WALKS 
 
 ABOUT 
 
 AINT HILARY 
 

 
 - fc
 
 CHIEFLY AMONG THE POOR, 
 
 BY 
 
 CHAELOTTE CHAMPION PASCOE. 
 
 " She stretcheth out her hand to the poor, yea, she reacheth forth her hands 
 
 to the needy" 
 
 " In her tongue was the law of kindness" 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 C. G. B. E. AND M. E. 
 
 1879.
 
 PENZANCE : 
 
 SEARE AND SON, STEAM PRINTERS, 
 21, MARKET PLACE.
 
 TO THE READER 
 
 )HE MSS. from which this volume is compiled were given to her sister, 
 Miss Willyams, by Mrs. Pascoe, on the eve of her departure from St. 
 Hilary*, the home of fifty years. 
 
 They were addressed in the form of letters to the friend of her 
 youth, Mrs. Benjamin Wood (nee Michell, of Truro), and were begun in 1836, and 
 carried on at various intervals during the ten following years. 
 
 In September, 1875, Miss Willyams thus writes of them : " Some of these 
 ' Walks ' were transcribed and forwarded to the writer at Carnanton, and, at her 
 death, sent for revision to our cousin, Charlotte Rogers. I have undertaken 
 the remainder with the hope of furnishing a correct transcript, from which to 
 procure a few printed copies for gifts to the attached friends of my loved sister. 
 To the devoted friend, Mary Rogers, who was to her almost as a daughter, I must 
 leave the arrangement, as I fear my failing powers may be unequal to the task." 
 This proved to be the case. The venerable sister did not live to see the work 
 accomplished, although she reached the age of ninety-one. 
 
 It only remains to be added, with regard to the following pages, that such 
 memorials of love and kindness need no apology or commendation from those who 
 have now, to the best of their ability, fulfilled the pleasant labour of arranging 
 them, and whose tender and life-long affection, both for the writer and her subject, 
 must be their plea for presenting you with these " Walks about St. Hilary," by a 
 beloved kinswoman and friend. 
 
 C. G. B. R. and M. R. 
 
 September, 1879.
 
 WALK I. 
 
 MAY 12, 1836. 
 
 Frog Street. A Ghost ! Mary Boscnce and her sister Kitty. 
 
 *fTgl^T is not in compliment to you, dearest Maria, nor to Queen Charlotte, that 
 I record first a walk to Frog Street, a title no one knows how bestowed, 
 and far from graphic, unless you happen to inspect narrowly the rivulet 
 that flows between the pathway and a richly-flowered hedge, and should 
 spy clusters of embryo frogs which nestle among the water-cress, and it must be 
 owned do not much whet one's desire to gather it. I may venture to say it was 
 not indebted for its name to any native wit, for then it would have been "Quilkin" 
 Lane (that most ingenious combination of letters signifying frog in Cornish), far 
 less to 'Un Avis Williams, whom three years ago, everybody, and I among the rest, 
 used to visit for the sake of the monthly rose that covered her cottage from end to 
 end ; her bright little vixen of a canary, and the surprising set-out of the chimney- 
 piece with curiosities brought from beyond seas by her bachelor son, who then 
 resided with her. Frog Street must have had a more sophisticated sponsor than 
 any of these ; not improbably, one of the visitors at the great house on the hill, 
 to the proprietor of which these few cottagers have been tenants, time out of 
 mind ; aye, even beyond the time when it was occupied by Chancellor Penneck, 
 whose ghost, residing in and about the great, walled grave, at the end of our 
 church, is said to show his temper occasionally, by raising the wind in a terrific 
 manner. 
 
 So much for the direction of our walk ; its object was to enquire after the health 
 of Mary Bosence. This is not her present name, indeed, but it seems to be the 
 charter of valuable servants to retain the name which their good character has 
 rendered honourable. 
 
 Mary was nursery maid at Tregembo for many years, one of those domestic 
 factotums who think and feel, as well as act ; and who, when they marry, carry 
 into their cottages the wholesome habits of gentleman's service order, cleanli- 
 ness, and reverence for their betters. I do suppose that Mary never seriously 
 
 A
 
 about St. Hilary. 
 
 displeased her mistress but once, and that was when she received the addresses of 
 Robert Carter, a handsome young miner, although a widower with a child or two. 
 But my sister Anne is a just woman, kind to Mary in her distress, whom she has 
 heartily forgiven ; I therefore do not mean to make her my text for a few animad- 
 versions on the unreasonableness of those mistresses who take upon themselves to 
 resent the settling in life of a favourite servant. To such I say, they have no right 
 to be angry at the favourite's lending an ear to the addresses of an honourable 
 suitor, unless they are prepared to whisper in the other ear, " I mistress, take thee 
 maid, to have and to hold, for better for worse, for richer* for poorer, in sickness 
 and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part." Few mistresses, I 
 suspect, would witness with the affectionate endurance of Robert (when he returns 
 from Bal at Huel Vor, ten miles out and home) the utter helplessness of poor Mary 
 from a spine case ; fewer still would incur the burthen of maintaining one to wait 
 upon her. Mary's handmaid is her own sister Kitty, who left her place immediately 
 on hearing of the affliction in this family, and has ever since sustained in it the 
 several posts of nurse, mother, and housekeeper. " She asks for nothing, ma'am, 
 of us," said Mar}-, " but her living, which is poor enough ; and a pair of shoes 
 now and then that indeed, she does not ask (but it is sad to see. her diminishing 
 what she had looked to against age and sickness) ; so, when he sees her shoes are 
 coming poor; Robert goes and buys her a pair." Kitty must not expect any help 
 from her late master ; so indignant is he at her abruptly depriving him of the ser- 
 vices of a valuable cook, that he has peremptorily forbidden her to enter his doors. 
 Who can blame him when they consider that her successor may not fry his fish, or 
 mash his turnips so much to his taste ? for saith not that master of the heart, Lord 
 Byron, " some men will set a house on fire in order to roast their chesnuts." 
 
