REMINISCENCES OF BOYHOOD’S DAYS
SNOW had fallen heavily during the night, for at daybreak it lay to a
depth of several inches on the grass under my window, and weighed down
the laurel-bushes that skirted it. It was an unusual sight for a Cornish
boy; but more impressive was the hush that had fallen on the world—the
noiseless footfall of man and horse and the muffled tones of St Mary’s
bells, scarcely audible though an east wind was blowing. This impression
has never left me, nor have many of the scenes that met my eyes lost
their vivid outlines. Despite the effacing influence of time, I can
still see clearly against the white background the incidents of that
Christmas-tide. One word about the frost. It was sudden as well as
severe, so that even the men who watched the skies for change of weather
were taken by surprise. The intense, cold traversed the island as fast
as the piercing wind that came with it, and between sundown and dawn had
laid its icy fetters on the whole country. Thus Penwith for once
suffered with the rest of England, and even more severely. Snowdrops had
been already gathered in sunny corners, and a quarryman on his way home
to Gulval had seen and picked a few primroses in Trevaylor woods, for
his sick wife. This became known subsequently, when the gardeners sought
excuses for not having bound up the stems of the palm-trees that had
till then flourished in the semi-tropical climate. Perhaps it is not
strictly correct to say that there was no warning of the frost. Two days
before it set in, John Harris, the lighthouse-keeper, had found a
woodcock with a broken bill lying dead on the stage outside the lantern,
and near it a rare bird only seen so far west in rigorous winters; and
those who took the side of the gardeners said that, had he not kept the
secret to himself for fear of the game-laws, not only the palm-trees,
but also the old aloe in Alverton Lane that had flowered the previous
summer, might have been saved. Whether the woodcock found by the
lighthouse-keeper was one of a big flight or whether the birds arrived a
day or so later is uncertain; at all events it was generally known on
Christmas Day that the furze-brakes were “alive with cock,” tidings
which raised a longing for the morrow in the breast of the sportsmen.
Among these was an old friend whom I found busy in his sanctum filling a
leathern pouch with shot from a canister. A log was blazing on the
hearth. As I talked to him, I noticed that the ruddy blaze was tinged
with green. I was puzzled to know the cause at the time, but I have
thought since that the colour must have been due to a copper nail in the
half-burnt piece of oak. The mention of this recalls how I used to enjoy
sitting by that fireside, listening to the yarns of the three sportsmen
who foregathered there. Who that ever heard them can forget the
incidents of that famous night’s sea-fishing at the “Back of the
Island”; the capture with the walking-stick rod of the two-pound trout
whose holt was the deep pool under the roots of the sycamore at the foot
of the hilly field at Trewidden; the vigils in the hut at Trevider
fowling-pool; the great take of peal in the trammel at Lamorna Cove, and
the finding the same morning of the otter drowned in the crab-pot nearly
half a mile seaward from the Bucks? Few sporting tales have appealed to
me as did those I overheard there; and, unconsciously, the surroundings
may have served to impress me the setting of a play impresses the
spectator in a theatre. Trophies of the rod and gun mingled with quaint
relics of by-gone days, that gave an old-world look to the room. Between
cases of stuffed birds and fishes hung pewter jugs, leather bottles,
rosaries, and crossbows. Above two sporting prints was a dove-coloured
top-hat, with a wide cork band and “Quaker” brim. Few hats could boast
such a history as that, but I cannot tell it here. On a shelf, between a
bookcase and a corner-cupboard, was the little basket that the woman
carried who used to distribute letters in Penzance in the early part of
the last century; and below it was a sketch of a contemporary of hers,
the famous Joe Pascoe, the one-armed constable, who, according to
tradition, was a terror to badger-baiters and cock-fighters, and a match
for Boney himself. There, too, was a sketch of Henry Quick, the Zennor
peasant-poet, with these lines of his under it:—
“Ofttimes abroad I take my flight,
Take pity on poor Henny;
To sell my books ’tis my delight,
To gain an honest penny.”
Under a coach-horn that had often awakened the echoes of the Cornish
hills, were three small cabinets, my friend’s own handiwork. The
smallest contained minute shells, carefully classified, which he had
collected on Porthcurnow and Gwenvor beaches; but more interesting to me
than shells, ferns, or wildflowers, was the collection of birds’ eggs.
