Part 11

There is, too, in the low-pitched, panelled schoolroom a headmaster’s desk, with canopy, worthy of note, surmounted with a painting of the Royal Arms, and the initials “C. R.,” with the date 1671; and, on every available inch of woodwork, schoolboys, more destructive than Time himself, have carved their names or daubed them in ink, evidences these of that noble rage for recognition, fame, or notoriety, of that yearning for immortality, that possesses all alike from cockney ’Enry upward.

I think something of this feeling impelled one of us to the writing of these lines in the visitors’ book of the “Anchor,” where we stayed. Here they are--

... And yet would stay To lounge the livelong day Adown the street, upon the Quay:[7] But duty calls. “Away, away!”

XLVII.

We left Kingsbridge as evening drew on, for the five miles’ voyage to Salcombe. The steamer was full of country folk, and a few tourists were observable amid the market baskets. Next to us sat a young fellow and his newly married wife, evidently on their honeymoon, and desperately ill at ease. Every one on board, although none of them were acquainted with those young people, knew their case, and they were the centre to which all eyes were directed. Few noticed the scenery while this human interest was on view, although that scenery was most impressive.

The _quasi_ river of Salcombe, seen under a gorgeous sunset with lowering clouds, is not so much lovely as weird, its lonely creeks and inlets running between hills almost treeless, and black against the sky. We passed the excursion steamer coming home to Kingsbridge from Plymouth, with its white mast-head light, and green and red side-lights, the hull of her looming hugely as she rushed by.

Presently our engines stopped, and in sight of Salcombe lights across the water, we landed a party in the darkness of a lonely shore for Portlemouth. Passengers and luggage were tumbled into the boat, and soon were lost to view in the gloom; only the splashing of the oars, the rattle of rowlocks, and the murmur of voices indicating their neighbourhood. When the boat returned we steamed across to Salcombe Quay, and landed under the glittering lights of the precipitous town; glittering, that is to say, from a distance: near at hand they have more the shine of glow-worms.

It is a thrilling experience to land thus, on a Saturday night, in an entirely strange place, and to have, perforce, to hunt immediately for a night’s lodging. We traversed the long narrow street of Salcombe without success, and finally arrived opposite the glare of an imposing house.

“Do you want the hotel, sir?” inquired a Voice.

“Yes; which hotel is this?” demanded the Wreck, directing his voice at the place generally, failing to see any one.

“The Marine Hotel, sir!”

Now, we had heard something of the palatial character of this hotel, and recollecting the traditional shortness of the artist’s purse, we trembled!

“Oh!” said the Wreck, replying to the Voice, “rather expensive hotel, is it not?”

“Yes, sir,” replied the Voice, suddenly becoming endowed with a body--Boots apparently--“first-class hotel, sir.”

This meant waiters in evening dress and haughty chambermaids. What should we dusty wayfarers do in this galley, who carried our luggage on our backs? No landlord of a “first-class hotel” respects a visitor who has not piles of portmanteaux. We faded away from the glance of that candid Boots into the (comparatively) utter darkness, and so down the street again, presently to find that haven where we would be.

We supped, and the Wreck discovered a crumb-brush. “A brush at last!” he exclaimed, vigorously brushing his hat with it.

“But that’s not a hat-brush,” said I, astonished.

“No matter,” said he, “brushes are so jolly scarce down here that I’d take this chance if it were a hearth-brush.”

Salcombe streets are of the most break-neck character: full of tragic possibilities and large stones. Only Fore Street is approximately level, and in Fore Street are the shops. Such shops! We looked into one window, about three feet square, and made a mental inventory of its contents:--Six Spanish onions; a plateful of wooden dolls, leering with vacuous glances at a tin of sardines; four tin money-boxes; three plates of apples (incarnate stomach-aches); a cake of blacking; two cakes of soap (whose name wild horses shall not drag from me); five peg-tops; one plum cake; and, casting a greasy light over all, a tallow dip in a brass candlestick. Other shops there were which rejoiced in large frontages and wide expanses of window, and, displayed in those windows, were goods disposed at rare and rhythmic intervals, so that one had not the heart to destroy their symmetry by making purchases.

