Page:Once a Week Volume V.djvu/590

 . 16, 1861.] theirs, and a glorious concert they gave us. Fern and wild flowers grew everywhere in such profusion that botany was distanced in anything less than a folio attempt to name them even. To lie in the shade of one of those giant trees on the mossy grass and watch the blue smoke rise from the low chimney of the cottage in graceful column, or with closed eyes to listen to the melodies of nature unmixed with the discords of the work-a-day world was no unprofitable employment. Body and sold regained their vigour, the chafing of life’s harness was forgotten and healed, and we soon found ourselves pleased and almost believing listeners to wondrous tales of pixies, ghosts, and shipwrecks, whose records found fitting utterance in the quaint language of the old miller.

The mill-house was in front of our windows, and many an hour we sat in its ivy-clad porch. The brook, after doing duty in the buckets of the mill-wheel, ran frolicking onward to the sea, and was lost below the terrace-like pebble ridge of the beach. Here the sea washed the base of stupendous cliffs, in which the red of the sandstone contrasted finely with the deep blue of the killas and the metallic hues which water dripping over exposed strata always produces in the land of “fish, tin, and copper.”

One end of the deep bay was closed from all approach by a pile of huge masses of rock, such as might supply an artist with a fit idea of an overthrown world. Many a tale they told of wreck and death on the splintered rocks of Foxholt. Nor was it without more supernatural visitors. Indeed, scarcely a bold headland or sheltered inland bower but owned its legend, well remembered even in these matter-of-fact days.

The southernmost end of the bay closed in a steep slope of living green, caused by a land-slip, in which the turf had slid down, like a veil, to hide the ruin it left behind, of which nothing was seen from the beach but a background of towering rocks. Like some old Norman castle, we fancied them still resisting step by step the advances of decay. It was near this southern point that the traces of former lawless doings were still to be seen. A small hole, apparently only a fox-den, led into a cave, where a thousand kegs of French brandy had often been stored in a single night.

We were anxious to learn whether the tales we had heard of Cornish wreckers were true, and it was some questioning on this subject which drew from the old miller the following story:—

“I can’t say I never heerd of such things, but I never seed no such doings myself. I have lived here, man and boy, these seventy years,” he said; “many and many’s the night we’ve been watching on these bleak cliffs for a chance to help they poor creatures as had only a frail plank between them and death. Scores of lives I’ve seed saved, but never one took; no, not even of a brute beast that came to shore from all the multitude of wrecks I’ve seen. I’m not going to say that when the ships, poor things, are all broken up and the timbers come ashore,—I’m not clear to say, there is not some small matter as never gets reported to the king’s men. Little I blame them that take it, for, as the Lord’s above us, I believe it is more the fault of those that keep back the honest dues for the salvage.

“I remember, in the time that barwood” (and he pointed to some pretty things made by his son, of the bright-coloured logwood) “was coming in, there was those as worked night and day, landing it, and after all their toil they wanted to pay them off with just a quarter of what was the right money. So if they that are so well off try to cheat like that, I’d ask your honors if it is not setting an example to the poor?

“There’s Ned Smeeth, now,—he as got that fine medal from that grand place up to London,—I’m sure he is as tender-hearted as a child, but you’ll never make him believe there is any sin in taking a stray baulk or two the tide brings in, and nobody owns; while, after he’d been working for a whole week, they wanted to pay him with a little more than nothing. That’s what I call stealing!

“But my old head is forgetting the story. Well, well, you must please to excuse it. It does make my blood boil to hear such falsities.

’Twas seven years last November, I mind it well, me and Ned was standing as your honor and me is now, by my old hut here. It had been a bitter night of weather, and was still so dark we could not see even the clobs of foam that kept flying in our faces. I’d just put the mill a-going with some barley, and was minded to lie down for a nap (for you see I always wake when the corn’s down, and so don’t trouble about the mill) when I thought I heerd a gun. I could not make sure, for the wind was lashing the waves mountains high, and the rake of the beach was most enough to stun a body. Says I to Ned, ‘Ned, you’re a more spray man than me, just take a look out to sea.’ Well, he’d not gone but a step or two when the report came again full and true, and even my old eyes could see the flash. I stepped up and turned off the water, and Ned and me went and called up the neighbours. I sent a boy on horseback to Trebarfoot to bring more help; and getting the ropes and things we should want, if anything could be done for the poor creatures on board the distressed ship, we went to the point we thought she would strike on. We had no help from our eyes, but were guided by our knowledge of the wind and tide.

“It might be about five, or between that and six o’clock, when we got to Saltstone. We could not stand against the wind, but were obliged to lie down on the edge of the cliff to try to discover the vessel. It seemed a whole night, though I suppose it could not be more than an hour, before we could see or hear anything more than the Hash of the gun and the roar of the wind and waves. After a bit we touched hands, and went back to a more sheltered place to talk over what was best to be done. Some were for lighting a fire to try to guide them into Widemouth Sand-bay, but I knew ’twas no use, for I was sure the vessel had not a rag of canvas standing to help her helm, even if the helm itself was still serviceable, and so she could never make a reach to clear