What rare ones some of those compartments held! What trouble my friend
had had in securing them! I have often questioned him about his
expeditions on the cliffs, but he preferred to dwell on his visits to
the outer islands of Scilly. The rugged grandeur of Mincarlo and
Menavawr appealed to him; yet Annet was his favourite, and though he was
a man of few words and free from gush, I have heard him sigh when a
sea-bird’s egg, or the lichen or withered thrift it rested on, recalled
the beauty of this islet, which, when the sea-pinks are in bloom, glows
under the June sun with the brilliant beauty of an amethyst set in
sapphire.
* * * * *
[Illustration: NEST OF SEAGULL. [_Face page 190._]
* * * * *
The room had one window only; but it was a spacious bay which faced
south, and through it you could see and hear the waves breaking on the
beach below. More than once that afternoon, before he lit the lamp, my
friend turned the spyglass on some companies of wildfowl that dotted the
rough water between the “Battery” and Lareggan rocks.
A double-barrelled muzzle-loader—a Joe Manton—was George Bevan’s
favourite gun; and this, with powder-flasks, shot-pouches, caps and
wads, were placed ready for the next morning. Only a boy who has been
entered to sport and knows how the anticipation of it fevers the blood,
can understand how impatiently I looked forward to the morrow. That
night I thought sleep would never come; and at what hour I fell off I do
not know, for the frost had got into the workings of our eight-day
clock, and as for the town clock, that could generally be heard the town
over, it might have stopped for all the sound it made in striking. But I
must have slept, for I was half awakened by some noise against my
window. My first impression was that the snow had changed to hail, but
as the rattle grew louder I sat up in bed. Then it was I heard, “Jack,
get up!” faint and far away, like the doctor’s voice when you’re coming
to after chloroform; and almost immediately the memory of everything
came back to me—my friend’s last assurance that he would call for me,
the white world outside and, most stirring of all, the woodcock awaiting
us in the furze-brakes. I was up in a jiffy, struck a light, and dressed
as hurriedly as a fourth-form boy whom the first stroke of the call-over
bell finds in bed. The cold had not relented, for a film of ice lay on
the water in the jug, and by the candlelight I saw that the window-panes
were frosted over. This was joy to me, for in my troubled sleep I had
dreamt that the commonplace world was back again, and that every
woodcock had flown away in the train of the retreating frost. Moreover,
when we set out, the snow crunched under our feet, and a long icicle was
hanging from the stone lip of the Alverton chute. Day was breaking when
we reached the hilly field at Rosehill and followed the path under the
beech-trees; and it is there, for some reason I cannot explain, that I
best recall my old friend on that day. He was well above the middle
height, and strongly built. The gun was slung across his back by means
of a leather strap. The coat of heather-mixture he wore had, besides big
side-pockets, several subsidiary ones, and there were leather pieces on
the shoulders. Two spaniels followed at his heels, and his henchman, an
old man who had been in the employ of the family all his life, closed
the procession. My friend’s hair was silvering, as you could see between
the upturned collar and the brim of the dove-coloured hat; and for that
reason he seemed, to my boyish eyes, an old man. Nevertheless I had some
difficulty in keeping up with him, especially when, not having mittens
on as he had, I put my hands in my pockets to protect them from the
biting cold. Yet how slight must have been my discomfort compared to the
distress of the birds—fieldfares, thrushes, whinnards, blackbirds,
starlings and missel-thrushes—which were flying hither and thither in
the vain search for food. Though no doubt I thought how easily they
might be trapped, I was sorry for the smaller birds, wrens and tomtits,
that threaded the hedgerow near the farmhouse, and for the robin, puffed
out with cold, perched on one leg on the sill of the dairy window. A
little farther on, where the footpath crosses the brook near its
junction with the Lezingey stream, a snipe rose from some rushes; and
farther on again, near some furze-bushes, were tracks of at least one
rabbit. But we left them all behind us. The shooting-ground we were
making for lay on the southern edge of the “High Country,” and though
our shortest way would have been along the “Watery Lane,” as it used to
be called, and up Hendra Bottoms, we rose the steep hill leading to
Boswednan. By this more roundabout course, we should avoid the drifts
through which a farmhand, who had brought tidings of the woodcock, had
been obliged to force his way.
