Part 11 (2/2)
Potatoes used to be the main product of Scilly; but the disease has appeared lately in the island crops, and the potatoes have suffered so severely that when we filled our sack for the return voyage, we were obliged to allow for two-thirds of our supply proving unfit for use. The views inland are chiefly remarkable as natural panoramas of land and sea--the two always presenting themselves intermixed in the loveliest varieties of form and colour. On the coast, the granite rocks, though not notably high, take the most wildly and magnificently picturesque shapes. They are rent into the strangest chasms and piled up in the grandest confusion; and they look down, every here and there, on the loveliest little sandy bays, where the sea, in calm weather, is as tenderly blue and as limpid in its clearness as the Mediterranean itself. The softness and purity of the climate may be imagined, when I state that in the winter none of the freshwater pools are strongly enough frozen to bear being skated on. The balmy sea air blows over each little island as freely as it might blow over the deck of a s.h.i.+p.
The people have the same great merit which I had previously observed among their Cornish neighbours--the merit of good manners. We two strangers were so little stared at as we walked about, that it was almost like being on the Continent. The pilot who had taken us into Hugh Town harbour we found to be a fair specimen, as regarded his excessive talkativeness and the purity of his English, of the islanders generally.
The longest tellers of very long stories, so far as my experience goes, are to be found in Scilly. Ask the people the commonest question, and their answer generally exhausts the whole subject before you can say another word. Their anxiety, whenever we had occasion to inquire our way, to guard us from the remotest chance of missing it, and the honest pride with which they told us all about local sights and marvels, formed a very pleasant trait in the general character. Wherever we went, we found the natural kindness and natural hospitality of the people always ready to welcome us.
Strangely enough, in this softest and healthiest of climates consumption is a prevalent disease. If I may venture on an opinion, after a very short observation of the habits of the people, I should say that distrust of fresh air and unwillingness to take exercise were the chief causes of consumptive maladies among the islanders. I longed to break windows in the main street of Hugh Town as I never longed to break them anywhere else. One lovely afternoon I went out for the purpose of seeing how many of the inhabitants of the place had a notion of airing their bed-rooms. I found two houses with open windows--all the rest were fast closed from top to bottom, as if a pestilence were abroad instead of the softest, purest sea-breeze that ever blew. Then, again, as to walking, the people ask you seriously when you inquire your way on foot, whether you are aware that the destination you want to arrive at is three miles off! As for a pedestrian excursion round the largest island--a circuit of thirteen miles--when we talked of performing that feat in the hearing of a respectable inhabitant, he laughed at the idea as incredulously as if we had proposed a swimming match to the Cornish coast. When people will not give themselves the first great chance of breathing healthily and freely as often as they can, who can wonder that consumption should be common among them?
In addition to our other pieces of good fortune, we were enabled to profit by a very kind invitation from the gentleman to whom the islands belong, to stay with him at his house, built on the site of an ancient abbey, and surrounded by gardens of the most exquisite beauty.
To the firm and benevolent rule of the present proprietor of Scilly, the islanders are indebted for the prosperity which they now enjoy. It was not the least pleasant part of a very delightful visit, to observe for ourselves, under our host's guidance, all that he had done, and was doing, for the welfare and the happiness of the people committed to his charge. From what we had heard, and from what we had previously observed for ourselves, we had formed the most agreeable impressions of the social condition of the islanders; and we now found the best of these impressions more than confirmed. When the present proprietor first came among his tenantry he found them living miserably and ignorantly. He has succoured, reformed, and taught them; and there is now, probably, no place in England where the direr hards.h.i.+ps of poverty are so little known as in the Scilly Islands.
I might write more particularly on this topic; but I am unwilling to run the risk of saying more on the subject of these good deeds than the good-doer himself would sanction. And besides, I must remember that the object of this narrative is to record a holiday-cruise, and not to enter into details on the subject of Scilly; details which have already been put into print by previous travellers. Let me only add then, that our sojourn in the islands terminated with the close of our stay in the house of our kind entertainer. It had been blowing a gale of wind for two days before our departure; and we put to sea with a doubled-reefed mainsail, and with more doubts than we liked to confess to each other, about the prospects of the return voyage.
However, lucky we had been hitherto, and lucky we were to continue to the end. Before we had been long at sea, the wind began to get capricious; then to diminish almost to a calm; then, towards evening, to blow again, steadily and strongly, from the very quarter of all others most favourable to our return voyage. ”If this holds,” was the sentiment of the Brothers Dobbs, as we were making things snug for the night, ”we shall be back again at Mangerton before we have had time to get half through our victuals and drink.”
The wind did hold, and more than hold: and the Tomt.i.t flew, in consequence, as if she was going to give up the sea altogether, and take to the sky for a change. Our homeward run was the most perfect contrast to our outward voyage. No tacking, no need to study the charts, no laggard luxurious dining on the cabin hatch. It was too rough for anything but picnicking in the c.o.c.kpit, jammed into a corner, with our plates on our knees. I had to make the grog with one hand, and clutch at the nearest rope with the other--Mr. Migott holding the bowl while I mixed, and the man at the helm holding Mr. Migott. As for reading, it was hopeless to try it; for there was breeze enough to blow the leaves out of the book--and singing was not to be so much as thought of; for the moment you opened your mouth the wind rushed in, and s.n.a.t.c.hed away the song immediately. The nearer we got to Mangerton, the faster we flew. My last recollection of the sea, dates at the ghostly time of midnight. The wind had been increasing and increasing, since sunset, till it contemptuously blew out our fire in the cabin, as if the stove with its artful revolving chimney had been nothing but a farthing rushlight. When I climbed on deck, we were already in the Bristol Channel.
That last view at sea was the grandest view of the voyage. Ragged black clouds were flying like spectres all over the sky; the moonlight streaming fitful behind them. One great s.h.i.+p, shadowy and mysterious, was pitching heavily towards us from the land. Backward out at sea, streamed the red gleam from the lighthouse on Lundy Island; and marching after us magnificently, to the music of the howling wind, came the great rollers from the Atlantic, rus.h.i.+ng in between Hartland Point and Lundy, turning over and over in long black hills of water, with the seething spray at their tops sparkling in the moons.h.i.+ne. It was a fine breathless sensation to feel our st.u.r.dy little vessel tearing along through this heavy sea--jumping stern up, as the great waves caught her--das.h.i.+ng the water gaily from her bows, at the return dip--and holding on her way as bravely and surely as the largest yacht that ever was built. After a long look at the sublime view around us, my friend and I went below again; and in spite of the noise of wind and sea, managed to fall asleep. The next event was a call from deck at half-past six in the morning, informing us that we were entering Mangerton Bay. By seven o'clock we were alongside the jetty again, after a run of only forty-three hours from the Scilly Islands.
Thus our cruise ended; and thus we falsified the predictions of our prudent friends, and came back with our right side uppermost. ”Here's luck to you, gentlemen!”--was the toast which our honest sailor-brothers proposed, when we met together later in the day, and pledged each other in a parting cup. ”Here's luck,” we answered, on our side--”luck to the Brothers Dobbs; and thanks besides for hearty companions.h.i.+p and faithful service.” And here, in the last gla.s.s with one cheer more,--here's luck to the vessel that carried us, our lively little Tomt.i.t! Tiny home of joyous days, may thy sea-fortunes be happy, and thy trim sails be set prosperously for many a year still, to the favouring breeze!
With those good wishes, our holiday trip closed at the time--as the record of it closes here. With those last words, the book is shut up; the reader is released; and the writer drops his pen.
THE END.
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