NANCEPEAN
The Rhos or, as it is popularly written and pronounced, the Rose is a
tract of land in the south-west of the Duchy of Cornwall, ten miles long
and six at its greatest breadth, which on account of its remoteness from
the railway, its unusual geological formation, and its peninsular shape
possesses both in the character of its inhabitants and in the peculiar
aspects of the natural scene all the limitations and advantages of an
island. The main road running south to Rose Head from Rosemarket cuts
the peninsula into two unequal portions, the eastern and by far the
larger of which consists of a flat tableland two or three hundred feet
above the sea covered with a bushy heath, which flourishes in the
magnesian soil and which when in bloom is of such a clear rosy pink,
with nothing to break the level monochrome except scattered drifts of
cotton grass, pools of silver water and a few stunted pines, that
ignorant observers have often supposed that the colour gave its name to
the whole peninsula. The ancient town of Rosemarket, which serves as the
only channel of communication with the rest of Cornwall, lies in the
extreme north-west of the peninsula between a wide creek of the Roseford
river and the Rose Pool, an irregular heart-shaped water about four
miles in circumference which on the west is only separated from the
Atlantic by a bar of fine shingle fifty yards across.
The parish of Nancepean, of which Mark's grandfather the Reverend
Charles Elphinstone Trehawke had been vicar for nearly thirty years, ran
southward from the Rose Pool between the main road and the sea for three
miles. It was a country of green valleys unfolding to the ocean, and of
small farms fertile enough when they were sheltered from the prevailing
wind; but on the southern confines of the parish the soil became
shallow and stony, the arable fields degenerated into a rough open
pasturage full of gorse and foxgloves and gradually widening patches of
heather, until finally the level monochrome of the Rhos absorbed the
last vestiges of cultivation, and the parish came to an end.
The actual village of Nancepean, set in a hollow about a quarter of a
mile from the sea, consisted of a smithy, a grocer's shop, a parish hall
and some two dozen white cottages with steep thatched roofs lying in
their own gardens on either side of the unfrequented road that branched
from the main road to follow the line of the coast. Where this road made
the turn south a track strewn with grey shingle ran down between the
cliffs, at this point not much more than grassy hummocks, to Nancepean
beach which extended northward in a wide curve until it disappeared two
miles away in the wooded heights above the Rose Pool. The metalled coast
road continued past the Hanover Inn, an isolated house standing at the
head of a small cove, to make the long ascent of Pendhu Cliff three
hundred and fifty feet high, from the brow of which it descended between
banks of fern past St. Tugdual's Church to the sands of Church Cove,
whence it emerged to climb in a steep zigzag the next headland, beyond
which it turned inland again to Lanyon and rejoined the main road to
Rose Head. The church itself had no architectural distinction; but the
solitary position, the churchyard walls sometimes washed by high spring
tides, the squat tower built into the rounded grassy cliff that
protected it from the direct attack of the sea, and its impressive
antiquity combined to give it more than the finest architecture could
give. Nowhere in the surrounding landscape was there a sign of human
habitation, neither on the road down from Pendhu nor on the road up
toward Lanyon, not on the bare towans sweeping from the beach to the sky
in undulating waves of sandy grass, nor in the valley between the towans
and Pendhu, a wide green valley watered by a small stream that flowed
into the cove, where it formed a miniature estuary, the configuration of
whose effluence changed with every tide.
The Vicarage was not so far from the church as the church was from the
village, but it was some way from both. It was reached from Nancepean by
a road or rather by a gated cart-track down one of the numerous valleys
of the parish, and it was reached from the church by another cart-track
along the valley between Pendhu and the towans. Probably it was an
ancient farmhouse, and it must have been a desolate and austere place
until, as at the date when Mark first came there, it was graced by the
perfume and gold of acacias, by wistaria and jasmine and honeysuckle, by
the ivory goblets of magnolias, by crimson fuchsias, and where formerly
its grey walls grew mossy north and east by pink and white camelias and
the waxen bells of lapagerias. The garden was a wilderness of scarlet
rhododendrons from the thickets of which innumerable blackbirds and
thrushes preyed upon the peas. The lawns were like meadows; the lily
ponds were marbled with weeds; the stables were hardly to be reached on
account of the tangle of roses and briers that filled the abandoned
yard. The front drive was bordered by evergreen oaks, underneath the
shade of which blue hydrangeas flowered sparsely with a profusion of
pale-green foliage and lanky stems.
