Part 10 (1/2)

The fis.h.i.+ng hamlet is close to an ancient burial-mound or barrow, from which election writs were once read and the local mayor proclaimed.

From this cove we can pa.s.s upward into the glorious Rocky Valley, with its broken crags, its tangled foliage and rus.h.i.+ng stream, its old mill. It is just a little like the gorge at Lynmouth, but wilder.

This is the stream forming the famous cascade known as Knighton's (or St. Nectan's) Kieve. It is not very easy to find, and, here as at Tintagel, a key must be procured before its beauties can be examined.

The Kieve is a basin of rock, into which the water has a fall of about 40 feet. St. Nectan is supposed to have been a brother of Morwenna, of Morwenstow; it is said he had an oratory here, and when he was dying he threw its silver bell into the waterfall. But Mr. Baring-Gould says that he died at Hartland. Following the usual guide-book convention, this would be the right moment for quoting Hawker's ballad, ”The Sisters of Glen Nectan,” but that piece is not one of his happiest efforts, and the legend is at least dubious. Those who journey afoot from Bossiney to Boscastle will find it almost impossible to keep to the coast, as the Rocky Valley forms an impediment, especially when its stream is in flood after heavy rains. But they can find a tolerable road to Trevalga, crossing the stream at the Long Bridge, and at Trevalga they will find an interesting little church. The sh.o.r.e here is broken into some small creeks of great beauty, but one chasm is so dark and sombre that it has won the name of Blackapit. There are dangers along these wild beaches; the poet Swinburne, when a boy, was almost cut off by the tide near Tintagel. From Blackapit we rise to Willapark Point and the church of Forrabury. The view from the Point is very fine, covering the ravine and haven of Boscastle on the east, and looking towards Tintagel on the west. Forrabury, the parish church of Boscastle, is dedicated to St. Symphorian, whoever that saint be (perhaps St. Veryan); and in situation it much resembles that of Tintagel. The pulpit and the woodwork of the altar date from the fifteenth century. There is a good granite cross in the churchyard.

Here again there is a temptation, into which most writers fall, of quoting from Hawker, with his poem, ”The Silent Tower of Bottreaux,”

in which he gives us a legend accounting for the fact that this church has only a single bell. But as he frankly confessed, in after life, that he had invented the story on the very slightest foundation, it is better to avoid quoting from the ballad, except solely for the melodious smoothness of its burden:--

”Come to thy G.o.d in time, Thus saith the ocean chime; Storm, whirlwind, billow past, Come to thy G.o.d at last.”

[Ill.u.s.tration: ST. KNIGHTON'S KIEVE.

_Photo by Alex. Old._]

Boscastle, taking its name from the old Norman family of Bottreaux (though there are many other place-names in Cornwall beginning with _bos_, which means abode or dwelling-place), is certainly the most romantic and picturesque haven in the Duchy, though there may be others that surpa.s.s it in actual beauty. The coast has a wild grandeur rather than loveliness, and in dismal or stormy weather there is a weird, solemn gloom. The little town lies sheltered at the head of a gorge in which two rivulets meet and form the haven. Old Leland in his graphic manner mentions one only of these brooks: ”There c.u.mmith down a little broke from South-Est out of the Hilles thereby, and so renning by the West side of the Towne goith into Severn Se betwixt two hilles, and there maketh a pore Havenet, but of no certaine salvegarde.” It is the river Valency of which he speaks, the more important of the streams that join just above the haven. This is a tiny land-locked harbour with stone piers, at which some coal, lime, and general merchandise are imported; the entrance is very difficult to make, and vessels that succeed in doing so have to be warped in by immense hawsers. Seeing this, and the small haven at Bude, one realises the wildness of this unsheltered coast, where such perilous places are called harbours. The village, though not large, is a long one, straggling down a hill and along the narrow ravine. Its activity is maintained by the daily arrival and departure of cars from Camelford, Bude, Otterham, and Tintagel, bringing many visitors in the summer season. Some come to stay, but most make only a fleeting call; Nature has placed grave obstacles in the way of Boscastle's ever becoming a fas.h.i.+onable watering-place. Its charm is unique and undeniable; but it appeals to the artist, the st.u.r.dy pedestrian and climber, the lover of solitude that at times is absolute desolation, rather than to the parent of a family. But the desolation, if that is not too stern a word to use, only applies to the coast; the Valency Valley is verdant and beautiful. It runs among furze and bracken by the riverside, and by this path we can reach the quiet, lovely vale in which Minster stands, so named from a former monastic establishment.

