HOW BURROUGH LONGED TO ENTER LYONESSE.
More than a month passed before Burrough heard anything of Beatrice.
During that time he worked as hard as he could. His days were
singularly monotonous. The morning he occupied at his writing-table,
trying to project himself into the stone age. He walked in the
afternoon upon the moor, or to little Blissland, or through the copse
where the flowers were beginning to fail. Beside the river the pink
seed-pods of the asphodels announced autumn, and the red sundews were
sinking in the bogs. The early evening he spent with prehistoric men
in their hut circles; and then he sat by a peat fire, pipe in mouth,
and thinking hard.
Peter had never come back. He had been seen returning, weak and thin,
from a hunting expedition by Willum; and the scholar, recognising
Burrough’s only companion, had put up his gun with a malicious twinkle
in his foxy eyes and destroyed poor Peter. Burrough saw nobody except
the moorman’s wife, who came in twice a week to clean up; and he was
thinking seriously of disposing of her upon economic grounds. He had
interviewed the doctor with a view to ascertaining whether his state
of health would justify a return to London life, and the answer had
been discouraging. For another two years at least it would be
advisable for him to remain and harden upon the moor.
The note left by Beatrice with Mrs. Cobbledick had not been forwarded.
Willum took care of that, and Burrough felt that he would only be
making himself ridiculous by going to demand it with threats. The
retort that it had been lost was unanswerable. He knew also it would
be useless to apply to Ann for Beatrice’s address. Burrough had made a
mistake in refusing to subscribe towards the tombstone, although he
knew that the money collected by Willum had not been devoted to
settling Eastaway’s claim, but had been expended by the rascally
scholar in a trip to Plymouth. The only other person likely to be of
use was Old Y. Burrough called upon the poor old man, to find him
half-insane with dread at the thought of the approaching winter. The
Vicar knew that Beatrice lived in Cornwall, near the Land’s End, he
thought, but that was all the information he could give.
“Fine girl,” he mumbled. “Nice girl. Wish I was a young man. Find out
where she lives. Go down there. I’ll come too.”
Then he collapsed into his chair and sobbed pitifully. He had not
walked more than a hundred yards from his gate that summer, and he
could not remember how long it was since he had been a railway
journey.
“Don’t ye find it dull out there?” said Mrs. Eastaway, who was
standing at her door as the young man passed on his way back to the
gorge.
“Yes, very dull,” he replied; adding quickly with a touch of pride,
“but it’s good for my health.”
“You should get another gentleman to come and live with you,” the
woman went on. “My husband often says when he comes down with the
granite it must be cruel lonely for you up there on Dartmoor among the
winds and mists.”
“No one would stop with me,” said Burrough with a smile. “It’s too
dull. People live in towns now, or within reach of them. They must
have their pleasures every day.”
Mrs. Eastaway could not follow him there, as she had lived all her
life upon the heights of the moor. The doctrine of perpetual pleasure
was therefore beyond her understanding. Her next remark was one that
any woman would have made.
“You ought to get married, sir. Is it true you are engaged to young
Miss Pentreath? They say so in the village.”
Burrough shook his head, and raised a hand suggestively to his face
while making a step forward, because that question made him anxious to
get away into the mist which he could see coming up the cleave.
“Why, that’s nothing,” cried Mrs. Eastaway after him. “No young lady,
as is a young lady, would notice that. Besides, sir, it’s getting
better every time I see you. You’ll be looking the same as ever before
long. Many a young man would change faces with you, I tell ye, sir.”
Burrough walked away rapidly. Reaching his cottage he hurried into his
bedroom, and gazed intently into the glass. Certainly he was
improving. The pure air and sunshine had done wonders for him: the
forehead had practically healed, and the scar, if somewhat
conspicuous, was at least not repulsive. But the eye-socket was. If
the eye had only been spared everything might have been well with him.
As the Artillery Camp had not yet been disbanded, Burrough tramped
across the moor upon the following day, and asked to see the surgeon.