Salcombe is a port of great possibilities. Were it not so near a neighbour of Plymouth Sound, that haven _par excellence_, it had been, one may surmise, a well-frequented harbour, with a town rivalling Dartmouth. For here is safe anchorage for ships of deepest draught, and sea-room in plenty within the gullet formed between precipitous cliffs. Even yet, Salcombe may become a harbour where masts will cluster thickly. True, the channel is beset with rocks, but what do rocks avail against dynamite? Now it is seldom visited save by pleasure yachts and stray coasting-vessels, with the Kingsbridge Packet calling periodically at its quay _en route_ to or from Plymouth. Salcombe village has grown into a small town of quiet residents, and equally quiet holiday-makers, and possibly in the near future the Kingsbridge Railway, now building, may push on these few miles further, bringing to the solitary coast scenery of the Bolt Head--the grandest in Devon--a crowd of tourists, with the inevitable consequences.

On this Sunday we stayed at Salcombe, and with due Sabbatical languor explored the fantastic pinnacles of Bolt Head, beautiful with the lowering beauty of a dark and sullen savagery. It is a wild and storm-tossed promontory on the seaward side of a beautiful estate belonging to the Earl of Devon--a place bearing the singular name of The Moult. Down in the bottom, where the Moult homestead stands sheltered, the tall elms grow straight and comely; but on the hillside, trees of all kinds cling tenaciously in gnarled, twisted, and stunted forms, all bent in the direction in which stormy winds most do blow. Down beside the water, facing the entrance to the harbour, stand the remains of Salcombe Castle, washed with the waves of every high tide. Salcombe Castle was the scene of a four months’ defence against the beleaguering Roundheads, and when it at last surrendered, the garrison marched out with all the honours of war, “with thire usuall armes, drumes beating, and collars flyinge, with boundelars full of powder, and muskets apertinable.”

XLVIII.

We were up early this morning, in order to catch the Kingsbridge Packet, which called here on its way to Plymouth, and was timed for eight o’clock. But we need not have hurried over our breakfast to reach the quay, for when we walked aboard on the stroke of eight, the amphibious-looking crew were still busily loading up with the fragments of machinery and steam-pipes salved from a neighbouring wreck, and it was not until nearly an hour later that we were steaming out of the harbour toward the open sea. Meanwhile we secured as decent seats as might be on this grimy cargo-steamer of the old-fashioned paddle description, and watched with considerable amusement the frantic efforts of crew and loafers to push her off from the quay walls. The captain, not, I think, a skipper of coruscating brilliancy, took the wheel, and shouted himself hoarse down the speaking-tube with contrary directions, among which we distinguished such choice expressions as, “Stop her, damn you!” “Easy turn ahead!” “Full turn astern!” while the paddle-box ground horribly against the projecting corners of the quay, and the crew and the crowd of loafers jabbed away violently with long poles.

At last we swung clear, and steamed into the fairway, where we stopped and took two sailing vessels in tow. When we had made all fast we started in earnest, and came out of Salcombe round by Bolt Head with much straining and slackening of hawsers, as the two vessels astern pitched and wallowed in the heavy seas.

The morning was chill and misty, and inclined for rain. The rocks of Bolt Head, although we were so near to them, could only now and again be even partially seen through shredded vapours, and all around was a ghostly wall of opalescent fog. The pilot took charge of the wheel--a statuesque figure, silent, impassive, shrouded in gamboge-coloured oilskins, and steadfastly gazing ahead with set eyes under shaggy eyebrows.

We made, as well as we could, a tour of the vessel, laying firm hold of bulwarks and ropes and seats as we went. There were few people aboard, but there was a great deal of miscellaneous cargo on deck, beside the remains of the wrecked steamer’s engine-room. We coasted round a pile of petroleum barrels, coloured that hideous blue which identifies them anywhere; and then one of us fell over a basket full of squawking live ducks, voyaging to Plymouth market. Then, doubling a promontory of empty beer barrels, we came upon the engine-room, smelling to heaven with boiling oil and rancid fat. We could see it, bubbling and greasy, on the hot metal, and that “finished” us. We leant over the side of the vessel, and were very and continuously ill.

