The capital of Clayland is St. Austell; but, as usual, nobody is very
sure about the saint. If you say "Saintauzel" through the nose, you may
be taken for a native. The church is in the centre of the town, and
the narrow, crooked thoroughfares radiate from there. The town seems
to have grown as wanted, every house pushing its neighbour towards
the centre. The wealth of Ophir in black, glittering tin is said to
underlie the town, and there is no doubt about the tin being there, for
the nuggies may be heard working on their silver anvils, and bright
lights dance upon the surface during autumnal mists. Any tinner will
tell you the meaning of these mysterious illuminations; but the mines
are not worked now, because the hills above and around are composed of
the white clay which all the world wants.
"Saintauzel" is a Friday town. Most things are reckoned as from Friday
to Friday, which is market day, and the inhabitants put on their Friday
faces and Friday clothes. When it isn't Friday the inhabitants delight
in watching the clay-waggons pass their shops, or in dodging them in
the narrow, crooked labyrinths called streets. Everything gives way
to the clay teams--butcher-boys and motor-drivers screw themselves
into nothingness, or back down side-streets when the clay-man is
in view, driving his horses in single file, all straining at their
chains. An endless procession of heavy waggons rumbles through the
narrow streets--waggons laden with powdered clay in barrels, or with
square, white, glistening lumps uncovered; and the drivers, stiffened
up with clay, like loaded yarn, crack their long whips and keep
their teams at it. These drivers, born upon the hills, look a race
to themselves--straight-backed, upright, and hard as nails. The clay
which they absorb year by year doesn't hurt them. The amount which they
swallow with their pasties must be fatal to microbes, as they seldom
think of dying until tired of throwing about barrels of clay which
would break an ordinary labourer's heart to handle. The old county is
sent away in ships as fast as they can carry it, but there is some left.
Guy fancied that there was not so much "expression" in the faces
and dramatic action with the people we met here as in other places,
and hazarded a guess that this was a result of looking at so much
inexpressionless clay. There is not much in clay to lay hold of the
imagination, except its whiteness, and the purer the blanker it is;
but, then, smirches in clay would cause a sensation, like the entrance
of a lady with a past into a party of sweet young things playing at
goodness in a social comedy. There is little in the article suggestive
of anything but money. The people here are said to be very rich in
comparison with those in other towns, and they need three banks to take
care of their cash. The chief amusement at night is to walk around the
banks, just to see that the doors are closed. The Bookworm made a few
inquiries about libraries and art galleries, and that sort of thing,
but there were none. He felt sad; he couldn't help it, he said, when he
found people with money without books and pictures, and things of that
sort. Samuel Drew was born here, so also was John William Colenso, the
man who "made an epoch in criticism by his straightforwardness," and
there is plenty of room for a statue to each. The old bull-ring is in
evidence.
The hill on which the town stands stretches away a mile or so, and the
further you go the better the view of the white, glistening patches,
and the rills of white water trickling down the valleys seawards.
"Milk!" is the one idea, milk flowing through the land--milk enough and
to spare for all the condensed milk factories in the world. It's only
an illusion--it's clay in solution, which by-and-by will show itself in
the sea, like a white apron upon the shore, until it loses itself in
the eternal blue. We stand here on what is a sort of terminus of the
hilly backbone of the country--eastward, it is black and rugged, moor
and mountain with white scars, and ruined engine-houses of abandoned
mines; then westward, and there is paradise in green stretching towards
the cathedral city. Down again to Clayopolis and the throb of arterial
life--clay and money, money and clay.
China clay has no fairy of its own, like tin. It came upon the
scene too late; and fairies can't be made at will, but must grow of
themselves, and take time. Fishing, agriculture, and mining have their
tutelar spirits, able to work and dematerialize at will, and every
desolate cave, and cairn, and moor, and pool has its gnome and fairy;
but when we come across anything modern there is one thing wanting.
Lightning comes from fairyland until it is put in lamps and sold per
metre. China clay, unknown to the fairies and unblessed by the saints,
has to make its own way in the world, on merits, like any modern
youngster turned out of a Board School. And it does very well.
This is one of the few towns in which a theatrical company can pay
expenses. The people are musical and dramatic, they can't help it; and
though a "theatre" would be "taboo," a drama in Public Rooms is all
right. Sports do very well, and you may race anything, from lame ducks
to donkeys, bikes and motors, men, women, and children, but not horses.
A horse-race is--well, not to be mentioned.
The game of "hurling," peculiar to the county, is not played here now,
though it is kept up at St. Columb and Helston and other places, and
we saw it played at Newquay in a very mild sort of way. The origin of
the game is pre-historic. When a paleolithic gentleman had a nice bone
which another paleolithic gentleman tried to grab, a tussle commenced,
and the best man got the bone, and kept it. The evolution of the game
out of a scrimmage for a bone is so natural that the best-informed
antiquarians have missed it.
A hurler should be able to run like a hare, hide like a rabbit, leap
like a kangaroo, and climb like a monkey. Then he should be able to
box like a pugilist, wrestle like a champion, and sky a ball like
an All-England cricketer. These are essentials. Then, if he escapes
drowning, and comes alive out of a "scrum," he may make a good hurler.
It is a fair game, and may be played by selected teams, like football,
or town against country, with an unlimited number. A silvered ball
is the trophy. The ball is thrown into the air, and the man catching
it runs for his goal, and when the game is too hot for him he skies
the ball, and another fellow starts with the whole pack after him,
until he's tripped up and buried under a living heap of players; then
some one steals away with the ball, wrestles with the first man who
catches him, and then there's another "scrum," which gives points to
Rugby. And so on, backwards and forwards, from goal to goal, until
"time" is called, or someone insured against broken bones and sudden
death manages to touch his goal with the ball in his hand. Carew says
the game was played in his days so that players returned home "with
bloody pates, bones broken and out of joint, and such bruises as serve
to shorten their days, _and all in good play_, and never attorney nor
coroner troubled for the matter." If this was the legitimate play,
what could the other have been? The game as played on Newquay sands
was quite another affair, and, if revived with "Newquay rules," might
extend from Cornwall to the country. Porpoises play a game in the sea
something like hurling, only instead of a ball they throw a live conger
into the air, and the one who catches dodges about until made to throw
it up again, and so on, until time is called. An exciting game is on
record, but the sensations of the conger are unknown. A good fish story
usually leaves a trifle to the imagination.
[Illustration: A FAIR PROSPECT.]
[Illustration: JOHN BURTON.]