He was referred to the mess-house, and going there found the man he
was seeking, an altogether different type from the doctor who had
attended him after the accident. He was fussy, verbose, and
optimistic. He knew all about Burrough’s case, of course, but gave him
no chance to speak when he had once obtained a hint as to the object
of his visit. A false eye? Certainly, it was the simplest thing in the
world. And it was very effective, almost as good as the real thing. He
might say quite as good. In some cases really an improvement upon
Nature. Surgical art could repair ravages caused by time or accident
in a marvellous manner. One got quite a poor opinion of Nature after
a long course of operations. Science and art in combination were able
to accomplish marvels, positive marvels. Such a little matter as teeth
now--where was Nature? Nowhere in comparison with art. He strongly
advised everyone to have their teeth out, the wretched teeth with
which Nature had provided them, and an excellent set substituted by
art. But in this case it was an eye--a new eye for an old. It would
match the other? Yes, that was quite practicable, quite easy. He
couldn’t wink at the girls, otherwise the false eye would look
positively better than the other. Couldn’t see with it, of course.
That was a pity, but art hadn’t quite attained to that pitch of
excellence. He would see to it--delighted. The War Office would pay
the expense, no doubt. Wouldn’t he sit down and have a brandy and
soda, and _talk_ about it? As a result of the subsequent monologue,
for it could hardly have been called a conversation, Burrough received
definite assurance that his personal appearance could be in some
measure restored. The chatty surgeon was interested in the case, and
said so at great length. Burrough went away in better spirits than he
had enjoyed for weeks.
Then, at last, a note came from Beatrice. It was not a letter, merely
a dozen lines on a small sheet of notepaper, inquiring after his
health, hoping that his work was progressing, commenting upon the
weather, but telling him nothing about herself. Everything connected
with the note was a disappointment. It was badly written; the girl’s
handwriting was neither tidy nor pretty; it was entirely
unsympathetic, although she subscribed herself “your old pal, Bill.”
It was just the sort of communication that might have been sent by one
schoolboy to another.
No address was given. That was the unkindest cut. Perhaps she had
forgotten. More probably she desired to conceal it. Possibly she had
given it in the note left with the Cobbledicks, and was a little cold
with “Jack” because he had not acknowledged that note. During their
walks she had mentioned half the villages in Western Cornwall, but
Burrough had never discovered which was the actual village where she
lived.
The envelope was postmarked Sennen, which, as Burrough knew, was the
usual abbreviation for St. Sennen Church-Town, the last village in
England. He felt sure Beatrice did not live there. She was probably
upon a visit with her wayward aunt. The thought at once occurred that
he might go down there. He put it away from him, but it recurred with
added force; and when that evening he was sitting alone in the
lamplight, the wind upon the moor and the water in the gorge seemed to
him to be singing in unison, and calling, “Go down!” He rose and shut
the window, then drew the curtains close; but the wind and the water
went on calling, “Go down!”
“I have not been away for more than a year,” he reflected. “A short
trip would do me a lot of good. A sentimental journey into Cornwall
would freshen me up and might furnish me with new ideas. And it may be
my only chance of seeing Beatrice. If she gave me her address in the
note she left behind, she must be thinking I have made up my mind not
to correspond. She has written to me twice and I have not been able to
answer. It is hardly likely she will write again.” It was then about
nine o’clock. Burrough looked out and discovered a perfect night,
although the wind was rushing down the cleave with its customary sad
music. It was fairly light upon the moor; the stars were very bright;
and he could just see the white water foaming in the gorge. It was too
good a night to sleep through, he thought.
Then the vulgar nightjar lifted up his voice, and said in his coarse
way that, if he wanted to be in St. Sennen Church-Town, he wouldn’t
tuck his head under his wing, but he would just flap there right away,
blow him tight if he wouldn’t. Burrough appreciated the statement. Why
go to bed and dream unpleasantly? Why not go upon the open moor and
flap his way towards the Land’s End? The westbound mail stopped at
Okehampton before midnight. He could tumble a few things into a bag
and walk across the moor, cross the river at Culliver’s Steps, strike
up into the military road, which would be showing clearly in the
starlight, pass over the Blackabrook by the military bridge, skirt the
artillery camp, and so down to the station just in time to catch the
mail.
Half-an-hour later the cottage was locked up and deserted. The wind
and the water roared down the gorge, and the nightjar in the cleave
continued his coarse observations upon things in general, much to the
disturbance of decent birds trying to get some sleep. There was plenty
of company for the nightjar: owls drifted about the tors; the gorge
was filled with flying beetles: and the cleave was white with
ghost-moths.