 We had not visited Mary for a long while on -account of the small-pox, fearing 
 the infection for Kate ;* and coming in we had met three of her children, hand-in- 
 hand, in the lane, all marked, some pitted in the face. One would think with five 
 children lately suffering from this malignant malady, and with a spine case herself, 
 that regret for the loss of beauty would hardly have found place : she smiled, 
 apologetically, I own, as she observed of a prettyish-looking boy, "he is the most 
 marked of the whole, the only good-looking one, too." 
 
 * A niece and adopted child, the writer's constant companion.
 
 WALK II. 
 
 MAY, 1836. 
 
 A runaway horse. Plappy old age. Little ones in charge. 
 A burned child. 
 
 j|f^gj FTER a congratulatory visit to the lying-in room, at Tregembo, we 
 called in at Mary Hodge's. Sick or well, Monday or Saturday, she 
 is always in what is called " apple-pie order," though I could never 
 understand the appropriateness of the phrase. This one thing is 
 certain, it does not imply either tartness or crustiness, as far as Mary Hodge is 
 concerned. She had been sadly frightened by the running away of the Tregembo 
 cart-horse, or, more properly speaking, carriage-horse, who, conceiving himself 
 too fine to draw a cart, had taken to his " high-mettled heels " all the way down 
 Relubbus Lane. . Mothers ran out, terrified to death ; every one of them sure that 
 her own youngest was under the wheels. Happily, the indignant steed was 
 brought up by his coming in contact with the angle of a cottage-wall, which 
 shook so that they said the " geranjas " within were upset, the pots broken, and 
 the good woman sent to bed from fright. 
 
 On our homeward way, we dropped in to see 'Un Hannah Allen. This sweet, 
 mild-looking old woman deserves the compliment paid to her by her children, 
 who prefer being charged with her maintenance to seeing her abandoned to the 
 Workhouse. These good people do not know it, but what a sweet lesson they are 
 daily reading to their children, who, you can see, dearly love " Grannie ; " and 
 how surely will the benefit be paid back into their own bosoms, when they come 
 to want the indulgence which they now accord so unostentatiously. 
 
 In such cases, however, let the daughter-in-/aw have her due share of praise, 
 and that a very large proportion ; for, besides suffering in common from this 
 invasion of their slender means, all the attendance which age requires, all the 
 forbearance which its slowness, its infirmities demand, fall to her share. 
 
 Shame upon us of higher condition, that it should be commonly asserted, " No 
 two generations can continue to dwell together in unity." If this be true (as I
 
 about St. Hilary. 
 
 fear, with few exceptions, it has been proved to be,) all I can say is, " Let them 
 pay a visit to 'Un Hannah and Betsey Allen." Next door to these worthies dwells 
 Betsey Simmons, but she had gone to market to buy a pair of shoes apiece for six 
 such tiny beings, so young and helpless. Helpless ! Never judge from outward 
 appearances. The eldest of the batch, about seven years old, was left in charge 
 of the house ; the baby, a cripple boy (no better than a baby), and two little girls 
 of that age when they are said to be " just got out of the way," but which appears 
 to me the precise time when they are always in the way able to run about, and to 
 catch up knives, and to dabble with the fire. On this occasion, little Kitty and 
 the cripple were packed into the window-seat, brandishing a knife from one hand 
 to the other, and then scuffling for its possession. The young housekeeper, 
 meanwhile, lighted the fire with a piece of tallow, which she stuck burning into the 
 just-opened drawer, making repeated excursions to and from the cradle, to borrow 
 a handful of straw from the baby's loose paillasse, and leaving a train of combus- 
 tibles each time. Yet, no doubt, the mother found all safe on her return ; whereas, 
 I have known the finest house in this county (Xanswhyden) burnt to the ground, 
 though every room but one, and that from whence the fire proceeded, was 
 avowedly provided with stone arches, to guard against such a catastrophe. Some- 
 times, however, such instances of reckless trust, as that which I have just recorded, 
 prove fatal, as in the following sad storv. 
 
 Left to take care of his little sister charged against touching the fire, Jem put 
 on the child's bonnet, sent her out to play, and carefully secured the door. On 
 the mother's return, he lay on the floor, it is hardly hyperbole to say, burnt to a 
 cinder. 
 