* * * * *

I think it must have been after the lapse of a few years that we came in sight of Plymouth Sound. Plymouth Sound is perhaps one of the most soul-stirring places in the world to an Englishman who knows its story; but we had had, were having, too much physical stirring to be even languidly interested in it, which shows, by the way, the gross enthraldom of mind by matter: soul-stirring has a poor chance when you’re fearfully sea-sick.

We passed the Mewstone Buoy, and fondly imagined that, as the Breakwater came in sight, the threshing and the buffeting of the sea was done; but, though Plymouth seemed so near, it was a weary three miles yet, and Britannia only rules the waves in a metaphorical sense. Some one who passed us, unmoved by all the uproar of the sea, let off that antique joke. I could have killed him, but refrained: his time will come, without doubt.

We landed at Millbay Docks, and never before was I so pleased to set foot on shore.

The day had brightened considerably. We left our knapsacks at a cloak-room, and set out for a preliminary survey of Plymouth. We made at once for the Hoe: I suppose everybody does the same thing. The Hoe still affords a glorious outlook upon the Sound and the sea beyond, although a great deal of its western end has been quarried away for building operations.

There, third or fifth-rate streets and tramways conspire to render sordid a neighbourhood which any other nation than our own would have kept sacred, both for the satisfying of the æsthetic and the patriotic instinct. But we have, I suppose, despite the wind-bags of that House of Zephyrs at Westminster, so much glorious tradition that we can afford the destruction, or partial desecration, of sites historic in the best sense. We can even afford, so imperishable are our laurels, to set up memorials of our achievements in arms, memorials whose uninspired tawdriness would wither with unconscious ridicule the scanty bays of other nations.

What satisfaction, what decorative pleasure is gained in that achievement in ungainly ostentation, the Armada Memorial? Is that rushing termagant with flying petticoats indeed Britannia? and that hairy poodle beside her, is that really the British Lion? The British Lion, _pour rire_, rather: “The British Lion is a noble scion,” the embodiment of the music halls. This memorial, I suppose, is set up in praiseworthy commemoration of the might of the Mailed Hand; but for all her trident and her sword, this valorous virago, this Britannia, on her pillar, is a creature of finger-nails, scratches, and subsequent hysteria.

Hard by is Drake, modelled in bronze by an alien, for the satisfaction of British patriotism. This work of the ingenious Boehm is not without dignity, viewed from carefully chosen standpoints; but from most points of the compass he is something too cock-a-hoop, he wears too much the air of the sparrow on a ting for our satisfaction. It is well, though, that he should be here in bronze for the healthful admiration and emulation of Englishmen.

If any place there be within these sea-girt isles that can make your pulses thrill, ’tis Plymouth. The majesty of England is no mere phrase to them that have seen the clanging dockyards, the arsenals, the floating strongholds, the encircling chain of forts that render the three towns of Plymouth, Devonport, and Stonehouse a microcosm of the empire’s strength. Military--the red coats, the tunics black and green of rifle regiments, the sound of the bugle, instant and commanding, are everywhere. Naval--no more slacks-hitching, timber-shivering towns exist than these.

We conceived the idea of making Saltash our headquarters for a few days, and of making daily excursions from it to explore Plymouth. So, when we had made this preliminary survey, we reclaimed our knapsacks and made our way through Plymouth and Stonehouse, on top of a jingling tramcar, to North Corner, Devonport, whence small steam-launches ply every hour for Saltash.

The estuary of the Tamar runs here, deep and broad, dividing the counties of Devon and Cornwall. From here to Saltash (three miles) it is known as the Hamoaze.

It was getting dusky before our launch appeared, and the Cornish shore, where lay the modern town of Torpoint, was become a great grey bank, featureless in the twilight. Great ships lay anchored in the fairway: the transports _Hindostan_ and _Himalaya_, white painted and beautiful, and several hideous battle-ships, of the latest type, black, and lying low in the water. We could hear the ships’ bells strike the hour in that curious nautical fashion which I, for one, do not understand. To a landsman it was seven o’clock; on board it was “six bells.” Presently lights were hung out aloft, and the ports began to throw gleams upon the hurrying tide. Sheer hulks, lying up river at their last moorings, cast no responsive ray, but, wrapped in darkness, fretted at their buoys and chains, as they have done for long, with every tide. Some one afloat sang the “Larboard Watch,” ashore a bugle sounded; night fell, the stars came out; the name of England, her might and majesty, the glory and the terror of her, filled our hearts too full for words.