Burrough caught the mail and passed rapidly from the north of
Dartmoor, through its Stannary Town on the Tavy, and down to its
western boundary of Plymouth. The journey into Cornwall could not
commence until some hours later; so he tramped through the silent
streets, and coming out upon the starlit Hoe settled himself upon a
seat which was not already occupied by waifs and strays. He felt
singularly self-satisfied now that he had reached the west country
London, where he could fancy himself a citizen of the world again. It
was delightful to be away for a time from the moorland heights; to
find himself surrounded by apparently endless streets of houses and
yet to breathe sea air; to see the lights and hear the subdued noises,
and at the same time to discern dimly the outline of rocks and the
hulls of battleships. It was a pleasant change from the eternal gorse,
heather, and bracken of his desolate home.
Altogether that was a happy and eventful night. Shortly before five
o’clock the express drew out of North Road station, and crossing the
Hamoaze at Saltash, conveyed the sentimental traveller for the first
time in his life into Cornwall, and so to Liskeard in chilly lamplight
and damp morning mist.
The sun was rising as the train drew into Truro, and the City of the
Three Streets was bathed in a rosy light, which softened the granite
buildings exactly as the mist had softened the granite tors when
Burrough had set out to Brynamoor to find Beatrice that last time.
At Truro the garden-of-England scenery came to an end. Up to that
point the country was richly wooded, and there was luxuriance in the
ferns and hedgerows. There were orchards crowded with apple-trees.
There should have been vineyards as in the old days. The green valleys
of Lostwithiel, the smiling hills of St. Austell, were unlike anything
else in the west country. England was left at Truro. Even the people
were not English. The fishermen had the faces and the courtly manners
of King Arthur’s knights, and the heavy yokel of English districts did
not exist.
When the traveller saw the sun shining on the treeless district of the
mines at Chacewater, he realised that it had been dark during his
journey through the beautiful country. He had missed it all. And now
it was light, so that he could see once more the rough heather and
granite, the great bare stretches of country with its unworked
tin-mines and patches of stunted pine. It looked very bare and
desolate. The occasional cottages were squalid, and the stained
granite churches seemed to be weary of withstanding the heavy storms
which battered them so often. The scene grew wilder as the train swept
on; trees and hedges were left behind; there were no more cornfields,
nor cottages with bright flower gardens; the end was approaching, the
Land’s End; and soon there would be nothing, except the granite and
stunted gorse, and the foaming waste of sea. It was like a beautiful
woman growing old; South Devon her youth; Eastern Cornwall her early
married life; then at Truro middle age; and so on into the desolation
and decay of old age. Burrough wondered whether he too had left behind
the trees and flowers; whether he too had passed through the flowering
woods and the luxuriant lanes; whether he might be coming, in more
senses than one, to the untrodden wastes; to end at length among the
cruel rocks and the stormy sea.
It was a waste which was not all a waste. Upon the magnesian soil grew
the flesh-coloured Cornish heather, which no art short of witchcraft
could induce to grow east of Truro. In the villages down below,
accustomed to the roar of the sea, were semi-tropical plants; and the
hydrangeas were bushes and the fuschias were trees. The wide sweeps of
treeless land were still beautiful, and so was the air. It was the air
after all that was the best. It was fresh and pure, and so soft that
to breathe it into tender lungs made all the wide difference between
pleasure and pain.
Respectable people had not breakfasted when Burrough reached Penzance.
He found it difficult to believe that when the hands of the clock had
last stood at half-past seven he had been in his cottage by the gorge,
and had no idea of setting out upon a pilgrimage. But the shrine was
still some miles away. He had no money to waste upon conveyances, so
he struck into the good main road, and walked the eight miles to St.
Sennen Church-Town with hardly a stop by the wayside.
It was not until reaching the village that he felt he had done
foolishly. Nervous at the best of times, he felt doubly so when he
walked in the crooked street, glancing half-defiantly at the
villagers, and feeling extremely helpless and unwilling to accost any
of them. There were a few visitors about the place. He saw an artist
with a huge white umbrella; a mild-looking clergyman attempting to add
the leaven of respectability to a rather noisy party; an elderly
over-dresssd lady with a young and obviously persecuted companion; two
youths with cheap cigars and ready-made clothes; and a regiment of
very well-drilled children, officered by a nurse with the figure of a
Falstaff and the face of a dragoon, including even the moustache.
