The American citizen was not very interested in our doings. He thought
that one language was good enough for the whole earth, and that was
English, improved by the United States. There were languages still
spoken in America which, he guessed, wouldn't be missed if they died
out, as well as the people who spoke them. He wasn't gone on lost
languages, or lost trades, or lost anything, but was a living man, and
wanted people about him to show life. He had been told to take back
some "relics" of the late King Arthur, because there was money in them,
and he was going to Tintagel to look round--a button, or shoe-lace, or
lock of hair picked up on the spot would fetch something considerable.
There was a market for "relics" on the other side. We told him we
weren't keen on "relics" for commercial purposes, and were going the
other way first, so he would have it all his own way as far as we were
concerned.
We reached the Land's End at the lowest of low water, and touched the
very last bit of rock visible, so as to be able to say we'd touched the
very last stone of dry England. We left it there for future generations
to touch.
Cornwall is a tract of land with one-third in pickle, and what can't
be walked over can be sailed over. When you sail far enough you reach
the Scilly Isles, which is a sort of knuckle-end to the peninsula which
once was land. There isn't very much to be found out in books about the
land under the sea. Of course it is there, or water wouldn't be on top.
The Cornwall under the sea is the land of romance, where, some say,
King Arthur was born. There is no getting away from this land under the
sea, for the old fairies rise from it still, and spread enchantment.
We were told that every little boy and girl born in the peninsula is
breathed over by the fairies, and in after-life, wherever they may be,
they turn their faces in sleep towards the west, and dream. From under
the sea there rises, morn and eve, the sound of bells, telling their
own tale with infinite charm. The stranger who comes into the county
must hear these sounds and thrill, and see in sunshine and shadow,
on hill and in coombe, on moor and fen, the fluttering of impalpable
wings; for if he hears and sees them not, he will depart the stranger
he came, though he live a lifetime in the land. In Cornwall everything
is alive--the mine, the moor, the sea, the deep pools, the brooks, the
groves, the sands, the caves; everything has its moan and harmony and
inspiration. And the land under the sea, which is called Lyonesse by
the poets, was a fairy zone, and some say it sank in the night, and
some say other things harder to believe.
Cornwall under the sea has been there a long time. Some people, who
like to be accurate above all things, say it disappeared in the year
1089, and contained 140 parish churches, and God wot how many chapels,
and baptistries, and holy wells, and places. The only survivor was a
Trevelyan, of Basil, near Launceston, who was on the back of a swimming
horse. As it is not improbable that the inhabitants of Lyonesse traded
with somebody elsewhere and owed them money, it is wonderful that the
bad debts should have been wiped out without a murmur, and that no
entry has been found in any court, or in the accounts and deeds of
abbeys and priories of any interest in the 140 parish churches, and
chapels, and holy wells, and baptistries. The Trevelyans seem to have
been a larkish family, for when one of them was arrested for debt, he
fetched a beehive and presented it to the bailiffs, who ran away from
honey and honeycomb as fast as they could. The chimes which rise from
the 140 parish churches under the sea are very beautiful to those who
hear them. The square-set man who tacked himself on to us smiled when
we asked him to say honestly if he had heard them. He had heard people
say that they had. Some people are wonderfully quick at hearing.
The fact remains that from Land's End to Scilly is blue water, and from
Scilly to Sandy Hook is blue water also. There are some other facts
of almost equal interest, if one cares about them; but the first and
foremost fact is, that every one standing for the first time upon the
bluff, perpendicular cliffs at the Land's End, turns his face seawards,
and says, "There's nothing between me and America." Many people also
think that the waves breaking on the dark rocks travel all the way from
Sandy Hook without stopping for the privilege of dying on English soil.
Wherever they come from they're welcome, and so also are the winds
laden with Atlantic brine, which certainly have touched no land since
they left the other side. No American tourist ever comes as far west as
Penzance without rushing to the Land's End to get a lung-full of home
air, as pure and unadulterated as it can be got in this old country.
