| Andrew the Earthstopper (Photogravure). (From a photograph by Richards, Penzance) | [Frontispiece] | |
| Face page | ||
| The Earthstopper on Trengwainton Cairn. (From a photograph by Richards, Penzance) | [12] | |
| The Fox. (From a photograph by C. Reid) | [26] | |
| Fox-Cubs. (From a photograph by C. Reid) | [34] | |
| Tol Pedn Penwith. (From a photograph by R. H. Preston, Penzance) | [38] | |
| Lamorna Mill. (From a photograph by R. H. Preston, Penzance) | [44] | |
| Lamorna, showing Cairn Dhu Headland. (From a photograph by R. H. Preston, Penzance) | [52] | |
| The Otter. (From a photograph by Quatremaine, Stratford-on-Avon) | [64] | |
| A Haunt of the Otter. (From a photograph by R. H. Preston, Penzance) | [82] | |
| Cairn Kenidzhek. (From a photograph by Gibson & Sons, Penzance) | [88] | |
| The Badger. (From a photograph by C. Reid) | [110] | |
| St Buryan Church. (From a photograph by R. H. Preston, Penzance) | [130] | |
| Stone Circle at Boscawen-un. (From a photograph by Gibson & Sons, Penzance) | [138] | |
| Sancreed Churchtown. (From a photograph by Gibson & Sons, Penzance) | [150] | |
| Chapel St Uny Well. (From a photograph by Gibson & Sons, Penzance) | [156] | |
| Zennor Churchtown. (From a photograph by R. H. Preston, Penzance) | [166] | |
| A Street at St Ives. (From a photograph by R. H. Preston, Penzance) | [168] | |
| Hell’s Bay. (From a photograph by W. Cooper, St Ives) | [178] | |
| Nest of Seagull. (From a photograph by Gibson & Sons, Penzance) | [190] | |
| St Michael’s Mount. (From a photograph by R. H. Preston, Penzance) | [194] | |
| Sennen Cove. (From a photograph by Gibson & Sons, Penzance) | [206] | |
| Porthgwarra. (From a photograph by R. H. Preston, Penzance) | [210] | |
| A Haunt of the Razor-Bill. (From a photograph by Gibson & Sons, Penzance) | [220] | |
| The Home of the Cormorant. (From a photograph by Gibson & Sons, Penzance) | [226] | |
| The Land’s End. (From a photograph by R. H. Preston, Penzance) | [232] |
WILD LIFE AT THE LAND’S END
CHAPTER I
THE EARTHSTOPPER UNDER THE STARS
It was an hour after midnight when the Earthstopper of the Penwith Hunt left his cottage on the outskirts of Madron. He carried a lantern and a rough terrier followed at his heels. His track led, by lanes in the heather, over a cairn to the furze-clad downs overlooking the lake.
To the West, sombre hills rose against the jewelled vault where the stars in the depths of the frosty sky kept watch over the slumbering earth. Half-way over the downs, beneath the roots of a stunted pine, was a fox-earth. The old man knelt down and stopped it with faggots of furze. The light of the lantern lit up his strong and kindly face, and fell on the heap of sandy soil at the mouth of the earth.
Leaving the downs he turned towards Penhale, skirting the marshy ground in the trough of the hills, and climbing a steep rise made for a crag—playground of many litters—beneath which lay the next earth. Furze bushes screened the entrance and hung like a pall on the slope. The wind wuthered round the rocks and stirred the rushes in the fen below; but the Earthstopper gave no heed to these whisperings of the night, and paused but for an instant, as he bent over his work, to listen to the bark of a fox in the pitchy darkness beyond. His way now lay across a bleak waste. Rude monuments of a grey past dot its surface and a solitary cottage overlooks its desolation. No path led along the line he was taking: cromlech and monolith in ghostly outline guided his steps.
The Earthstopper’s progress was slow, for the surface was rough and the bogs treacherous, but yet he was getting nearer and nearer to Cairn Galver, which rose like a cliff from the moor, its crest silhouetted against the deep sapphire of the heavens.
“Good God, what’s thet?” said he, as a fiendish scream awoke the echoes of the rugged hills. “Don’t sound like et, but et must a’ come from thet cottage over theere. Iss sure, theere’s a light in the winder. Semmen to me ’tes uncommon like murder.”
He had taken but a few stumbling steps along a track into which he had turned, ere the faint thud of hoofs fell on his ear. More and more distinct through the night came the sound, broken at times by a shout. A rocky hollow lay in front of him; down which rider and horse came at a furious pace, splashing the water as they dashed through the stream below. Breasting the rise at the same frantic speed they were over the brow and almost upon the Earthstopper before he was aware, and scarcely had he jumped aside when they galloped past him.