These and other curious objects of the Land’s End presented themselves
to Burrough’s vision; but he saw nobody resembling Beatrice and her
aunt.
The post-office being the information bureau of all villages, the
traveller went thither. The woman in charge looked with suspicion at
the nervous young man, who was wearing a rather unsightly patch over
his right eye, but she answered his questions readily enough. “Yes,
she knew Miss Beatrice Pentreath. Everyone in Western Cornwall knew
her. No, she was not at Sennen, and had not been there all the year.”
“But I had a letter from her yesterday with the Sennen postmark,” said
Burrough.
“I know you did,” said the woman. “Poltesco posted it. He were Miss
Pentreath’s nurse, and he’m a fisherman and lives here,” she
explained.
Seeing the wonder on his face, she went on, “Miss Pentreath warn’t
like other young ladies, and her warn’t brought up like ’em. Her
wouldn’t have a woman nurse, and as her were always out of doors they
got Poltesco to nurse she. Her’s very fond of Poltesco, and he’d do
anything for she.”
“Could I see him?” Burrough asked.
“He went out wi’ the fishing boats last night,” the woman answered.
“Well, then, if you don’t mind,” said Burrough awkwardly, “perhaps you
would tell me where Miss Pentreath lives.”
This the woman refused to do in simple apologetic language, and
Burrough could only admit that she was in the right. Evidently
Beatrice did not want him to know where she lived. She was afraid he
would come down and worry her, and she too was in the right, for that
was exactly what he was trying to do then.
Suddenly a thought occurred to him. He was certain that the woman
would tell Poltesco of his visit so soon as the fisherman returned,
and would, moreover, describe his appearance, and record every word
that he had said. He might communicate with Beatrice after all, and
might, moreover, have the very message conveyed that he had come to
deliver in person.
“You are quite right,” he said to the woman, making a step aside and
pretending to adjust the patch. “Poltesco might not like it if you
gave me Miss Pentreath’s address. You see I have had an accident. I
have had the misfortune to lose an eye.”
“Dear life! There’s a cruel pity!” exclaimed the woman.
“It is nothing like so serious as was feared at first,” Burrough went
on, still arranging the patch as an excuse for his remarks. “The wound
has healed almost entirely, and I am about to have a false eye fitted.
When that has been done, my appearance will be very much as it was
before the accident. At least, so I am assured by the surgeon who is
to perform the operation.”
Upon leaving the post-office Burrough felt his journey had not been
made in vain. “Those gossiping tongues will convey the message for
me,” he said. “And as it is only because of my appearance that
Beatrice has cut me off from her, there is still a chance she may
consent to see me again. Now for the Land’s End, some lunch, and a
soliloquy upon the rocks. Then for Penzance and a train home again.”
At the little hostelry above the sea, where the land narrows into a
mass of rocks and sea-foam, Burrough obtained food and drink.
Afterwards he roamed to the end of Penwith and saw its wonders, from
the natural tunnel and the amazing sea-scape, to the Armed Knight and
Dr. Johnson’s Head enveloped in a whimsical wig.
As he stood there alone Burrough felt that he ought to say many fine
things. None, however, occurred to him. He felt much confused and
somewhat drowsy. Nothing suggests the end of the world, and the end of
all things, quite so distinctly as the fag end of Cornwall when the
outline of Scilly is not apparent. All the headland is of granite, but
shattered and splintered, and bristling like a crocodile’s jaws. There
are plenty of black and grey lichens, and sometimes little sprigs of
heather pushing hopefully from sheltered nooks; and there is always
the roar of the sea, which never stops. It is not deep; would that it
were for the sake of ships. A country with palaces and fair gardens,
and one hundred and forty churches, lies just beneath the surface. It
is the lost land of Lyonesse, submerged with all its cities and towers
and its dreams of fair women; and yonder, in the vague cloud mists
which never shift, is the island valley of Avillion where Arthur lies
with his three queens, being healed of his grievous wound.