Mark when he looked out of his window on the morning after his arrival
thought that he was in fairyland. He looked at the rhododendrons; he
looked at the raindrops of the night sparkling in the morning sun; he
looked at the birds, and the blue sky, and across the valley to a
hillside yellow with gorse. He hardly knew how to restrain himself from
waking his mother with news of the wonderful sights and sounds of this
first vision of the country; but when he saw a clump of daffodils
nodding in the grass below, it was no longer possible to be considerate.
Creeping to his mother's door, he gently opened it and listened. He
meant only to whisper "Mother," but in his excitement he shouted, and
she suddenly roused from sleep by his voice sat up in alarm.
"Mother, there are seven daffodils growing wild under my window."
"My darling, you frightened me so. I thought you'd hurt yourself."
"I don't know how my voice came big like that," said Mark
apologetically. "I only meant it to be a whisper. But you weren't
dreadfully frightened? Or were you?"
His mother smiled.
"No, not dreadfully frightened."
"Well, do you think I might dress myself and go in the garden?"
"You mustn't disturb grandfather."
"Oh, mother, of course not."
"All right, darling. But it's only six o'clock. Very early. And you must
remember that grandfather may be tired. He had to wait an hour for us at
Rosemarket last night."
"He's very nice, isn't he?"
Mark did not ask this tentatively; he really did think that his
grandfather was very nice, although he had been puzzled and not a little
frightened by his bushy black eyebrows slanting up to a profusion of
white hair. Mark had never seen such eyebrows, and he wondered whatever
grandfather's moustache would be like if it were allowed to grow.
"He's a dear," said Mrs. Lidderdale fervidly. "And now, sweetheart, if
you really intend to dress yourself run along, because Mother wants to
sleep a little longer if she can."
The only difficulty Mark had was with his flannel front, because one of
the tapes vanished like a worm into its hole, and nothing in his armoury
was at once long enough and pointed enough to hook it out again. Finally
he decided that at such an early hour of the morning it would not matter
if he went out exposing his vest, and soon he was wandering in that
enchanted shrubbery of rhododendrons, alternating between imagining it
to be the cave of Aladdin or the beach where Sinbad found all the
pebbles to be precious stones. He wandered down hill through the
thicket, listening with a sense of satisfaction to the increasing
squelchiness of the peaty soil and feeling when the blackbirds fled at
his approach with shrill quack and flapping wings much more like a
hunter than he ever felt in the nursery at Lima Street. He resolved to
bring his gun with him next time. This was just the place to find a
hippopotamus, or even a crocodile. Mark had reached the bottom of the
slope and discovered a dark sluggish stream full of decayed vegetable
matter which was slowly oozing on its course. Or even a crocodile, he
thought again; and he looked carefully at a half-submerged log. Or even
a crocodile . . . yes, but people had often thought before that logs
were not crocodiles and had not discovered their mistake until they were
half way down the crocodile's throat. It had been amusing to fancy the
existence of crocodiles when he was still close to the Vicarage, but
suppose after all that there really were crocodiles living down here?
Feeling a little ashamed of his cowardice, but glossing it over with an
assumption of filial piety, Mark turned to go back through the
rhododendrons so as not to be late for breakfast. He would find out if
any crocodiles had been seen about here lately, and if they had not, he
would bring out his gun and . . . suddenly Mark was turned inside out by
terror, for not twenty yards away there was without any possibility of
self-deception a wild beast something between an ant-eater and a
laughing hyena that with nose to the ground was evidently pursuing him,
and what was worse was between him and home. There flashed through
Mark's mind the memories of what other hunters had done in such
situations, what ruses they had adopted if unarmed, what method of
defence if armed; but in the very instant of the panoramic flash Mark
did what countless uncelebrated hunters must have done, he ran in the
opposition direction from his enemy. In this case it meant jumping over
the stream, crocodile or not, and tearing his away through snowberries
and brambles until he emerged on the moors at the bottom of the valley.