From the high ground above the hamlet, where we halted a moment to take
breath, we overlooked a scene which resembled a rude cast in white of
the familiar countryside. Many landmarks were disguised beyond
recognition, and the waters of Mount’s Bay, generally like a liquid gem
of the deepest blue, looked dull as lead. The newly-risen sun loomed big
through the frost-fog which its rays could not penetrate, and a man with
weak eyes might have stared at the dull crimson orb without blinking. In
the hollow immediately below us, an old labourer, with a big faggot of
furze on his back, was staggering across a yard, his feet sinking at
every step deeper and deeper into the snow, as he made for the closed
door of the farmhouse against which it had drifted. It must be admitted
that the snowfall, heavy as it was, could not be compared to the great
blizzard of later years, which blocked the railway, isolated the
dwellers in the country, and but for his knowledge of the position of a
starveling tree on the edge of a quarry, would probably have cost the
Earthstopper his life. Nevertheless, wildfowl were quite as abundant;
and as the Looe Pool, Marazion Marsh, and other resorts became frozen
over, they had to shift their quarters, and ultimately to settle on the
sea.
* * * * *
[Illustration: ST MICHAEL’S MOUNT. [_Face page 194._]
* * * * *
More than one skein of duck had passed high overhead since daybreak,
flying westward, but none so big as the great flock of widgeon which we
saw, some four gunshots above us, as we were turning into the marshy
moor near Tremayne plantation, where our sport was to begin. This piece
of undrained ground was, may be is, shaped like a triangle. Tussocks of
rushes just showed above the snow, and a runnel, winding in and out
among them, ran chattering between a double frill of ice. We had not
advanced many steps before a snipe rose, to fall to the first barrel,
and soon after a wisp got up out of range, and flew away in the
direction of the Big Downs. Following the running water, we approached
the corner, where rushes gave place to a brambly thicket, between which
and the stone walls behind grew a few gnarled holly-bushes. The spaniels
were hardly in this cover before they flushed a woodcock. Bang! bang!
and the bird fell on our side of the wall. The smoke had not cleared
when another rose from the other side, where a few withes skirted the
runnel. It afforded the easiest of shots; but, alas! both barrels were
empty, and the reloading of a muzzle-loader takes time. We crouched,
hoping the bird might settle in an adjoining marsh, but it kept on in
the direction of Trannack Hill till it became a mere speck in the leaden
sky, and at last was lost to view.
Separated from the three-cornered moor by two or three rough fields is a
stennack—an excavation made by the “old men” in mining for tin—in
length a good stone’s throw, and some thirty yards across. The bed of it
lies from twelve to twenty feet below the level of the field that
circles it, so that the biting wind swept over the white coverlet that
concealed the close thicket of furze, blackthorn, and bramble that grew
there. Standing on the edge of the bank, we could follow the movements
of the dogs by the snow which fell here and there from the bushes.
Presently a woodcock rose silently a few yards in front of them on the
far side, and fell to the shot, dropping behind a thorn-bush on the
opposite bank. Shortly after, another got up but was missed, and then
for a time there was a lull in the sport. Not that the excitement
flagged, for the spaniels were giving tongue, and as they drew near the
zigzagging bank on which we stood a rabbit bolted on our right; then,
strange to say, a fox made off, stealing away with that lissom movement
that only a wild creature is endowed with, his ruddy coat showing finely
against the white background. Near the farther end of the stennack three
teal were flushed. They were up and away in no time, affording a pretty
right and left. Two dropped in the thicket, and it was some time before
we succeeded in finding them. It may seem hard to understand that the
stennack was a haunt for wildfowl, but so it was. There was no pool of
water there, no spring, as far as I could see; and a small cave at the
foot of the high bank was dry, for, boylike, I peeped in over the drift
that half-filled its mouth.
