THE LIZARD LIGHTS BY NIGHT.
"Yes," said Curgenven, "in many places along this coast, when there's a wreck, and we're called out, the parson's generally at the head of us. Volunteers? Of course we're all volunteers, except the coast-guard, who are paid. But they're often glad enough of us and of our boats too. The life-boat isn't enough. They keep her here, the only place they can, but it's tough work running her down to the beach on a black winter's night, with a ship going to pieces before your eyes, as ships do here in no time. I've seen it myself-watched her strike, and in ten minutes there was not a bit of her left."
We could well imagine it. Even on this calm evening the waves kept dashing themselves against every rock with a roar and a swell and a circle of boiling foam. What must it be on a stormy winter night, or through the deathly quiet of a white mist, with nothing visible or audible except the roar of the waters and the shriek of the fog-horn!
"I think it's full time we were in-doors," suggested a practical and prudent little voice; "we can come again and see it in the daylight. Here's the road."
"That's the way you came, Miss," said Charles, "but I can take you a much shorter one on the top of the hedges"-or edges, we never quite knew which they were, though on the whole the letter h is tolerably well treated in Cornwall.
These "hedges" were startling to any one not Cornish-born. In the Lizard district the divisions of land are made not by fences, but by walls, built in a peculiar fashion, half stones, half earth, varying from six to ten feet high, and about two feet broad. On the top of this narrow giddy path, fringed on either side by deceitful grass, you are expected to walk!-in fact, are obliged to walk, for there is often no other road. There was none here.
I looked round in despair. Once upon a time I could have walked upon walls as well as anybody, but now-!
"I'll help you, ma'am; and I'm sure you can manage it," said Charles consolingly. "It's only three-quarters of a mile."
Three-quarters of a mile along a two-foot path on the top of a wall, and in this deceitful light, when one false step would entail a certain fall. And at my age one doesn't fall exactly like a feather or an india-rubber ball.
"Ma'am, if you go slow and steady, with me before and Curgenven behind, you'll not fall."
Nor did I. I record it with gratitude to those two honest men-true gentlemen, such as I have found at times in all ranks-who never once grumbled or relaxed in their care of their tardy and troublesome charge; one instance more of that kindly courtesy which it does any man good to offer, and which any woman, "lady" though she be, may feel proud to receive.
When we reached "home," as we had already begun to call it, a smiling face and a comfortable tea justified the word. And when we retired, a good deal fatigued, but quite happy, we looked out upon the night, where the fiery stream of the Lizard Lights was contending with the brightest of harvest moons. It was a hopeful ending of our second day.
CORNISH FISH.
DAY THE THIRD
Table of Contents "And a beautiful day it is, ladies, though it won't do for Kynance."
Only 8 a.m., yet there stood the faithful Charles, hat in hand, having heard that his ladies were at breakfast, and being evidently anxious that they should not lose an hour of him and his carriage, which were both due at Falmouth to-night. For this day was Saturday, and we were sending him home for Sunday.
"As I found out last night, the tide won't suit for Kynance till Wednesday or Thursday, and you'll be too tired to walk much to-day. I've been thinking it all over. Suppose I were to drive you to Kennack Sands, back by the serpentine works to Cadgwith, and home to dinner? Then after dinner I'll give the horse a rest for two hours, and take you to Mullion; we can order tea at Mary Mundy's, and go on to the cove as far as I can get with the carriage. I'll leave it at the farm and be in time to help you over the rocks to see the caves, run ahead and meet you again with the carriage, and drive you back to Mary Mundy's. You can have tea and be home in the moonlight before nine o'clock."
"And you?" we asked, a good deal bewildered by this carefully-outlined plan and all the strange names of places and people, yet not a little touched by the kindly way in which we were "taken in and done for" by our faithful squire of dames.
"Me, ma'am? Oh, after an hour or two's rest the horse can start again-say at midnight, and be home by daylight. Or we could go to bed and be up early at four, and still get to Falmouth by eight, in time for the church work. Don't you trouble about us, we'll manage. He" (the other and four-footed half of the "we") "is a capital animal, and he'd get much harder work than this if he was at home."
