Part 5

"We must have a fire, that is certain," was our first decision. This entailed the abolition of our beautiful decorations--our sea-holly and ferns; also some anxious looks from our handmaiden. Apparently no fire, had been lit in this rather despised room for many months--years perhaps--and the chimney rather resented being used. A few agonised down-puffs greatly interfered with the comfort of the breakfast table, and an insane attempt to open the windows made matters worse.

Which was most preferable--to be stifled or deluged? We were just considering the question, when the chimney took a new and kinder thought, or the wind took a turn--it seemed to blow alternately from every quarter, and then from all quarters at once--the smoke went up straight, the room grew warm and bright, with the cosy peace of the first fire of the season. Existence became once more endurable, nay, pleasant.

"We shall survive, spite of the rain!" And we began to laugh over our lost day which we had meant to begin by bathing in Housel Cove; truly, just to stand outside the door would give an admirable douche bath in three minutes. "But how nice it is to be inside, with a roof over our heads, and no necessity for travelling. Fancy the unfortunate tourists who have fixed on to-day for visiting the Lizard!" (Charles had told us that Monday was a favourite day for excursions.) "Fancy anybody being obliged to go out such weather as this!"

And in our deep pity for our fellow-creatures we forgot to pity ourselves.

Nor was there much pity needed; we had provided against emergencies, with a good store of needlework and knitting, anything that would pack in small compass, also a stock of unquestionably "light" literature--paper-covered, double-columned, sixpenny volumes, inclosing an amount of enjoyment which those only can understand who are true lovers of Walter Scott. We had enough of him to last for a week of wet days. And we had a one-volume Tennyson, all complete, and a "Morte d'Arthur"--Sir Thomas Malory's. On this literary provender we felt that as yet we should not starve.

Also, some little fingers having a trifling turn for art, brought out triumphantly a colour-box, pencils, and pictures. And the wall-paper being one of the very ugliest that ever eye beheld, we sought and obtained permission to adorn it with these, our _chefs-d'[oe]uvre_, pasted at regular intervals. Where we hope they still remain, for the edification of succeeding lodgers.

We read the "Idylls of the King" all through, finishing with "The Passing of Arthur," where the "bold Sir Bedivere" threw Excalibur into the mere--which is supposed to be Dozmare Pool. Here King Arthur's faithful lover was so melted--for the hundredth time--by the pathos of the story, and by many old associations, that the younger and more practical minds grew scornful, and declared that probably King Arthur had never existed at all--or if he had, was nothing but a rough barbarian, unlike even the hero of Sir Thomas Malory, and far more unlike the noble modern gentleman of Tennyson's verse. Maybe: and yet, seeing that

"'Tis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all,"

may it not be better to have believed in an impossible ideal man, than to accept contentedly a low ideal, and worship blindly the worldly, the mean, or the base?

This topic furnished matter for so much hot argument, that, besides doing a quantity of needlework, we succeeded in making our one wet day by no means the least amusing of our seventeen days in Cornwall.

Hour after hour we watched the rain--an even down-pour. In the midst of it we heard a rumour that Charles had been seen about the town, and soon after he appeared at the door, hat in hand, soaked but smiling, to inquire for and sympathise with his ladies. Yes, he _had_ brought a party to the Lizard that day!--unfortunate souls (or bodies), for there could not have been a dry thread left on them! We gathered closer round our cosy fire; ate our simple dinner with keen enjoyment, and agreed that after all we had much to be thankful for.

In the afternoon the storm abated a little, and we thought we would seize the chance of doing some shopping, if there was a shop in Lizard Town. So we walked--I ought rather to say waded, for the road was literally swimming--meeting not one living creature, except a family of young ducks, who, I need scarcely say, were enjoying supreme felicity.

"Yes, ladies, this is the sort of weather we have pretty well all winter. Very little frost or snow, but rain and storm, and plenty of it. Also fogs; I've heard there's nothing anywhere like the fogs at the Lizard."

