The girls learn early that "it is not good for man to live alone," and
never forget it. It is the one text that sticks, and they make the
running early for the boys, who are a shy and awkward lot, and want
encouragement at first. Then the boys wake up, and the girls catch
them, as they intended to do when they first started; and the boys
grow into men, and are never "alone" any more. Marriages may be made
in heaven for other folks, but the Cornish maidens like them better on
earth, and please themselves pretty much in the matter. Misfits will
happen sometimes, but they have a nice, soft, easy way of their own,
and slip through life "as well as moast, and better'n some."
The women make very good wives, and seldom become acquainted with the
learned president of the Divorce Court; and if they don't believe
the men are "saints," they wink the other eye and say little. A
country-woman, tired of her bargain, inquired of a solicitor where she
could get a bottle of the "drops" for the dissolution of her marriage,
apparently thinking that nothing weaker than legal aquafortis, or Dutch
drops, would be any good to dissolve the bond. Very few Cornish women
have figured in the Divorce Court, which stands to their credit, so
many being the wives of sailors at sea nine months out of the year,
or of miners in foreign lands, whom they may not see for years after
a brief honeymoon. In the Cornish version of the old mystery play of
the Deluge, willing obedience to the husband is shown in the dialogue
between Noah and his spouse. Noah says it is time to get into the ark,
and the lady says, "Oh, master dear! I will do everything like as thou
wishest." In the Chester play on the same subject the wife of Noah is a
perverse, wilful, passionate woman, who will not go into the ark unless
every one of her "gossipes" go with her. And when her sons get her in
by superior force, she gives poor Noah a slap in the face, saying,
"Have that for thy note!" The unknown Cornish translator changed
the note to suit his audience. A married woman makes the best of her
bargain, and finds "Oh, master dear!" better than fisticuffs.
+--------------------+
| NOTICE. |
| ALL WHO WANT |
| A HAPPY HOME, |
| TRY CORNWALL. |
+--------------------+
The women take a pride in doing little things for their
husbands--polishing their Sunday boots, brushing and putting away
their clothes, and turning them out spick-and-span, like dandies. A
man isn't allowed to look after anything but his sea-boots and oileys,
if he's a fisher; or his working togs, if some other trade. When there
are girls in a family the boys are "tended" like little princes; and
when the girls marry they look after their husbands so carefully that
they seldom stray far away. Ladies who write social conundrums to
the newspapers, and ask how it is that they only get a bit of their
husbands, and that bit not worth the having, should live in a Cornish
village for a season, and keep their eyes open. Not very exciting, to
be sure, but, if all is true, worth the experiment. The beautiful
influence of climate comes in, "and so it is; and you must put up with
it, my dear," is the grease-box which makes the wheels run smoothly.
The women keep shop in the small towns and villages whilst the men
go to sea, or fishing, or whatever work they profess to do. A bell
tinkles when you open the door, and, by-and-by, the missus comes into
view, wiping her hands on her apron. She may have what's wanted, but
generally she's "run out," and is expecting it within a week or so. She
goes on wiping her hands, and looks as contented as though she had sold
something. Then the little shops look like a dry-goods store after an
earthquake, and if the thing wanted isn't on top it is not much good
looking for it.[G] It's just their way, and the business flourishes
like a plant in native soil. Sometimes the post-office is mixed up
with the "business," and a dear little cherub sits up aloft somewhere
and watches over the property of the Postmaster-General. Letters and
parcels muddle through, somehow, which is proof positive that the age
of miracles is not over and done with.
[G] An enterprising huckster exhibited the following signboard:--
BIBLES, BELLOWS AND BOOTS. GODLY
BUKES AND GRINDING STONES, TROUSERS,
TESTAMENTS, AND TEA KITTLES, EVERYTHING
BOUGHT AND SOLD HERE EXCEPT TREACLE.
BEST PRICE GIVEN FOR WHALEBONE STAZE
BY I. W. NINNIS.
For the spectator a wedding is a very dull and slow affair now, even
in out-of-the-way districts and in the fishing coves and villages,
where the old customs have struggled hard to live. Young people are
married all the same, but much of the joy at the life that is to be has
been gradually elbowed out of the ceremony, and all that belongs to it.
It used to be a very different sort of thing when the people were more
prone to dancing and fiddling and feasting, and only half enjoyed a
thing unless all their world enjoyed with them. The Bookworm chanced on
some faded letters describing some of the merry-makings not more than a
century ago, when a wedding was an event, not for John and Mary merely,
but for the whole parish. The fiddler skipped before the happy pair
to church, and every one, not in the procession with wedding favours,
lined up, and made nice little speeches, as the spirit moved them;
and the spirit moved them so often that the bride had few blushes to
spare when she reached the chancel steps. And then the feast and dance
and mystic rites, concluding with the bedding of the bride. Then more
dancing for the guests; and more young couples vowed that day to marry
within the year than on any other occasion. It was a "quiet" wedding
which finished up with a three days' rejoicing.