Like the church at Tintagel, this of Minster is dedicated to St.

Materiana, whom Mr. Baring-Gould identifies with the Welsh Madrun. The tower is of a single stage; there are good bench-ends and roof-carvings. A portion of the church having fallen in one Sunday, after morning service, it was rebuilt about forty years since. The priory was founded by William de Bottreaux in the reign of Richard I., but does not seem to have had a long existence. Minster is a large parish, but Forrabury is one of the smallest in Cornwall.

Pentargon, the bay and headland beyond the Boscastle golf-links, is sometimes interpreted as ”Arthur's Head,” but this is doubtful. The caves here, and those below Willapark, were once much haunted by seals; the coast being absolutely honeycombed by the constant fretting of the waves. At times, but rarely, the Cornish chough may be seen on the cliffs, recalling the old tradition that the spirit of Arthur lingers around his native rocks in this form--a tradition that was even familiar to Cervantes, though he knew the Welsh version of it, which makes Arthur a raven. Eastward past Beeny the cliffs gradually rise, till at High Cliff they reach the height of 700 feet; it needs some enthusiasm for a pedestrian to keep to the coast-line, though every mile has its grandeur. Beyond Cambeak lies the delightful Crackington Cove, which will some day become a watering-place; it stands at the mouth of a verdant valley with a stream like that of the Valency. It is in the parish of St. Genny's, whose church is dedicated to St. Genesius of Auvergne, of whom it is related that after being beheaded he walked about with his head under his arm. The saints of Cornwall are reported to have done some extraordinary things, but they do not usually descend to absurd actions of this nature; and there may be a shrewd suspicion that Genesius has no business here at all.

William Braddon, a Parliamentary officer and member in the time of the Civil War, lived at Treworgye in this parish, and was buried in the church; some have supposed that he was vicar here. Pencannow Head, the north limit of Crackington Cove, rises sheer from the sh.o.r.e to the height of 400 feet. Dizzard Point is far less precipitous. A few miles further east the cliffs break to allow room for a fine stretch of sands at Widemouth Bay, and here we have another spot that is certain to develop into a pleasure-resort of the future. It cannot, of course, compare with the coast magnificence of the sh.o.r.e from Pentire to Boscastle, but it has what these wilder spots lack--a possibility of conventional settlement and expansion in the style of watering-place that the British public chiefly loves.

CHAPTER XVII

BUDE

We read in the memoir of Tennyson that in the year 1848 he felt a craving to make a lonely sojourn at Bude. ”I hear,” he said, ”that there are larger waves there than on any other part of the British coast, and must go thither and be alone with G.o.d.” So he came, with the subject of his Idylls simmering in his mind. He found the great rollers, the grand, open coast, the solitude; these are still there, to be found of all that seek. There may be some lessening of the solitude, but only in parts; Bude has not yet become widely popular; it is the haunt of those who love bracing air and quiet. It grows, but grows slowly; old friends may return to it without being tortured by too glaring a change.

The coast must indeed be dest.i.tute of harbours that can call Bude a haven; yet the name Bude Haven stands, as if in deadly irony. This whole north coast of Cornwall and Devon has little enough of refuge for seamen in distress; and if they endeavour to make Bude when seas are running high they are simply courting disaster; it were better to stay far out, if the cruel Atlantic will let them. Yet a rumour of history says that Agricola landed here. It is not impossible, though accredited history tells nothing of such a visit; seas are not always stormy, even on the sh.o.r.es 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 rus.h.i.+ng raven Unto his hungry mate: 'Ho! gossip! for Bude Haven; There be corpses six or eight.

c.a.w.k, c.a.w.k! the crew and skipper Are wallowing in the sea; So there's a savoury supper For my old dame and me.'