 The predominant feeling, strange to 'say, in so young a breast, was remorse ; for 
 the dear child had always been remarkable for his regard to truth. " Mother, I 
 have told a lie," he shrieked out at the sight of her, alluding to his promise of not 
 going near the fire. " I have told a lie, and for that I am burnt." " He prayed 
 fervently," said the poor mother, " like any full-grown Christian, for mercy, and at 
 length became calm, remarking that all would be burnt up one day the bed, the 
 world itself, and there would be an end of all. Well, that don't matter, mother, 
 do it, if all go to heaven ?" He enquired if he might sing, inviting his mother to 
 join him. " No, my child, I cannot sing," said the broken-hearted mother, who 
 shed bitter tears at the relation of the same. He sang a verse of a hymn by 
 himself. "I think, mother" ('twas "mother" every moment with him), I believe,
 
 Walks about St. Hilary. 
 
 I shall die ; so much people comes to look at me to-day, there, must be something 
 strange in me. Ask father to pray for me. If I go to heaven, I shall see little 
 David ; and, mother, you will mind to pay for my schooling, wont ye ? If I had 
 lived, I should have come to spell and to read, and to writing, but now there is 
 an end of all." 
 
 WALK III. 
 
 MAY, 1836. 
 
 A bed-lier. Jenny Priske. Righteous indignation misplaced. 
 
 JIE went to see poor William Pearce, who has been a bed-lier for 
 nearly twenty years. I must not pun, though many do suspect he 
 took to lying in bed, prematurely, in order to entitle himself to 
 the full-pay allowed under such circumstances by the friendly 
 club. Whatever he may have been, poor fellow, he is no deceiver now. His wife 
 was just able to hobble about with an inflamed leg that had confined her to the 
 bed, the only bed in the house, which serves the poor invalid for couch by day, 
 and accommodates the whole family at night. Yet his eyes and lips ran over with 
 thankfulness. What a reproof to the pampered and luxurious ! 
 
 We dropped in at Jenny Priske's in order to disburthen ourselves of the remain- 
 ing pudding. The first person I saw on opening the door was her eldest son, 
 fresh from bal, with a face as black as his behaviour, if village gossips may be 
 credited the tale is too revolting to be entered upon ; I could not bear the sight 
 of the wretch, and no doubt looked as black to him as he did to me. He was 
 one of my Sunday scholars a great sullen, duncish, ragged-headed boy. I used 
 to compare him and his younger brother so slight, pretty-featured, and nimble- 
 witted to Ariel and Caliban. I do not remember to have met a more violent 
 contrast in two brothers. " How is Henry ? " said I, in a kind tone, partly, I fear, 
 to make my coolness towards the offending Samuel more pointed. " Ah, ma'am, 
 
 B
 
 Walks about St. Hilary. 
 
 I wish you could tell me that ; the poor fellow has been gone many weeks up the 
 country to look for work." " I thought work was plenty, so many new mines." 
 " Why, work is plenty ; but, the truth must be told, the poor lad was quite out of 
 heart, to hear so much about It is a shame to speak of it ; but "- 
 
 Here I broke in, this being the invariable preface to very disagreeable details. 
 " Oh ! for pity's sake don't say anything of that shocking affair ; it makes one sick 
 
 at heart to think of those unnatural parents " (glancing angrily at S ) ; " but, 
 
 in regard to poor Henry," I added, with severe emphasis, " let it be remembered 
 the innocent will not always be permitted to suffer for the guilty." 
 
 Thus, mounted on the stilts of righteous indignation, I reached the end of the 
 lane, not recollecting that " the wrath of man works not the righteousness of 
 God." Pity I had not thought of all this ten minutes sooner ; I should have 
 avoided an act of great injustice, and my victim might have washed his dirty bal 
 face in peace, a job from which he desisted during my speech, because, as I then 
 thought, he was glad of even that screen to cover his shame. I have since learned 
 that the person I addressed was not Samuel, but John, a third brother, of 
 irreproachable walk and conversation. And I found to my discomfiture, that 
 Henry, the nimble-witted, the Ariel, has been the defaulter ; Samuel, who I 
 insultingly compared to Caliban, is the prop and stay of his one-legged old 
 mother. Grant I may be the wiser for this lesson ! 
 
 With a view to surprise my poor couch-captive, I called on my way home for 
 our little mutual favourite, a delicate morsel of a thing, two years and half old, 
 whom Kate and I make a plaything of. The best bonnet and Sunday shoes were 
 soon put on by friend Mary, of whom you must hear more anon, and I carried off 
 the little Betsey, as lovely, and well-nigh as diminutive, as a thing from fairy land. 
 The pretty story I want to tell you of friend Mary must wait a more leisure time. 
 
 I am now called by my companion to read Mrs. Jamieson's Female Sovereigns, of 
 which number we have discussed the imperial Semiramis, the queenly Zenobia, the 
 voluptuous Cleopatra, and, far from least, the lovely and loveable Joanna of 
 Naples.
 
 WALK IV. 
 
 MAY, 1836. 
 
 A valuable horse. Dibdin's Songs. 
 
 CALLED in I should rather say, I struggled for entrance at Anne 
 Trenawden's, being stoutly resisted by two famishing pigs who blocked 
 up the doorway. Three children, scarcely less boorish and dirty, were 
 ab/east, endeavouring to push through the same narrow passage a 
 wheelbarrow, full of potatoes. I am afraid I felt glad, for I hate a mess, when 
 they told me, " Mother was gone to Goldsithney to get a croom o' rice for dinner." 
 The poor woman had called at the Vicarage a few weeks ago with a begging paper, 
 whose object it was to raise money enough for the purchase of a horse to replace 
 one that had " muirly died of old age, and which," she added, " was a good 
 beast more ways than one, for he had provided her and her children with the 
 means of living for many a year." The husband himself, past hard work, had 
 employed the trusty animal in bringing home coal and sand for the neighbours 
 till, as we have seen, 
 
 " The sand of his hour-glass stood still," 
 like that of the degraded racer. 
 
