Part 14

Lady Stairs going in and out took notice that he spent a good deal of time about his razhurs and other dressing implements; but if he passed any time on his kness, it was a mighty short one entirety. Next morning they contrived to give the Frenchman a decent breakfast of tay, and white bread, and butter, though them things didn’t often get so high up in the mountains; and they say that the French don’t use tay at breakfast; and after that he walked in his thin boots along with the Earl, to the very top of Blackstairs. I’m sure they had a delightful view from it, over the castles and demesnes of Mr. Colclough, Mr. Blacker, Mr. Carew, and all their plantations, and the woods of Kilaughrim, and Tombrick, and the Slaney flowing along, and the towns of Enniscorthy and New Ross looking so small, and all the snug farmers’ houses down in the county Carlow, with the green paddocks around them, and the bogs here and there, and the dry stone fences to the fields, and the town of Carlow, and the fine broad Barrow flowing off towards Graigue and New Ross. If they turned around to the sunrise, they could enjoy the view of Mount Leinster, and the Wicklow hills, and Ferns, and Corrig Rua, and the far-off sea beyond all.

Well, that evening he pulled out his letter paper, and his pen, and ink-horn; and began a letter to the merchant in Paris, and this is the way a part of it was wrote.

“Most respected sir,

“I write these few lines to you, hoping they shall find you in health as it leaves me at present, thanks, etc., etc., and the mistress, and Miss Mary, and the young Irish gentleman, and the other children. This country is very different from France; land is so cheap and plenty that they cut away a great deal of every field to make a big dyke, and they build up a great big ditch with the clay and stones they take out. The people are cheerful, and hospitable, and obliging; but they are too fond of staying in their chapels, and saying long prayers. Our young gentleman was rather modest in speaking of his father’s rank and possessions. I can hardly make a guess at the extent of the demesne that spreads round his mansion for miles and miles, without hedge or ditch, and the sheep and cattle that graze on it are beyond counting. When I drew nigh to the castle, up an avenue half a mile long, it was in the evening, and the Earl and his Lady were at their supper. There were two musicianers stationed before the hall-door, and they played during the whole time, such music as you never heard in your life at any entertainment, no nor the King of France himself. Twelve halberd-men were drawn up in front by way of royal guard; so venerable as they looked, and such beards as they had! and while they were on duty they would not return a salute, nor answer a question to the King nor the Lord Lieutenant himself. Though the Earl and his Lady were at their supper in state, they showed me the greatest respect, when they heard from where I came. Will I ever forget the splendour of that supper! The side table could not be valued by the owner at less than fifty thousand pounds; and I am sure that the Earl would not part with the chief candlestick that gave light to the feast for ten thousand any way.

“After supper, the nobleman dried his hands on a towel with gold fringes, at least they looked very like gold; and so little regard had he for it that when he was done he thrune it into the fire. Moreover, he need not go out of his own demesne for firing for a hundred years to come; and by the end of that time, I’m sure you would hardly miss the trees that would be cut down. Such is the wonderful splendour of every thing here that I can hardly believe my own account of it; and I’m sure the young Earl when he came to Paris, and ever since, pretended to be poor, that he might find some good young lady who would marry him for his own sake, and not for his rank nor his riches.

“I will take a look at Dublin, and the Wicklow and the Welsh mountains on my return; and I hope to see my young mistress with the ring on her hand when I get home.

“I am, etc., etc.”

Well, the clever Frenchman was asked to the priest’s house to take tea that evening, and two or three of the gentlemen-farmers met him there. He was very glad to get in company with the priest, as he spoke French well, having studied at a place abroad called Louvain, and he told him the sort of letter he was sending home. The clergyman wondered at it, you may be sure, but he said that the young lady would be thankful for the invention; and that her mother was won over already; and that the father only wished to make the thing look well in the eyes of their acquaintance; and so the letter would satisfy everybody; and from all he could hear of the young man from his old neighbours, his young mistress would never meet a better husband; for he had good manners and a good appearance, and was a good scholar, and what few young Paris gentlemen were, he was a good Christian into the bargain.