It was not until he had put half a dozen small streams between himself
and the unknown beast that Mark paused to look round. Behind him the
valley was lost in a green curve; before him another curve shut out the
ultimate view. On his left the slope of the valley rose to the sky in
tiers of blazing yellow gorse; to his right he could see the thickets
through which he had emerged upon this verdant solitude. But beyond the
thickets there was no sign of the Vicarage. There was not a living thing
in sight; there was nothing except the song of larks high up and
imperceptible against the steady morning sun that shed a benign warmth
upon the world, and particularly upon the back of Mark's neck when he
decided that his safest course was to walk in the direction of the
valley's gradual widening and to put as many more streams as he could
between him and the beast. Having once wetted himself to the knees, he
began to take a pleasure in splashing through the vivid wet greenery. He
wondered what he should behold at the next curve of the valley; without
knowing it he began to walk more slowly, for the beauty of the day was
drowsing his fears; the spell of earth was upon him. He walked more
slowly, because he was passing through a bed of forget-me-nots, and he
could not bear to blind one of those myriad blue eyes. He chose most
carefully the destination of each step, and walking thus he did not
notice that the valley would curve no more, but was opening at last. He
looked up in a sudden consciousness of added space, and there serene as
the sky above was spread the sea. Yesterday from the train Mark had had
what was actually his first view of the sea; but the rain had taken all
the colour out of it, and he had been thrilled rather by the word than
by the fact. Now the word was nothing, the fact was everything. There it
was within reach of him, blue as the pictures always made it. The
streams of the valley had gathered into one, and Mark caring no more
what happened to the forget-me-nots ran along the bank. This morning
when the stream reached the shore it broke into twenty limpid rivulets,
each one of which ploughed a separate silver furrow across the
glistening sand until all were merged in ocean, mighty father of streams
and men. Mark ran with the rivulets until he stood by the waves' edge.
All was here of which he had read, shells and seaweed, rocks and cliffs
and sand; he felt like Robinson Crusoe when he looked round him and saw
nothing to break the solitude. Every point of the compass invited
exploration and promised adventure. That white road running northward
and rising with the cliffs, whither did it lead, what view was outspread
where it dipped over the brow of the high table-land and disappeared
into the naked sky beyond? The billowy towans sweeping up from the beach
appeared to him like an illimitable prairie on which buffaloes and
bison might roam. Whither led the sandy track, the summit of whose long
diagonal was lost in the brightness of the morning sky? And surely that
huddled grey building against an isolated green cliff must be
grandfather's church of which his mother had often told him. Mark walked
round the stone walls that held up the little churchyard and, entering
by a gate on the farther side, he looked at the headstones and admired
the feathery tamarisks that waved over the tombs. He was reading an
inscription more legible than most on a headstone of highly polished
granite, when he heard a voice behind him say:
"You mind what you're doing with that grave. That's my granfa's grave,
that is, and if you touch it, I'll knock 'ee down."
Mark looked round and beheld a boy of about his own age and size in a
pair of worn corduroy knickerbockers and a guernsey, who was regarding
him from fierce blue eyes under a shock of curly yellow hair.
"I'm not touching it," Mark explained. Then something warned him that he
must assert himself, if he wished to hold his own with this boy, and he
added:
"But if I want to touch it, I will."
"Will 'ee? I say you won't do no such a thing then."
Mark seized the top of the headstone as firmly as his small hands would
allow him and invited the boy to look what he was doing.
"Lev go," the boy commanded.
"I won't," said Mark.
"I'll make 'ee lev go."
"All right, make me."
The boy punched Mark's shoulder, and Mark punched blindly back, hitting
his antagonist such a little way above the belt as to lay himself under
the imputation of a foul blow. The boy responded by smacking Mark's face
with his open palm; a moment later they were locked in a close struggle,
heaving and panting and pushing until both of them tripped on the low
railing of a grave and rolled over into a carefully tended bed of
primroses, whence they were suddenly jerked to their feet, separated,
and held at arm's length by an old man with a grey beard and a small
round hole in the left temple.
"I'll learn you to scat up my tombs," said the old man shaking them
violently. "'Tisn't the first time I've spoken to you, Cass Dale, and
who's this? Who's this boy?"
"Oh, my gosh, look behind 'ee, Mr. Timbury. The bullocks is coming into
the churchyard."
