Tickle a Cornishman, and he'll smile. He likes it; and when you have
rested, begin again, and he'll still smile. Some people want different
handling, like Kaffirs in mines, who only smile nicely after being
knocked down with a crowbar. "Going! And I'm just beginning to like
'ee," is a common form of regret towards a civil-tongued stranger who
has found out the way to tickle. Cornishmen abroad tickle one another
at their annual dinners, when all that's fair and lovely to the sight
"belongs" to the land of pasties and cream.
There are some dialects which make people restless, and some which make
people tearful, and some to want to go to theatres and operas, and some
to churches, and some--well, elsewhere. An Irish M.P., on the wrongs
of Ireland, is sure to make you tearful; and a Scotchman, mellow, is
certain to cry himself when eloquent on Bobby Burns; but the ordinary
Englishman is not moved to tears by ordinary English. His language is
very good for getting about with in trains and tramcars, and finding
out the prices of things, and making profits from the Equator to
the Pole. A hard-hearted sort of a language, that wants filing and
sand-papering a bit to reach the heart--like French, just by way of
making a comparison, which will not be odious now the _bien entente_ is
on the carpet.
One should come into the duchy to hear how the English language may
acquire a languorous ease, which makes one want to sit still at the
first milestone, and never to go any further. At first, Guy wanted
everything "sharp"--boots "sharp," breakfast "sharp," everything to the
minute, and every one on the alert. The Cornish constitution wasn't
made to work that way in Cornish air. A woman was selling fruit at a
street corner, and Guy bought some. A small boy was sent to change a
coin, and Guy grew tired and impatient of waiting. Then he murmured,
and talked of calling again at Christmas, if the boy was likely to be
back by then. The woman was sweetly placid, and asked Guy if he was
in a hurry? Guy said he wasn't suffering from that complaint, only he
liked to see boys smart, and things done quickly, and so help the world
to spin.
"I hate to be kept waiting," said he.
"It doan't sim long to we," said the woman, counting the coppers
slowly, one by one, into Guy's impatient palm, when the boy did return.
It doesn't seem long to the native to "quat," and listen to another
telling a yarn of endless length which might all be packed into a
sixpenny "wire." The stranger has to get rid of irritable impatience
before the restful influences of the words, and the manner of speaking
them, lay hold of him; and when they do he is in a peaceful oasis.
A bustling commercial man never dreams of opening his samples until
he's inquired about all the family, down to the third generation; and
in villages he has to remember that his customer's cow was bad last
journey, that his black minorca hen hatched out fifteen eggs, and that
the rats carried away ten in a single night. Then he has to see the
missus, and talk babies, and corns, and indigestion; and then, when no
one is looking, he undoes his samples, and business is introduced as
though by accident.
Who can be in a hurry when he finds that to get to a place three or
four miles away he must take the road to Trevalsamin, then cross the
town place at Ponsandain, which brings you to the stile at Hallywiden,
leave Ventongimps to the right, and the church-town of Trevespanvean
will come in view, then down by Trebarva well, and you will reach your
destination? Imagine this direction given in a zigzag fashion, with
comments and sketches of scenery thrown in, and the story of a man who
tackled a bull down by Trannack-Treneer bottom, and was carried home
on a gate, and then lived----. You can't get away from the man until a
sense of peace has fallen upon you; and you don't care if you take the
journey now, or put it off until to-morrow.
The old people who invented these names were in no humour for hurry,
and names are as thick as blackberries, for every field, and brake, and
bottom has its own particular name, which is always repeated in full in
conversation, no odds how often it occurs. A farmer knows his fields
by their names, just as he knows his children by theirs. The English
language shows its restful side in Cornwall.
