An Unsentimental Journey through Cornwall. Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

sharp-lined, wrinkled as it was—the man must have been fully sixty—there was in it a sweetness, an absolute beauty, which struck us at once. The smile, placid and paternal, came often, though words were few; and the keen, kindly eyes were blue as a child's, or as Tennyson describes King Arthur's.

      "I can imagine," whispered one of us who had imaginative tendencies, "that King Arthur might have looked thus, had he lived to grow old."

      "I don't believe King Arthur ever lived at all," was the knock-me-down utilitarian answer, to which the other had grown accustomed and indifferent. Nevertheless, there was such a refinement about the man, spite of his rough fisherman's dress, and he had been so kind to the young folks, so considerate to "the old lady," as Cornish candour already called me, that, intending to employ him again, we asked his name.

      "John Curgenven."

      "John what?" We made several hopeless plunges at it, and finally asked him to spell it.

      "Cur-gen-ven," said he; adding, with a slight air of pride, "one of the oldest families in Cornwall."

      (I have no hesitation in stating this, because, when we afterwards became great friends, I told John Curgenven I should probably "put him in a book"—if he had no objection. To which he answered with his usual composure, "No, he did not think it would harm him." He evidently considered "writing a book" was a very inferior sort of trade.)

      But looking at him, one could not help speculating as to how far the legend of King Arthur had been really true, and whether the type of man which Tennyson has preserved—or created—in this his "own ideal knight," did once exist, and still exists, in a modified modern form, throughout Cornwall. A fancy upon which we then only argued; now I, at least, am inclined to believe it.

      "There is Lord Brougham's head, his wig and his turn-up nose, you can see all distinctly. At least, you could if there was light enough."

      But there was not light, for the sun was setting, and the moon only just rising. Black looked the heaving sea, except where rings of white foam encircled each group of rocks, blacker still. And blackest of all looked the iron-bound coast, sharp against the amber western sky.

      "Yes, that's Kynance Cove, and the Gull Rock and Asparagus Island. Shall we row there? It's only about two miles."

      Two miles there, and two back, through this angry sea, and then to land in the dim light about 9 p.m.! Courage failed us. We did not own this; we merely remarked that we would rather see Kynance by daylight, but I think each of us felt a sensation of relief when the boat's head was turned homewards.

      Yet how beautiful it all was! Many a night afterwards we watched the same scene, but never lovelier than that night, the curved line of coast traceable distinctly up to Mount's Bay, and then the long peninsula which they told us was the Land's End, stretching out into the horizon, where sea and sky met in a mist of golden light, through which the sun was slowly dropping right from the sky into the sea. Beyond was a vague cloud-land, which might be the fair land of Lyonesse itself, said still to lie there submerged, with all its cities and towers and forests; or the "island-valley of Avillion," whither Arthur sailed with the three queens to be healed of his "grievous wound," and whence he is to come again some day. Popular superstition still expects him, and declares that he haunts this coast even now in the shape of a Cornish chough.

      Modern ghosts, too, exist, decidedly more alarming.

      "Look up there, ladies, that green slope is Pistol Meadow. Nobody likes to walk there after dark. Other things walk as well."

      "What things?"

      "Two hundred and more of foreign sailors, whose ship went to pieces in the little cove below. They're buried under the green mounds you see. Out of a crew of seven hundred only two men were washed ashore alive, and they were in irons, which the captain had put on them because they said he was going too near in shore. It was called Pistol Meadow because most of 'em were found with pistols in their hands, which may have been true or may not, since it happened more than a hundred years ago. However, there are the green mounds, you see, and Lizard folk don't much like passing the place after dark."

      "But you?"

      John Curgenven smiled. "Oh, us and the coast-guards! Us goes anywhere, at all hours, and never meets nothing. D'ye see those white marks all along the coast every few yards? They're rocks, kept white-washed, to guide the men of dark nights between here and Kynance. It's a ticklish path, when all's as black as pitch, with a stiff wind blowing."

      I should think it was! One almost shuddered at the idea, and then felt proud of the steady heads and cool courage of these coast-guard men—always the pick of the service, true Englishmen, fearless and faithful—the business of whose whole lives is to save other lives—that is, now that smuggling has abated, and those dreadful stories once current all along the coast of Cornwall have become mostly legends of the past. No tales of wreckers, or of fights between smugglers and revenue officers, reached our ears, but the stories of shipwrecks were endless. Every winter, and many times through the winter, some ghastly tragedy had happened. Every half-mile along this picturesque shore was recorded the place where some good ship went to pieces, often with the brief addendum, "all hands lost."

      "The sun's just setting. Look out for the Lizard Lights," called out Charles, who sat in the bow of the boat in faithful attendance upon his "ladies,"—another Knight of the Round Table in humble life—we met many such in Cornwall. "Look! There they are."

      And sure enough, the instant the sun's last spark was quenched in the sea, into which he dropped like a red round ball, out burst two substitute suns, and very fair substitutes too, making the poor little moon in the east of no importance whatever. The gleam of them extended far out upon the darkening ocean, and we could easily believe that their light was "equal to 20,000 candles," and that they were seen out at sea to a distance of twenty, some said even thirty, miles.

      "Except in a fog; and the fogs at the Lizard are very bad. Then you can see nothing, not even the Lights, but they keep sounding the fog-horn every minute or so. It works by the same machinery as works the Lights—a big steam-engine; you can hear it bum-bumming now, if you listen."

      So we could, a mysterious noise like that of a gigantic bumble-bee, coming across the water from that curious building, long and white, with its two towers and those great eyes in each of them, at either end.

      "They're wonderful bright;" said John Curgenven; "many's the time I've sat and read my newspaper by them a quarter of a mile off. They're seen through the blackest night, the blacker the brighter, seen through everything—except fog. Now, ladies, d'ye think you can jump ashore?"

      Some of us did, airily enough, though it required to choose your moment pretty cleverly so as to escape the incoming wave. And some of us—well, we accepted the inevitable, and were only too thankful to scramble anyhow, wet or dry, on terra firma.

      And then we had to ascend the zigzag path, slippery with loose stones, and uncertainly seen in the dim half-twilight, half-moonlight. At last we came out safe by the life-boat house, which we had noticed in passing, with the slit in its door for "Contributions," and a notice below that the key was kept at such and such a house—I forget the man's name—"and at the Rectory."