Dolly Pentreath, the fishwife of Mousehole, had a reputation as wide,
but different, as Sir Humphry's. Her portrait is sold in Penzance,
wherein Dolly is only a name now. She belonged to the adjoining parish
of Paul, and so there is no statue to her in the Market-place, where
she sold fish, and talked the old Cornish with the real twenty-two
carat stamp upon it. The Bookworm said Dolly's fame had done a good
deal towards advertising the land of a lost language. He showed us the
portrait of a determined-looking, passionate old party in short skirts,
and a creel on her back. We had seen already several ancient dames
carrying fish quite as capable of taking care of themselves, which
indicated that if the language is lost, the race survives. It's a nice
walk along the shore to Mousehole. We might have lingered at Newlyn,
only the Bookworm wanted to get upon classic ground, where old Dolly
used to smoke her pipe, and drink her flagon of beer with the best, and
talk Cornish--the real old lingo, hot, sweet, and strong, so that those
who heard her once never forgot it. Dolly lived to one hundred and
two, and then departed, carrying with her, in her queer old brain, the
completest vocabulary of the Cornish language upon earth. This is the
legend, to which is to be added that she had the reputation of being
a "witch." There exists an ancient corner in the village where Dolly
would be at home again if she could come back; and the Bookworm walked
up and down, and in and out, touching the stones and rubbing shoulders
against the pillars, as though he expected to feel an electric shock,
or receive the straight tip from the old lady that he'd touched the
spot, like Homocea. He may have passed over it, but he was happy. If he
could only have found an old clay pipe that Dolly had smoked!
An old man sitting on a post watched us out of a corner of his eye. He
knew what we were up to, and that there was a trifle at the end of it.
Guy tackled him.
"Dolly Pentreath? Oh yes; she died poor, and was buried in the parish
churchyard of Paul. People came in shoals to see her monument and read
the inscription."
"Had anybody got anything belonging to her?"
Not that he knew by. "She might have had a Bible or a hymn-book, but
she wasn't given that way much. So many people wanted 'relics,' and if
there ever were any, they would have been sold long ago."
All this was straight enough, and his blue eye looked as clear as the
well of truth. We stood around him as an oracle, and he began his story.
"Dolly Pentreath was a fine woman, with a voice that you could hear
to Newlyn. She had the heart of a lion, and it was told of her that
when a press-gang landed in search of men for the navy, Dolly took up
a hatchet and fought them back to their boats, and so cursed them in
old Cornish that that crew never ventured to come again.[B] And she was
artful as well as brave, and saved a man, 'wanted' by the law for the
purpose of hanging, by hiding him in her chimney. Dolly lived in an old
house overlooking the quay, the walls of which were thick, and in the
chimney was a cavity in which a man could stand upright, and it was a
convenient hiding-place for many things. 'Back along' Mousehole was one
family, and the ties of blood spoke eloquently; so, when a man rushed
into Dolly's cottage, saying the officers were after him, and would
hang him to the yardarm of the ship out in the bay, from which he had
taken French leave the week before, he did not appeal in vain.
[B] The old lady's eloquence in her native tongue did not run greatly
to swear-words, of which, according to Carew, there were only "two or
three natural." "But then," saith Carew, "this want is relieved with a
flood of most bitter curses and spiteful nicknames." The mouth hath its
pearls; and our Dolly's was well filled, when her blood was stirred.
"There was no time to lose, and Dolly rose to the occasion. Up the
chimney she popped the man; then, taking an armful of dried furze, she
made a fire in the wide open grate, and filled the crock with water.
Into the middle of the kitchen she pulled a 'keeve,' which she used for
washing, and when the naval officer and his men burst into the kitchen,
Dolly was sitting on a stool, with her legs bare, and her feet dangling
over the 'keeve.' This was the situation.
[Illustration: DOLLY PENTREATH.]
"'A man, indeed!' quoth Dolly; 'and me washing my feet!' She was only
waiting for the water to 'het,' and they might all wash their own, if
they liked. Search? Of 'coose' they might, and be sugared. (This was
old Cornish, of course.) Would they like to look into the crock, and
see if a man was boiling there?
