“In another part of the county we rise again gloriously in worldly consideration. We pass a cottage; a woman looks out after us over the low garden wall, and rather hesitatingly calls us back. I approach her first, and am thus saluted: ‘If you please, sir, what have you got to sell?’ Again, an old man meets us on the road, stops, cheerfully taps our knapsacks with his stick, and says, ‘Aha! you’re tradesmen, eh! things to sell? I say, have you got any tea?’ (pronounced tay). Further on we approach some miners breaking ore. As we pass by we hear one asking amazedly, ‘What have they got to sell in those things on their backs?’ and another answering, in the prompt tones of a guesser who is convinced that he guesses right, ‘Guinea-pigs!’
“It is, unfortunately, impossible to convey to the reader any adequate idea by mere description of the extraordinary gravity of manner, the looks of surprise, and the tones of conviction which accompanied these various popular conjectures as to our calling and station in life, and which added immeasurably at the time to their comic effect. Curiously enough, whenever they took the form of questions, any jesting in returning an answer never seemed either to be appreciated or understood by the country people. Serious replies fared much the same fate as jokes. Everybody asked whether we could pay for riding, and nobody believed we preferred walking, if we could. So we soon gave up any idea of affording any information at all, and walked through the country comfortably as mappers, trodgers, tradesmen, guinea-pig mongers, and poor back-burdened vagabond lads, altogether, or one at a time, just as the peasantry pleased.”
Penzance is itself the most westerly port of England. It has a noble pier, 700 feet long, and a lighthouse, the red light of which can be seen nine miles off. It has a lifeboat, the crew of which has done many a gallant deed. Out of a population of twelve or thirteen thousand in and about the town, at least twenty-five per cent. are hardy men of the sea—fishermen or sailors. It was the scene, only a couple of years ago, of a most exciting event.
ROCKET LINE THROWN TO A WRECK NEAR PENZANCE.
A French brig, the Ponthieu, went ashore near the town, during the prevalence of a strong south-west gale. The Marazion rocket apparatus was worked successfully, and the line was thrown over the wreck, but the crew, being ignorant of the mode of working it, fastened it [pg 220]loosely on board, instead of hauling it in taut. One of the crew managed, however, to get safely ashore by it. The Penzance lifeboat was then got out, but on her arrival at the ill-fated vessel, the French crew, though in infinite peril, great seas washing over them, took no notice, the captain apparently forbidding them to leave, or even throw a line to the boat. The wind and sea rapidly increased in fury; the vessel was evidently doomed, and must soon break up. In vain the life-boatmen entreated. They were actually warned off, and had, after earnest warning, to leave. But seeing the inevitable loss of life that must ensue, the brave coxswain of the boat determined to return. Result: five lives saved. The captain still remained obstinate, and at length a coastguardsman, all honour to him! volunteered for the perilous duty of going out to the wreck by the rocket line, taking with him a letter from the French Consul, urging the captain to leave. In the presence of hundreds of intensely-excited spectators, the coastguard made his way, often under the waves for several seconds, and in peril of being washed off. The captain was watching him from the brig, but stood motionless, even when his deliverer had arrived under the bows. Just then a furious sea broke over the hero of the rocket line, and washed him away, and it was feared by all on shore that he must perish. Happily, however, he regained the rope, and more dead than alive, was washed ashore. Meanwhile the brig was fast breaking up. The masts fell over the side. The stern, on which the captain was standing, was first battered in, and then clean carried away. It was supposed that the captain had perished, but presently he was seen among the wreckage, mounting to the foreyard, the sail of which somewhat sheltered him. The coastguardsmen fired two more rockets, and one line falling close to [pg 221]the captain, he seized it, but even then seemed irresolute whether to save himself or perish with his brig. After a quarter of an hour the love of life constrained him to fasten the rope round his body, and the foolhardy man was dragged ashore. Within an hour nothing was to be seen of the vessel but a few floating spars. The cheers which greeted the captain’s rescue were but feeble compared with those that had welcomed the return of the coastguardsman whose life had been risked in attempting to save him. Brave Gould!
The coastguardsmen, however, do not enjoy a monopoly of bravery in Cornwall. There are courageous women there, some of them very young.
LIFE-BOAT GOING TO A WRECK ON DOOM BAR, PADSTOW.
Towards the end of October, 1879, a well-earned presentation was made at Padstow, to five young ladies of an equal number of silver medals and testimonials inscribed on vellum, the vote of the National Life-boat Institution. The four Misses Prideaux Brune and Miss Nora O’Shaughnessy had taken a boat through a heavy sea, at the risk of their own lives, to save an exhausted sailor from a capsized boat, two of the companions of whom had perished before their arrival. Samuel Bate, late the assistant coxswain of the Padstow life-boat, was towing the ladies’ boat astern of his fishing smack, when seeing the accident, they requested to be cast off, and that being done, though against his convictions, he states that they rowed “like tigers” to the rescue through a furious sea, and he has no doubt that the man would have perished like his companions but for their prompt arrival. Such noble-hearted girls make us still more proud of Cornwall, which has given England—aye, the world—so many noble men.