Mr. Timbury loosed his hold on the two boys as he turned, and Cass Dale
catching hold of Mark's hand shouted:
"Come on, run, or he'll have us again."
They were too quick for the old man's wooden leg, and scrambling over
the wall by the south porch of the church they were soon out of danger
on the beach below.
"My gosh, I never heard him coming. If I hadn't have thought to sing out
about the bullocks coming, he'd have laid that stick round us sure
enough. He don't care where he hits anybody, old man Timbury don't. I
belong to hear him tap-tapping along with his old wooden stump, but darn
'ee I never heard 'un coming this time."
The old man was leaning over the churchyard wall, shaking his stick and
abusing them with violent words.
"That's fine language for a sexton," commented Cass Dale. "I'd be
ashamed to swear like that, I would. You wouldn't hear my father swear
like that. My father's a local preacher."
"So's mine," said Mark.
"Is he? Where to?"
"London."
"A minister, is he?"
"No, he's a priest."
"Does he kiss the Pope's toe? My gosh, if the Pope asked me to kiss his
toe, I'd soon tell him to kiss something else, I would."
"My father doesn't kiss the Pope's toe," said Mark.
"I reckon he does then," Cass replied. "Passon Trehawke don't though.
Passon Trehawke's some fine old chap. My father said he'd lev me go
church of a morning sometimes if I'd a mind. My father belongs to come
himself to the Harvest Home, but my granfa never came to church at all
so long as he was alive. 'Time enough when I'm dead for that' he used to
say. He was a big man down to the Chapel, my granfa was. Mostly when he
did preach the maids would start screeching, so I've heard tell. But he
were too old for preaching when I knawed 'un."
"My grandfather is the priest here," said Mark.
"There isn't no priest to Nancepean. Only Passon Trehawke."
"My grandfather's name is Trehawke."
"Is it, by gosh? Well, why for do 'ee call him a priest? He isn't a
priest."
"Yes, he is."
"I say he isn't then. A parson isn't a priest. When I'm grown up I'm
going to be a minister. What are you going to be?"
Mark had for some time past intended to be a keeper at the Zoological
Gardens, but after his adventure with the wild beast in the thicket and
this encounter with the self-confident Cass Dale he decided that he
would not be a keeper but a parson. He informed Cass of his intention.
"Well, if you're a parson and I'm a minister," said Cass, "I'll bet
everyone comes to listen to me preaching and none of 'em don't go to
hear you."
"I wouldn't care if they didn't," Mark affirmed.
"You wouldn't care if you had to preach to a parcel of empty chairs and
benches?" exclaimed Cass.
"St. Francis preached to the trees," said Mark. "And St. Anthony
preached to the fishes."
"They must have been a couple of loonies."
"They were saints," Mark insisted.
"Saints, were they? Well, my father doesn't think much of saints. My
father says he reckons saints is the same as other people, only a bit
worse if anything. Are you saved?"
"What from?" Mark asked.
"Why, from Hell of course. What else would you be saved from?"
"You might be saved from a wild beast," Mark pointed out. "I saw a wild
beast this morning. A wild beast with a long nose and a sort of grey
colour."
"That wasn't a wild beast. That was an old badger."
"Well, isn't a badger a wild beast?"
Cass Dale laughed scornfully.
"My gosh, if that isn't a good one! I suppose you'd say a fox was a wild
beast?"
"No, I shouldn't," said Mark, repressing an inclination to cry, so much
mortified was he by Cass Dale's contemptuous tone.
"All the same," Cass went on. "It don't do to play around with badgers.
There was a chap over to Lanbaddern who was chased right across the Rose
one evening by seven badgers. He was in a muck of sweat when he got
home. But one old badger isn't nothing."
Mark had been counting on his adventure with the wild beast to justify
his long absence should he be reproached by his mother on his return to
the Vicarage. The way it had been disposed of by Cass Dale as an old
badger made him wonder if after all it would be accepted as such a good
excuse.
"I ought to be going home," he said. "But I don't think I remember the
way."
"To Passon Trehawke's?"
Mark nodded.
"I'll show 'ee," Cass volunteered, and he led the way past the mouth of
the stream to the track half way up the slope of the valley.
"Ever eat furze flowers?" asked Cass, offering Mark some that he had
pulled off in passing. "Kind of nutty taste they've got, I reckon. I
belong to eat them most days."