Presently the launch came alongside the landing-stage and we went aboard. The voyage was chill with evening winds blowing down the valley of the Tamar. We passed a silent fleet of Tartarean looking torpedo-boats, moored, silent and deserted, in a long line, with great white numbers painted on their bows, and towering war-ships, with tall masts and heavy spars, and armoured sides--a type just becoming obsolete, or already become so, we move so fast nowadays.

We ran past hulks, scarlet painted, with stores of gunpowder and gun-cotton aboard; past the Government powder wharf; then to the landing at Bull Point, and soon to Saltash pontoon. We came off the steamer into Saltash streets. Giant piers of Saltash Bridge loomed impressively overhead, and cottages beneath crouched humbly in crowded ways. A piano-organ was discussing interminable strings of curly chords and flourishes, to whose din children were dancing by the light of a waterside public. The sights and sounds effectually vulgarised time and place. We thought, as we toiled up the steep street, that Saltash was an abominable hole, and wished ourselves anywhere else.

Calling at the post-office for letters lying there for us, we chanced to hear of good rooms; so, with only the trouble of walking to the last house but one in the town, we were speedily suited with a resting-place.

XLIX.

Now were we in Cornwall, the land of fairies and piskies, and of prodigious saints and devils; the land of “once upon a time”--delightful period of twilight vagueness. According to John Taylor, who wrote in 1649--

“_Cornewall_ is the _Cornucopia_, the compleate and repleate Horne of Abundance for high churlish Hills, and affable courteous people; they are loving to requite a kindnesse, placable to remit a wrong, and hardy to retort injuries; the Countrey hath its share of huge stones, mighty Rocks, noble, free, Gentlemen, bountifull housekeepers, strong, and stout men, handsome, beautifull women, and (for any that I know) there is not one _Cornish_ Cuckold to be found in the whole County. In briefe they are in most plentifull manner happy in the abundance of right and left hand blessings.”

We supped, and read our correspondence, and despatched replies, and so to rest in the sweetest smelling of sheets and the downiest of beds, in bedrooms overlooking at a distance the Three Towns, the walls covered with texts and coloured prints representative of the domestic virtues.

In the morning Saltash wore another aspect, and we rather congratulated ourselves upon our choice. From our windows we saw the Hamoaze, the twin-towers of Keyham Yard, and the ships of the navy at anchor, among them the _Gorgon_, which the irreverent in these parts call the _Gorgonzola_, one of those turreted battle-ships whose shape and form can be closely imitated by taking a canoe and placing a portmanteau amidships of it, with a drain-pipe at top of that, and a walking-stick by way of mast--an unlovely type of vessel.

We were attracted, in the first instance, this morning, to Saint Budeaux, across the river from Saltash; but its singularity of nomenclature proved to be its only striking feature. The place is now becoming a Plymouth suburb, of healthy condition and prosaic appearance, encircled by military roads and forts, with scarps and counterscarps, ravelins and guns, and ↑ War Office marks everywhere. Sir Francis Drake was married in its church, and that, I think, is Saint Budeaux’s only noteworthy incident.

We walked into Plymouth from here, and were thoroughly tired before we reached its streets: distances round Plymouth are deceptive to strangers.

At every turn on the way there were evidences of the sea, either in creeks, where the salt mud lay drying until the next tide, or in distant masts and rigging seen over the house-tops of the town. Town, did I say? Nay, not one, but three towns, for are not Plymouth, Devonport, and Stonehouse coterminous, and famed in song and story as the “Three Towns” in all the distinction that comes of capital letters?

Yet why not four towns? Why should not Stoke Damerel--that name with the look and sound of some new and dreadful composite form of swearing--why should not Stoke Damerel, of ancient name, be accounted a fourth town? It is big enough, and certainly respectable enough, despite its name, which, locally, is Stoke, _tout court_.

