he lay ill, to observe the anxious affection displayed towards him by
both his parents. His mother left her work in the kitchen to hold him in
her arms, while the old dressings were being taken off and the new ones
applied--sighing bitterly, poor creature, every time he winced or cried
out under the pain of the operation. The father put several questions to
the doctor, which were always perfectly to the point; and did the
honours of his little abode to his stranger visitor, with a natural
politeness and a simple cordiality of manner which showed that he
really meant the welcome that he spoke. Nor was he any exception to the
rest of his brother-workmen with whom I met. As a body of men, they are
industrious and intelligent; sober and orderly; neither soured by hard
work, nor easily depressed by harder privations. No description of
personal experiences in the Cornish mines can be fairly concluded,
without a collateral testimony to the merits of the Cornish miners--a
testimony which I am happy to accord here; and to which my readers would
cheerfully add their voices, if they ever felt inclined to test its
impartiality by their own experience.
X.
THE MODERN DRAMA IN CORNWALL.
Our walk from Botallack Mine to St. Ives, led us almost invariably
between moors and hills on one side, and cliffs and sea on the other;
and displayed some of the dreariest views that we had yet beheld in
Cornwall. About nightfall, we halted for a short time at a place which
was certainly not calculated to cheer the traveller along his onward
way.
Imagine three or four large, square, comfortless-looking, shut-up
houses, all apparently uninhabited; add some half-dozen miserable little
cottages standing near the houses, with the nasal notes of a Methodist
hymn pouring disastrously through the open door of one of them; let the
largest of the large buildings be called an inn, but let it make up no
beds, because nobody ever stops to sleep there: place in the kitchen of
this inn a sickly little girl, and a middle-aged, melancholy woman, the
first staring despondently on a wasting fire, the second offering to the
stranger a piece of bread, three eggs, and some sour porter corked down
in an earthenware jar, as all that her larder and cellar can afford;
fancy next an old, grim, dark church, with two or three lads leaning
against the churchyard wall, looking out together in gloomy silence on a
solitary high road; conceive a thin, slow rain falling, a cold twilight
just changing into darkness, a surrounding landscape wild, barren, and
shelterless--imagine all this, and you will have the picture before you
which presented itself to me and my companion, when we found ourselves
in the village of Morvah.
Late that night, we got to the large sea-port town of St. Ives; and
stayed there two or three days to look at the pilchard fishery, which
was then proceeding with all the bustle and activity denoting the
commencement of a good season. Leaving St. Ives, on our way up the
northern coast, we now passed through the central part of the mining
districts of Cornwall. Chimneys and engine-houses chequered the surface
of the landscape; the roads glittered with metallic particles; the walls
at their sides were built with crystallized stones; towns showed a
sudden increase in importance; villages grew large and populous; inns
disappeared, and hotels arose in their stead; people became less curious
to know who we were, stared at us less, gossiped with us less; gave us
information, but gave us nothing more--no long stories, no invitations
to stop and smoke a pipe, no hospitable offers of bed and board. All
that we saw and heard tended to convince us that we had left the
picturesque and the primitive, with the streets of Looe and the
fishermen at the Land's End; and had got into the commercial part of the
county, among sharp, prosperous, business like people--it was like
walking out of a painter's studio into a merchant's counting-house!
As we were travelling, like the renowned Doctor Syntax, in search of the
picturesque, we hurried through this populous and highly-civilized
region of Cornwall as rapidly as possible. I doubt much whether we
should not have passed as unceremoniously through the large town of
Redruth--the capital city of the mining districts--as we passed through
several towns and villages before it, had not our attention been
attracted and our departure delayed by a public notice, printed on
rainbow-coloured paper, and pasted up in the most conspicuous part of
the market-place.
The notice set forth, that "the beautiful drama of The Curate's
Daughter" was to be performed at night, in the "unrivalled Sans Pareil
Theatre," by "the most talented company in England," before "the most
discerning audience in the world." As far as we were individually
concerned, this theatrical announcement was remarkably tempting and
well-timed. We were now within one day's journey of Piran Round, the
famous amphitheatre where the old Cornish Miracle Plays used to be
performed. Anything connected with the stage was, therefore, a subject
of particular interest in our eyes. The bill before us seemed to offer a
curious opportunity of studying the dramatic tastes of the modern
Cornish, on the very day before we were about to speculate on the
dramatic tastes of the ancient Cornish, among the remains of their
public theatre. Such an occasion was too favourable to be neglected; we
ordered our beds at Redruth, and joined the "discerning audience"
assembled to sit in judgment on "The Curate's Daughter."
