Cornish Saints & Sinners

by J. Henry Harris

We were told we might amuse ourselves by turning over the rubbish-heaps, and, for reward, pick up a few specimens of ore,—no one would interfere with us; and we might wander at will in and about the ruins of square towers and "count-houses," which people fancy, at first sight, are baronial castles in ruins. They are ruins, right enough, and the money sunk in the engine shafts would have built castles and pyramids. These ruins look best at a distance, with big bundles of broom shivering and rotting in sunshine and storm. There is something weird and uncanny about the look of these ruins, with broom-bundles, like black things of misfortune, hung about them. The Bookworm said that broom was a sign or symbol of bad luck. We didn't find fortunes in turning over stones on rubble-heaps, and only secured a few tin and mundic and copper specimens of no value to the owner. Guy said they would look swagger when labelled, "Tin found on Scatmoor, Cornwall." The beginnings of a museum were in his pockets, he said, when they began to bulge out.

There were some small houses scattered about, and every house was in a garden. None were empty; but as all the mines around were idle, we began to wonder what the population lived on. There must be work somewhere, but a long way off, we thought; so far, indeed, that the men would tire morning and night when going and coming. The houses were low, two-storied dwellings, built of moor-stone, and roofed with thick turves kept in place by flat, heavy stones. The people we saw were mostly aged, or women with young children.

We came across an old fellow sitting on a big stone, blinking with watery eyes at an old ruined mine engine-house. He made us welcome, and offered us the whole of the stone he was sitting on; but we squatted on the turf, and let the green lizards run over us—we said we liked it like that. Very soon we were interested in the old boy, who told us he was Jim Tregedga, the son of Jim Tregedga before him, and he cited Tregedgas sufficient to reach back to the days of the Deluge. The house he lived in he built himself "out of coor," that is to say, in spare time, and he fenced in the bit of garden, ditto. It was moor land, and no one said him nay, so he took what he wanted, and the rest did the same. All the houses were built like that, and every man his own landlord. All the mines around were working then, and at every shift hundreds of young men poured out of these stone hives and went to work underground or upon "grass." And all the maidens rose early and went to work upon the dressing-floors, singing like thrushes. The mine was the soul of the moor, and the pumps and stamps its music. The young men now are spread over South Africa and Australia, South America and the regions of Klondike; and the old people and young wives and children were left at home, dependent for daily bread upon the love of kindred whom they might never see again.

Things were so different in the old days, when Cousin Jack was full of money, and spent it like a king, and then went to work again with a good heart, and always ready to kiss the maidens, or "wrassle" and break a head on paydays. In fact, Cousin Jack wouldn't go home without a fight, unless he was poorly. This old man knew the names of all the mines round about, and their histories; when they "cut rich," and when they "cut out" and were shut down, and the broom hoisted to tell all the world that another bal had gone wrong.

MORWENSTOW CLIFFS.

Every mine had its own particular spirit, or family of spirits, called "nuggies." Every household was brought up in a firm faith in nuggies, and the good or bad fortune of a mine depended on the temper of the nuggies. Men working on "tribute" were very careful not to offend the spirits of the mine, and they had to be careful, or they would earn little, and were sometimes lucky to reach grass alive. These spirits had underground workshops, wherein they worked upon silver anvils, and the walls sparkled with crystals of pure tin and virgin silver. These workshops were called "parlours," and, as they were not always willing to be disturbed, they misled the miners, making them believe that the tinkling upon the silver anvils was in the very opposite direction:—such was their power. Or they would cease working altogether, and then the men would become disheartened, and say the nuggies had forsook the bal, and she might as well be "knacked" at once, for all the profit she would yield. But the nuggies were good to poor tributers sometimes, after they had been working for weeks and months on starvation wages. Months and months of work and no sound through the gloomy corridors but the tap, tap, of the steel-edged tools, and the fall of rock, barren and unprofitable; and then, all at once, the music on the silver anvils, and falling water, indicating the presence of the precious lode. If a man worked underground he was bound to believe in nuggies; and if he did not believe, and said so, then he was sure to be punished, for the nuggies had a way of leading men into trouble. A favourite way was to hide danger from a man until he was on the brink of it, and then, if stubborn and would not take warning, they'd let him fall over a precipice, or down an old shaft, and be heard of no more in the land of the living. What they gave, they gave freely, and took no toll—they wanted none, all the minerals in the universe belonging to the nuggie family; only they would have men civil, and civility brought rich rewards.

The talk was rambling, and Guy put many questions. Had deponent ever seen a nuggie? Well, he believed he had. He was working on Wheal Rose, first coor by night, and he saw a flash at the end of the stope, and Jan Trebilcock slapped his hand over his (deponent's) mouth so that he shouldn't screech. That was a nuggie going into his parlour, and Jan Trebilcock followed the lead and came upon a lode as rich as King Solomon's mines whilst it lasted. And he'd heard old men say——

But Guy wouldn't have hearsay. Then deponent said he had heard the tinkling upon silver anvils, and beautiful it was, like the melody of church bells on a summer eve. The nuggies always took their anvils with them when they gave up possession of a workshop—they were wanted elsewhere.