So said the woman at the post-office, which, except the serpentine shops, seemed to be the one emporium of commerce in the place. There we could get all we wanted, and a good deal that we were very thankful we did not want, of eatables, drinkables, and wearables. Also ornaments, china vases, &c., of a kind that would have driven frantic any person of æsthetic tastes. Among them an active young Cornishman of about a year old was meandering aimlessly, or with aims equally destructive to himself and the community. He all but succeeded in bringing down a row of plates upon his devoted head, and then tied himself up, one fat finger after another, in a ball of twine, upon which he began to howl violently.

"He's a regular little trial," said the young mother proudly. "He's only sixteen months old, and yet he's up to all sorts of mischief. I don't know what in the world I shall do with he, presently. Naughty boy!" with a delighted scowl.

"Not naughty, only active," suggested another maternal spirit, and pleaded that the young jackanapes should be found something to do that was not mischief, but yet would occupy his energies, and fill his mind. At which, the bright bold face looked up as if he had understood it all--an absolutely fearless face, brimming with fun, and shrewdness too. Who knows? The "regular little trial" may grow into a valuable member of society--fisherman, sailor, coastguardman--daring and doing heroic deeds; perhaps saving many a life on nights such as last night, which had taught us what Cornish coast-life was all winter through.

The storm was now gradually abating; the wind had lulled entirely, the rain had ceased, and by sunset a broad yellow streak all along the west implied that it might possibly be a fine day to-morrow.

But the lane was almost a river still, and the slippery altitudes of the "hedges" were anything but desirable. As the only possible place for a walk I ventured into a field where two or three cows cropped their supper of damp grass round one of those green hillocks seen in every Cornish pasture field--a manure heap planted with cabbages, which grow there with a luxuriance that turns ugliness into positive beauty. Very dreary everything was--the soaking grass, the leaden sky, the angry-looking sea, over which a rainy moon was just beginning to throw a faint glimmer; while shorewards one could just trace the outline of Lizard Point and the wheat-field behind it. Yesterday those fields had looked so sunshiny and fair, but to-night they were all dull and grey, with rows of black dots indicating the soppy, sodden harvest sheaves.

Which reminded me that to-morrow was the harvest festival at Landewednack, when all the world and his wife was invited by shilling tickets to have tea in the rectory garden, and afterwards to assist at the evening thanksgiving service in the church.

"Thanksgiving! What for?" some poor farmer might well exclaim, especially on such a day as this. Some harvest festivals must occasionally seem a bitter mockery. Indeed, I doubt if the next generation will not be wise in taking our "Prayers for Rain," "Prayers for Fair Weather," clean out of the liturgy. Such conceited intermeddling with the government of the world sounds to some ridiculous, to others actually profane. "Snow and hail, mists and vapours, wind and storm, fulfilling His Word." And it must be fulfilled, no matter at what cost to individuals or to nations. The laws of the universe must be carried out, even though the mystery of sorrow, like the still greater mystery of evil, remains for ever unexplained. "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?"

And how right is His right! How marvellously beautiful He can make this world! until we can hardly imagine anything more beautiful in the world everlasting. Ay, even after such a day as to-day, when the world seems hardly worth living in, yet we live on, live to wake up unto such a to-morrow--

But I must wait to speak of it in another page.

DAY THE SIXTH

And a day absolutely divine! Not a cloud upon the sky, not a ripple upon the water, or it appeared so in the distance. Nearer, no doubt, there would have been that heavy ground-swell which is so long in subsiding, in fact is scarcely ever absent on this coast. The land, like the sea, was all one smile; the pasture fields shone in brilliant green, the cornfields gleaming yellow--at once a beauty and a thanksgiving.

It was the very perfection of an autumn morning. We would not lose an hour of it, but directly after breakfast started leisurely to find Housel Cove and try our first experiment of bathing in the wide Atlantic.