 There is much plaintive, as well as playful philosophy in those old songs of 
 Dibdin's, if oie could but extract some gems from the heap of terrible rubbish 
 that surrounds them. There is " Tom Tackle " for one 
 
 " So brave and so noble, so true to his word, 
 That if merit bought titles, Tom might be a lord, 
 Who was ne'ertheless pitiful, scurvy and mean, 
 And the veriest scoundrel that ever was seen ; 
 For so said the girls and the landlords 'long shore, 
 ' Would you know what Tom's fault was ? Tom Tackle was poor.' "
 
 Walks about St. Hilary. 
 
 I remember, too, a sweet little bit at the beginning of a song, of which, I believe, 
 I have reason to be thankful I do not recollect the succeeding verses 
 
 " Come, never seem to mind it, 
 
 Nor count your fate a curse ; 
 However you may find it, 
 Still someone else is worse." 
 
 WALK V. 
 
 Pearce and the parson. Pride in humility. A sick miner. 
 
 lost for a while the old companion of my walk, my poor Kate, 
 I challenged her uncle to go with me the rounds of the Higher 
 Downs. Poor Pearce, for one, was glad enough to see the parson 
 and his shilling as well as to listen to his good prayers ; only, 
 unhappily, he thought it right to proclaim his devotion by long, " minute " groans, 
 which his wife, though not hearing a syllable, echoed from the outer room. I 
 cannot imagine why, sectionists especially, think this sort of accompaniment, helps 
 devotion; it puts an extinguisher on mine, having the same effect as a whimpering 
 tone has on my charity. It may be wrong, but I like Grace Trevaskis's ways better, 
 though I could not say there was not a mixture of pride in the motive that induced 
 her to shut the door in our faces. She said that she did it to keep the chimney 
 from smoking ; but I suspect she did not want us to see the contractedness of the 
 dwelling in which her tall, gaunt form could hardly turn round or stand upright 
 nor the ladder and hole through which she climbed to bed. After a while, she 
 suffered herself to be soothed into civility, and related her little history ; how she 
 had maintained, and finally buried, her mother, at four score and four years of
 
 Walks about St. Hilary. 
 
 age ; how, after this, being herself no more than fifty-two or three, still young for 
 marriage, she earned her " little living " comfortably. 
 
 Here were four nice cottages in a row. Jane Johns, once our washerwoman, 
 was in a peck of troubles. Work was plenty, she allowed, but men were plenty, 
 too ; besides, her husband was falling into the miners' consumption, and one of his 
 " woollens had shrunk a nail of a yard all round." It is a blessed thing when 
 evils can be redressed and sorrow alleviated at the expense of half-a-yard of coarse 
 flannel. Jane thought she never could have looked in my face again after her 
 poor sister, unknowing to her, had been buried in a shift which I had lent her 
 for her sickness. 
 
 'Un Amy Wills, a worthy old soul, I do believe, but with the physiognomy of a 
 cat just stepped upon, would have been mightily tiffed if we had not looked in 
 upon her, though we only disturbed all the family at tea, and put them into a fuss 
 to get us seats. Whether I call or not, I am sure to be greeted, as often as we 
 meet, with a reproachful, " How are ye so strange ? " Now she could not add, in 
 her usual taunting tone, " I heard of ye going along ; " and it is worth while to 
 escape her angry looks. After all, she must be a kind-hearted old woman, and a 
 good peace-maker, or they would not have been sitting so cosily round the tea- 
 table ; for once, when she was absent for only a few days, her son, with whom she 
 resides, and her daughter-in-law, quarrelled and separated, the wife alleging that 
 her husband " lashed her with a rope as big as his arm," by which, if her tale was 
 true, he ought to have been suspended himself.
 
 WALK VI. 
 
 JUNE, 1836. 
 
 * 
 
 A benediction. Bugbears. Mary the friend, and the other Mary. 
 
 )ISITING poor Pearce, in our next walk, we carried him some rice- 
 pudding, for which good deed he hoped we should " receive four- 
 fold into our bosoms," a benediction whose literal fulfilment would 
 be as inconvenient as that of the Frenchman who prayed that his 
 benefactor, together with all his amiable family, might be everlastingly pickled, 
 meaning preserved. 
 
 " Honor's leg was," she said, "charming, wholing as pretty as could be," &c. She 
 did not give so favourable a report of her son Samuel, whose dislike to learning is 
 quite- insurmountable. " He would as lief take a serpent into his hand, as a 
 book," she said. 
 