Leaving the field, we made for Trevean farmhouse. The snow in the
unfrequented lane that we followed was unmarked by any footprint except
the track of a hare. Soon we could smell the reek of burning furze, and
as we came in sight of the high stone chimney, we heard the mooing of
the cattle that had been driven in from the wild moors around. Two
colts, with rugged coats and steaming nostrils, whose heads projected
over the half-door of the stable, welcomed us with a neigh, as we
crossed the rickyard and entered the house. A fire blazed on the hearth;
but of the interior I can recall clearly but one object, an old woman
wearing a small red shawl, seated in a high-backed chair at the end of
the table, with a big book open before her. It was the indescribable
calm on her face that I shall never forget. That is what I see first as
the scene passes before my eyes, then the muslin cap she wore, and last,
though its hue was so bright, her red turnover. A sheep-dog was
stretched at full length on the stone floor, his nose, that lay between
his tan-coloured paws, nearly touching the little wooden footstool on
which the aged woman’s feet rested; but this part of the picture is
faded. My friend chatted with her so long about some great frost of
years before that I thought he must have forgotten all about the
woodcock. At length we left the farm kitchen and set out for the wild
waste-land, the farmer going with us. The good sport we subsequently met
with in Billy Hal’s moor tempts me to tell the reader at once what
happened there, but I will first touch briefly on the most striking
incidents in the wide round we took over the country on the hither side
of it.
Scarcely a croft but held its woodcock: hardly a runnel from which a
snipe did not rise. In the bottom under Penhale fox-brake, a woodcock
rose out of some brambles growing inside the ruined walls of a roofless
cottage, and a little further down, where a leat runs into the New
Bridge stream—that looked amid the snow like a black ribbon lying on a
bed of goose-down—a mallard was shot, and a startled heron was allowed
to flap itself away unmolested. Shortly after this, the sun for a brief
space broke through the clouds and turned the dull white scene into a
glittering fairyland. Near Boswortha Cairn—oh, how piercing was the icy
wind there—both barrels were discharged at a passing flock of golden
plover, and on the far side of the rocks the farmer, humouring my
curiosity, led me to see a set of badgers’ earths. Three of the holes
were blocked, and not a track was to be seen in front of the one that
remained open. As we hurried to rejoin our little party, the farmer
dropped up to his ears in a pit, his black beard lying flat on the snow.
His hearty laugh rang out; but my friend, who was some thirty yards
below us, did not turn his head—in fact, did not, as he afterwards
said, hear any sound. I mention this to show how strong the wind was,
though another fact probably contributed to the result—my friend and
his old henchman were approaching Billy Hal’s moor.
Waste land it is, as its name indicates, but in luxuriance of growth it
is an oasis amidst the barren hills that screen it from unkind winds. In
the spring, its bushes are the first of that wild and unprofitable
countryside to spread a wealth of golden blossom; in the autumn, the
blackberry-picker crowns her basket with big purple berries from the
bushes beside the rushy brook there. Later, when the sloes have
shrivelled on the blackthorns and the coralline hips of the dog-rose
adorn the leafless briers, the farm-boy, seeking strayed cattle, flushes
the first woodcock of the season and forthwith sets a springe or two on
the boggy margin of the runnel under the thicket of black withes. From
then until February this moor holds more than its share of the
longbills, and when woodcock are plentiful in other coverts, in Billy
Hal’s moor, to use the country folks’ term, they are “daggin.” In the
middle rises a knoll, whence the eye may descry the rude boundaries that
enclose its, perhaps, four customary acres.
My friend was pushing aside the snow-laden furze towards this
vantage-ground, and I followed in his wake. When he had gained it, he
raised the hammers of the gun, and then lifted his hand as a signal to
the farmer to let loose the dogs. We knew there were at least three
woodcock in the moor, for we had seen them drop there. Before you could
count ten, a woodcock rose with a great flapping noise. Bang! went the
gun as the bird twisted above the withes. Bang!—down it dropped on the
snow a good forty yards away, between the moor and a clump of gloomy
pines for which it seemed to be making. As I ran round to fetch it I
heard “mark cock” twice in succession, but no report followed, and
shortly after, “mark cock” from the farmer, with the discharge of both
barrels. The going was very rough, but at length I reached the brown
bird lying in the snow beside the brook. What a beauty it was! To this
day I cannot handle a woodcock without admiring its rich plumage, nor
for that matter, though I have taken hundreds, take a trout off a hook
without wondering at its lovely colouring.
It need scarcely be said that the rest of the moor was carefully beaten,
but how many woodcock were flushed I cannot remember, nor do I regret
it, for I fear the number might savour of exaggeration. Only five were
added to the bag. One shot was a very long one, and the bird fell in the
upper corner of the moor, near the ruins of Billy Hal’s cottage.
