THE VILLAGE SHOP, MOUSEHOLE.
Guy said he supposed it was all right; and he remembered there was authority for saying that the king is rex because all wrecks belong to him. If so, then wreckers are rexers in their own right, and can do no wrong. Mr. Square-set was not impressed, but he assured us that the double-dyed villain of Cornish romances innumerable was extinct now, and Mr. Carnegie's millions could not purchase a specimen for the British Museum. It was a disappointment not to find a "wrecker"—the bold, bad man who tied lanterns to cows' tails, and sent up false lights to lure passing ships to destruction. We wanted to shake hands with one and stand him drinks, and make notes of his bushy eyebrows and the colour of his eyes, and then turn him inside out to discover what his secret thoughts were when hatching diabolical plans. Our faith in Cornish romances received a great shock just then, and Guy's cherished ambition to write "The Chronicles of Joseph Penruddock, Wrecker," suffered frost-bite. The world will never know more.
Of deeds of derring-do for the saving of life our square-set friend was full. This was another picture—a picture of black night and tempest, and noble souls wrestling with death and destruction, with scarce one faint chance in their favour. He told us of a man who hung over the precipitous cliff which we had stood on that morning, shuddering as we looked down in the full light of day, and the sea calm as the surface of a mirror; he told us of a man who descended that cliff by a rope when a storm was raging, and the sea "boiling" beneath him, and how he brought back in his arms a burden, battered, but still living, and how, in mid-air, the strands of the rope were chafed, so that those above trembled as they hauled. And as he spoke an inward glow spread over the man's face and revealed him. Guy seized the man's hands in both his own and wrung them, saying, "Great Scott! and you are the man who did this thing!" He told us afterwards that he couldn't help himself, and wasn't the least ashamed of being a bit "soft" just then. To think that this hero was the man we picked up scratching himself against a cromlech and looking for a job!
We couldn't get away from the sea now, and Mr. Square-set told us how differently sailors in misfortune were treated now than formerly—how they were fed and clothed and sent from one end of the country to the other, wherever they wished to go—in fact, by rail. In his young days it was not so, and a shipwrecked mariner was compelled to tramp wherever he chose to go, either to his own home or to the next port, in the hope of getting a berth. But a tramp in fine weather, sleeping in the fields and outhouses at night, and begging at decent houses by day, was very much enjoyed by the men, who became heroes when they returned home. He told us the story of
Two Ancient Mariners
who hailed from Cornwall, and once found themselves stranded in the port of London, with little but what they stood upright in. They were young men and merry-hearted, and stood by each other in fair weather or foul, as shipmates should. They hailed from the same fishing village, and wished to be home during the "feast" week, which was near at hand. Failing to find a coasting vessel bound west, they started to walk, and part of their arrangement was to take it in turns to call at gentlemen's houses and ask for assistance. They preferred not to go to the same house together, but to leave one on the look-out, in case of "squalls." They got on well enough for some days, sleeping where they could, and telling yarns of peril and disaster, most likely, in their opinion, to melt the hearts of hearers. And the story went like this—
"They came to a great gentleman's house, and it was Tommy Hingston's turn to go in, and Bill Baron's to watch outside. Tommy went up, as bold as brass, and asked for the gentleman, who was at home, and received him very kindly; and when he found he had come from London, he asked him for the latest news.
"'There's fine news, sure 'nuff,' says Tom.
"'Then let me have it, my man.'