Since our first parents were turned out of Eden, there has been no
paradise for children more perfect than Cornwall. We didn't know it
until we were told so by an old man hobbling along by the side of a
donkey with panniers on its back, and in the panniers fresh fish to
sell in the villages through which we were to pass. The old man was
in trouble on account of the school children jumping on his donkey's
back, and riding off at their own sweet wills. Then a boat came in with
a little "cate" of fish, which the old man bought to sell to country,
but nowhere could the donkey be found. Then he went about seeking,
until, at last, he ran the animal to earth in a quarry in a brake,
where the children had hidden it in order to ride back again in triumph
after school. This was the old man's grievance, and he called heaven
and earth to witness that there was no place under the sun where the
rising generation better deserved hanging than in this parish; or where
parents more deserved hanging for bringing up such varmints.
Guy tried his hand at a little friendly examination, and we learnt that
things were different when the old man was young; when his very own
father would have thought no more of cutting him down with a shovel, or
stretching him stiff with a hammer, if he went leastways contrary, than
he would have of eating a pasty. Well, if he did not like it he had to
put up with it, like the rest, and it taught him how children ought to
be trained. But now----
The old man was too full of words to speak for a time, but a passage
cleared itself, and then we found it was all the fault of the school,
and the rates, that children were varmints, and ought to be nailed up
to barn doors, like weasels and wants, and sich-like. "Lay a finger
upon a cheeld now, and the wimmen'll screech murder, marbleu! just as
ef the French was coming. An' th' men's no better, tes oal, 'Coom here,
Johnny, my son, an' plaise doan'ee break th' cloam, an' plaise doan'ee
make a malkin ov yersel'; an' plaise doan'ee stale Tom Cobbledick's
jackass, and hide'n away, when he do waant to go to country weth vish.'
I'd 'plaise' em, th' varmints; I'd scat th' brains ov'm out!"
The old man told us frankly that the maidens were a tarnation sight
worse than the boys under the new order of things. They didn't steal
away his donkey, but they were the cause of quarrels among the women,
and the women egged on the men, until there was neither rest nor peace
in the parish. "There's that maid of Nancy Golley's," said he, "an'
you'd s'poase she was the quietest maid in the country to see her on
a Sunday, with a feather in her hat a yard long, and oal the fashions
on her back. An' so she es quiet till she do see another maid come
down along weth something on her back which she thinks would suit her
beauty better. Then what do she do but go over to the other maid, oal
artful-like, an' begin to purr round, and find out what it cost, and
what tallyman her mother got it from; and then she rounds and says,
ted'n paid for, and she ought to be ashamed to wear it, when her old
granny is eating parish bread. Then the two wimmen begin upon their own
account, and rip up each other, an' set th' men on; and they'd have
killed one t'other, only the parish com'd in and tooked sides, and
fout till they cud'n blaw nor strike. And this trubble oal becase the
maidens were dressed up, and sent to school to learn bukes, instead of
goin' to work. I'd giv' it to th' varmints, ess, sure I wud," said he,
with a sing-song drawl, but all his ill-temper gone.
The old man turned down a by-lane to sell a fish at a farmhouse, first
telling us how to find Church-town and Mrs. Tregarthen's inn, where
there was "a drap of good beer" on tap, and we could pay for a pint for
him to drink when he came along.
Guy said it was refreshing to hear higher criticism of this sort; and
wondered what the Education Department would think did they but know
what a man of the soil thought of their strenuous efforts to spoil the
rod and teach the "varmints" to have it their own way? The Bookworm
wouldn't be provoked into saying anything, and so we reached the inn,
and found a very good larder there.
There was a pleasant hum of talk outside the inn, where a knot of young
miners were chatting over what concerned them most. The corner of the
building seemed to be the favourite spot in the whole village, and
the young men took turns to scratch themselves between the shoulders
against the corner-stones. It soothed them, and when they'd all
scratched in turns, they did a sort of jig with heel and toe, kicking
the wall with the heels of their boots. They never came inside; and
this was their way of showing that they had no animosity to the
institutions of their country. Our window was open, and Guy said this
would be a good opportunity for studying the language of the district.