But in the growth of new districts here, how comes it that Ford is not a fifth town, nor Morice Town a sixth? These things are not for solution. Let us hie upon the Hoe again, and, by that disestablished tower of Smeaton’s, strain our eyes toward the newer lighthouse anchored on its reef far out to sea.

It is needful to get all the breeze you can before setting out upon any pilgrimage through the Three Towns; for, truly, slums are not peculiar to London. Coming westward, over Laira Bridge, and so through to Torpoint Ferry, they are plenty and noisome; explore the Citadel and the scaly, fishy purlieus of the Barbican; but leave, oh! leave those slums to stew undisturbed.

Better is it to voyage across the Sound to the loveliness and fresh air and altogether sub-tropical domain of Mount Edgcumbe, whence this trinity of towns may be seen stretched out like a plan, with the Hamoaze, the many creeks and pools and inlets running in every direction.

The beauty of Plymouth’s site is, indeed, undeniable, whosoever may disparage it; nor may the splendour of its admirably centralised public buildings be gainsaid. Plymouth Guildhall is one of the most magnificent of modern buildings in the west--Gothic, good in design and execution; its windows, filled with stained glass, representing celebrated scenes in local history, from ancient days until that year in the ’70’s, when the Prince of Wales opened this building. This last event is duly shown in gorgeously tinted glass, but the Prince’s frock-coat is scarcely beautiful nor his silk hat an ideally fit subject for treatment in a stained-glass window. Let us laugh!

L.

This morning we rambled down to Antony Passage, on the Lynher River, and hailed the ferryman to put us across to Antony Park, on the opposite shore. The Norman keep of Trematon Castle looks down from the Saltash side on to a mud-creek spanned at its junction with the broad Lynher by one of Brunel’s old wooden railway viaducts, its sturdy timbers stalking across the ooze with curious effect.

Landed on the opposite shore, we walked through the beautifully wooded park, passing Antony House, the seat of the Carews since the fifteenth century. The house was rebuilt in 1721, but contains a fine collection of old masters, among them a portrait of Richard Carew, who died in 1620.

Richard Carew, of Antony, was the author of the well-known “Survey of Cornwall,” published in 1602. In the original edition the work is one of great charm of manner, and the interspersed songs by the author are instinct with grace and nicety of epithet. In a very much later edition the editor has taken upon himself to modernise Carew’s orthography with sorry results to his engaging style.

Not readily could one gather verses of such delightful conceits as these, upon the Lynher River:--

_ITEM._

“When Sunne the earth least shadow spares, And highest stalles in heauen his seat, Then _Lyners_ peeble bones he bares, Who like a lambe, doth lowly bleat, And faintly sliding euery rock, Plucks from his foamy fleece a lock.

“Before, a riuer, now a rill, Before, a fence, now scarce a bound: Children him ouer-leape at will, Small beasts, his deepest bottome sound. The heauens with brasse enarch his head, And earth, of yron makes his bed.

“But when the milder-mooded skie, His face in mourning weedes doth wrap, For absence of his clearest die, And drops teares in his Centers lap, _Lyner_ gynnes Lyonlike to roare, And scornes old bankes should bound him more.

“Then, Second Sea, he rolles, and bear’s, Rockes in his wombe, rickes on his backe, Downe-borne bridges, vptorne wear’s, Witnesse, and wayle, his force, their wracke, Into mens houses fierce he breakes, And on each stop, his rage he wreakes.

“Shepheard adiew’s his swymming flocke, The Hinde his whelmed haruest hope, The strongest rampire fear’s his shocke, Plaines scarce can serue to giue him scope, Nor hils a barre; whereso he stray’th, Ensue, losse, terrour, ruine, death.”

And these verses show us the manner of the man:--

“I Wayt not at the Lawyers gates, Ne shoulder clymers downe the stayres; I vaunt not manhood by debates, I enuy not the miser’s feares; But meane in state, and calme in sprite, My fishfull pond is my delight.

“Where equall distant Hand viewes His forced banks, and Otters cage: Where salt and fresh the poole renues, As spring and drowth encrease or swage: Where boat presents his seruice prest, And well becomes the fishes nest;