The Sans Pareil Theatre was not of that order of architecture in which
outward ornament is studied. There was nothing "florid" about it;
canvas, ropes, scaffolding-poles, and old boards, threw an air of Saxon
simplicity over the whole structure. Admitted within, we turned
instinctively towards the stage. On each side of the proscenium boards
was painted a knight in full armour, with powerful calves, weak knees,
and an immense spear. Tallow candles, stuck round two hoops, threw a
mysterious light on the green curtain, in front of which sat an
orchestra of four musicians, playing on a trombone, an ophicleide, a
clarionet, and a fiddle, as loudly as they could--the artist on the
trombone, especially, performing prodigies of blowing, though he had not
room enough to develop the whole length of his instrument. Every now and
then great excitement was created among the expectant audience by the
vehement ringing of a bell behind the scenes, and by the occasional
appearance of a youth who gravely snuffed the candles all round, with a
skill and composure highly creditable to him, considering the
pertinacity with which he was stared at by everybody while he pursued
his occupation.
At last, the bell was rung furiously for the twentieth time; the curtain
drew up, and the drama of "The Curate's Daughter" began.
Our sympathies were excited at the outset. We beheld a lady-like woman
who answered to the name of "Grace;" and an old gentleman, dressed in
dingy black, who personated her father, the Curate; and who was, on this
occasion (I presume through unavoidable circumstances), neither more nor
less than--drunk. There was no mistaking the cause of the fixed leer in
the reverend gentleman's eye; of the slow swaying in his gait; of the
gruff huskiness in his elocution. It appeared, from the opening
dialogue, that a pending law-suit, and the absence of his daughter Fanny
in London, combined to make him uneasy in his mind just at present. But
he was by no means so clear on this subject as could be desired--in
fact, he spoke through his nose, put in and left out his _hs_ in the
wrong places, and involved his dialogue in a long labyrinth of
parentheses whenever he expressed himself at any length. It was not
until the entrance of his daughter Fanny (just arrived from London:
nobody knew why or wherefore), that he grew more emphatic and
intelligible. We now observed with pleasure that he gave his children
his blessing and embraced them both at once; and we were additionally
gratified by hearing from his own lips, that his "daughters were the
h'all on which his h'all depended--that they would watch h'over his
'ale autumn; and that whatever happened the whole party must invariably
trust in heabben's obdipotent power!"
Grateful for this clerical advice, Fanny retired into the garden to
gather her parent some flowers; but immediately returned shrieking. She
was followed by a Highwayman with a cocked hat, mustachios, bandit's
ringlets, a scarlet hunting-coat, and buff boots. This gentleman had
shown his extraordinary politeness--although a perfect stranger--by
giving Miss Fanny a kiss in the garden; conduct for which the Curate
very properly cursed him, in the strongest language. Apparently a quiet
and orderly character, the Highwayman replied by beginning a handsome
apology, when he was interrupted by the abrupt entrance of another
personage, who ordered him (rather late in the day, as we ventured to
think) to "let go his holt, and beware how he laid his brutal touch on
the form of innocence!" This newcomer, the parson informed us, was "good
h'Adam Marle, the teacher of the village school." We found "h'Adam," in
respect of his outward appearance, to be a very short man, dressed in a
high-crowned modern hat, with a fringed vandyck collar drooping over his
back and shoulders, a modern frock-coat, buttoned tight at the waist,
and a pair of jack-boots of the period of James the Second. Aided by his
advantages of costume, this character naturally interested us; and we
regretted seeing but little of him in the first scene, from which he
retired, following the penitent Highwayman out, and lecturing him as he
went. No sooner were their backs turned, than a waggoner, in a clean
smock-frock and high-lows, entered with an offer of a situation in
London for Fanny, which the unsuspicious Curate accepted immediately. As
soon as he had committed himself, it was confided to the audience that
the waggoner was a depraved villain, in the employ of that notorious
profligate, Colonel Chartress, who had commissioned a second myrmidon
(of the female sex) to lure Fanny from virtue and the country, to vice
and the metropolis. By the time the plot had "thickened" thus far, the
scene changed, and we got to London at once.