How long it was since Hal squatted on the land and hatched a title, I
have not been able to trace, nor the manner of his death, nor even where
he lies buried. The country-people venerate his memory, partly because
of his great skill in hiding smuggled goods and outwitting the king’s
officers, partly because of his markmanship with his blunderbuss. Some
crofters aver they have heard from their fathers that there was a
mystery about his end, and that Hal was buried at dead of night in his
own land. However that may be, there he has at times been seen on clear
nights in winter, moving noiselessly about amongst the furze with a
short heavy gun, or sitting on the stones of his ruined hearth. It is a
great pity that the mantle of the famous ghost-layer, Parson
Polkinghorne, has not descended to any of his successors. We have it on
the best authority that his exorcising formula, which began with the
words “Nommy, Dommy” (in nomine Domini), never failed to lay the poor
troubled spirits of those less sceptical days.
The moor having been shot over, we made our way to the house. It was now
nearly three o’clock, and I felt tired, though not too tired to eat. The
farmer’s daughter had laid our luncheon in the seldom-used parlour.
There were sandwiches, mince-pies, a basin of clotted cream, some
whortleberry jam, and a plate of sturmer pippins. These last were grown
in my friend’s garden on espaliers, and he could generally produce one
or two even when the next year’s fruit reddened the quarrenden-tree in
the corner by the bee-skip. We stayed but a short time, as I thought,
over our lunch, for we needed daylight to find our way down the bottoms,
and snow had begun to fall again. From between the half-drawn curtains,
where an ostrich egg hung, I had seen the big flakes. So bidding adieu
to the dear old lady, we made our way down the hill, and at length
reached the clump of firs in the bottoms, where my friend stayed to
light his pipe. I should not have mentioned so trifling an incident, had
it not been that he used the tinder-box for the purpose. This was his
almost invariable custom, except in summer: then he preferred a
burning-glass, especially when deep-sea fishing. With a twinkle in his
grey eyes the farmer remarked, “Like Mr George, edna?” and shortly
after, at a spot where, as the curve of the drift showed, was a gap, he
left us and was soon lost to sight in the blinding snow. We had rather
less than a mile to go before striking a road, but our progress was
poor, owing partly to the drifts, partly to the rough ground that lay
under the even surface of the snow. A candle was burning in a window of
Hendra farmhouse as we passed the lower pond, and when we came in sight
of Boswednan lane we saw the lights—the welcome lights—of a carriage
that was awaiting us at the foot of the hill. Of the drive home I know
nothing, as I slept soundly the whole way.
* * * * *
Thus ended a day’s sport which lives in my memory when days since
enjoyed on grouse-moors and by woodland coverts have been well-nigh
forgotten, big bags notwithstanding.
Since penning these lines, I have turned to my friend’s diary. These are
his brief entries for the two days:—
“25th December.—Heavy fall of snow. Sharp frost. Bunches of duck and
geese in the bay. Seine shot at Mullion. Bonfire on Poldhu Cliff. Eleven
loads of fish up by five o’clock next morning, when I left Newlyn
cellar.”
“26th December.—At Trewern, Trevean, Penhale, Boswortha Cairn, Billy
Hal’s moor, with Jack. 9 woodcock; 3 brace snipe, 2½ golden plover, 1 of
teal; 1 big snipe, 1 mallard, 1 bittern. Wind keen as a razor on
Boswortha Cairn, very lew in Billy Hal’s moor, which was full of
‘cock.’”
The old “Joe Manton,” which I have taken out of its case, is standing
against my study-table, and a beautiful weapon it is, albeit the barrels
are a trifle thin. Many days’ use have worn them so; but as far as I
have been able to look back through the interesting diary there is only
one entry with a bigger bag, and that was in the very winter when the
scream of the iron horse silenced the coach-horn, and gave such a shock
to Penwith’s customs. If you ask of what year I have been writing, I
will tell you in our West-country way—by naming an unusual event—that
it was the year when a pilchard seine was shot on Christmas Day, and
tucked in a snowstorm under the cliffs, on which a beacon, to spread the
glad tidings, was lighted on a spot whence wireless messages are now
transmitted across the seas.