"Search they did, and found no man; but Dolly found her tongue, and
let them have it; and then she found her thick shoes and let them
fly; and then she made for the chopper, and that cleared the house.
Dolly made the most noise when she heard the poor man cough in his
hiding-place. The aromatic smoke from the burning furze tickled his
throat, and though life depended on silence, he could not keep it.
Then Dolly gave tongue, and old Cornish--the genuine article--rattled
amongst the rafters, like notes from brazen trumpets blown by tempests.
She threw wide her door, and, with bare legs and feet, proclaimed to
all the world the mission of the young lieutenant and his men, who now
saw anger in all eyes, and made good their retreat whilst in whole
skins. Then Dolly liberated the man in the chimney. In the dark night a
fishing lugger stole out of Mousehole with the deserter on board, and
made for Guernsey, which, in those days, was a sort of dumping-ground
for all who were unable to pay their debts at home, or were 'wanted'
for the hangman."
The old man, with true blue eyes, turned a quid in his mouth, and said,
with the simplicity of a child, "And that man was my mother's father."
Guy was preparing to cross-examine the man of truth, but we would
not have it. It was his own witness. He had found him sitting on an
iron stump, and was bound to treat him as a witness of truth. Why
shouldn't his own mother's father have been a deserter from the king's
ship, and been saved by Dolly Pentreath? Guy agreed; but, said he, it
was suspicious that that man should have been sitting on that very
stump, at the very right moment, and have the right story on the tip
of his tongue for the right people to listen to. There was too much
"coincidence." We let it go at that.
The Bookworm had the old man with the truthful blue eyes all to himself
for a time, and discovered the very room in the Keigwin Arms in which
Dolly was wont to take her pint and her pipe at her ease, and the
window out of which she would thrust her hard old face and shout to
the fishers when they came to the landing-place. The old lady was keen
on her bargains, and when she had bought her "cate," she trudged into
Penzance with "creel" on back, and spoiled the Egyptians, according
to the rules of art. The costume of the fishwife is the same now as
then--the short skirt, the turned-up sleeves, the pad for resting the
creel. Newhaven fishwives, but with less colour.
The Bookworm tried some old Cornish, which he had picked up the
previous day, upon the old man with the truthful blue eyes, but he
shook his head mournfully. "_Karenza whelas karenza_," repeated the
Bookworm; but the old man looked blank, and did not blush at not
knowing the family language. The finest chords of his heart were
untouched; but he brightened up when the Bookworm sought his hand
furtively, and left something there. Guy said he was perpetuating
testimony.
The old fellow offered to go with us to Paul, and show us Dolly's
monument, but Guy said the place was consecrated ground, and something
tragic might happen if he refreshed his memory too largely on the spot.
The truthful-looking eyes were unabashed.
"I don't care," said the Bookworm, as we walked along the road--"I
don't care; we have received from the old fellow the impressions which
he received from those who saw Dolly Pentreath in life--her passionate
self-will and pluck, her artfulness, her readiness of tongue, and
quickness in making a situation. What could be more dramatic in a
cottage with only a fireplace, a wash-tray, and a stool in it for
accessories? I don't care how much is invention--the living impression
is that Dolly would have done this under the circumstances, and so the
true woman has been presented to us."
"I wish you joy of her, only I'm glad she doesn't cook my dinner," said
Guy. "Let us reckon up her virtues--she snuffed, she smoked, she took
her pint, and she cussed upon small provocation; these are the four
cardinal virtues in your heroine. I wonder how often she was before
her betters for assault and battery, and using profane language in an
unknown tongue?"
We saluted the monolith in the churchyard in memory of Dolly Pentreath,
but no one can say for certain that it covers the ashes of that ancient
volcano in petticoats. Guy said he could not thrill unless he was sure
the old lady was there, and the Bookworm ought to do all the thrilling
for the party.
We were glad to have seen the monument, and the Bookworm said it was a
sign of the _bonne entente_ which is to be. "The Republic of Letters is
superior to public prejudices and racial antipathies," he added, with a
magnificent wave of the hand.
We saluted, the monument, including the shades of Dolly and Prince
Lucian, if they happened to be around, and departed with the conviction
that we had behaved very nicely towards the lost language and the
"Republic of Letters."
[Illustration: LAND'S END.]