We now beheld the Curate, Chartress's female accomplice, Fanny, and the
vicious waggoner, all standing in a row, across the stage. The Curate,
in a burst of amiability, had just lifted up his hands to bless the
company, when Colonel Chartress (dressed in an old _naval_ uniform, with
an opera-hat of the year 1800), suddenly rushed in, followed by the
Highwayman, who having relapsed from penitence to guilt, had, as a
necessary consequence, determined to supplant Chartress in the favour of
Miss Fanny. These two promptly seized each other by the throat; vehement
shouting, scuffling, and screaming ensued; and the Curate, clasping his
daughter round the waist, frantically elevated his walking-stick in the
air. Was he about to inflict personal chastisement on his innocent
child? Who could say? Before there was time to ask the question, the
curtain fell with a bang, on the crisis of the first act.
In act the second, the first scene was described in the bills as Temple
Bar by moonlight. Neither Bar nor moonlight appeared when the curtain
rose--so we took both for granted, and fixed our minds on the story. The
first person who now confronted us, was "good h'Adam Marle." The paint
was all washed off his face; his immense spread of collar looked
grievously in want of washing; and he leaned languidly on an oaken
stick. He had been walking--he informed us--through the streets of
London for six consecutive days and nights, without sustenance, in
search of Miss Fanny, who had disappeared since the skirmish at the end
of act the first, and had never been heard of since. Poor dear Marle!
how eloquent he was with his white handkerchief, when he fairly opened
his heart, and confided to us that he was madly attached to Fanny; that
he knew he "was nothink" to her; and that, under existing circumstances,
he felt inclined to rest himself on a door step! Just as he had
comfortably settled down, the valet of the profligate Chartress entered,
in the communicative stage of intoxication; and immediately mentioned
all his master's private affairs to "h'Adam." It appeared that the
Colonel had carried off Miss Fanny, had then got tired of her, and had
coolly handed her over to a Jew, in part payment of "a little bill."
Having ascertained the Jew's address, the indefatigable Marle left us
(still without sustenance) to rescue the Curate's daughter, or die in
the attempt.
The next scene disclosed Fanny, sitting conscience-stricken and
inconsolable, in a red polka jacket and white muslin slip. Mr. Marle,
having discovered her place of refuge, now stepped in to lecture and
reclaim. Vain proceeding! The Curate's daughter looked at him with a
scream, exclaimed, "Cuss me, h'Adam! cuss me!" and rushed out.
"H'Adam," after a despondent soliloquy, followed with his eloquent
handkerchief to his eyes; but, while he had been talking to himself, our
old friend the Highwayman had been on the alert, and had picked Fanny
up, fainting in the street. And what did he do with her after that? He
handed her over to his "comrades in villany." And who were his comrades
in villany? They were the trombone and ophicleide players from the
orchestra, and the "Miss Grace," of act first, disguised as a bad
character, in a cloak, with a red pocket-handkerchief over her head. And
what happened next? A series of events happened next. Miss Fanny
recovered on a sudden, perceived what sort of company she had about her,
rushed out a second time into the street, fell fainting a second time on
the pavement, and was picked up on this occasion by Colonel
Chartress--in the interests, it is to be presumed, of his friend, the
Jew money-lender. Before, however, he could get clear off with his
prize, the indefatigably vicious Highwayman, and the indefatigably
virtuous Marle, precipitated themselves on the stage, assaulting
Chartress, assaulting each other, assaulting everybody. Fanny fell
fainting a third time in the street; and before we could find out who
was the third person who picked her up, down came the curtain in the
midst of the catastrophe.
