Part 12

“There sucking Millet, swallowing Basse, Side-walking Crab, wry-mouthed Flooke, And slip-fist Eele, as euenings passe, For safe bayt at due place doe looke: Bold to approche, quick to espy, Greedy to catch, ready to fly.

“In heat the top, in cold the deepe, In springe the mouth, the mids in neap; With changelesse change by shoales they keepe, Fat, fruitfull, ready, but not cheap; Thus meane in state, and calme in sprite, My fishfull pond is my delight.”

Antony village is considerably more than a mile distant from the park. It stands picturesquely on the road to Liskeard, on rising ground, entered past a communal tree, encircled with seats, after a good old fashion that seems nowadays but rarely perpetuated.

In the little street of Antony is a library of the most rudimentary type, a little reading-room supported by small subscriptions, and supplied with a few weekly and daily newspapers. We turned the door-handle and walked into this room of 10 × 7 feet; but, alas! there instantly came across the road a woman in whom (evidently) was invested the care of the place, who informed us that this was not a public reading-room, and who held the door open in the most suggestive way. We went.

“I’m sorry,” observed the Wreck upon going, “that we have intruded: I hope we have not injured your shanty.”

“No harm done,” replied the janitress, who was plainly acting upon a painful sense of duty. We adjourned to the church, and after ascending the many steps leading to it, sat down to argue the matter in the porch.

“See,” said the Wreck bitterly, “how despitefully one is used when tramping about on a walking-tour and carrying these abominable things,” and he unstrapped his knapsack with a vicious tug. “That woman ... took us for tramps, and that sort of thing hurts one’s _amour propre_.”

“Very correct estimate, too,” said I, flicking the dust off my boots with my handkerchief, “and one unlikely to tax her powers of discernment to an inconvenient extent.”

“’Been swallowing a dictionary lately?” inquired the Wreck with biting sarcasm.

“No, Ollendorff, that is not my method.” And then relations became strained.

LI.

So it fell out that I explored Antony church alone. A fair specimen this of Perpendicular architecture, crowded with monuments to the Carews of Antony, among them, one to the memory of the author of the “Survey of Cornwall.” Part of the inscription in Latin is by his friend Camden; the English verses are his own.

“The verses following were written by Richard Carew of Antony Esq. immediately before his death (which happened the Sixth of November 1620) as he was at his private prayers in his Study (his daily practice) at fower in the afternoon and being found in his Pocket were presented by his Grandsonne S^r Alexander Carew, according to whose desire they are here set up.

In Memory of him.

“Full thirteen fiues of years I toyling haue o’repast And in the fowerteenth weary, entred am at last While Rocks, Sands, Stormes & leaks, to take my bark away By greif, troubles, sorrows, sickness, did essay And yet arriv’d I am not at the port of death, The port to euerlasting Life that openeth, My time uncertain Lord, long certain cannot be What’s best, to mee’s unknown; & only known to thee. O by repentance & amendment grant that I May still liue in thy fear & in thy favour dye.”

There remains in the chancel a handsome perpendicular brass for the foundress of this church:

“Margeria Arundell quonda dna de Est Anton filia Warini Erchedeken militis.”

A tablet on the wall of the south aisle, to Admiral Thomas Graves, of Thanckes, and his wife, recites the lady’s relationship of first cousin to “Mr. Addison.” It is quite refreshing to find the connection with literature so proudly displayed: I don’t know, though, how much of this recognition is due to the fame of Addison’s matrimonial alliance with the Countess of Warwick. This thought, my literary friends, should give us pause.

On the high ground near Antony are two huge modern forts, one commanding the Lynher River, the other, looking over to seaward, defending the western approaches to Plymouth Sound. Screasdon and Tregantle Forts mount between them over 200 guns.

We reached the sea again at Downderry, passing to it through a dishevelled village called Crafthole, where we saw our first Cornish cross. Downderry is a small and very modern settlement of seaside lodging-houses, set down amidst wild and lonely scenery beside the treacherous sands of Whitesand Bay, in which many bathers have been engulfed.