The Atlantic it certainly was. Not a rood of land lay between us and America. Yet the illimitable ocean "where the great ships go down," rolled in to our feet in baby ripples, disporting itself harmlessly, and tempting my two little mermaids to swim out to the utmost limit that prudence allowed. And how delightful it was to run back barefoot across the soft sand to the beautiful dressing-room of serpentine rock, where one could sit and watch the glittering sea, untroubled by any company save the gulls and cormorants. What a contrast to other bathing places--genteel Eastbourne and Brighton, or vulgar Margate and Ramsgate, where, nevertheless, the good folks look equally happy. But our happiness! No words could describe it. Shall we stamp ourselves as persons of little mind, easily satisfied, if I confess that we spent the whole morning in Housel Cove without band or promenade, without even a Christy Minstrel or a Punch and Judy, our sole amusement being the vain attempt to catch a tiny fish, the Robinson Crusoe of a small pool in the rock above high-water mark, where by some ill chance he found himself. But he looked extremely contented with his sea hermitage, and evaded so cleverly all our efforts to get hold of him, that after a while we left him to his solitude--where possibly he resides still.

How delicious it is for hard-worked people to do nothing, absolutely nothing! Of course only for a little while--a few days, a few hours. The love of work and the necessity for it soon revive. But just for those few harmless hours to let the world and its duties and cares alike slip by, to be absolutely idle, to fold one's hands and look at the sea and the sky, thinking of nothing at all, except perhaps to count and watch for every ninth wave--said to be the biggest always--and wonder how big it will be, and whether it will reach that stone with the little colony of limpets and two red anemones beside them, or stop short at the rock where we sit placidly dangling our feet, waiting, Canute-like, for the supreme moment when the will of humanity sinks conquered by the immutable powers of nature. Then, greatest crisis of all, the sea will attack that magnificent castle and moat, which we grown-up babies have constructed with such pride. Well, have we not all built our sand-castles and seen them swept away? happy if by no unkinder force than the remorseless wave of Time, which will soon flow over us all.

But how foolish is moralising--making my narrative halt like that horse whom we amused ourselves with half the afternoon. He was tied by the leg, poor beast, the fore leg fastened to the hind one, as seemed to be the ordinary Cornish fashion with all animals--horses, cows, and sheep. It certainly saves a deal of trouble, preventing them from climbing the "hedges" which form the sole boundary of property, but it makes the creatures go limping about in rather a melancholy fashion. However, as it is their normal condition, probably they communicate it to one another, and each generation accepts its lot.

This horse did. He was a handsome animal, who came and peered at the sketch which one of us was doing, after the solemn fashion of quadrupedal connoisseurship, and kept us company all the afternoon. We sat in a row on the top of the "hedge," enjoying the golden afternoon, and scarcely believing it possible that yesterday had been yesterday. Of the wild storm and deluge of rain there was not a single trace; everything looked as lovely as if it had been, and was going to be, summer all the year.

We were so contented, and were making such progress in our sketch and distant view of Kynance over the now dry and smiling cornfield, that we had nigh forgotten the duties of civilisation, until some one brought the news that all the household was apparently dressing itself in its very best, to attend the rectory tea. We determined to do the same, though small were our possibilities of toilette.

"But what does it matter?" argued we. "Nobody knows us, and we know nobody."

A position rather rare to those who "dwell among their own people," who take a kindly interest in everybody, and believe with a pardonable credulity that everybody takes a kindly interest in them.

But human nature is the same all the world over. And here we saw it in its pleasantest phase; rich and poor meeting together, not for charity, but courtesy--a courtesy that was given with a kindliness and accepted with a quiet independence which seemed characteristic of these Cornish folk.

Among the little crowd, gentle and simple, we, of course, did not know a single soul. Nevertheless, delivering up our tickets to the gardener at the gate, we entered, and wandered at ease through the pretty garden, gorgeous with asters, marigolds, carnations, and all sorts of rich-coloured and rich-scented autumn flowers; where the hydrangeas grew in enormous bushes, and the fuchsias had stems as thick and solid as trees.