Act the third was opened by the heroine, still injured, still
inconsolable, and still clad in the polka jacket and white slip. We
thought her a very nice little woman, with a melodious,
genteel-comedy-voice, trim ankles, and a habit of catching her breath in
the most pathetic manner, at least a dozen times in the course of one
soliloquy. While she was still assuring us that she felt the most
forlorn creature on the face of the earth, she was suddenly interrupted
by the entrance of no less a person than the Curate himself. We had seen
nothing of the reverend gentleman throughout the second act; but
"h'Adam" had casually informed us that his time had been passed at his
parsonage, "sittun with his 'ed between his knees, sobbun!" Having now
wearied of this gymnastic method of indulging in parental grief, he had
set forth to seek his lost daughter, and had accidentally stopped at the
very inn where she had taken refuge. Nothing could be more piteous than
his present appearance; he was infinitely more tipsy, infinitely more
dignified, and infinitely more parenthetical in his mode of expressing
himself, than when we last beheld him. A streak of burnt cork running
down each side of his venerable nose, showed us how deeply grief had
increased the wrinkles of age; and our pity for him reached its climax
when he cast his clerical hat on the floor, sank drowsily into a chair,
and began to pray in these words: "Oh heabben! hear a solemn and a solid
prayer--hear a solemn heart who wants to embrace his darling Fanny!"
All this time, the lost daughter was hiding behind the forlorn father's
chair; an awful and convenient darkness being thrown on the stage by the
introduction of a plank between the actors and the tallow candles. In
this striking situation, Miss Fanny told her sad story, and pleaded her
own cause as a stranger, under disguise of the darkness. Useless--quite
useless! The reverend gentleman, having never turned round to see who it
was that was speaking to him, and having therefore no idea that it was
his own daughter, received in dignified silence the advances of a young
person unknown to him. What course was now left to the unhappy Fanny?
The old course--a rush off the stage, and a swoon in the street. As soon
as her back was turned, the Parson, forgetting to take away his hat
with him, staggered out at the opposite side to continue his journey. He
uttered as he went the following moral observation:--"No soul so lost to
Nature, but must be lost eternally--my 'art is broken!"
The next moment, we were startled by a long and elaborate trampling of
feet behind the scenes, and the villain Chartress, ran panic-stricken
across the stage, hotly pursued by "good h'Adam Marle." In the eloquent
language of virtue, thus did Adam address him:--"Stay, ruffian, stay!
Inquiring for Chartress at the bar of this inn, I found indeed that you
was the very identical. You foul, venomous, treacherous, voluptuous
liar, where is the un'appy Fanny? where is the victim of your prey?--Ha!
'oary-'edded ruffian, I have yer!" (_Collars Chartress._) "But no! I
will not _strike_ yer; I will _drag_ yer!" It was interesting to see
Adam exemplify the peculiar distinction in the science of assault
implied in his last words, by hauling Chartress all round the stage. It
was awful to observe that the Colonel lost his temper at the second
round, murderously snapped a pistol in "h'Adam's" face, and rushed off
in hot homicidal triumph. We waited breathless for the fall of Marle.
Nothing of the sort happened. He started, frowned, paused, laughed
fiercely, exclaimed,--"The villain 'as missed!" and followed in pursuit.
In the interim, Miss Fanny had been picked up in the street, for the
fourth time, by a benevolent "washerwoman," who happened to be passing
by at the moment; had been conveyed to the said washerwoman's lodgings;
and now appeared before us, despoiled, at last, of all the glories of
the red polka, enveloped from head to foot in clouds of white muslin,
and dying with frightful rapidity in an armchair. In the next and last
scene, all that remained to represent the unhappy heroine was a coffin
decently covered with a white sheet. With slow and funereal steps, the
Curate, Miss Grace, "h'Adam," the Highwayman, and the "venomous and
voluptuous liar," Chartress, approached to weep over it. The Curate had
gone raving mad since we saw him last. His wig was set on wrong side
foremost; the ends of his clerical cravat floated wildly, a yard long at
least over his shoulders; his eyes rolled in frenzy; he swooned at the
sight of the coffin; recovered convulsively; placed Marle's hand in the
hand of Miss Grace (telling him that now one daughter was dead, nothing
was left for him but to marry the other); and then fell flat on his
back, with a thump that shook the stage and made the audience start
unanimously. Marle--well-bred to the last--politely offered his arm to
Grace; and pointing to the coffin, asked Chartress, reproachfully,
whether that was not _his_ work. The Colonel took off his opera-hat,
raised his hand to his eyes, and doggedly answered, "Indeed, it is!" The
Tableau thus formed, was completed by the Highwayman, the coffin, and
the defunct Curate; and the curtain fell to slow music.
