty and carefully tended churchyard, where the evening light fell softly upon many curious gravestones, of seafaring men, and a few of wrecked sailors--only a few, since it is but within a generation that bodies washed ashore from the deep were allowed to be buried in consecrated ground; most of them, like the two hundred in Pistol Meadow, being interred as near as convenient to where they were found, without any burial rites. Still, in all the churchyards along this coast are graves with a story. A little corner railed off has an old and sad one. There lie buried the victims of the plague, which in 1645 devastated the village. No one since has ever ventured to disturb their resting-place.

Very green and peaceful the churchyard looked: the beautiful day was dying, beautiful to the last. We stood and watched the congregation melt slowly away, disappearing down the lane, and then, attracted by the sound of music, we re-entered the church. There we sat and listened for another half-hour to the practising of an anthem ready for the harvest festival, which had been announced for the following Tuesday; exceedingly well done too, the rector's voice leading it all, with an energy and enthusiasm that at once accounted for the capital condition of the choir.

"If this weather will only last!" was our earnest sigh as we walked home; and anxious not to lose a minute of it, we gave ourselves the briefest rest, and turned out again, I to watch the sunset from the cliffs, while the others descended once more to their beloved sea-pools.

"Such anemones, such sea-weed! and scrambling is so delicious! Besides, sunsets are all alike," added the youthful, practical, and slightly unpoetical mind.

No, they are not alike. Every one has a mysterious charm of its own--just like that in every new human face. I have seen hundreds of sunsets in my time, and those I shall see are narrowing down now, but I think to the end of my life I shall always feel a day incomplete of which I did not see the sunset.

This one was splendid. The usual place where the sun dropped into the sea, just beyond the point of the Land's End, was all a golden mist. I hastened west, climbing one intervening cliff after the other, anxious not to miss the clear sight of him as he set his glowing feet, or rather his great round disc, on the sea. At last I found a "comfortable" stone, sheltered from the wind, which blew tolerably fresh, and utterly solitary (as I thought), the intense silence being such that one could almost hear the cropping of three placid sheep--evidently well accustomed to sunsets, and thinking them of little consequence.

There I sat until the last red spark had gone out, quenched in the Atlantic waters, and from behind the vanished sun sprung a gleam of absolutely green light, "like a firework out of a rocket," the young people said; such as I had never seen before, though we saw it once afterwards. Nature's fireworks they were; and I could see even the two little black figures moving along the rocks below stand still to watch them. I watched too, with that sort of lonely delight--the one shadow upon it being that it is so lonely--with which all one's life one is accustomed to watch beautiful and vanishing things. Then seeing how fast the colours were fading and the sky darkening, I rose; but just took a step or two farther to look over the edge of my stone into the next dip of the cliff, and there I saw--

Actually, two human beings! Lovers, of course. Nothing else would have sat so long and so silently, for I had been within three yards of them all the time, and had never discovered them, nor they me. Poor young things! they did not discover me even yet. They sat, quite absorbed in one another, hand in hand, looking quietly seaward, their faces bathed in the rosy sunset--which to them was a sunrise, the sort of sun which never rises twice in a life-time.

I left them to it. Evidently they did not see me, in fact I just peered over the rock's edge and drew back again; any slight sound they probably attributed to the harmless sheep. Well, it was but an equally harmless old woman, who did not laugh at them, as some might have done, but smiled and wished them well, as she left them to their sunset, and turned to face the darkening east, where the sun would rise to-morrow.

The moon was rising there now, and it was a picture to behold. Indeed, all these Cornish days seemed so full of moonrises and sunsets--and sunrises too--that it was really inconvenient. Going to bed seemed almost a sin--as on this night, when, opening our parlour door, which looked right on to the garden, we saw the whole world lying in a flood of moonlight peace, the marigolds and carnations leaning cheek to cheek, as motionless as the two young lovers on the cliff. Who, alas! must long ago have had their dream broken, for five minutes afterwards I had met a most respectable fat couple from Lizard Town taking their Sunday evening stroll, in all their Sunday best, along those very cliffs. Most painful interruption! But perhaps, the good folks had once been lovers too.

What a night it was! fit night to such a perfect day. How the stars shone, without a mist or a cloud; how the Lizard Lights gleamed, even in spite of the moonlight, and how clear showed the black outline of Kynance Cove, from which came through the silence a dull murmur of waves! It was, as we declared, a sin and a shame to go to bed at all though we had been out the whole day, and hoped to be out the whole of to-morrow. Still, human nature could not keep awake for ever. We passed from the poetical to the practical, and decided to lay us down and sleep.

But, in the middle of the night I woke, rose, and looked out of the window.

What a change! Sea and sky were one blackness, literally as "black as ink," and melting into one another so that both were undistinguishable. As for the moon and stars--heaven knows where they had gone to, for they seemed utterly blotted out. The only light visible was the ghostly gleam of those two great eyes, the Lizard Lights, stretching far out into the intense darkness. I never saw such darkness--unbroken even by the white crest of a wave. And the stillness was like the stillness of death, with a heavy weight in the air which made me involuntarily go to sleep again, though with an awed impression of "something going to happen."

And sure enough in another hour something did happen. I started awake, feeling as if a volley of artillery had been poured in at my window. It was the wildest deluge of rain, beating against the panes, and with it came a wind that howled and shrieked round the house as if all the demons in Cornwall, Tregeagle himself included, were let loose at once.

Now we understood what a Lizard storm could be. I have seen Mediterranean storms, sweeping across the Campagna like armed battalions of avenging angels, pouring out their vials of wrath--rain, hail, thunder, and lightning--unceasingly for two whole days. I have been in Highland storms, so furious that one had to sit down in the middle of the road with one's plaid over one's head, till the worst of their rage was spent. But I never saw or heard anything more awful than this Lizard storm, to which I lay and listened till the day began to dawn.

Then the wind lulled a little, but the rain still fell in torrents, and the sky and sea were as black as ever. The weather had evidently broken for good--that is, for evil. Alas! the harvest, and the harvest festival! And alas--of minor importance, but still some, to us at least--alas for our holiday in Cornwall! Only four days, and--this!

It was with a heavy heart that, feeling there was not the slightest use in getting up, I turned round and took another sleep.

DAY THE FIFTH

"Hope for the best, and be prepared for the worst," had been the motto of our journey. So when we rose to one of the wettest mornings that ever came out of the sky, there was a certain satisfaction in being prepared for it.