Well to make my long story short, the Earl of Stairs soon made an addition of two rooms to his castle, a parlour and a bed-room, and the next year, there was joy and merriment in his house, for his son and his beautiful black-eyed bride came home; and they brought only a boy and a girl to wait on them; and the servants were harder to please than their master and mistress; and the merry young lady ran about among the heath and rocks, and her serious young husband and she were as fond as fond could be of one another; and she laughed till the tears ran down her cheeks at the notion of the halberd-men, and the musicianers, and the demesne, and the side table, and the candlestick, and the towel with the gold fringes; and she was as serious and devout at the little chapel as the poorest person there. They came to spend a part of every summer at Blackstairs during the life of the old people; and if they didn’t live happy, THAT WE MAY!”

“These stories,” continued the guest, “are pretty fair examples of such as are still related at Irish hearths.”

“We once had stories told here,” said the host, “which were full of action and adventures, but they are forgotten now. Instead of such old tales, we have now mere quibbles on words, or modern anecdotes, with but little in them worth remembering. As Henny Quick said, years ago,—

“Our Cornish drolls are dead, each one. The fairies from their haunts have gone; There’s scarce a witch in all the land, The world has grown so learn’d and grand.”

“Henny wrote many short pieces,” continued our host, “had them printed, and he sold them, with his mother’s help; yet what Henny called his copies of verses were on very doleful subjects when there was any new matter in them.

“There was also a rhymster in Sancras, called Billy Foss, who would talk for ever so long in doggerel verse, but the greater part of it was very abusive; this es what he said of Boslow:—

“As I traversed Boslow I saw an old cow, A hog, and a flock of starved sheep; Likewise an old mare, Whose bones were so bare They made her old master to weep:

A few acres of ground As bare as a pound, An old house just ready to fall; Beside, there was no meat For the people to eat, And that was the worst thing of all:

No grass for the flocks, But a carn of dry rocks, Which afforded a horrible sight; If you chance go that way, You must do so by day, For you’d smash out your brains in the night.

No crock, pan, nor kettle; No goods, much nor little, Was there to be found in the house; No tables nor chairs, No bedding upstairs— Not so much as to cover a mouse.”

“There are rhymes enough in that,” said the guest, “and whether there’s any reason you may best know.”

About this time the Cap’n of the tin-stamps and other old men rose and came to wish us good night, saying, “we must love ’e and leave ’e my dears, for we haave to get to work early; the time es gone quickly, es past our landlord’s hour for closean; ef you are goan away to-morrow we wish ’e well, and hope you may come to ‘Sennor’ agen soon.”

We were glad to get sleep too, having had a long ramble in the morning, and expecting a tiresome walk back to Penzance before the next night.

In Zennor church we noticed, on a bench-end, the curious carving of a mermaid, which has probably given rise to a legend [17] well known in the neighbourhood.

The following epitaph on a mural tablet, in the same church, is also somewhat remarkable:—

Here rest the Mortal part of John Quick, of Wicka, Yeoman. He was hospitable, sociable, peaceable, humble, honest, and devout in manner. HE EXCELLED HIS EQUALS. In piety he was their example. He met death with composure. Sept. 12th, 1784, aged 74.

“The Memory of the Just is Blessed.”

FROM PENZANCE TO CARN GALVA: NOTEWORTHY OBJECTS BY THE WAY.

The past is slipping from our hold, as shadowy as dreams, The dim, mysterious, lifeless past,—how faint, unreal it seems. But here and there we come across some waif upon the shore, Thrown landward by the waves of time, for man to ponder o’er.—J. B.

Having the day before us, we take our course to Madron, and only pause when near the village to turn round and admire the splendid landscape.

MADRON.

Madron Church is interesting to the archæologist: the east end is said to be that of the original early English Church of about 1260. Among the objects worthy of notice in the interior, are the font, sedile, and piscina, and also several mural monuments.

On one old tomb may be seen the following matter-of-fact inscription:—

“Belgium me birth, Braitaine me breeding gave, Cornwalle a wife, ten children, and a grave.”

Observe also the inscription on the brass of John Clies, in which the place now called Penzance is spelt Penzour; and the north-west end window, recently presented to this Church by the Rev. M. N. Peters, the Vicar. There are many quaint inscriptions on the old tombs, besides that to George Daniel.

At Landithy farm house, near at hand, note the ancient doorway, which formed a portal to the preceptory of the Knights’ Templars; a considerable portion of the college of these warrior monks, with some of the rooms adorned with curious portraits, supposed to be those of the early kings and queens of England, was standing until a few years ago, when the interesting old building was taken down and a farm-house erected on its site.