The sea and the wind were calm that day, but there was nevertheless a
roaring as of imprisoned lions beneath the cliff. Each blackened rock
rising out of the water had a ring of white foam at its base; and the
waves went leaping up, embracing the crags, streaming back unwillingly
in streaks as of molten silver; or like the white arms of a loving
wife withdrawn reluctantly from her husband’s neck. The sea-mews
soared screaming, and cormorants skimmed over the waves. It was
peaceful there, but with all its quietness haunted by ghosts and tales
of shipwreck. Here vessels had been cast away by those wasteful waters
before the Romans came tin hunting; and bodies in thousands had been
hurled landwards with the contemptuous, “Earth, take thine earth,” of
the wind-tossed waves; from a stern bearded Phœnician to a beautiful
pale girl in her frilled nightdress with a string of pearls about her
neck.
It was the romantic thought of the lost land--for the actual end was
certainly in Scilly once--which was the charm of the place to
Burrough, who, with all his faults, and perhaps because of them, had a
powerful imagination. He rested upon a sun-warmed slab of granite and
looked out upon Lethowsow, the sea which flows across Lyonesse. As the
sound of the roaring came up from below he imagined the land rising in
all its glory out of the sea. There were castles embattled with huge
archways and dark towers glistening in the sun. Warders paced the
turrets, and the old Seneschal stood with keys beside the gate. Beyond
was a garden of green arbours of red roses and white lilies; and
there a noble dame was teaching her damsels to make silken work and
cloth of gold; and there were long-haired knights playing bowls in the
cool alleys. There were meats and wines prepared for them in a rich
pavilion; and some were feasting, and some lying upon the grass amid
the flowers, listening to the birds; and some whispering to
mistresses, bright as blossoms on the whitethorn, a tale that was old
even in that young world.
Then an old man came forth, and all forsook their tasks or pleasures
to flock about him. He was clad in a deep yellow robe, his white beard
swept his chest, a chaplet was upon his head, and his harp gleamed
before him. He was the minstrel king, the schoolmaster and historian
of the time, and he sang the history of his country and of the deeds
of its heroes.
Outside the royal palace a herdsman had gathered a crowd to tell them
of some notable adventure which had befallen him in the enchanted
forest; and while he was speaking a lovely lady rode past, her robe
gathered close that she might display her wondrous figure; a jewel in
her hair worth a Saxon Kingdom; her white palfrey ambling proudly; her
falcon upon her wrist, and two white greyhounds running at her side.
She paused to listen to the herdsman’s story, not doubting it, because
the world was enchanted then, and she had spoken with Lancelot, the
maiden knight who had seen the Holy Grail covered with red samite, in
that wonderful night when he had arrived “afore a castle on the backe
side, which was rich and faire, and there was a posterne that opened
toward the sea, and was open without any keeping, save two lions kept
the entrie, and the moone shined cleare.”
A glorious land was that old Lyonesse of romance. Every story was sure
to end happily there. It was a land where women were always beautiful,
and good as beautiful, and the knights, however tried and persecuted,
were saints, half poets and half priests. Nothing is left of that
kingdom now, except love. The poetry and chivalry of that lost land
have gone. Even the dreams of it, say hard-headed men, are dangerous.
They are but flashes of lightning out of a cloud, beautiful always,
rarely harmful. Every time a true-hearted man kisses a virtuous maid
in pure love they enter together, though it may be only for a moment,
the sweet lost land of Lyonesse.
Burrough stirred from his rocky seat. He thought he had heard a
distant murmur of voices. Time was pressing and he had far to go that
day. It was a ridiculous descent from the land of romance to the
railway timetable; but it was necessary that he should catch the early
evening train from Penzance. He moved a step forward, looked over the
edge into the dip of the cliff, and saw, not stunted gorse, nor
wind-blown heather, nor even ragged granite--but a boy and girl
clasped together in the first frenzy of love.
And they had found Lyonesse. They did not discover Burrough. They
clung together, breast to breast and mouth to mouth; and the only
sound they made was a passionate sigh as they inhaled each other’s
breath. Every romance was dry as dust compared to that. Their young
faces were seaward. Their features were bathed in the warm red
sunshine--to them it was sunrise, such as had never been before, such
as would never come again.