In front of the open hall door was a gravel sweep where were ranged two long tea-tables filled with the humbler but respectable class of parishioners, chiefly elderly people, and some very old. The Lizard is a place noted for longevity, as is proved by the register books, where several deaths at over a hundred may be found recorded, and one--he was the rector of Landewednack in 1683--is said to have died at the age of 120 years.

The present rector is no such Methuselah. He moved actively to and fro among his people, and so did his wife, whom we should have recognised by her omnipresent kindliness, even if she had not come and welcomed us strangers--easily singled out as strangers, where all the rest were friends.

Besides the poor and the aged, there was a goodly number of guests who were neither the one nor the other, playing energetically at lawn-tennis behind the house, on a "lawn" composed of sea-sand. All seemed determined to amuse themselves and everybody else, and all did their very best--including the band.

Alas, that band! I would fain pass it over in silence (would it had returned the compliment!); but truth is truth, and may benefit rather than harm. The calm composure with which those half-dozen wind-instruments sat in a row, playing determinedly flat, bass coming in with a tremendous boom here and there, entirely at his own volition, without regard to time or tune, was the most awful thing I ever heard in music! Agony, pure and simple, was the only sensation it produced. When they struck up, we just ran away till the tune was ended--what tune, familiar or unfamiliar, it was impossible to say. Between us three, all blessed, or cursed, with musical ears, there existed such difference of opinion on this head, that decision became vain. And when at last, as the hour of service approached, little groups began strolling towards the church, the musicians began a final "God save the Queen," barely recognisable, a feeling of thankfulness was the only sensation left.

Now, let me not be hard upon these village Orpheuses. They did their best, and for a working man to study music in any form is a good and desirable thing. But whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well. The great bane of provincial life is that people have so few opportunities of finding out when they do _not_ do things well, and so little ambition to learn to do them better. If these few severe remarks should spur on that anonymous band to try and emulate the Philharmonic or the Crystal Palace orchestra, it will be all the better for the little community at the Lizard.

The music in the church was beautiful. A crowded congregation--not a seat vacant--listened to the excellent chanting, hymns, and a harvest anthem, most accurately and correctly sung. The organist too--it was a pleasure to watch that young man's face and see with what interest and enthusiasm he entered into it all. Besides the rector, there were several other clergymen, one of whom, an old man, read the prayers with an intonation and expression which I have rarely heard equalled, and another preached what would have been called anywhere a thoroughly good sermon. All the statelier guests at the Rectory tea--probably county families (one stout lady had the dignity of a duchess at least)--"assisted" at this evening service, and behind them was a throng of humbler folk, among whom we recognised our sole friend here, John Curgenven. We had passed him at the church door, and he had lifted his hat with the air of a _preux chevalier_ of the olden time; "more like King Arthur than ever"--we observed to one another.

He, and we, and the aristocratic groups, with a few more of the congregation, lingered for several minutes after service was over, admiring the beautiful flowers and fruit. I think I never saw any decorations so rich or so tasteful. And then, as the organ played us out with an exceedingly brilliant voluntary, the vision of light and colour melted away, and we came out upon the quiet churchyard, lying in the cold, still moonlight.

But what a moonlight! Clear as day, the round silver orb sailing through a cloudless sky of that deep dark which we know is blue, only moonlight shows no colours. Oh, Lady Moon, Lady Moon, what a dangerous night for some of those groups to go walking home in! We saw them in twos and threes, various young people whom we had got to know by sight, and criticise, and take an interest in, wandering slowly on through Lizard Town, and then diverging into quieter paths.

As we gladly did too. For there, in an open space near the two hotels which co-exist close together--I hope amicably, and divide the tourist custom of the place--in front of a row of open windows which showed the remains of a _table d'hôte_, and playing lively tunes to a group of delighted listeners, including some children, who had struck up a merry dance--stood that terrible wind band!

