Page:The Cornwall coast.djvu/384

 378 THE CORNWALL COAST bring his watch, and he needed some guide in timing his service so that he might return to officiate at Morwenstow in the evening. He asked the folk standing about the church porch if they could oblige him in this particular. " But time is of no great import at Welcombe, and no watch was to be had. At last, just as the service was beginning, an old woman hobbled up the aisle and handed to the Vicar a large and ancient timepiece. 'Her's only got one hand, your honour,' she said, ' but yu must just gi' a guess.' " Perhaps the name Welsh-combe (Welsh being taken in the old sense of " foreign ") denoted some survival of earlier occupation here, some lingering neolithic remnant ; the Welcombe folk are still distinguished by their dark hair and skins, and as being somewhat of a race apart. In Hawker's day they were very ignorant and superstitious, though sufficiently devout. They had "no farrier for their cattle, no medical man for themselves, no beer-house, no shop ; a man who travels for a distant town (Stratton) supplies them with sugar by the ounce, or tea in smaller quantities still. Not a newspaper is taken in throughout the hamlet, although they are occa- sionally astonished and delighted by the arrival, from some almost forgotten friend in Canada, of an ancient copy of the Toronto Gazette. This publication they pore over to weariness, and on Sunday they will worry the clergyman with questions about Transatlantic places and names, of which he is obliged to confess himself utterly ignoraVit. An ancient dame once exhibited her prayer-book, very nearly worn out, printed in the reign of George II., and very much thumbed at the page from which she assiduously prayed for