From the old portal of Landithy college, we pass up the road north of the Church; at the corner of the Union garden, take the path across the fields; at the bottom of the lane leading out of the third field, turn down through the moors on the right, and a path over soft grass and camomile brings us to a stile, which takes us into the moor where are St. Madron’s Well and Chapel.

MADRON WELL.

To find the Holy Well, on entering the lower enclosure, pass down across the moor at a right angle to the hedge, and a minute’s walk will bring us to the noted spring, which is not seen until very near, as it has no wall above the surface, nor any mark by which it can be distinguished at a distance. Much has been written of the remarkable cures effected by these holy waters, and the intercession of good St. Madron. This was when Madron Well was so famous that the maimed, halt, and lame made pilgrimages from distant parts of the country to the heathy moor.

The water is still resorted to on the first three Wednesdays in May by some few women of the neighbourhood, who bring children to be cured of skin diseases by being bathed in the Well water. And its old repute as a divining fount has not yet quite died out, though young folks come here now to drop pins or pebbles into the spring, more for fun and the pleasure of each other’s company, than through any belief that the falling together, or separation of pins or pebbles, will tell how the course of love will run between the parties indicated by the objects dropped into the spring; or that the number of bubbles which rise in the water, on stamping near the well, mark the number of years, in answer to any question of time; but there was not such want of faith in the virtues of this water half a century ago.

A few weeks before the Excursion, we took a ramble through Boswarva, Bosullow, and some other ancient hamlets on the higher side of Madron, to see if we could glean anything from the old inhabitants about the rites formerly practised at the Crick-stone, Madron Well, and elsewhere.

An elderly dame, who had lived the best part of her time near Lanyon, gave us the following account of the doings at the Well about fifty years ago. “At that time, when she lived in Lenine, scores of women from Morvah, Zennor, Towednack, and other places, brought their children to Madron Well to be cured of the shingles, wildfires, tetters, and various skin diseases, as well as to fortify them against witchcraft and other mysterious ailments.

“An old dame, called An (aunt) Katty, who then mostly lived about in the Bosullows, or some place near, and who did little but knitting-work, picked up a good living in the spring of the year, by attending at the Well, to direct the high country folks how they were to proceed in using the waters.

“First she had the child stripped as naked as it was born; then the creature was plunged or popped three times through the water against the sun; next, the child was passed quickly nine times round the spring, going from east to west, or with the sun; then the babe was dressed, rolled up in something warm, and laid to sleep near the water; if the child slept and plenty of bubbles rose in the water, it was a good sign.”

We enquired if a prayer, charm, or anything was spoken during the operations? “Why, no, to be sure,” the dame replied, “there mustn’t be a word spoken all the time they are near the water, or it will spoil the spell; and a piece rented off from some part of the clothes worn by the child or any other person using the Well, must be left near the water for good luck, ever so small a bit will do; this is mostly placed out of sight, alongside of the stream, which runs from the Well.

“Whilst one party went through the rites at the spring, all the others remained over the stile, in the higher enclosure, or by the hedge, till they came up from the water, because if a word were spoken by anyone near the well, during the dipping, they had to come again. The old woman, An Katty, was never paid in money, but balls of yarn, or anything else she wanted, were dropped on the road, outside the Well-moors, for her. This old dame also got good pickings by instructing the young girls how to try for sweethearts at the Well.

“Scores of maidens” (the dame’s words) “used, in the summer evenings, to come down to the Well, from ever so far, to drop into it pins, gravel, or any small thing that would sink. The names of the persons were not spoken when the objects, which represented them, were dropped into the water; they were only thought of, and as they remained together or separated, such would be the fate of the couple. It was only when the spring was working (rising strongly) that it was of any use to try the spells; it was always unlucky to speak when near the Well at such times.”

Such is the substance of what the dame told us. She never heard that any saint had anything to do with the water, except from somebody who told her there was something in a book about it; nor had she or anybody else heard the water called St. Madron’s Well, except by the new gentry, who go about giving new names to the places, and think they know more about them than the people who have lived here ever since the world was created.

We enquired if the people ever went to the old chapel to perform any ceremony? Not that she ever heard of; Morvah folks, and others of the Northern parishes who mostly resort to the spring pay no regard to any saint or to any body else, except some old woman who may come down with them to show how everything used to be done. We were also informed that there is a spring in some moor in Zennor, not far from Bosporthenes, which is said to be as good as Madron Well, and that children are often taken thither and treated in the same way.