It was too much! All our sympathy with our fellow-creatures, our pleasure in watching them enjoy themselves, our interest in studying human nature in the abstract, nay, even the picturesqueness of the charming moonlight scene, could not tempt us to stay. We paused a minute, then put our fingers in our ears and fled. Gradually those fearful sounds melted away into distance, and left us to the silence of moonshine, and the sight, now grown familiar, but never less beautiful, of the far-gleaming Lizard Lights.

DAY THE SEVENTH

John Curgenven had said last night, with his air of tender patronising, half regal, half paternal, which we declared always reminded us of King Arthur--"Ladies, whenever you settle to go to Kynance, I'll take you."

And sure enough there he stood, at eight in the morning, quite a picture, his cap in one hand, a couple of fishes dangling from the other--he had brought them as a present, and absolutely refused to be paid--smiling upon us at our breakfast, as benignly as did the sun. He came to say that he was at our service till 10 A.M.; when he had an engagement.

Our countenances fell. We did not like venturing in strange and dangerous ground, or rather sea, without our protector. But this was our last chance, and such a lovely day.

"You won't come to any harm, ladies," said the consoling John. "I'll take you by a short cut across the down, much better than the cliff. You can't possibly miss your way: it'll lead you straight to Kynance, and then you go down a steep path to the Cove. You'll have plenty of time before the tide comes in to see everything."

"And to bathe?"

"Oh yes, miss, there's the Drawing-room, the Dining-room, and the Kitchen--all capital caves close together; I wouldn't advise you to swim out far, though. And keep a sharp look out for the tide--it runs in pretty fast."

"And the scrambling?"

"Oh, you can easy get on Asparagus Island, miss; it's quite safe. Only don't try the Devil's Throat--or Hell's Mouth, as some folk call it."

Neither name was inviting; but studying our guide-books, we thought we could manage even without our friend. So, long ere the dew was dried on the sunshiny down, we all started off together, Curgenven slackening his quick active steps--very light and most enviably active for a man of his years--to accommodate us, and conversing courteously with us all the way.

"Ower the muir amang the heather" have I tramped many a mile in bonnie Scotland, but this Cornish moor and Cornish heather were quite different. As different as the Cornishman with his bright, frank face, and his mixture of British honesty and Gallic courtesy, from the Scotch peasant--equally worthy, but sometimes just a trifle "dour."

John had plenty to say for himself, and said it well, with a quiet independence that there was no mistaking; never forgetting meanwhile to stop and offer a helping hand over every bit of rough road, puddle, or bog. He gave us a vivid picture of winter life at the Lizard: when the little community has to hybernate, like the squirrels and field-mice, upon its summer savings.

"Sometimes we don't earn a halfpenny for weeks and months, and then if we've got nothing to fall back upon it's a bad job, you see, ma'am."

I asked him if much money went for drink; they seemed to me a remarkably sober set at the Lizard.

"Yes, I think we are; we're obliged to be; we can't spend money at the public-house, for we've got none to spend. I'm no teetotaller myself," added John boldly. "I don't dislike a glass of beer now and then, if I can afford it, and when I can't afford it I can do without it, and if I do take it I always know when to stop."

Ay, that is the crucial test--the knowing when to stop. It is this which makes all the difference between a good man and a villain, a wise man and a fool. Self-control--a quality which, guided by conscience and common sense, is the best possession of any human being. And looking at the honest fisherman, one felt pretty sure he had his share of it.

"Now I must leave you, ladies," said he, a great deal sooner than we wished, for we much liked talking to him. "My time's nearly up, and I mustn't keep my gentleman waiting; he goes out in my boat every day, and has been a good friend to me. The road's straight before you, ladies; and there's another party just ahead of you. Follow the track, and you'll soon be at Kynance. It's a lovely day for the Cove, and I hope you'll enjoy yourselves."

John bared his grey head, with a salutation worthy of some old knight of the Round Table, and then strode back, in double-quick time, as active and upright as any young fellow of twenty-five, across the level down.