"When people are together they talk it pure," said he, arousing the
Bookworm's attention.
Picking up a dialect in this way is not so easy; everybody seems
talking at once, and there's no full-stops, and the commas, when there
are any, seem to be in the wrong places. After a time, we captured a
few syllables, and the Bookworm wrote down phonetically a conversation
with two voices only--
"Say-yu, whatkoorarta?"
"Laastkoor b'nite."
"Adurnedkoorthat."
We all heard it, and there was no doubt about the sounds; every
shorthand writer would be sure on that point. Then we called in Mrs.
Tregarthen's husband and read over the transcript, and he said it was
all right, and we might take away as much of the dialect as we pleased
in the same way. He spoke slowly, and it came out like this--
"Say you, what coor art thou?"
"Last coor by night."
"A durned coor that."
A "coor" is a turn, or shift, in mine work, and the last shift by night
is not popular. Guy asked the Bookworm how long he thought it would
take him to pick up the dialect? and suggested leaving him behind, and
calling for him later. The Bookworm was used to this sort of thing from
Guy.
We picked up a dialect story, and preserved a sentence or two,
warranted to be genuine.
"Giv' me a kiss, me aul' dear," said Phil Pentreath, fisherman, just
home from a cruise, throwing his arms around his wife, who has got
herself up for the occasion, and does not want to be rumpled. She
flushes, and is in a great rage, but can't get over the ground quicker
than this--
"Taake yer baastlie wristeses awah fr'm me neck, you stinken',
ravishen' aythen! Lemmego! I waan't kiss'ee, and you oall auver
sunken' grease-oil an' tar. My sawl an' bawdee! I shud be fitty parfit
ashaamed, ef I was you, kissen' your wife in broad daalight, an'
daown-steers, too." An East End girl would cut half across London in
the time.
[Illustration: TWO COTTAGES, MEVAGISSEY.]
Cornish maids don't like cool lovers, and you may kiss early and
often, and be thought none the worse of by the maid you are sweet on.
If nothing comes of it the kissing part will be all right, and can be
wiped out, or carried forward, at pleasure. Kissing is a mode of
salutation in some districts where the population is stationary and
all the families somehow connected, and a strange kiss is welcome as
varying the flavour. It is a sign of religious communion among the
Methodists--the old people enjoy it at their love-feasts, and the young
take kindly to the godly example. There is no such county on earth for
"kiss-in-the-ring" at teas and picnics--old and young, rich and poor,
pastors and flock, run after one another, chasing and doubling and
tumbling, and then "smack, smack," and the captives are led back with
eyes sparkling and lips watering for more runs and more kisses. Pious
elders see their young ministers dashing after the maidens, lifting
up their chins, and kissing them on the lips, and holding them in
tight embrace the while, and they just nod to one another and smile,
as who should say, "Bless the dear lambs, lev 'em enjoy themselves
while they'm young." But only say "dance," and the dear old faces are
troubled with visions of the "pit" yawning beneath their feet. There
are different ways of kissing in different parishes, so a young man
may tell in the dark what parish a girl comes from by the way she
acts, if only he has had sufficient practice. It all comes to the same
thing, though the maidens think themselves slighted if not kissed often
enough. As a rule they get on very well.
The common furze which blooms perpetually has, on that account, got
mixed up with kissing; and when a girl is asked, "When is kissing out
of season?" her ready answer is, "When the furze is out of bloom;" that
is to say, never. The rich chrome yellow is very seductive, but the
thorns!
In the south, when a maid is disappointed in love she takes to her
bed, and is waited upon by the rest of the family, just as though she
were passing through a sickness known to the pharmacopæia. It is a
matter of public interest; and the maid is said to be "wisht" about it,
and going into a "decline." Generally, it comes all right again, and
the maid gets up and walks out with her young man, and receives the
congratulations of the parish. Then things are hurried up, and the end
comes.
[Illustration: AN OLD CORNER, ST IVES.]