[DAY THE SECOND]
Is there anything more delightful than to start on a smiling morning in a comfortable carriage, with all one's impedimenta (happily not much!) safely stowed away under one's eyes, with a good horse, over which one's feelings of humanity need not be always agonising, and a man to drive, whom one can trust to have as much sense as the brute, especially in the matter of "refreshment." Our letters that morning had brought us a comico-tragic story of a family we knew, who, migrating with a lot of children and luggage, and requiring to catch a train thirteen miles off, had engaged a driver who "refreshed himself" so successfully at every public-house on the way, that he took five hours to accomplish the journey, and finally had to be left at the road-side, and the luggage transferred to another vehicle, which of course lost the train. We congratulated ourselves that no such disaster was likely to happen to us.
"Yes; I've been a teetotaller all my life," said our driver, a bright-looking, intelligent young fellow, whom, as he became rather a prominent adjunct to our life and decidedly to our comfort, I shall individualise by calling him Charles. "I had good need to avoid drinking. My father drank through a small property. No fear of me, ma'am."
So at once between him and us, or him and "we," according to the Cornish habit of transposing pronouns, was established a feeling of fraternity, which, during the six days that we had to do with him, deepened into real regard. Never failing when wanted, never presuming when not wanted, straightforward, independent, yet full of that respectful kindliness which servants can always show and masters should always appreciate, giving us a chivalrous care, which, being "unprotected females," was to us extremely valuable, I here record that much of the pleasure of our tour was owing to this honest Cornishman, who served us, his horse, and his master—he was one of the employés of a livery-stable keeper—with equal fidelity.
Certainly, numerous as were the parties he had driven—("I go to the Lizard about three times a week," he said)—Charles could seldom have driven a merrier trio than that which leisurely mounted the upland road from Falmouth, leading to the village of Constantine.
"Just turn and look behind you, ladies" (we had begged to be shown everything and told everything); "isn't that a pretty view?"
It certainly was. From the high ground we could see Falmouth with its sheltered bay and glittering sea beyond. Landward were the villages of Mabe and Constantine, with their great quarries of granite, and in the distance lay wide sweeps of undulating land, barren and treeless, but still beautiful—not with the rich pastoral beauty of our own Kent, yet having a charm of its own. And the air, so fresh and pure, yet soft and balmy, it felt to tender lungs like the difference between milk and cream. To breathe became a pleasure instead of a pain. I could quite understand how the semi-tropical plants that we had seen in a lovely garden below, grew and flourished, how the hydrangeas became huge bushes, and the eucalyptus an actual forest tree.
But this was in the sheltered valley, and we had gained the hill-top, emerging out of one of those deep-cut lanes peculiar to Devon and Cornwall, and so pretty in themselves, a perfect garden of wild flowers and ferns, except that they completely shut out the view. This did not much afflict the practical minds of my two juniors. Half an hour before they had set up a shout—
"Stop the carriage! Do stop the carriage! Just look there! Did you ever see such big blackberries? and what a quantity! Let us get out; we'll gather them for to-morrow's pudding."
Undoubtedly a dinner earned is the sweetest of all dinners. I remember once thinking that our cowslip tea (I should not like to drink it now) was better than our grandmother's best Bohea or something out of her lovely old tea-caddy. So the carriage, lightened of all but myself, crawled leisurely up and waited on the hill-top for the busy blackberry-gatherers.