TABLET, TRURO MARKET HOUSE.
CHAPTER IX
MAWNAN—HELFORD RIVER—MAWGAN-IN-MENEAGE—MANACCAN—ST. ANTHONY IN ROSELAND—THE MANACLES ROCKS—WRECK OF THE "MOHEGAN"—ST. KEVERNE.
Resuming the coast from Falmouth and leaving that town by Swanpool, an easy woodland road leads past the little sandy bay of Maen Porth and, avoiding Rosemullion Head, comes to the hamlet of Mawnan Smith, whence most travellers go direct down to the crossing of the Helford River at Durgan. But the church and the original village of Mawnan, such as it is, lie straight ahead.
The church of Mawnan is far remote from the ordinary tourist track. Very few are those who, exploring the rugged and greatly indented coasts of Cornwall, endure to the end and do not presently take some of the distant headlands and the obscure nooks and corners on trust; and Mawnan stands above a remote little Land's End of its own that overlooks the otherwise solitary mouth of the salt estuary called the Helford River. You come past a few houses and then, through a farmyard, to the church.
The inquisitive tourist may be recommended to visit that church, not that it possesses anything above the average of architectural interest in Cornwall, but because it is a prime example of what is done in the High Church way in the nooks and corners. Obviously it is ardently desired to put back the clock of progress at Mawnan, for the interior of the church is lavishly decorated with texts and admonitions in the old Cornish language, which became extinct so long ago that nobody outside the ranks of scholars has the least recollection of it; and it is quite certain that the villagers of Mawnan do not understand it, any more than they would Coptic or Chaldee. So when they read on these walls, among other things, "Da thym ythgu nesse the Thu," they are obliged to take on trust the translations of this phrase and others, that are thoughtfully provided on cards. This particular example means, it would appear, "Good it is to me to draw near to God"; to which one might offer the criticism, that the way would probably be rendered easier by the adoption of a language more readily understanded of the people. No one, however, would be in the least likely to criticise these things if they were done only out of archæological zeal; but they are evidences of obscurantism, and, taken with other things, eloquent of an attempt to recover a lost priestly domination. The other evidences are not lacking; notably among them the notices displayed of some precious "Society of King Charles the Martyr," among which it is sought to restore the old "Office for January 30th," introduced by Bishop Duppa of Winchester at the Restoration in 1661; an Office long ago removed from the Prayer Book, which is so much the better by the loss of it. There is not so much to complain of in the passage that runs, "Preserve from sacrilegious invasions those temporal blessings which Thy Providence hath bestowed on Thy Church"; for, put in other words, this is nowadays a prayer against Disestablishment and Disendowment; and we have all of us the right of praying for our continued existence. But few will be found to defend the supplication, "Give us grace by a careful and studious imitation of this Thy blessed Saint and Martyr," meaning thereby Charles the First. There are few who are not sentimentally sorry for that unhappy King, born to trouble, and earning more by his own actions; and we hate Cromwell and his men. But those must be very few indeed who are prepared to regard Charles as a Saint and a Martyr, and when any attempt is made to make him one we forget our sympathies for a cultured and good-living King, unfortunate enough to be born into distracted times and to be born without tact, and unequipped with the sense of keeping faith with his opponents; and we say that Charles was absolutely untrustworthy and a danger to the nation, and that he deserved his fate.
THE HELFORD RIVER.
The Helford River is a miniature Falmouth Harbour, with subsidiary creeks. It is about six miles long and from half a mile to a quarter of a mile wide, and is frequented only by a few small yachts and sailing-boats. Above the passage-house at Durgan comes the singularly retired hamlet of Port Navas, in a small creek, with a few thatched cottages smothered in roses and jessamines. Yet the place is not so retired and remote from the sophisticated world but that one of the cottages boldly displays the notice "Afternoon Teas"; not merely "teas" that are meals, but "afternoon teas" that are, in London at any rate, understood to be, not so much teas taken in the afternoon (and when else should they be taken?), as a sparing cup and an insufficient cake, in conjunction with a great deal of more or less scandalous small-talk: