The coastguard station, with whitewashed walls gleaming and flagstaff
with halyards all taut, makes a good mark along this coast, which
is certainly not thickly populated now, to judge by the number of
crumbling houses and villages partially deserted. The fishing coves
hold their own, but the cry of "back to the land" has not been much
heeded in these parts.
The man in blue uniform, with spy-glass under his arm, is always an
attractive personage; he is so human, though official; so fresh and
breezy, so ready to help the passing ship in danger, and do grand
deeds in storm and tempest. England's watchfulness and strength is
writ large upon the coastguard station, and the men are uniformly
intelligent and good-mannered. A strange mixture of blood--Great
Britain in epitome--may be found in one small station we halted at,
namely, two Irish, one Scotch, one Novocastrian, and one Devonian--not
a dash of Cornish blood at a Cornish station. A native might wink the
other eye if his own flesh and blood did a bit of free trading in
spirits and tobacco, and only run with his "two left legs" after a
culprit related to himself. The men, as a rule, have seen the world,
read a great deal, and pass their time in thinking--not very much else
to do when on duty but watch and think.
If you'll be good enough to listen, the coast-guardsman will talk. The
sea-gulls are very chummy with the men, know the uniform, and like to
come and help them in their garden patches. Guy told a man one day that
the gulls were a bit out of favour just now with Londoners because
they had a weakness for sparrows, feathers and all; but the coastguard
wasn't surprised at the gull, only at the sparrow. He thought that
London sparrows were too artful to be picked up in that way by a simple
sea bird. He told us some stories about sea-gulls. They are fond of
young kittens and puppies that nobody wants and throws into the water.
The fur increases the luxury of the _bonne bouche_. Then rabbits. Woe
to the young thing that they tap with their powerful bills! A gull will
kill a rabbit caught in a gin and feast on its eyes. Then they are
famous poachers, stealing the eggs of birds nesting in the cliffs, and
carrying off the newly hatched. But ravens and crows take reprisals
and make the gull sorry at times. Our coastguard told us this little
story:--
"There was a gull sitting on a rock below this station, and I watched
the pair day by day. The male bird is very attentive, and feeds the
hen, and watches over her, and takes her place on the nest when she
takes an airing. A pair of ravens took an interest in the proceedings,
and one day, when the male bird was away foraging, they executed a
scheme for robbing the sea-gull's eggs. It was very neat in its way.
The ravens flew round and round the sitting hen, screaming defiance;
but the hen only sat the tighter. Then they circled closer and closer,
and flapped their black wings in the hen's face. This insult was too
much. The gull's blood was up, and she rose from her nest. Then the
ravens separated, and whilst the gull chased number one, number two
picked up an egg in its bill and flew back to quarters, where number
one joined it, and the two shared the stolen egg. Some people say birds
have no reason. Well, I'd like to see cunning strategy better carried
out. The little Japs couldn't do better."
The silver-grey gull is in paradise in the fishing villages, and takes
possession of the boats, and quays, and roofs of houses, and helps
itself out of the "flaskets" filled with fish, or from the heaps lying
on the stones. A bigger thief does not live and escape punishment. If
anything floats on the water in the harbour, the gull swoops down upon
it and it is gone; if anything is left unprotected, the gull has it.
What a gull will eat, and want no liver pill, would make any other
respectable bird on the wing bilious; but the gull is always bright
and cheerful, and ready for another gorge, and its natural store of
gastric juice would set up a chemical factory. When fish is scarce the
gull goes inland and feeds upon the fields, or joins the noble army of
poachers over gentlemen's preserves.
On the wing the gull is the spirit of poetry, and in storm the spirit
of the tempest; the fishers look on it as a friend, because it hovers
over the "schools" of fish swimming in the sea, and warns them of
approaching storm. The gull is the link between the fisher and his
home, flies after the boats when they go out, and heralds their return.
The women look out of their windows in the early morn, and see the gull
resting and waiting for the offal to be thrown away when the boats land
their catches. Then they know the boats are near, and that the men
will be home soon, with fish strung upon their fingers for the morning
meal. The gull is the household bird by adoption, and the women don't
begrudge it what it steals.