Mark acquired the habit and agreed with Cass that the blossoms were
delicious.
"Only you don't want to go eating everything you see," Cass warned him.
"I reckon you'd better always ask me before you eat anything. But furze
flowers is all right. I've eaten thousands. Next Friday's Good Friday."
"I know," said Mark reverently.
"We belong to get limpets every Good Friday. Are you coming with me?"
"Won't I be in church?" Mark inquired with memories of Good Friday in
Lima Street.
"Yes, I suppose they'll have some sort of a meeting down Church," said
Cass. "But you can come afterward. I'll wait for 'ee in Dollar Cove.
That's the next cove to Church Cove on the other side of the Castle
Cliff, and there's some handsome cave there. Years ago my granfa knawed
a chap who saw a mermaid combing out her hair in Dollar Cove. But
there's no mermaids been seen lately round these parts. My father says
he reckons since they scat up the apple orchards and give over drinking
cider they won't see no more mermaids to Nancepean. Have you signed the
pledge?"
"What's that?" Mark asked.
"My gosh, don't you know what the pledge is? Why, that's when you put a
blue ribbon in your buttonhole and swear you won't drink nothing all
your days."
"But you'd die," Mark objected. "People must drink."
"Water, yes, but there's no call for any one to drink anything only
water. My father says he reckons more folk have gone to hell from drink
than anything. You ought to hear him preach about drink. Why, when it
gets known in the village that Sam Dale's going to preach on drink there
isn't a seat down Chapel. Well, I tell 'ee he frightened me last time I
sat under him. That's why old man Timbury has it in for me whenever he
gets the chance."
Mark looked puzzled.
"Old man Timbury keeps the Hanover Inn. And he reckons my pa's preaching
spoils his trade for a week. That's why he's sexton to the church. 'Tis
the only way he can get even with the chapel folk. He used to be in the
Navy, and he lost his leg and got that hole in his head in a war with
the Rooshians. You'll hear him talking big about the Rooshians
sometimes. My father says anybody listening to old Steve Timbury would
think he'd fought with the Devil, instead of a lot of poor leary
Rooshians."
Mark was so much impressed by the older boy's confident chatter that
when he arrived back at the Vicarage and found his mother at breakfast
he tried the effect of an imitation of it upon her.
"Darling boy, you mustn't excite yourself too much," she warned him. "Do
try to eat a little more and talk a little less."
"But I can go out again with Cass Dale, can't I, mother, as soon as I've
finished my breakfast? He said he'd wait for me and he's going to show
me where we might find some silver dollars. He says they're five times
as big as a shilling and he's going to show me where there's a fox's
hole on the cliffs and he's . . ."
"But, Mark dear, don't forget," interrupted his mother who was feeling
faintly jealous of this absorbing new friend, "don't forget that I can
show you lots of the interesting things to see round here. I was a
little girl here myself and used to play with Cass Dale's father when he
was a little boy no bigger than Cass."
Just then grandfather came into the room and Mark was instantly dumb; he
had never been encouraged to talk much at breakfast in Lima Street. He
did, however, eye his grandfather from over the top of his cup, and he
found him less alarming in the morning than he had supposed him to be
last night. Parson Trehawke kept reaching across the table for the
various things he wanted until his daughter jumped up and putting her
arms round his neck said:
"Dearest father, why don't you ask Mark or me to pass you what you
want?"
"So long alone. So long alone," murmured Parson Trehawke with an
embarrassed smile and Mark observed with a thrill that when he smiled he
looked exactly like his mother, and had Mark but known it exactly like
himself.
"And it's so wonderful to be back here," went on Mrs. Lidderdale, "with
everything looking just the same. As for Mark, he's so happy that--Mark,
do tell grandfather how much you're enjoying yourself."
Mark gulped several times, and finally managed to mutter a confirmation
of his mother's statement.
"And he's already made friends with Cass Dale."
"He's intelligent but like his father he thinks he knows more than he
does," commented Parson Trehawke. "However, he'll make quite a good
companion for this young gentleman."
As soon as breakfast was over Mark rushed out to join Cass Dale, who
sitting crosslegged under an ilex-tree was peeling a pithy twig for a
whistle.