 How figurative the poor, the country poor, are ! I suppose we are all poets by 
 nature, only we are rubbed down by custom and habit to the vulgar currency of 
 prosaic phraseology, so that our language loses all originality of character. A 
 town nursery-maid threatens her refractory charge with the chimney-sweeper, with 
 his bag, or the coal-heaver ; whereas Mary, whilst tying on a clean " pinnie " to 
 my little elfin pet, declared that if she did not get dressed to go with the gentry, 
 a bird should carry her away. Little cared the small thing for the frock we 
 afterwards put on her at the Vicarage ; she liked better to chase the cat, but Mary 
 the mother, and Mary the friend, expressed all the joyful surprise we had intended, 
 especially the latter, who saddles herself with the obligations as well as the cares 
 of the family with whom she resides. 
 
 I never beheld so pleasing a specimen of friendship, in the rough, as these two 
 Marys offer, though I am at a loss to imagine what can be the cementing principle, 
 unless it is their native dissimilarity. Even in respect of age, they seem mis- 
 matched, though there is no saying. Mary the friend is of that homely-featured 
 class, who may be of any age from fifteen to fifty. It is a silly, injurious notion 
 that heroines must needs be beautiful. A Russian lady, who knew the Elizabeth of
 
 Walks alout St. Hilary. 
 
 Madame Cottin, assured me she was an ungainly-looking being, and kept a shop ; 
 and one writer of fiction has the singular courage and good taste (Sir Walter Scott, 
 of course) to describe his tip-top heroine as being short, thick-set, and baby- 
 featured. 
 
 The two Marys had worked at the same " bal " for years, perhaps sat on the 
 same stool, " warbling of the same tune," albeit most unlike " to a double cherry;"* 
 for Mary the less was pretty, and exceedingly young-looking. This is friend 
 Mary's artless account of their friendship : " When we first worked together to the 
 mine, she had but twopence-half-penny a day, so you may think how young she 
 was, but we were neighbours afore that ; and so she grew up a companion like, 
 and came nearer than a sister to me, or else, I reckon, I should never have come 
 away from my own parish and natural friends. And now that she is married, I 
 do not know how to leave her neither, being as it is so lonely for her and the 
 children at night, when William is away at 'bal.'" The generous creature did not 
 advert to another motive for remaining with them ; but I learnt that William had 
 had what the world calls a run of ill-luck in mining phrase, " bad speed of late," 
 and could not pay his way without occasional help from the poor spinster's mite. 
 
 WALK VII. 
 
 JUNE, 1836. 
 
 Fair-day. Alary Wills. 
 
 Vagabond children. 
 
 o 
 
 JE passed through Relubbus, and were everywhere reminded of the 
 " deserted village ; " scarcely a creature to be seen, except a cat 
 here and there craving with hunger, who had been, probably, 
 locked out of the house to save crockery-ware, when its inhabi- 
 tants set off for the fair St. James's Fair at Goldsithney, the grand carnival of all 
 the parishes round. Kate and I indulged in many moral, and I dare say 
 
 * Midsummer JJight's Dream.
 
 12 Walks alout Si, Hilary, 
 
 splenetic, reflections on the all-prevailing dissipations of the age, particularly when 
 we heard from Spinster Mary that Matron Mary had set off for the fair with the 
 baby and my little sick pet. Mary, spinster, with all the burden of the menage 
 left on her shoulders, could hardly forbear joining our philippics, and she had 
 good cause. She had lately lost a day's labour and the night's sleep, to watch and 
 soothe, and carry up and down the little Elizabeth. This tells against the doctrine 
 of instincts ! 
 
 We also called in on Mary Wills, purely, I must confess, with the unamiable 
 object of discovering whether she had also gone with the idle stream. We found 
 her weeping over her work. Her son had promised, she said, to be home by St. 
 James's Fair, and he had not come. Poor soul, I wonder she is not cured of 
 expecting any good from him, for a more consistent little reprobate, through 
 every stage of his childhood, I never knew ; and, I am told, his more mature 
 villanies drove his poor mother from house to house, and will ultimately, I fear, 
 drive her from her present comfortable asylum as housekeeper to an old bachelor. 
 This boy's early delinquencies were of no common cast. He and his sister (who, 
 let me say, died afterwards a hopeful penitent) went about the country laying 
 contributions on the benevolent by the most ingenious fictions of poverty and 
 misery. When invention was exhausted, the little vagrants took advantage of 
 any affliction in the neighbourhood, personated the orphans of a poor man lately 
 killed in a mine, &c. By such expedients, I have known them return from 
 Penzance, clothed and pampered, whilst the real widow and orphan remained cold 
 and hungry. I cannot think that the mother connived at these frauds, i.e., further 
 than that every parent is negatively accessory to the crimes of her often-neglected 
 child. 
 
 Mary had, and still retains, much of the gipsy insoucience, that is the French 
 word ; the Irish call it deil may care ; but we have no name in English to express 
 the absence of house-wifely concern which makes Mary W T ills differ from all her 
 neighbours, and puts me in mind of an " about-a-go " fortune-teller. Yet I 
 never remember in all my dealings with her that she ever asked me for anything 
 but " another pamphlet," the boy having destroyed a religious tract she set much 
 value upon. I should like to have Mary's skull examined by a good phrenologist.
 
 WALK VIII. 
 
 ' Un Sally Fox. 
 
 )HIS morning we paid a visit to our old friend and favourite, 'Un Sally 
 Fox, and found her wonderful mind still triumphant over what she 
 calls " the bit of body," though, if you could see her lofty forehead, 
 her fine Siddonian countenance, the free action of her lengthy arms, 
 
 you would say it was 
 
 " A frame to set a soul in." 
 