'c.a.w.k, c.a.w.k!' then said the raven; 'I am fourscore years and ten; Yet never in Bude Haven Did I croak for rescued men.-- They will save the captain's girdle, And s.h.i.+rt, if s.h.i.+rt there be; But leave his blood to curdle For my old dame and me.'”

The graveyards, the fields, the farmyards, will bear out this grim character; there are traces of s.h.i.+pwreck everywhere--memorials of drowned seamen in the burial-ground, figure-heads of shattered 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 of thirty-five. The _Bencoolen_ was trading from Liverpool to Bombay. We may take Hawker's description of the disaster, recollecting, however, that he wrote in great excitement, and that he was a little unjust to the men of Bude. The wreck took place towards the end of October, after a hurricane that ”lasted seven days and nights. On Tuesday at two o'clock afternoon a hull was seen off Bude wallowing in the billows. All rushed to the sh.o.r.e. At three she struck on the sand close to the breakwater--not 300 yards from the rocks. Manby's apparatus was brought down--a rocket fired and a rope carried over to the s.h.i.+p. The mate sprang to clutch it--missed--and fell into the sea, to be seen no more alive. 'Another rope!' was the cry. But from the mismanagement of those in charge there was no other there. They then saw the poor fellows constructing a raft and launching it. A call for the lifeboat, one of large cost, provided with all good gear, kept close by. She was run down to the water. A shout for men--none--a few of the Hovillers, pilotmen, got on board, but refused to put off--all Bude lining the cliffs and sh.o.r.e--Well, well--to abbreviate a horror, the raft was tossed over.

About six were washed ash.o.r.e with life in them, four corpses, and the rest were carried off to sea dead--26 corpses are somewhere in our water, and my men are watching for their coming on sh.o.r.e. The County gives 5s. for finding each corpse, and I give 5s. more. Therefore they are generally found and brought here to the vicarage, where the inquest and the attendant events nearly kill me.... Hordes of people picking up--salvors with carts and horses--and lookers on. It reminded me of old Holingshed's definition, 'a place called Bedes Haven (Bede, a grave).' When the masts went over the captain, married a fortnight before, rushed down into his cabin, drank a bottle of brandy, and was seen no more. The country rings with cries of shame on the dastards of Bude.” A calmer eyewitness quite absolves the Bude men from all blame--to render more help had been impossible. The vessel was being steered skilfully to take the haven, but she was too large for its mouth. But, unjust or not, we must love Parson Hawker. He tells of his procedure when a corpse was reported: ”I go out into the moonlight bareheaded, and when I come near I greet the nameless dead with the sentences 'I am the Resurrection and the Life,' &c.

They lay down their burthen at my feet--I look upon the dead--tall--stout--well-grown--boots on, elastic, and socks--girded with a rope round the waist. I give him in charge to the s.e.xton and his wife to cleanse, to arrange, to clothe the dead. I order a strong coffin, and the corpse is locked in for the night. I write a letter to the coroner and deliver it for transit to the police. And here the misery begins.” To every corpse discovered Hawker gave burial in consecrated ground; it was not many years since the law had forbidden this. The few graphic words quoted give us an idea of his days spent on this lonely, pitiless coast--days which he varied by acts of beneficence to his paris.h.i.+oners, and by the writing of much beautiful poetry. Close to the mouth of this perilous haven is the low breakwater, built to connect an outlying ma.s.s of rock that was formerly insular with every tide. Carew (1602) speaks of this rock; he says: ”We meete with Bude, an open sandie bay, in whose mouth riseth a little hill, by euerie sea-floud made an Iland, and thereon a decayed chapell: it spareth roade only to such small s.h.i.+pping as bring their tide with them, and leaveth them drie, when the ebb hath carried away the salt water.” He tells how Arundel of Trerice had a house here named Efford, now the Bude vicarage; and how this gentleman ”builded a salt-water mill athwart this bay, whose causey serveth, as a verie convenient bridge, to save the way-farers former trouble, let and daunger.” The present church stands near, built by Sir Thomas Acland in 1835. The chapel on the islet, decayed even in Carew's time, was dedicated to St. Michael, its dedication being transferred to the present church; only a few faint traces of the old building can be seen. It was this same Sir Thomas Ackland who constructed the bathing-pool at the end of the breakwater, where it forms a very pleasant little swimming-bath. But in time of storm, rock and pool and breakwater are a ma.s.s of snowy, quivering foam; even in less tempestuous times it is fine to see the waves rush seething up the sides of the substantial little breakwater, with suggestiveness of what they can do in wilder hours.