Such was the plot of this remarkable dramatic work, exactly as I took it
down in the theatre, between the acts; noting also in my pocket-book
such scraps of dialogue as I have presented to the reader, while they
fell from the actors' lips. There were plenty of comic scenes in the
play which I leave unmentioned; for their humour was of the dreariest,
and their morality of the lowest order that can possibly be conceived. I
can only say, as the result of my own experience at Redruth, that if the
dramatic reforms which are now being attempted in the theatrical by-ways
of the metropolis succeed, there would be no harm in extending the
experiment as far as the locomotive stage of Cornwall. Good plays are
good missionaries; and, like missionaries, let them travel to teach.
* * * * *
And now, having seen enough of the modern drama in Cornwall, without
waiting for the songs, the dances, and the farces which are to follow
the "Curate's Daughter," let us go on to Piranzabuloe, and look at the
theatre in which the Cornish of former days assembled; endeavouring to
discover, at the same time, by what sort of performances the people were
instructed or amused some two hundred and fifty years ago.
XI.
THE ANCIENT DRAMA IN CORNWALL.
We found the modern Cornish theatre situated in a populous town; built
up, as a temporary structure, with old canvas and boards; and opened to
audiences only at night. We found the ancient Cornish theatre placed in
a perfect desert; constructed permanently, though rudely, of mounds of
turf--the sky forming its only roof, the flat plain its only stage, the
broad daylight its only means of illumination. Nothing of the kind could
be more strongly marked than the difference between the theatre of the
past, and the theatre of the present day, in the far West of England.
In like manner, the country about Piran Round (such is the name of the
Old Cornish amphitheatre) offers a startling contrast to the country
about Redruth. You are at once powerfully impressed by its barren
solitude, its dreary repose, after the fertility and populousness of the
great mining districts through which you have just passed. Now, the
large towns and busy villages disappear, the mines grow rarer, the roads
look deserted, the wide pathways dwindle to the merest foot-track. Again
you behold the spacious moor rolling away in alternate hill and dale to
the far horizon; again you pass though the quaint coast villages; and
see the few simple cottages, the few old boats, the little groups
talking quietly at the inn door, as they have already presented
themselves along the southern and western shores of Cornwall. Soon,
however, your onward road towards Piran Round becomes yet more desolate.
Ere long, not even a solitary cottage is in sight, not a living being
appears: you find yourself wandering along the uneven boundary of a
wilderness of sand-hills heaped up from the seashore by the wind. You
look over a perfect desert of miniature mountains and valleys, in some
places overgrown with thin, dry grass; in others, dotted with little
pools of mud and stagnant water. Year by year, this invasion of sand
encroaches on the moorland--year by year, it is ever shifting, ever
increasing, ever assuming newer and more fantastic forms, now in one
direction and now in another, with each fresh storm.
When you leave this dreary scene, you only leave it for the wild flat
heath, the open naked country once more. You follow your long road,
visible miles on before you, winding white and serpent-like over the
dark ground, until you suddenly observe in the distance an object which
rises strangely above the level prospect. You approach nearer, and
behold a circular turf embankment; a wide, lonesome, desolate enclosure,
looking like a witches' dancing-ring that has sprung up in the midst of
the open moor. This is Piran Round. Here, the old inhabitants of
Cornwall assembled to form the audience of the drama of former days.
A level area of grassy ground, one hundred and thirty feet in diameter,
is enclosed by the embankment. There are two entrances to this area cut
through the boundary circle of turf and earth, which rises to a height
of nine or ten feet, and narrows towards the top, where it is seven feet
wide. All round the inside of the embankment steps were formerly cut;
but their traces are now almost obliterated by the growth of the grass.
They were originally seven in number; the spectators stood on them in
rows, one above another--a closely packed multitude, all looking down at
the dramatic performances taking place on the wide circumference of the
plain. When it was well filled, the amphitheatre must have contained
upwards of two thousand people.