 I have boasted much to one friend and another of 'Un Sally's intellectual superi- 
 ority, till she got the name of my sublime old woman ; but, however I may have 
 raised expectations, it has in every case been outdone by her actual presence and 
 conversation ; above all, by her parting benediction which is quite patriarchal ; I have 
 seen it draw tears from the stern, and make grave the giggler, and I have known it 
 extract a confession in favour of Christianity from the habitual scoffer. " Do you 
 know," said the artist whom I took, many weeks before, to see, not to hear, 'Un 
 Sally, " that I cannot forget that old woman of yours. I never was so surprised as 
 by her parting words ; they are constantly recurring to my mind." We found her 
 to-day, pondering, as usual, still painfully unsettled on the grand question of 
 ultimate acceptance at the Throne of Mercy the penalty of deep thinking. All 
 her visions, whether sleeping or waking ones, are tinctured with spiritual dejec- 
 tion timidity, perhaps, I ought to say for I am glad to observe that her endless 
 allegories and visions, trances, &c., have all a happy ending, for example : She was 
 walking along, seeming to her, in a pleasant place, where were throngs of singing 
 birds ; only a few of them, however, flew up towards heaven, carolling with joy 
 and gladness as they rose and rose, and winged away out of sight, " to show (who 
 knows)," observed 'Un Sally, " that it is given to some more than other some, to 
 keep on their way rejoicing. Some Christians fluttered and warbled, whilst others 
 creeped and mourned and drooped ; " to the last sort she belonged, she said. At 
 another time, the emblem was a stream of water that continued to gain upon her, 
 
 x 
 
 D
 
 14 Walks about St. Hilary. 
 
 in spite of her efforts to escape from it. It crept up higher and higher, colder 
 and colder, and just when she thought she must be engulfed (for there was near 
 no help in man), the stream abruptly flowed away in another direction. The 
 similitude which took the strongest hold of her mind was that, seeming to her, 
 some person presented her with a ball, such as children play with ; this, like 
 everything else, was to be the test of her spiritual destiny ; accordingly, she 
 sought to make it bound upwards, but failed, Resolved not to be daunted, she 
 tried with her other hand, but still the ball refused to rebound. " Well," she 
 continued, " for all that I will try this once more." She did so, and " oh, what a 
 coose (a mining phrase) it went up ! You know," continued 'Un Sally (who, I 
 suppose, had never heard the word perspective), " that as a thing gets further away 
 from the eye it looks smaller in size, but in the case I am relating, the figure did 
 not decay (diminish, she meant), but was visible till it entered into the very 
 heavens." According to her interpretation, it was a token that the prayers of the 
 devout would prevail in spite of all impediment. 
 
 Necessity is the mother of many inventions, and a comical race they are, thought 
 I, as I entered the family apartment below. In default of an elder sister, Betsey 
 had placed the baby upon Tommy's lap to nurse ; and, poor innocent, he had 
 clutched it round the waist, grinning and jabbering behind his victim, after the 
 manner of the monkey's dealings with Gulliver. Poor Betsey ! she might well 
 complain of the " sight of work she had," with four helpless ones including 'Un 
 Sally, and nobody to lend a hand but Tommy. 
 
 Tommy is a great casuist in his way, " I wish you was dead Granny," said he the 
 other day. "Wish I were dead, my son !" rejoined 'Un Sally reproachfully, "that 
 is not very mannerly, and why for, pray, dost thou wish I were dead ?" " Because, 
 Granny, I am certain you will go to heaven." 
 
 When I told her of my sweet L. M's* death, describing her as one taken away in 
 the bloom of youth and beauty, she quietly remarked, "no vain sacrifice." How 
 greatly is the good old woman to be envied, whose very dreams are full of the one 
 thing needful ; the one thing desirable, although nothing could well be more 
 comfortless than her earthly position ! 
 
 * Mrs. Marsh, who died May 5th, 1836.
 
 WALK IX. 
 
 Snuff. Spoiled children. 
 
 SALLIED forth with Kate, (who is restored to her locomotion,) to the 
 Workhouse, just as we used to go in olden time to the Nunnery at 
 Lanherne, with our little offering of snuff, &c., a small matter of novelty 
 going a great way with recluses of whatever rank or order. I daresay I 
 should be the same if shut within four walls ; but, oh ! I must be changed in my 
 tastes and subdued to my destiny, before I could think the replenishing my 
 snuff-box the acme of human felicity. 
 
 It was pleasant to find 'Un Conny and Mary, and the two 'Un Follies more 
 content with their lot, and, in consequence, less full of their merits and their 
 distemperatures. They spoke, too, more charitably of the children of the 
 establishment, especially those of them who had had children of their own, but it 
 seems there has lately been an irruption of fine, headstrong, disorderly ones, 
 between the agpes of twelve and two, " who got such a head," (the broken-spirited 
 mother said in extenuation), because, as often as she went to chastise them, the 
 thought of their poor father, killed in a mine, came between her and the offenders, 
 so that she never could make up her mind to punish them except she was in a 
 passion, and then, she said, with an air of self-approval, " she gave it to them 
 unmerciful.'"
 
 WALK X. 
 
 JUNE, 1836. 
 
 Sick rich and poor. Earrings. A lone woman. 
 