Guy was particularly interested in the Gulf Stream, which we found was
another matter of unfailing interest to everybody, and at all times and
seasons. Some things may be explained every hour of the day without
being explained away, like the sun's light, or a rainbow, or a new
baby's eyes. Guy wanted to have the Gulf Stream pointed out to him,
just as though it were painted red on the chart, or sent up clouds of
steam. There wasn't much fun in looking for the Gulf Stream, only,
being on the spot, one was obliged to do it. We had heard such a lot
about it at the hotel, and the square-set man told us that people
always made a dash for the Gulf Stream when they came here. His story
of the old lady bringing eggs with her to cook in the Stream kept us
in good temper when we found for ourselves that the water was just
the same as any other sea-water, as far as we could tell, and that we
should not have suspected the Gulf Stream of being near if we hadn't
been told. Guy said it was a fine thing to know it was somewhere about,
even if we couldn't see it, because it was a sort of link between the
old world and the new, and made it easy to understand why Mr. Choate
was made a Bencher. Guy promised to think the matter out, and put it in
another way if we couldn't quite understand the reference.
The square-set man said he was sure there was a Gulf Stream, because
foreign seaweed was picked up sometimes; and if it wasn't for the
Stream, early potatoes and broccoli wouldn't be early, and the flowers
at Scilly would be just the same as at other places. It's a long way
for a stream to come, and the square-set man told us that at one time
it must have been stronger than now, for it carried away the mainland
between us and Scilly; but when Guy cross-examined him on what he
called a question of fact, he broke down, and finished off by saying
that that was what "people said." Guy was willing that there should
be a Gulf Stream, but he bristled when told that the peninsula was
snapped off like a carrot, and carried away by a stream from the Gulf
of Mexico. His English pride was hurt, and he declared that he'd rather
do without early potatoes and broccoli and flowers from Scilly for
the rest of his life than that foreign water should ever be said to
have carried away English acres, and so many of them. The invasion of
England by the Gulf Stream indeed! Then where were the Navy League,
and the Coast Defence Committee, and Mr. Balfour's great speech in the
House of Commons?
There was one spot that we must see and stand upon, and the square-set
man was sure of himself this time. We must go and stand upon the rock
where Wesley stood before composing the hymn, "Lo, on a narrow neck
of land." People come from all quarters of the universe for this
privilege, and some people actually go away and compose hymns and send
copies to the square-set man. He did not say what he did with them, but
he did not talk respectfully of an absent lady who mailed him a poem
from New York and forgot the postage stamps.
It was Guy's idea to stay where we were. He put it very nicely to the
Bookworm about "communing with Nature, the great unwritten book, and
all that sort of thing, you know." Guy was afraid that he would make a
bee-line for the library if we returned to Penzance, and that we should
have to dig him out again. "We'll keep him in the open, and let the
square-set man stuff him with pre-historic monuments--something solid,
you know, after the Gulf Stream." Guy's mind was constantly running on
the Gulf Stream. He didn't care a fig for the stream, he said, in the
course of the evening, and it was welcome to travel where it would; but
when it came to taking away English soil, he wouldn't hear it; no, not
if all the scientists in the universe were against him.
Most people carry away something--pebbles, or blooms, or bits of
seaweed, or something of that sort--and there's plenty left; and all
seem to carry away "impressions." The guide-books don't help the
impressionists much, for everything appears different to every other
person, as though the local fairies had a hand in it.
The square-set man called upon us in the evening, and told us stories
of people whom he had conducted around the cliffs, and from monument to
monument. The cliffs, we found, were "grand," "sublime," or "terrible;"
and the rest was summed up in "charming," "queer," "fantastic,"
"unaccountable," "odd," "sweet," and the like. Specialists, of course,
had their own pet phrases; but our friend was particularly struck
with the fancy of the gentleman who saw in the cliffs only admirable
situations for solving the great mystery. The higher the point, the
more he seemed delighted. "Now, this is what I call a grand place
for committing suicide," he finished off by saying, and "tipped" so
liberally that Mr. Square-set is on the look-out for his return. An
emotion once so deeply stirred will surely need be stirred again, he
hinted.
When we asked Square-set to sit down and chat a bit, he said he'd be
very pleased to "tich-pipe;" and when I passed him my pouch, he said he
hadn't smoked since he was a young man.
"What you want to touch-a-pipe for if you don't smoke, I can't
imagine," said Guy; and then we found that "tich-pipe" had nothing to
do with the weed, but simply meant an interval of rest.
The Bookworm made a note.
[Illustration: LIGHT WINDS.]
[Illustration: ASHORE.]