It must be confessed that this corner by the haven is the most interesting portion of Bude, which some visitors have condemned as an unattractive place. Certainly the growth of lodging-houses has not added to its charm, as these houses have all the tameness, though doubtless also the convenience, of modern street-architecture. It is by the haven and on the banks of the now useless ca.n.a.l that there is anything of an old-world atmosphere. As compared with places like Polperro or Boscastle, Bude has a touch of the commonplace, but its coast is fine, and it is an excellent centre for a district of supreme attraction. Readers who care to see how it figures in modern fiction should turn to the _Seaboard Parish_ of the late George Macdonald, in which Bude is the Kilkhaven of the story. Even here the novelist had to borrow another church for his setting; the present Bude Church is by no means that of the romance. The town is now reaching from the ca.n.a.l banks to the breezy Summerleaze Downs, and beyond; and of course the golfer is here in all his glory. But if we go a little more than a mile inland we find all that may be lacking in Bude at Stratton, which may or may not be named after an old ”street”

that pa.s.sed this way from Devons.h.i.+re. That street was almost certainly not Roman, even if the Romans used it. There is a little stream here called the Strat, which does not help us, for the stream _may_ have been called after the town. Stratton shares with Stowe in the glorious memories of Sir Beville Grenville, his wife Grace, and his servant Anthony Payne; but Bideford has also its claim to long a.s.sociation with the Grenvilles--it was from Bideford that Sir Richard sailed the _Revenge_. Stowe, in the parish of Kilkhampton, a few miles north of Bude, is now a farm, showing very few traces of the Grenville manor-house, which was one of the finest and most extensive in the West. There were two houses, an earlier and a later, but both are now things of the past. At Stratton, however, there is still the Tree Inn, which seems to have been the business residence of Sir Beville, whither he came to settle matters with his tenants and followers; and it was here that his servant, Anthony Payne, was born. Payne, who stood seven foot four in his stockings, was devoted and loyal to his heart's core; it was he who, when Sir Beville fell fighting for King Charles at Lansdown, led the knight's son up the hill at the head of the gallant, irresistible Cornishmen. These Cornishmen had already proved their powers much nearer to Stratton. The battlefield known as Stamford Hill is close by; it was here that Sir Beville and Hopton defeated the Parliamentary forces under the Earl of Stamford and Chudleigh. The fight took place in 1643, and was one of those Royalist victories in the West that for a time made the cause of the King look very hopeful. The Cornish troops were outnumbered almost by two to one; they were tired and hungry, and they had the worst of the ground, for the Roundheads had entrenched themselves; yet they stormed the hill, routed the Parliament men, and took 1,700 prisoners. An old gun still lies there to mark the spot, and above is the inscription: ”In this place an army of ye Rebels under ye command of ye Earl of Stamford received a signal over-throw by ye valour of Sir Bevill Grenville and ye Cornish Army.” If there be ever glory attaching to battlefields, it may be found here. While the battle was raging Grace Grenville, the wife of Sir Beville, was waiting in anguish of heart at Stowe, only to be pacified when her husband himself came home at night to tell her of the issue. Yet scarce two months had flown when the sorrowful Payne wrote telling his beloved mistress the sore tidings of Lansdown, where the Cornishmen followed their slain master's son up the hill with tears in their eyes. ”They did say they would kill a rebel for every hair of Sir Beville's beard. But I bade them remember their good master's word when he wiped his sword after Stamford fight; how he said, when their cry was 'stab and slay,' 'Halt, men; G.o.d will avenge.' I am coming down with the mournfullest burden that ever a poor servant did bear, to bring the great heart that is cold to Kilkhampton vault. Oh, my lady, how shall I ever brook your weeping face?”

