CHAPTERPAGE
I.DENAS PENELLES[1]
II.OH, THE PITY OF IT![22]
III.THE COTTAGE BY THE SEA[41]
IV.THE SEED OF CHANGE[59]
V.WHAT SHALL BE DONE FOR ROLAND?[77]
VI.ELIZABETH AND DENAS[95]
VII.IS THERE ANY SORROW LIKE LOVING?[115]
VIII.A SEA OF SORROW[138]
IX.A PIECE OF MONEY AND A SONG[161]
X.A VISIT TO ST. PENFER[181]
XI.FATHERLY AND MOTHERLY[199]
XII.A COWARDLY LOVE[225]
XIII.DEATH IS DAWN[251]
XIV.SORROW BRINGS US ALL HOME[272]
XV.ONLY FRIENDS[295]
XVI.THE “DARLING DENAS”[314]
XVII.DENAS[331]

A SINGER FROM THE SEA.

1

CHAPTER I.

DENAS PENELLES.

“‘Tell me, my old friend, tell me why You sit and softly laugh by yourself.’ ‘It is because I am repeating to myself, Write! write Of the valiant strength, The calm, brave bearing Of the sons of the sea.’” ––French Rowing Song “And that is why I have written this book Of the things that live in your noble hearts. You are really the authors of it. I have only put into words The frank simplicity of your sailor life.” ––Guillaume de la Laudelle.

From Padstow Point to Lundy Race is one of the wildest and grandest portions of the Cornish coast, and on it there is always somewhere a tossing sea, a stiff breeze above, and a sucking tide below. Great cliffs hundreds of feet high guard it, and from the top of them the land rolls 2 away in long ridges, brown and bare. These wild and rocky moors, full of pagan altars, stone crosses, and memorials of the Jew, the Phœnician, and the Cornu-British, are the land of our childhood’s fairy-folk––the home of Blunderbore and of Jack the Giant Killer, and the far grander

“Fable of Bellerus old, And the great vision of the Guarded Mount.”

But it is the Undercliff which has the perennial charm for humanity, for all along its sloping face there are bewildering hummocks and hollows, checkered with purple rocks and elder-trees. Narrow footpaths curve in and out and up and down among the fields and farms, the orchards and the glimmering glades, and there the foxgloves grow so tall that they lift their dappled bells level with the eyes.