If John and Mary lived on a farm, or were servants at the "big house,"
then there were high jinks in the great kitchen and squire's hall, and
no one merrier than parson and clerk, who led the revels with voice
and flute, and the schoolmaster brought his fiddle, if he had one. A
wedding was a very human affair, and everybody's business, not so very
long ago. In the fishing villages there was more colour and boisterous
mirth than elsewhere, for the men dressed their boats, and made sport,
and sang and danced, and got drunk and sober, and then drunk again,
until the morn broke. And the next day, and the next to that, the pot
was kept a-boiling, and then the women captured their men and toddled
them home, and hid away their boots, until the delirium of the wedding
march had passed away.
No more feasting and fiddling now. The "day" is kept secret, and the
"happy pair" arrive, somehow, before a registrar, and are hitched up,
according to law. Mary may marry John now, and no one be the wiser--a
cold, cheerless, colourless thing is this sort of wedding.
A funeral is still an event, and touches hidden springs, which must
gush forth, and will take no denial. The people have a superstitious
reverence for the dead. The doors and windows of the chamber are thrown
open for the unfettered spirit to escape, and, one by one, neighbours
and friends take a last look at familiar features. To be "a 'ansum
corpse, white as a lily and light as cobwebs," is a consolation to an
old rip, when looking at his wasted hands. A village funeral is a long
procession with sacred hymns. Then a cup of tay and a bit of curranty
cake amongst the women, who talk and sigh, and tell each other of their
own complaints, and the complaints which carried off their friends.
Widow-women are great at funerals, which freshen up their memories. "My
man was teeled a year agone, an' I do miss 'un," says number one. "Ess,
fath, my dear, and no wan do knaw what tes like them that's lonely,"
says number two. "Tes bitter cauld in winter, an' I tells my maid her
poor father would be weth me now ef 'twadn't for want of bref. Tes a
wisht complaint, that," continues number one, sighing. "'Twadn't like
that weth my man, fur he had es bref up to the last," replies number
two, triumphantly vindicating the superior merits of her dear departed.
Widow-women don't often change their names. If without money they
are not tempted; and if they have enough they may tempt, but seldom
yield. The next-of-kin are very watchful over the shekels; and the man
who marries a widow with relations does not always enter paradise. A
widow-woman is looked on in the light of an investment. Here is a short
story. Mrs. Treloar was a widow-woman with a bit of property--just
comfortable, as times go. She was no great beauty, but the chapel
steward cast a longing eye towards her, and wished to lose no time.
Said he: "We doan't want to go coorting, do us? Waste of precious time
for us who are both old enuf to know our own minds." Said she: "You
knaw, s'poase, ef I do marry agen, boy Tom'll have the property?" Then
he: "Why, es that so? Then you won't sell at that price, I'm thinkin'.
Good day, my dear." No harm done.
Guy made the observation that the people we saw about were not much
given to frills. He supposed they had them packed up somewhere, but
there being no swagger concerts, and bands on swagger piers, with
swagger subscription tickets for the season, no one unpacked them. It
would be too absurd to go about freshly dollied up, three times daily,
to show one's self to sea-cliffs, and sea-sands, moss-grown monoliths,
and British tumuli, and all that sort of thing. The piskies would
laugh. The Bookworm remembered a French professor writing that when he
visited the Acropolis at Athens he removed his rings and watchchain
as being too much out of keeping with his surroundings. He said he
smiled at the confession at the time as "too Frenchy," but it had a new
meaning for him here. Wherever we went no one we met seemed to want
to show off their "frills" to one another, or to the hoary fragments
of antiquity permitted to survive--one would just as soon think of
dressing up and showing off in a museum of extinct animals. It must
take a lot off a woman's brain, Guy said, to know that she need not
unpack her things; and he supposed that was one reason why so many
took their fresh air and sunshine treatment now on Cornish moors and
beaches, instead of crowding stuffy old German spas, where it was the
rule to put in time in showing new "frills" to one another.
The curiosity of the people inhabiting highways, byways, and villages
as to the going and coming of strangers has been so gratified of late,
that little short of a dancing bear would cause a woman to run to her
door, and stare wide-eyed and open-mouthed. The advent of the hatless
one in many colours, making the sun to blush, or in oilskins in wet
weather, seemingly satisfied the native, and made every other vagary,
hats or no hats, clothes or none, not only possible, but something to
be looked for amongst strangers. A tall, thin lady, showing much wrist
and leg, swinging a stick, and wearing her hair short, passed along the
road, taking it easy at five miles an hour. She was a new arrival at a
whitewashed house with thatched roof at the end of the village. We were
chatting to an old woman in a big blue sunbonnet (called a "gook"), who
had rested her basket on the top step of the market cross.
"Stranger?" asked Guy.
"Iss, sure; we doan't grow that soart in this soil, but they may wan
day, for I do mind when they ded'n grow mangel-wuzzels. What do I caal
'em? Why, I do caal 'em great he-shees--they'm spoiled fur women, and
bain't vitty fur men."
This was a wayside verdict on a choice variety of the sort.
[Illustration: ON THE SANDS.]
[Illustration: THE PILLORY, LOOE.]