Never was a sweeter communions.h.i.+p of husband and wife than that between Sir Beville and Lady Grace, thus brought to an earthly end; it gives a lovely touch of domestic affection to annals that are otherwise stern and b.l.o.o.d.y enough, with all their glory. There are some charming letters preserved, that pa.s.sed between the two; showing the beautiful simplicity of their natures and the tone of their home life. ”My dearest,” wrote the knight from London, ”I am exceedingly glad to hear from you, but doe desire you not to be so pa.s.sionat for my absence. I vow you cannot more desire to have me at home than I desire to be there.” And again: ”Charge Postlett and Hooper that they keepe out the Piggs and all other things out of my new nursery, and the other orchard too. Let them use any means to keepe them safe, for my trees will all be spoild if they com in, which I would not for a world.” And the lady, addressing ”Sweet Mr. Grenvile,” adds in a postscript to her letter: ”If you please to bestowe a plaine black Gownd of any cheape stufe on me I will thank you, and some black shoes.” She died about four years after her husband fell at Lansdown.

These two lie buried at Kilkhampton, but Payne, the loyal servant, is somewhere within the n.o.ble church of Stratton; there is no monument to say where. The church is of excellent restored Perpendicular, with fine pinnacled tower. Within are a Norman font, a Jacobean pulpit, and the black marble tomb of Sir John Arundel (1561), whose former manor-house at Efford is now Bude Vicarage; there are bra.s.ses of the knight, his wives and their children. The fourteenth-century effigy of a knight in the north aisle is supposed to be that of Sir Ranulf de Blanchminster, who is commemorated in one of Hawker's ballads. It is fitting to think of the poet-parson in this spot; not only are we now approaching very near his own parish, but his father was Vicar of Stratton and lies buried in the church's chancel. Hawker was often asked to preach here, but he long declined, fearing that the a.s.sociations would be too overwhelming for him. This proved to be the case when at last, in his old age, he preached at the church. Suddenly breaking in his sermon, he explained with faltering voice, ”I stand amid the dust of those near and dear to me.” It is little wonder that his listeners shared his emotion; and some touch of it may still come over those to whom the records of Hawker are very dear. The number of such lovers should have been much increased by the adequate biography that is now at the service of the public, prepared by the son-in-law of the poet; and Hawker is pre-eminently one of those whom we learn to love even more through his memoirs than by his writings. For his life was a life of n.o.ble deeds, not only of beautiful words.

CHAPTER XVIII

MORWENSTOW

There is a fine stretch of sands protecting the Bude sh.o.r.es, but the background of these sands is cliff. It was this sand that made one of the chief uses of the ca.n.a.l from Bude to Holsworthy, now superseded by the railway; containing a large proportion of lime, it is valuable for agricultural purposes. The sands have a further use now as a playground for visitors; very few watering-places become really popular without such a beach for the children and the bathers. But the true coast is, of course, the background of cliff, and this continues grandly rugged and broken to the Devon borders, and beyond. Little more than a mile north of Bude is Poughill, p.r.o.nounced Puffill. The church, dedicated to St. Olaf, is one of the few Teutonic foundations in Cornwall; but, indeed, this northern corner of the neighbouring counties, with its ”weeks” and ”hams” and ”worthies,” must have been largely held by settlements of Saxons. The value of place-names in such matters is very great, though it must never be pressed too far.