The silent proceedings were altogether new to us, because we had often gone to other Wishing Wells with parties of young folks who always kept noise and fun enough; yet the old dame regarded the proceedings as a very solemn matter.

In answer to the questions of “What was the reason for going round the Well nine times? leaving the bits of rags? following the sun?” &c.; it was always the same reply, “Such were the old customs, and everybody knew it was unlucky to go, or to do anything, against the course of the sun; no woman, who knew anything, would place pans of milk in the dairy, so as to have to unream them against the sun.”

MADRON CHAPEL.

By following down the brooklet from the Well, in a minute’s space we came to the Chapel. In the southern wall may be noticed an opening for letting the water from the Well-brook flow into a baptistry in the South-western corner of the Chapel. Entering by a door-way, on the northern side of the Chapel, we see that this simple font appears to have been arched over, after the manner of the bee-hive huts, by one row of stones projecting over the other. The table-slab of the altar (which still remains at the east end) has a square pit, worked in the centre to mark the place on which an image, or the monstrance, was probably placed. There is a step to mark the division between the little nave and the sacrarium, and remains of the stone seats which were carried all round against the walls. A rare and beautiful little plant, the Cornish Money-wort, may be found among stones beside the Well-brook.

LANYON QUOIT.

We return to the highway, and continuing on the Morvah road, pass a broken cross, which once served to direct the pilgrim to the Holy Well and shrine, or to the Templar’s roof. A little farther on, a church-way path through fields makes a short cut across the hill; from the road at the foot of this hill, on the Lanyon side, one gets the most striking, though not the first view of the Quoit. From this low ground, the mass of rock (more than eighteen feet long and nine abroad) is seen looming against the sky like a gigantic tripod. When near it, we find that its height from the ground is only from five to six feet; yet Dr. Borlase says, that in his time it was high enough for a man to sit under it on horseback.

In 1816, the cap-stone of the cromlech was thrown down by a violent storm, and a large piece of one supporting stone broken off. In 1824, after the Logan Rock was replaced, the powerful machinery brought into the country for that purpose, was used for raising the Quoit; and, preparatory to replacing it, the other two uprights were sunk several feet. One may speculate on the means first employed to raise the ponderous mass, which has been beaten by the storms of more than twice ten hundred years. Few can view “this lonely monument of times that were” without joining in the prayer of the following beautiful lines:—

* * * “Let no rude hand remove, Or spoil thee; for the spot is consecrate To thee, and thou to it; and as the heart Aching with thoughts of human littleness Asks, without hope of knowing, whose the strength That poised thee here.”

It does not seem likely to be soon decided whether these weird-looking monuments on our silent hills were giants’ altars, kist veans, or the tombs of giants who have left the marks of their footsteps on all our granite cairns and hills. Our mythic giants may not be altogether fabulous, and it seems beyond dispute that gigantic remains have been found under cromlechs when first denuded of the barrows with which many, perhaps all, were formerly covered.

Another idea, in connection with them, may be suggested by what we have farther to state. A Cornish gentleman, [18] who resided many years in various parts of India, and to whom we are grateful for much exact and curious information on various antiquarian subjects, informs us that he has, in many remote parts of India (where the most ancient and simple forms of Hindooism prevail), seen huge monuments of unhewn stone so like some of our cromlechs in their construction, that they always reminded him of our giants’ quoits, and his distant home on the Cornish hills. He says that in the granite districts, they were precisely similar in plan to our cromlechs; and in the slate districts the slabs were thinner and the construction more regular.

In all, an opening was left on one side. Between the supporting stones and within the recesses of these rude structures sacred lamps were always kept burning. The priesthood, who attended these sacred fires, were so much opposed to Christians coming near their sacred places, that the gentleman referred to had no means of ascertaining whether these Hindoo cromlechs were regarded as altars, tombs, or shrines. They might have been all three combined, as it has been usual, in all times, for the sacredotal hierarchy of all gloomy creeds to make the most of the bones of the dead to impress the minds of the living with awe for the unearthly mystery with which they ever aim to invest priestly functions. At last, by the gloomy creeds and rites of these mysterious religions, they make a personification of death their deity.

We must leave it for our learned antiquaries to decide whether this huge Quoit was a giant’s tomb, or anything else which was ever applied to any mortal use, except to make us feel that the ancient Cornish who could raise such ponderous masses, high enough for a man to sit under on horseback, were no despicable race.

LANYON TOWN PLACE AND HOUSE.