So we decided to put ourselves entirely in the hands of Charles, who seemed to have our interest so much at heart, and yet evinced a tenderness over his horse that is not too common among hired drivers. We promised to be ready in half an hour, so as to waste nothing of this lovely day, in which we had determined to enjoy ourselves.
Who could help it? It was delightful to wake up early and refreshed, and come down to this sunshiny, cheerful breakfast-table, where, though nothing was grand, all was thoroughly comfortable.
"I'm sure you're very kind, ladies, to be so pleased with everything," apologised our bright-looking handmaiden; "and since you really wish to keep this room"-a very homely parlour which we had chosen in preference to a larger one, because it looked on the sea-"I only wish things was better for you; still, if you can make shift-"
Well, if travellers cannot "make shift" with perfectly clean tidy rooms, well-cooked plain food, and more than civil, actually kindly, attendance, they ought to be ashamed of themselves! So we declared we would settle down in the evidently despised little parlour.
It was not an æsthetic apartment, certainly. The wall-paper and carpet would have driven Morris and Co. nearly frantic; the furniture-mere chairs and a table-belonged "to the year one"-but (better than many modern chairs and tables) you could sit down upon the first and dine upon the second, in safety. There was no sofa, so we gladly accepted an offered easy-chair, and felt that all really useful things were now ours.
But the ornamental? There was a paper arrangement in the grate, and certain vases on the chimney-piece which literally made our hair stand on end! After a private consultation as to how far we might venture, without wounding the feelings of our landlady, we mildly suggested that "perhaps we could do without these ornaments." All we wanted in their stead were a few jars, salt-jars or jam-pots, in which to arrange our wild flowers, of which yesterday the girls had gathered a quantity.
The exchange was accepted, though with some surprise. But when, half an hour afterwards, the parlour appeared quite transformed, decorated in every available corner with brilliant autumn flowers-principally yellow-intermixed with the lovely Cornish heath; when, on some excuse or other, the hideous "ornament for your fire-stoves" was abolished, and the grate filled with a mass of green fern and grey sea-holly-I know no combination more exquisite both as to colour and form-then we felt that we could survive, at least for a week, even if shut up within this humble room, innocent of the smallest attraction as regarded art, music, or literature.
But without doors? There Nature beat Art decidedly.
What a world it was! Literally swimming in sunshine, from the sparkling sea in the distance, to the beds of marigolds close by-huge marigolds, double and single, mingled with carnations that filled the air with rich autumnal scent, all the more delicious because we feel it is autumnal, and therefore cannot last. It was a very simple garden, merely a square grass-plot with a walk and a border round it, and its only flowers were these marigolds, carnations, with quantities of mignonette, and bounded all round with a hedge of tamarisk; yet I think we shall always remember it as if it were the Garden of Armida-without a Tancred to spoil it!
For-under the rose-one of the pleasures of our tour was that it was so exclusively feminine. We could feed as we liked, dress as we liked, talk to whom we liked, without any restriction, from the universal masculine sense of dignity and decorum in travelling. We felt ourselves unconventional, incognito, able to do exactly as we chose, provided we did nothing wrong.
So off we drove through Lizard Town into the "wide, wide world;" and I repeat, what a world it was! Full filled with sunlight, and with an atmosphere so fresh and bracing, yet so dry and mild and balmy, that every breath was a pleasure to draw. We had felt nothing like it since we stood on the top of the highest peak in the Island of Capri, looking down on the blue Mediterranean. But this sea was equally blue, the sky equally clear, yet it was home-dear old England, so often misprized. Yet, I believe, when one does get really fine English weather, there is nothing like it in the whole world.
The region we traversed was not picturesque-neither mountains, nor glens, nor rivers, nor woods; all was level and bare, for the road lay mostly inland, until we came out upon Kennack Sands.
They might have been the very "yellow sands" where Shakespeare's elves were bidden to "take hands" and "foot it featly here and there." You might almost have searched for the sea-maids' footsteps along the smooth surface where the long Atlantic waves crept harmlessly in, making a...