 WIDOW, Jenny Curtis, having called at the Vicarage a few days ago, 
 for "something to put inside the maid's lips, quite sure that she had 
 got the fever," I stepped across the downs to enquire how the matter 
 stood ; Kate had one of her headaches, and was as muzzy as the 
 weather, so I went alone. 
 
 I found Jenny elbow deep in soap-suds, washing up their crum o'clothes, and 
 learnt from her that her daughter had resumed her labours at the mine two days 
 before. How soon the poor are down and up again ! In our line, what with care 
 and remedies, and lying-a-bed, we should have been as weak as water after such 
 an illness ; hardly able to crawl across the room, instead of jigging, and bucking, 
 and cobbing at the "Bal." Another of Jenny's daughters who stood by her, a girl of 
 about fifteen, was as nice a fair modest lassie as you could see, till, taking off her 
 bonnet, she revealed a pair of gold drops, which reached from her ears half way 
 down her throat. In the lower walk of society these ornaments are, in an especial 
 manner, odious to my taste, almost immoral, and I ventured to say as much to the 
 two Jennies. The young one looked sheepish, while the matron Jenny vehemently 
 protested her individual innocence. She never approved, not she, of such finery ; 
 'twas all done unknowing to her "the maid was treated to them, (and what female 
 can gold, especially gold earrings, despise ?) and stole a march one fine morning 
 to Penzance, twelve miles out and home, in order to purchase them with the money 
 given her by three of her cousins. " How much was that ?" I asked. "A shilling." 
 " Well, there is a shilling if you are willing to sell them to me, and I will tell you the 
 purpose I want them for. We are puzzled to think of a punishment in the day school, 
 as the mistress is not allowed to beat the children. I mean, therefore, to collect 
 together all the finery (especially earrings) that may come in my way, and any 
 very naughty girl will be decked out in it before the eyes of her schoolfellows." 
 I observed the hand gradually raised to the offending ornaments, and then
 
 Walks about Si. Hilary. 1 7 
 
 "mother" was applied to for help to take them off. Thus, the shilling which I had 
 intended for the good of young Jenny's body, will, I hope, prove of benefit to her 
 soul. She, at all events, will see the matter in this light, for "ever since she had 
 them things in her ears," her mother told me, "she had trembled to come athirt 
 the crofts at night, for doubting the old one was behind her ; and (how Wesley 
 would have delighted in such a convert ! ) would not, to gain the world, go to bed 
 without taking them off and placing them in the furthest corner of the chamber." 
 We smile, alas! but is not this the mode in which we all tamper with our darling 
 sins ? They are harboured, even gloried in amid the noontide of worldly prosperity ; 
 when the dark hour of sickness or sorrow comes on, they are put far from us, only to 
 be resumed on the first returning dawn of health and fortune. 
 
 Finding myself so near, I peeped in upon my female Diogenes, who this time 
 did not close the door against me ; on the contrary, she was courteous and 
 communicative, for her ; told me what I did not know before, that she worked on 
 the land, doing sometimes the work of a man. I could well fancy it, as I looked 
 at her lengthy, bony limbs, but she was between two and three score, she said, and 
 well nigh past any sort of labour; alone creature in the wide world; all her friends 
 in the churchyard. This last pathetic touch she often repeated, adding, for 
 conscience' sake, the clause of three first cousins, but they were men-kind, and 
 what could they do for such as her ? The worst of all was that she could not read 
 a letter in the book, which made it "twice so lonely." A neighbour's boy came in 
 once upon a time and read a chapter or so for the "vally of a halfpenny." "Then 
 this sixpence," said I, "will give you twelve readings." 
 
 Truly I was ashamed of the blessings she heaped upon me, so disproportioned 
 to the donation; and yet, on second thoughts she is right; that small coin may be 
 to her the source of inexhaustible riches for time and eternity. I only wish the 
 lady I once heard declare she would at any time give five guineas for the effluvia 
 of a strawberry in winter, had been a witness to poor Grace's raptures. Her 
 benediction followed me to the next door, but poor Jane Johns is not given to 
 these grateful paroxysms. She comes of the horse-leech's kindred, and the more 
 you give to her the more you may. One has heard of the various modes of granting 
 favours, there is no less difference in asking them. With some it has the air of a 
 prayer, some of a petition, some of a claim, and with some of a reproach.
 
 WALK XI. 
 
 JUNE, 1836. 
 
 An Ophelia. 
 
