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TREVETHLAN:
A Cornish Story.
BY WILLIAM DAVY WATSON, ESQ.
BARRISTER-AT-LAW.
IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. III.
LONDON:
SMITH, ELDER AND CO., 65, CORNHILL.
1848.
London:
Printed by STEWART and MURRAY,
Old Bailey.
TREVETHLAN.
CHAPTER I.
_Menenius._ What work's, my countrymen, in hand? Where go you
with bats and clubs? The matter? Speak, I pray you.
_Citizen._ Our business is not unknown to the senate; they have
had inkling, this fortnight, what we intend to do, which now
we'll show 'em in deeds. They say poor suitors have strong
breath: they shall know we have strong arms too.
Shakspeare.
Among the most striking features of the scenery of West Cornwall, are
the fantastic piles of bare granite which rise occasionally from the
summit of an upland, and to a distant spectator present the exact
semblance of a castle, with towers, turrets, and outworks. So a
stranger, standing on Cape Cornwall and looking towards the Land's End,
might imagine he there beheld the fortress whose sanguinary sieges
obtained for that promontory its ancient name of the Headland of Blood.
Or again, reclining on the moorland, near the cromlech of Morvah, while
the sun was sinking behind Carnyorth, he might fancy that at the
red-edged battlements on the ridge, the original inhabitants of the
country made their last stand against the invaders from the German
Ocean.
Approach soon destroys the illusion. And it is superfluous to observe
that the warriors of those times had no notion of the structures which
these caprices of nature mimic--the castles of our Plantagenets and
Tudors. Their real fortresses still exist to afford employment to the
antiquary, and inspiration to the poet; and to one of them we now invite
the reader to accompany us.
Castle Dinas occupies the crest of the highest ground between the
picturesque village of Gulvall and the pilchard-perfumed town of St.
Ives, and commands an uninterrupted view both of Mount's Bay and of the
Irish Sea. Two concentric ramparts of unhewn stones, flung together more
rudely than a Parisian barricade, exhibiting the science of
fortification in its very infancy, inclose a circular area of
considerable extent. From it the ground slopes, not very rapidly, on all
sides; and as there are no screens, an occupant of the camp can see an
approaching friend or enemy some time before he arrives. Within the
inner circle some prosaic favourer of picnics has erected a square
_folly_, with a turret at each angle, not harmonizing very well with
local associations, but convenient in case of a shower of rain.
Around the folly, on the night which followed the departure of the
orphans of Trevethlan from the home of their fathers, was pacing a
stalwart man of weather-beaten aspect, with an impatient and irregular
gait. The sun had sunk below the horizon, and all the south and west
quarters of the sky were covered with heavy masses of cloud, from behind
which, at intervals, came the low mutterings of distant thunder. Flashes
of lightning followed one another in quick succession, becoming more and
more brilliant as the shades of evening grew deeper. They broke from
various quarters of the horizon, but particularly from the point of
sunset. The light seemed to flit or be reflected all round the sky.
Sometimes it was a lambent flame of blue, sometimes a flush of faint
rose colour; sometimes the dark clouds were displayed in bold relief
against a bright sheet of yellow or white. So far the sea was still
calm, and the air close and heavy. But at length there came a motion in
the hot atmosphere. The surface of the water was crisped. A sigh wailed
along it, as if the spirit of the tempest mourned over his mission; and
then the storm, whose advent had been foreseen by Randolph and Helen,
during their last visit to Merlin's Cave, advanced rapidly up the sky.
And a tempest scarcely less fierce raged in the breast of Gabriel Denis,
as he paced hurriedly within those old ramparts. He was expecting an
assembly almost as tumultuous as that of the warriors whose battle
shouts once resounded there, and he was resolved that it should not
disperse in the same innocuous manner as former meetings of the same
character. One by one, and two by two, as the darkness deepened, his
promised adherents arrived, and the ancient camp became filled with an
excited mob, anxious for mischief, ignorant what to do.
