The square-set man said he was sure there was a Gulf Stream, because foreign seaweed was picked up sometimes; and if it wasn't for the Stream, early potatoes and broccoli wouldn't be early, and the flowers at Scilly would be just the same as at other places. It's a long way for a stream to come, and the square-set man told us that at one time it must have been stronger than now, for it carried away the mainland between us and Scilly; but when Guy cross-examined him on what he called a question of fact, he broke down, and finished off by saying that that was what "people said." Guy was willing that there should be a Gulf Stream, but he bristled when told that the peninsula was snapped off like a carrot, and carried away by a stream from the Gulf of Mexico. His English pride was hurt, and he declared that he'd rather do without early potatoes and broccoli and flowers from Scilly for the rest of his life than that foreign water should ever be said to have carried away English acres, and so many of them. The invasion of England by the Gulf Stream indeed! Then where were the Navy League, and the Coast Defence Committee, and Mr. Balfour's great speech in the House of Commons?
There was one spot that we must see and stand upon, and the square-set man was sure of himself this time. We must go and stand upon the rock where Wesley stood before composing the hymn, "Lo, on a narrow neck of land." People come from all quarters of the universe for this privilege, and some people actually go away and compose hymns and send copies to the square-set man. He did not say what he did with them, but he did not talk respectfully of an absent lady who mailed him a poem from New York and forgot the postage stamps.
It was Guy's idea to stay where we were. He put it very nicely to the Bookworm about "communing with Nature, the great unwritten book, and all that sort of thing, you know." Guy was afraid that he would make a bee-line for the library if we returned to Penzance, and that we should have to dig him out again. "We'll keep him in the open, and let the square-set man stuff him with pre-historic monuments—something solid, you know, after the Gulf Stream." Guy's mind was constantly running on the Gulf Stream. He didn't care a fig for the stream, he said, in the course of the evening, and it was welcome to travel where it would; but when it came to taking away English soil, he wouldn't hear it; no, not if all the scientists in the universe were against him.
Most people carry away something—pebbles, or blooms, or bits of seaweed, or something of that sort—and there's plenty left; and all seem to carry away "impressions." The guide-books don't help the impressionists much, for everything appears different to every other person, as though the local fairies had a hand in it.
The square-set man called upon us in the evening, and told us stories of people whom he had conducted around the cliffs, and from monument to monument. The cliffs, we found, were "grand," "sublime," or "terrible;" and the rest was summed up in "charming," "queer," "fantastic," "unaccountable," "odd," "sweet," and the like. Specialists, of course, had their own pet phrases; but our friend was particularly struck with the fancy of the gentleman who saw in the cliffs only admirable situations for solving the great mystery. The higher the point, the more he seemed delighted. "Now, this is what I call a grand place for committing suicide," he finished off by saying, and "tipped" so liberally that Mr. Square-set is on the look-out for his return. An emotion once so deeply stirred will surely need be stirred again, he hinted.
When we asked Square-set to sit down and chat a bit, he said he'd be very pleased to "tich-pipe;" and when I passed him my pouch, he said he hadn't smoked since he was a young man.
"What you want to touch-a-pipe for if you don't smoke, I can't imagine," said Guy; and then we found that "tich-pipe" had nothing to do with the weed, but simply meant an interval of rest.
The Bookworm made a note.