Footprints of Former Men in Far Cornwall

by Robert Stephen Hawker

Gumb appears to have united in his native character the simplicity of an ancient hermit and the stern contempt of the solitary student for the busy hum of men, with the brave resolution and independent energy of mind which have won success and fame for some of our self-made sons of science and skill. But his opportunities were few, and the severance of his life and abode from contact with his fellow-men forbade that access to the discoveries and researches of his kind which might have rendered him, in other days, the Hugh Miller of the rocks, or the Stephenson or Watt of a scientific solitude. He and his wife inhabited their wedded cell for many years and long. The mother on her stony couch gladdened her anxious husband with sons and daughters; but she had the courage to brave her woman’s trials alone, for neither midwife nor doctor were ever summoned to “the rock.” These, as may well be imagined, were all literally educated at home; but only one of their children—his name was John—appears to have inherited his father’s habits or energy. He succeeded to the caverned home after Daniel’s death, and when his mother had returned to her native village to die also, the existence of John Gumb is casually seen recorded as one of the skilful hewers of stone at the foot of Carradon. But Daniel died “an old man full of days,” and he was carried after all ad plures, and to the silent society of men, in the churchyard of the parish wherein stood afar off his rocky home. He won and he still deserves a nook of remembrance among the legendary sons of the west, “the giants” of Keltic race, “the mighty men that were of old, the men of renown.” His mind, though rough-hewn, like a block of his native granite, must have been well balanced: resolute and firm reliance on a man’s own resources, and disdain of external succour, have ever been a signal of native genius. To be able to live alone, according to the adage of an ancient sage, a man must be either an angel or a demon. Gumb was neither, but a simple, strong-hearted, and intellectual man. He had the “mens sana in corpore sano” of the poet’s aspiration. A scenic taste and a mind “to enjoy the universe” he revealed in the very choice of his abode. In utter scorn of the pent-up city, and dislike for the reek of the multitude, he built like “the Kenite, his nest in the rock;”[76] nor did he pitch his stony tent by chance, or in a casual place in the wild. He chose and he fixed his home where his eye could command and exult in a stretch of circumferent scenery a hundred and fifty miles in surrounding extent. In the east, he greeted the morning sun, as he mounted the rugged saddle of Dartmoor and Exmoor for his daily career. To the west, Roche, the rock of the ruined hermitage, lifted a bold and craggy crest to the sky, where long centuries before another solitary of more ascetic mind lay, like the patriarch on his pillow of granite, and reared a ladder to heaven by the energy of nightly prayer. Far, far away to the westward the haughty sun of England went into the storied sea of Arthur and his knights, and touched caressingly the heights of grim Dundagel with a lingering halo of light. These were the visions that soothed and surrounded the worker at his daily toil, and roused and strengthened the energies of the self-sustaining man. The lessons of the legend of Daniel Gumb are simple and earnest and strong. The words of supernatural wisdom might be graven as an added superscription on his rock, “Whatsoever thou doest, do it with all thine heart.” If thou be a man friendless and alone, the slave of the hammer or the axe, and doomed to the sweat of labour day by day till the night shall come that no man can work, “aide-toi et Dieu t’aidera”—aid thyself and God will succour thee.

ANTONY PAYNE, A CORNISH GIANT[77]

On the brow of a lofty hill, crested with stag-horned trees, commanding a deep and woodland gorge wherein “the Crooks of Combe”[78] (the curves of a winding river) urge onward to the “Severn Sea,” still survive the remains of famous old Stowe,—that historic abode of the loyal and glorious Sir Beville,[79] the Bayard of old Cornwall, “sans peur et sans reproche,” in the thrilling Stuart wars. No mansion on the Tamar-side ever accumulated so rich and varied a store of association and event. Thither the sons of the Cornish gentry were accustomed to resort, to be nurtured and brought up with the children of Sir Beville Granville and Lady Grace; for the noble knight was literally the “glass wherein” the youth of those ancient times “did dress themselves.” There their graver studies were relieved by manly pastime and athletic exercise. Like the children of the Persians, they were taught “to ride, to bend the bow, and to speak the truth.” At hearth and hall every time-honoured usage and festive celebration was carefully and reverently preserved. Around the walls branched the massive antlers of the red deer of the moors, the trophies of many a bold achievement with horse and hound. At the buttery-hatch hung a tankard marked with the guests’ and the travellers’ peg, and a manchet, flanked with native cheese, stood ready on a trencher for any sudden visitant who might choose to lift the latch; for the Granville motto was, “An open door and a greeting hand.” A troop of retainers, servants, grooms, and varlets of the yard, stood each in his place, and under orders to receive with a welcome the unknown stranger, as well as their master’s kinsman and friend.

Antony Payne’s House, Stratton, now the Tree Inn.

Among these, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, appeared a remarkable personage. He was the son of an old tenant on the estate, who occupied the manor-house of Stratton, a neighbouring town. His parents were of the yeoman rank in life, and possessed no singularity of personal aspect or frame, although both were comely. But Antony, their son, was from his earliest years a wonderful boy. He shot up into preternatural stature and strength. His proportions were so vast that, when he was a mere lad, his schoolmates were accustomed to “borrow his back,” and, for sport, to work out their geography lessons or arithmetic on that broad disc in chalk; so that, to his mother’s amazement and dismay, he more than once brought home, like Atlas, the world on his shoulders, for her to rub out. His strength and skill in every boyish game were marvellous, and, unlike many other large men, his mental and intellectual faculties increased with his amazing growth.

It was Antony Payne’s delight to select two of his stoutest companions, whom he termed “his kittens,” and, with one under each arm, to climb some perilous crag or cliff in the neighbourhood of the sea, “to show them the world,” as he said. He was called in the school “Uncle Tony,” for the Cornish to this day employ the names “uncle and aunt” as titles of endearment and respect. Another relic of his boyhood is extant still: the country lads, when they describe anything of excessive dimensions, call it, “As long as Tony Payne’s foot.”

He grew on gradually, and in accurate proportion of sinews and thews, until, at the age of twenty-one, he was taken into the establishment at Stowe. He then measured seven feet two inches without his shoes,[80] and he afterwards added a couple of inches more to his stately growth. Wide-chested, full-armed, and pillared like a rock on lower limbs of ample and exact symmetry, he would have gladdened the critical eyes of Queen Elizabeth, whose Tudor taste led her to exult in “looking on a man.” If his lot had fallen in later days, he might have been hired by some wonder-monger to astonish the provincial mind, or the intellect of cities, as the Cornish Chang. But in good, old, honest, simple-hearted England, they utilised their giants, and deemed that when a cubit was added to the stature of a man, it was for some wise good end, and they looked upon their loftier brother with added honour and respect.

So for many years Payne continued to fulfil his various duties as Sir Beville’s chief retainer at Stowe. He it was who was the leader and the authority in every masculine sport. He embowelled and flayed the hunted deer, and carried the carcass on his own shoulders to the Hall, where he received as his guerdon the horns and the hide. The antlers, cleansed and polished, were hoisted as a trophy on the panelled wall; and the skins, dressed and prepared, were shaped into a jerkin for his goodly chest. It took the spoils of three full-grown red deer to make the garment complete. His master’s sons and their companions, the very pride of the West, who were housed and instructed at Stowe, when released from their graver studies, were under his especial charge. He taught them to shoot, and fish, and to handle arms. Tilt-yard and bowling-green, and the hurler’s ground, can still be identified at Stowe. In the latter, the poising-place and the mark survive, and a rough block of graywacke is called to this day “Payne’s cast;” it lies full ten paces beyond the reach whereat the ordinary players could “put the stone.”