The dark rocks outside the fishing towns swarm with
sea-gulls--specketty-brown gulls, grey and white gulls with
ebony-tipped wings, gulls with brown and gulls with yellow beaks, gulls
flying, gulls swimming, gulls sleeping, gulls on outpost duty. Without
these birds the rocks would be very tame. A swarm of gulls in the air
is one of the prettiest sights in nature; and then the cry of the gull
is the cry of a human soul in agony, which perhaps it is.
THE LEGEND OF ST. GOELAND.
In the days when Lyonesse was land, a poor hermit dwelt upon a rock,
whereon he had built for himself a chapel, which was but a shelter of
rude stones to protect him, but it was called a "chapel" because it
had been signed with the sign of the cross, and he said his prayers
therein. The rock was storm-swept, and was at the head of a bay,
beautiful in summer, but terrible in winter, and the bay was only a
trap to poor mariners, and every rock could tell its tragedy. St.
Goeland was a Breton, born in a fishing village, and when he came
across there flew after him a sea-gull, which he had befriended. It
was all the same to the sea-bird where it dwelt if the sea was but
there, and the bird wished to be with St. Goeland.
The rock on which the saint built his chapel was known as the Gull
Rock, and there was nothing living visible but solemn shags resting by
night, and sea-birds on the wing at all times; no human dwelling or
habitation disturbed the pious meditations of the saint, who feasted
when snails were in season, and on Fridays fresh fish was always
brought to him by his devoted gull. At other times the gull brought
sea-birds' eggs, and laid them down outside the chapel door. Fresh
sea-birds' eggs are simply delicious when boiled.
St. Goeland did not live a useless life, for outside his chapel there
was a cage which he filled with dry sticks, lighting it when there was
fog about, and then hoisting it aloft to warn mariners to keep clear
of the treacherous bay. "St. Goeland's lantern" became known, far and
wide. One day the saint picked up a bell which had been washed ashore;
so he built a rude belfry and hung it, and then "St. Goeland's Bell"
was heard by mariners at sea whenever there was danger of being caught
upon a lee shore. When the wind veered round to danger point the old
gull used to give the saint a note of warning, and the saint would rise
from his soundest sleep and pull on the rope, so the sound of the bell
was carried down the wind, and mariners gave the treacherous coast
a wide berth. The saint never knew the good he did, but did it, not
knowing. Now, what with cutting and stacking faggots for the "lantern,"
and ringing the bell, St. Goeland was sometimes very busy, and he
and his gull grew old together. The silver-grey feathers were almost
as white as the saint's silver hair. When the saint was troubled he
talked to the bird, which was saddened when he said, "We have grown old
together, and what will happen to the poor mariners when there is no
one to light the lantern and sound the bell?"
[Illustration: ST. GOELAND AND THE SEA-GULL.]
It came to pass that a ship filled with pilgrims was making for the
land, and would have come and anchored in the bay when the wind veered,
and the old gull gave its note of warning; but St. Goeland was too
feeble to rise, and the tears came into his eyes. The pilgrim ship was
sailing joyously towards destruction, and the bell was silent! The gull
cried louder; the wind rose, and the ship was on her way; soon she
would be on a lee shore, and then----
St Goeland made a supreme effort, and clutched the rope. "My God!" he
shrieked, and fell, and the bell sounded. But the gull heard the shriek
and the bell's note mingled, and carried it against the wind; and those
on board the pilgrim ship heard, and drew off the land, saying, it was
"St. Goeland's warning," which it was, only they did not know that the
saint passed away when the bell pealed his requiem.
From that time the sea-gull's cry is that of a human soul in agony
mingled with the note of a "passing bell." All mariners, and fishers,
and dwellers by the sea, know it well, and woe to the man who lays
finger on a gull, except in kindness!
"The sea-gull," said Guy, "is an utterly unproductive animal, fit for
nothing but to look at. What it destroys is incalculable, and yet some
yarn like this, invented Heaven knows when, makes it almost a sacred
bird."
The Bookworm had little to say, except that people were more influenced
by sentiment than they knew or suspected.
Guy pooh-poohed "sentiment," and said he'd wring a couple of gulls'
necks the next morning before breakfast.
He went out with that idea, but a warning voice reached him. Then he
tried to "negociate" a purchase, and a big fist brought down in the
man's palm warned him that the transaction was, in diplomatic language,
"delicate." Guy owned up that there was something, after all, in
"sentiment."
Sea-gulls are privileged in this part of the world.
[Illustration: THE DOG-FISH.]