Our idea had been to take for our next resting-place Marazion. This queer-named town had attracted us ever since the days when we learnt geography. Since, we had heard a good deal about it: how it had been inhabited by Jewish colonists, who bought tin from the early Phœnician workers of the Cornish mines, and been called by them Mara-Zion—bitter Zion—corrupted by the common people into Market-Jew. It was a quiet place, with St. Michael's Mount opposite; and attracted us much more than genteel Penzance. So did a letter we got from the landlord of its one hotel, promising to take us in, and make us thoroughly comfortable.
Could we get there in one day? Charles declared we could, and even see a good deal on the road.
"We'll go round by Mullion. Mary will be delighted to get another peep at you ladies, and while I rest the horse you can go in and look at the old church—it's very curious, they say. And then we'll go on to Gunwalloe,—there's another church there, close by the sea, built by somebody who was shipwrecked. But then it's so old and so small. However, we can stop and look at it if you like."
His good common sense, and kindliness, when he might so easily have done his mere duty and taken us the shortest and ugliest route, showing us nothing, decided us to leave all in Charles's hands, and start at 10 A.M. for Penzance, viâ Helstone, where we all wished to stay an hour or two, and find out a "friend," the only one we had in Cornwall.
So all was settled, with but a single regret, that several boating excursions we had planned with John Curgenven had all fallen through, and we should never behold some wonderful sea-caves between the Lizard and Cadgwith, which we had set our hearts upon visiting.
Charles fingered his cap with a thoughtful air. "I don't see why you shouldn't, ladies. If I was to go direct and tell John Curgenven to have a boat ready at Church Cove, and we was to start at nine instead of ten, and drive there, the carriage might wait while you rowed to the caves and back; we should still reach Helstone by dinner-time, and Marazion before dark."
"We'll do it!" was the unanimous resolve. And at this addition to his work Charles looked actually pleased!
So—all was soon over, our easy packing done, our bill paid—a very small one—our goodnights said to the kindly handmaid, Esther, who hoped we would come back again some time, and promised to keep the artistic mural decorations of our little parlour in memory of us. My young folks went to bed, and then, a little before midnight, when all the house was quiet, I put a shawl over my head, unlatched the innocent door—no bolts or bars at the Lizard—and went out into the night.
What a night it was!—mild as summer, clear as day: the full moon sailing aloft in an absolutely cloudless sky. Not a breath, not a sound—except the faint thud-thud of the in-coming waves, two miles off, at Kynance, the outline of which, and of the whole coast, was distinctly visible. A silent earth, lying under a silent heaven. Looking up, one felt almost like a disembodied soul, free to cleave through infinite space and gain—what?
Is it human or divine, this ceaseless longing after something never attained, this craving after the eternal life, which, if fully believed in, fully understood, would take all the bitterness out of this life? And yet, that knowledge is not given.