A STREET IN FOWEY—CORNWALL
At the harbor wall a grizzled old fisherman approaches us and politely touching his cap offers to row us to a number of places which he declares we should see. We demur, not being fond of row-boats; he persists in his broad South-Country speech—to give it is past my linguistic powers, though I wish I could—“Pardon me for pushing my trade; it’s the only way I have of earning a living now, since I gave up the sea.” We think it worth the modest sum he proposes to charge us for a trip to hear him talk and we ask him about himself.
“I was a sailor, sir, for more than fifty years and I saw a lot of hardship in my day with nothing to show for it now. It was all right when I was young and fond of roving, but as I grew old it began to pall and I wished I might have been able to lead a different life. But I had to stick to it until I was too old to stand the work, and I got the little boat here which makes me a poor living—there’s nothing doing except in summertime and I have to get along as best I can in winter.”
“Do you own a house?”
“Own a house?” he echoed in surprise at our ignorance. “Nobody owns a house here; the squire who lives in the big place on the hill yonder owns the town—and everybody in it. A common man hasn’t any chance to own anything in England. It doesn’t seem fair and I don’t understand it—but we live by it in England—we live by it in England.”
We divert his bitter reflections by asking him about the town.
“Don’t forget the old Ship Inn,” he said, “and the church—it has the tallest tower in Cornwall. You can see through the big castle on the hill if you get permission. Any famous people?—why, yes—Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch lives here. He’s our only titled man and some of his books, they say, tell about Fowey.”
We thank our sailor friend and repair to the Ship Inn, as he counseled us. They show us the “great Tudor room,” the pride of the house—a large beamed and paneled apartment with many black-oak carvings. But the chief end of the Ship to-day appears to be liquor selling, and not being bibulously inclined, we depart for the church. It was built in the reign of Edward IV., just before that monarch dealt the town its death-blow as a port and marked the end of Fowey’s prosperity. The timber roof, the carved-oak pulpit and stone baptismal font are all unusually fine and there are some elaborate monuments to old-time dignitaries of the town. Place House, the great castellated palace on the hill, with immense, elaborately carved bow-windows, is the dominating feature of the town. Inside there is some remarkable open timberwork roofing the great hall and much antique paneling and carving. There is also a valuable collection of furniture and objects of art which has accumulated in the four hundred years that the place has belonged to the Treffry family. It is more of a palatial residence than a fortress and it appears never to have suffered seriously from siege or warfare.