To come suddenly upon the lath-and-plaster crudities of Downderry in midst of such scenery as this is to experience a cruel shock.

Downderry need detain no one.

From here it is a long, rough, and lonely walk to Looe, beside the sea; now upon lofty cliffs, and again in deep valleys opening direct from the water, with sandy shores and rocky rivulets running down from the moorlands with laughing ripples and gushing cascades, all solitary and peaceful. We halted in one of these remotenesses.

LII.

It was a beautiful valley. A little stream came tinkling down it from the impressive moors beyond, and its course was made romantic by many and huge and lichen-stained rocks; and a grey mill stood by it, with a great wheel slowly turning, and covered with aqueous growths, hanging and green, and bulged out dropsically, from whose pendant ends dropped continually crystal-clear beads of water.

We unstrapped our knapsacks, and sat down upon the grass, and basked in the sun a while. Then we essayed to cross the stepping-stones with the knapsacks in our hands; but, finding this something of an undertaking, we pitched them gently on the opposite bank.

But that bank was sloping, covered with short smooth grass, and treacherous, so that both those knapsacks rolled back, and plunged into the water and sank, sending up a succession of air-bubbles.

I am a truthful historian (between _these_ two covers, at any rate), and write nothing but the truth; but I do not conceive myself to be under the painful necessity of setting down the whole of it here, therefore I refrain from printing the remarks with which we greeted this disaster. In the language of the lady-novelist--“suffice it to say” that those remarks were equal to such an occasion.

The salvage of those knapsacks was a matter of little difficulty; not so the drying of their contents. We unpacked them, and spread them out in the sunshine, and anchored the linen to the grass with big stones, and chased the vagrant handkerchiefs, blown down the valley by the wind. Then, when all things were securely laid out to dry, and the neighbourhood began to look like a suburban garden on washing-day, we began to find time hang heavily.

So--let me confess the childishness of it--we began the building of a dam across the stream, with rocks for foundation, then a layer of turves, then smaller pieces of granite, and, on top of these, bracken, more turf, and rocks again. Once or twice, when the water on the upper side of the dam had swelled, great breaches were made in it; but at last we completed a wall so thick, substantial, and impervious, contrived with such cunning alternations of material, that it afforded quite a substantial foothold to us builders, and on its lower side the bed of the stream became quite dry.

And ever, as the water from above rose and began to tip this creation of ours, we added more courses to it, so that the reservoir above became deep indeed, and the water began to invade the upper banks of the stream.

I cannot hope to communicate to you the peculiar pleasure we took in this, nor to give you an idea of the frantic haste with which we grubbed up more turf and piled on more boulders. We achieved an extraordinary enthusiasm in doing these things.

But time wore on: the Wreck was bending over our joint architecture, putting (I think) an ornamental cornice on it by way of finishing touch, when he fell off with a great splash and a shower of stones into about three and a half feet of water, and lay grovelling there, full length, while the dam burst apart like the opening of folding-doors, and left him, in quicker time than I can write it, stranded, but--no!--not dry.

Rarely have I laughed so long and so helplessly.

We reached Looe toward tea-time, as the melodious crash and tinkle of tea “things” from the open doors of outlying cottages informed us.

Looe lay below us, precipitous, lovely, in a golden haze. Looe was welcome, for the rocky walking of the afternoon had developed blisters. Below, directly in our path, lay an inn with a sign bespeaking “warmest welcome,” to quote from Shenstone. It was the “Salutation.” But the reception, though polite enough, belied the sign. The “missis” was out, said the landlord; he could not get us tea.

Then we had to seek elsewhere, finally to find tea and a haven for the night at the “Ship.”

LIII.

Looe is a little place, yet it hums with life quite as loudly, in proportion, as any hive. Carts, all innocent of springs, rattle thunderously up and down its steep and narrow streets and lanes; the voices of them that cry pilchards are heard continually; the noise of the quays and the roar of the waves, the chiming of the Guildhall clock, and the blundering of sea-boots upon cobble-stones, help to swell the noise of as noisy a town for its size as you shall find. There is always, too, the shouting and yeo-ho-ing of the seamen in the harbour, and the tinkle of windlasses echoes all day across Looe River, mingled with the screaming of the sea-gulls in the bay.