Well might Randolph caution Edward Owen that in joining such musters as
these he might easily be carried much further than he intended to go. A
fretting population always contains inflammable materials, and it is far
less difficult to kindle than to extinguish its fury. The consciousness
of this fact frequently deters mob-leaders from urging their followers
into a course where there will be no subsequent control.
And crimes of this nature are among the greatest that can be committed,
especially in a free state. An idea prevails that there is a sort of
heroism in defying public authority, no matter how trivial the occasion,
nor how impotent the assailant. Defeated and punished, the criminal is
not seldom regarded as a martyr. He is considered the victim of his own
conscientiousness. Antecedent cases of successful sedition are quoted to
justify subsequent failures. But all this is false and mischievous.
There is never heroism in fool-hardiness: the so-styled martyr may
witness to no truth: the conscientiousness may be of the kind which
calls property a theft. And former successes are rather warnings than
examples. Precedent cannot avail against the powers that be.
The assembly at Castle Dinas, however, was rather riotous than
seditious, and uncertain in what direction to vent its desire for
mischief. There was plenty of tinder, but no one to throw the spark;
until Gabriel Denis, burning with the desire of revenge for the spoiling
of his house and the death of his wife, joined the counsels of the
malcontents, and brought into them the energy they had previously
wanted. He now flung a firebrand among the rabble, and dozens of hands
were stretched to seize it. It was just suited to the mood of the
moment.
"To Lelant!" the smuggler shouted. "Why loiter we here on the hill,
doing nothing either of good for ourselves or of ill for those who would
put us down? Are we not many, and they few? To Lelant, I say. Let us
turn the tables on the revenue thieves. They have plenty of mine in
their stores; but I want not that. Drink it, lads, free of duty and free
of charge. But there is a desolate home yonder on the bank. What stain
is that on the floor?--there shall be a redder in the storehouse at
Lelant. Ay, lads, let us to Lelant."
There was a great stir in the crowd: not a few voices echoed the
smuggler's watchword--To Lelant: some of the men pressed forward as if
eager to start: Gabriel himself turned to lead the way. But another
voice arose: it came from the midst of a small and compact party on the
outskirts of the meeting.
"What are ye about?" the speaker said. "Why go among the cutlasses and
carbines? Is it the drink ye would have--the drink and the sport? Ye can
get them cheaper than at Lelant. Look to our great houses. Does Gabriel
say they have spoiled his? Let us spoil one of theirs. What say ye to
Pendar'l?"
A shout, much more enthusiastic than that which hailed the smuggler's
proposition, greeted this burst of eloquence.
"See!" continued the orator, "there's a storm coming up from the sea. It
will hide our advance; and the soldiers are called away to the 'sizes.
Let us disperse, and meet again on the grass of Pendar'l."
So said, so done. As the crowd moved off, it might be noted that there
were some audible murmurs of "Trevethlan for ever!" "Hurrah for
Trevethlan!" showing that at least a portion of the assembly were
thinking of what had happened in that hamlet a few hours before. And
then the multitude divided itself spontaneously into various parties,
some proceeding by the lanes and other byways, and some boldly crossing
the country in twos and threes;--silent, but not so regular, as an army
of ants. Meantime the storm, driven along by a high wind, came up the
sky, and before the foremost of the marauders had reached the park wall
of Pendarrel, the rain was falling in torrents, and the thunder rolling
overhead. But these were trifles to the hardy assailants, who were now
fairly on fire, and had a definite object before their eyes. They scaled
the wall wherever they first found it, and advanced through the grounds
towards the hall, scaring the deer with the unwonted invasion. At length
they found themselves re-united for the most part in a semicircle,
investing all one side of the house. Fair and stately it stood amidst
the trim pleasure-grounds, reflecting the vivid flashes of lightning
from its white walls and many windows, and offering, alas! too tempting
a prize to the lawless band around it. Within, the household were
collected about their fire-sides, listening to the uproar of the storm,
and little deeming that a more terrible enemy was at hand.