Page:The Cornwall coast.djvu/361

 BUDE 355 though accredited history tells nothing of such a visit ; seas are not always stormy, even on the shores of North Cornwall — there are days when the waters from St. Ives to Lundy are peaceful as a child asleep. But such slumbering is not their characteristic mood ; there is generally a strong ocean swell, and when westerly winds chafe the tide its force and fury are tremendous. Hawker, who was familiar with every yard of the district, has a ballad to the purpose : — "Thus said the rushing raven Unto his hungry mate : ' Ho 1 gossip I for Bude Haven ; There be corpses six or eight. Cawk, cawk ! the crew and skipper Are wallowing in the sea ; So there's a savoury supper For my old dame and me.' ' Cawk, cawk 1 ' then said the raven ; Yet never in Bude Haven Did I croak for rescued men. — They will save the captain's girdle, And shirt, if shirt there be ; But leave his blood to cvu-dle For my old dame and me.' " The graveyards, the fields, the farmyards, will bear out this grim character ; there are traces of shipwreck everywhere — memorials of drowned seamen in the burial-ground, figure-heads of shat- tered vessels placed here and there, beams and spars applied to unintended agricultural uses. One such figure-head is that of the Bencoolen, in the churchyard, reminding us of a vessel wrecked in 1862, when only six were saved from its crew
 * I am foiu-score years and ten ;