The derelict village of Breage.
BREAGE.
The church is dedicated to a woman-saint, Breaca, one of the band of Irish missionaries who landed at Hayle River. It is a large and fine building. A prominent feature of the interior is a fresco, discovered of late years, representing the Saviour as the benefactor of all callings. The almost nude figure, ten feet high, is crowned. Gouts of blood, like crows' feet or broad-arrow marks in shape, are plentifully distributed over body and limbs, and all around are shown some fifty articles of handicraft, including scythe, rake, saw, trowel, plumber's iron, harp, zither, pitcher, cart, plate, sickle, axe, anchor, anvil, and horseshoe, all connected with the figure by spurts of blood, typifying the blood of Christ crucified sanctifying all callings. The wheel on which the figure stands seems to typify eternity. A similar fresco has already been noted at Poundstock.
The coast from Porthleven offers no exceptional features until after passing Trewavas Head, when the smooth expanse of Praa Sands is seen.
Here the iron barque Noisiel, of Plymouth, was driven ashore in a storm on the night of Friday, August 4th, 1905, and became a total wreck. She was on her way from Cherbourg with 600 tons of armour-plate, and weathered Rinsey Head only to become embayed off Praa Sands. Anchors were let out, but failed to hold on the sandy bottom, and the Noisiel was driven in, broadside on, and the waves speedily broke her back. The crew mostly jumped overboard and struck out for the shore. Two of the nine aboard were drowned. The vessel was a total loss. Some of the armour-plates still remain, half buried in the sand.
Gibson & Sons, Penzance.] WRECK OF THE NOISIEL, PRAA SANDS.
A little way onward and a quarter of a mile inland is the fine old embattled tower of Pengersick Castle. It stands in a pleasant meadow, and is now part of a "farm-place." The tower is of comparatively late date, and seems to have been built in the reign of Henry the Eighth under mysterious circumstances, by a person named Millaton. We need not believe the tale that he had committed a murder in some distant shire, and hid himself here, building the tower for defence, in the event of justice nosing him; for the arrival of a stranger and the hasty building of a defensible tower would at once have attracted undesirable curiosity. Moreover, the masonry is of such exquisite fineness that it is quite evident it was only built at leisure and by the most skilled of craftsmen. Millaton is further said to have lived here with his wife an unhappy existence. They hated one another to extinction; but at last he pretended a reconciliation and planned an elaborate dinner to celebrate the event. After dinner he raised his glass, in a toast, and drained it off. She followed suit. Then said she: "Yours was poisoned, and in three minutes you will be a dead man!"
"So was yours," he rejoined, "and you will be a dead woman in five minutes!"