As Looe River runs toward the sea, the valley narrows until, in its last hundred yards, it becomes a narrow gorge, with rugged rocks and precipitous hills on either side, and as you stand facing the sea, but a few yards from the diminutive beach, you are in receipt of an effect theatrical in its romantic exaggeration, and instantly your mind is filled with vague visions of the highly coloured nautical scenes long peculiar to the Transpontine Drama, now sacred to the memory of G. P. R. James and T. P. Cooke. The proper complement of this stage-like piece of foreshore would be, you feel certain, a row of footlights, and the eye wanders right and left for the wings, whence should come the virtuous sailor, the Dick Dauntless of the piece, with his Union Jack, pigtail, quid, and hornpipe, all complete; with straw hat, blue jacket, brass-buttoned, and trousers of spotless white; his whiskers curled in ringlets, and his mouth full of plug tobacco and sentiments of the most courageous virtue. He should come on, furiously hitching his slacks as he rolls, rather than walks, upon the boards, waving his Union Jack and brandishing a cutlass--though, how he is to do all this at once with only two hands is more than I can tell you.

You scan the offing for the piratical-looking craft, which, to be in keeping, _should_ be tacking outside the harbour--but isn’t--murmuring to yourself softly the while, “once aboard the lugger;” and your reflections are brought back smartly to everyday matters by the suggestion of a (comparatively) prosaic fisherman that it is a “fine day for a sail.” You look upon the rolling deep, and with misgivings turn sadly away in the direction of the Ship Hotel.

At the “Ship” were many visitors, so for one night we had to lodge out, at the house of a dour, dreary-looking bootmaker. We breakfasted, though, at the hotel, and arrived there in time to find one of the guests conning the sketch-book I had left by misadventure in the coffee-room overnight. The man was all apology and nervousness, and upset a cup of tea over sketch-book and table-cloth. Then he retired confusedly to a couch at the other end of the room, where he immediately sat down on my hat. After this he went out, and probably did some more damage on the cumulative principle.

There are several morals to this pathetic episode, of which undoubtedly the most striking is, “Don’t leave your hat on the sofa.”

They have a visitors’ book at the “Ship,” from which I have culled some examples. The visitors’ book at an hotel is ever my first quest. Its contents, though, are mostly sorry stuff: praises of food supplied, and the moderation of the charges--forms of eulogy particularly distasteful to myself. But let us to our Looe versicles:--

“Dear Friend, be warned ere first you visit Looe; Its charms are many and its drawbacks few, Lest home and duties all alike forsook, You fall beneath the charms of Host and Hostess Cook; The fare is sweet, the charges just and low (I’ve travelled much, so surely ought to know, ’Neath Syren’s rocks I’ve heard the eddying Rhine, In Bingen’s bowers drunk the native wine, On Baltic’s wave have watched the setting sun, In France’s fields have met the peaceful nun, In Wales have wandered by the trout-streamed hill, On Scotland’s highlands paid the longest bill) Our host is not a lawyer, yet his conveyance cheap Will bear you to Polperro, from thence to Fowey steep, From threatening Cheesewing gaze on oceans twain, At night at billiards try a _coup de main_,[8] But yet, I’m sure, as day still follows day ’Twill find you anxious more and more to stay, Delighted, charmed, with lotus-eating mind, List! Menheniot’s horn and you are left behind!”

Another:--

“At East Looe, R.S.O., you’ll find A ‘Ship’ in which you’ll make your home; ’Tis safely anchor’d near the shore Above the angry billows’ foam.

* * * * *

Three voyages in this ‘Ship’ I’ve made, The wind was fair, the ocean calm:-- And ‘Captain Cook,’ he knows his book, His wife’s and sister’s hearts are warm.”

But “Captain” Cook did not know his book sufficiently well to know that he had entertained a minor poet unawares. In the Visitors’ Book is the signature of Mr. Edmund Gosse, and the landlord had no recollection of him, although his visit had been, as another poet (_minimis!_) sings, “only a year ago.”

“The ‘Captain’s’ wife and sister too Will do their best to make your lip So much enjoy your food[9] that you Again will take another trip In that most comfortable ‘Ship.’”

Fragment:--

“At Looe again: This makes my Trinity Of visits here; that is, they number Three. Despite storms, wrecks, and stress of life I anchor here, away from strife For briefest stay.”...

LIV.

We left Looe in the late afternoon, and toiled up the steep and stony hill that begins to ascend directly after the “Jolly Sailor” is passed. Atop of this hill we immediately and perversely lost our way, and the remainder of the afternoon was spent in plunging through “town-places”[10] and fields, and climbing over Cornish hedges, until we reached the church of Talland, nestling under the lee of the hills that run down precipitously to Talland Bay. Talland Church is peculiar in having its tower set apart from the main building, and connected with it only by an archway. But its peculiarities do not end here, for the place is very much of a museum of antiquities, and epitaphs of an absurdly quaint character abound. I am afraid Talland Church echoed with our laughter, more than was seemly, on this diverting afternoon. Here is an example:--

“In Memory of HUGH FOWLER Who Departed this Life the 10^{th} day of August. In y^e year 1771. Aged 50 years Old.

Afflictions Sore Long time I’ve Bore Physitions ware in Vain Till God was Pleased Death should me seise And Ease me of my Pain Welcome Sweet Day of Rest I am Content to ‘Die My Soul forsakes her vain Delight And bids the World farewel; Mourn not for me my Wife an Child so Dear I am not Dead but sleeping hear, Farewel Vain world Ive seen Enough of thee And now I am carles what thou says of me Thy smiles I Court not nor thy frowns I fear My Glass is Run my Head Lays kuiet here What Faults you seen in me take care to shun And Luck at home Enough there’s to be don.

_Also_ with thin lie the remains of Elizabeth his Wife who Died the 6 day of April 1789 Aged 69 Years.”

Pursy cherubs of oleaginous appearance, and middle-aged double-chinned angels wearing pyjamas, decorate, with weirdly humorous aspect, the ledger-stone on which this crazy-patchwork epitaph is engraved, and grin upon you from the pavement with the half-obliterated grins of a century and more. One of them is pointing with his claw to an object somewhat resembling a crumpled dress-tie, set up on end, probably intended for an hour-glass. Here are some of these devices, reproduced exactly, neither extenuated nor with aught of exaggeration.

The low and roomy building, in places green with damp, is paved with mutilated ledger-stones, whose fragments have long ago suffered what seems to be an abiding divorce, so that disjointed invocations, and sacred names, and gruesome injunctions to “Prepare for Death,” start into being as you pace the floor. Here, too, more than in any other place, do people seem moved to verse in commemorating their departed friends, not infrequently casting their elegies in the first person, so that the dead of Talland appear to a casual observer to be the most conceited and egotistical of corpses. Of this type, the following epitaph is perhaps the most striking:--

“ERECTED to the memory of ROBERT MARK; late of Polperro, who Unfortunately was _shot at Sea_ the 24^{th} day of Jan^y in the Year of our LORD GOD 1802, in the 40^{th} Year of His AGE.

In prime of Life most suddenly, Sad tidings to relate; Here view My utter destiny, And pity My sad state: I by a shot, which Rapid flew, Was instantly struck dead; LORD pardon the Offender who, My precious blood did shed. Grant Him to rest and forgive Me, All I have done amiss; And that I may Rewarded be, With Euerlasting Bliss.”

Now, this Robert Mark was a smuggler. He was at the helm of a boat which had been obliged to run before a revenue cutter, and the boat was at the point of escaping when the cutters crew opened fire, killing him on the spot.

But the most curious of all the epitaphs within the church of Talland is that engraved on the monument to “John Bevyll of Kyllygath.” The monument is an imposing edifice of slate, in the south aisle, with a figure of John Bevyll, habited in a curious Elizabethan costume, carved in somewhat high relief on top. The verses are the more curious, in that they employ archaic heraldic terms, now little known. They set out by describing the Bevyll arms, “A Rubye Bull in Perle Filde”--that is to say, in modern heraldry, a _Bull gules in a field argent_:--

“A Rubye Bull in Perle Filde; doth shewe by strength & hew A youth full wight yet chast & cleane to wedded feere moste trew. From diamonde Beare in Perle plot aleevinge he achived By stronge and stedfast constancy in chastnes still conciued. To make all vp a mach he made with natiue Millets plaste In natiue seate, so nature hath the former vertues graste His Prince he serud in good regard twyce Shereeve and so iust That iustlye still on Justice seate Three princes him did trust. Suche was his lyfe and suche his death, whos corps full low doth lye. Whilste Soule by Christe to happy state with hym doth rest on hye. Learne by his life suche life to leade, his death let platform bee. In life to shun the caufe of death, that Christe maye leeve in thee.”

“John Bevyll lyued yeares threscore three & then did yealde to dye He dyd bequeath his soule to God, his corps herein to lye.”

Below are very circumstantial accounts of the marriages and intermarryings of the Bevyll family, and on the old bench ends of the church their arms are displayed with countless quarterings.

The growing dimness in the church warned us of departing day, and so we went out into the churchyard, glancing as we passed at the many mournful inscriptions to sailors and fishermen drowned at sea.

Among the old stones the following epitaph attracted our attention; it is a gem of grotesqueness.

“Lament not for we our Mother So Dear no more in Vain If you have Lost ’tis we have Gain, we are gone to See---- Our Deariest Friends that Dweell Above them will we go an see And all our Friends that Dweell in Christ below Will soon Come after we.”

Talland is a wild and lonely spot even in these crowded days: a hundred years ago, it was a place to be shunned by reason of devils, wraiths, and fearful apparitions, that (according to the country folk) haunted the neighbourhood. But these tricksy sprites found their match in the vicar of Talland for the time being, a noted devil-queller, and layer of gnomes, known far and wide as Parson Dodge, a cleric who never failed to exorcise the most malignant of demons; a clergyman before whom Satanus himself, to say nothing of his troops of fearful wild-fowl, was popularly believed to tremble and flee discomfited. Not only did Parson Dodge attend to the evil spirits of his own parish, he was constantly in requisition throughout the county, and, so workmanlike were his methods, I don’t believe there is an active devil of any importance in Cornwall at this day.

The vicarage was a spot to be approached with fear o’ nights, for it was reputed to be the resort of the parson’s familiars, who assembled there to do his bidding, and the place to which came baffled and unwilling imps to be finally exorcised. Whatever truth there may have been in these things, there can be little doubt, I fear, that Talland was the scene of many successful “runs” by smugglers, in which Parson Dodge took no inactive part. Supernatural spirits, it may shrewdly be surmised, were not the only ones in which that redoubtable minister was interested.

LV.

Our map made the road from here to Polperro look like two miles; imagine our joy therefore when, after climbing the steepest hill we have seen in these parts, and after walking about a mile, we became aware of the imminence of that fishing village (or, as Jonathan Couch would have said--town) by seeing the blue smoke from its unseen houses rising in a clearly defined bank from an abyssmal ravine into the calmness of the evening air. “This,” said the Wreck, “must be--the devil.” This emphatic and earnest ending to his sentence had no reference to Polperro, I hasten to add, except in so far as it was occasioned by Polperro stones, one of which had turned my luckless companion’s ankle almost to spraining point. After this we proceeded cautiously, for not only were stones large and loose withal, but they were plentiful as well, and the descending lane was of a preposterous steepness.

Country folks gave us good night as we passed them, and several women-artists we overtook, going home after the day’s daubing; then we ended our descent.