 went this morning to Goldsithney to complain of our ten o'clock 
 scholars, and get, if possible, their mothers on our side. A 
 country village is a pretty thing in a story-book, but nowhere else. 
 The children are so bedizened with dirty finery, so be-curl-papered, 
 and stare so rudely, the women look so gossippy and slamakin, the men so muzzy- 
 headed ; for there are scarcely any of the latter to be seen at midday, except the 
 few who lounge about the doors of the alehouse. On our way home we met the 
 funeral from Marazion, and were surprised, considering the curious circumstances 
 to which the poor girl owed her death, at the scantiness of followers ; I saw but 
 one who had any claim to be called a mourner, though the first pair of mourners, 
 (by courtesy so-named) were the parents of the poor girl. This is her painful story. 
 A few years since, this giddy-headed and pretty girl encouraged the addresses of a 
 dissipated young .mason, whose monied father vehemently opposed the match, but, 
 of course, it took place, and was followed by all the wretchedness and wedded 
 strife that had been predicted by the parents. The ill-used, and finally deserted 
 wife, after suffering from a succession of frightful fits, became crazed, and 
 thenceforward was neither controlled nor in any way cared for. She subsisted 
 upon a pittance jointly paid by the two fathers. I once saw her, when driving 
 from Penzance, peering into the dusty hedges, and I imagined her to be some sick 
 person engaged in culling simples. I soon found, however, that she had no settled 
 purpose, but was occupied in collecting together straw, dust, and other trash, as a 
 matter of taste, like another Ophelia; like that heroine, she accomplished her own 
 sad destiny by means of these artless pursuits. Being seized with spasmodic 
 retching on returning from one of her evening rambles, she boasted to the old 
 woman with whom she lodged, that for once she had had her fill of poppies, 
 pop-dock, or foxglove, no doubt she meant. Poor soul, their slumb'rous influence 
 proved strong and lasting ; she died that night.
 
 Walks about St. Hilary. 1 9 
 
 I was very unwilling to give credit to the story I heard, that the offended father- 
 in-law had disparaged the poor creature's modesty before the Camborne Bench, to 
 free himself from the burden of her maintenance. But supposing the tale to be 
 true, one could fancifully have imagined the one solitary mourner, her sister, 
 apostrophising the traducer in the strain of passionate affection so touchingly put in 
 the mouth of Ophelia's brother, " I tell thee, churlish mason, a ministering angel 
 
 shall thy sister be, when thou "* but, no, I cannot finish the 
 
 sentence, for John Davy, aforesaid, is a great ally and favourite of mine. He 
 knows and often befriends the sick poor, and, like Job, the cause he knows not he 
 searches out. 
 
 WALK XII, 
 
 Crazy George. Cornish isms. 
 
 DROPPED in most opportunely at the Workhouse. Mary Wills, in a voice 
 between coaxing and scolding, was trying to induce poor crazy George 
 to eat his supper of bread and milk. " What ! you have quarr'ld with 
 your victuals again, have ye ? " screamed she in a most unsirenlike tone. 
 Then, seeing me, " Here's the second day he's refused to take his meat ; muirly 
 starving himself with hunger, because, he says, if he eats he shall be put to work." 
 This was an ingenious inversion of the Apostle's injunction, " Those that will not 
 work, neither shall they eat." 
 
 I did not feel sure of my measure of authority in George's eyes, but, thus 
 appealed to, I determined to assume that air of confidence in my own powers, 
 which made thousands, better, wiser, and taller than Buonaparte, receive his 
 
 * Hamlet, Act V., Scene 1.
 
 20 Walks about St. Hilary. 
 
 dictates as the mandates of fate. " You ate your supper the other evening to 
 please Mr. Pascoe," said I, laying my finger on his bent shoulder, " You must eat 
 it to-night, George, to please me." 
 
 He instantaneously began his attack on the porringer, bolting square after 
 square of barley bread in a manner which proved that, at all events, the obstruction 
 was not in his throat. 
 
 What a subject crazy George would have been for Crabbe, unless, indeed, the 
 poet has anticipated him in his " Silly Shore." 
 
 The three old women had gone to bed tired with their day's weeding. Jones 
 surprised two of them, who will never be eighty again, thus employed on an onion 
 bed. " Better do that than nothing, if it's ever so little," observed the notable 
 governess. " They have been asking leave to walk" (an expression which, by the 
 way, in Cornish, does not mean to advance one leg and then another, but to take 
 a pleasurable excursion.) " and I have told them " pursued the governess, "that 
 when they have performed their task they shall be allowed a half-holiday." Pope 
 might have availed himself of this fresh exemplification of the ruling passion. It 
 is strange to behold these feeble old souls, to whom one would suppose rest the 
 only acceptable thing, toiling and moiling under a scorching sun, on their " two 
 knees," as they would describe it. Our cottage dialeet abounds with these 
 expressions. I will transcribe a list of them which I noted down from time to 
 time, commencing with Mary's aforesaid figure of " starving with hunger," and its 
 converse, " no stomach to meat," meaning food of all kinds ; " mouth-speech," 
 "April month," "ould ancient," "young youths," "widow woman," "arm wrists," 
 "bread corn," " nail of a yard," "two twains," "two double," "hear tell of ;" 
 and "have you not remarked," said a zealous collector of Cornishisms, when I 
 read him my list, " that they tell you 'you are looking bad in the face ?' "
 
 WALK XIII. 
 
 JUNE, 1836. 
 
 The Preventive Station. Emigrants. A Romanist's children. 
 
 ; Y dear young guest, Harriet C (for mine own familiar Katie 
 
 was gone on a visit to her mother), walked with me to the 
 Preventive Station. I ought, long before, to have told the 
 boatmen and their wives of the well-being of their old commander, 
 Lieut. Crispo, and his family, and delivered the remembrances with which I was 
 charged to their friends at the Cove. The poor fellows had good right to be 
 remembered for the honest sympathy they showed the poor emigrants, up to the 
 moment and long after they lifted the last of eleven children from the cutter on 
 board the ship " Brazeba," on whose deck the poor mother had stood, gazing her 
 soul away, and weeping till she had no eyes to gaze out of. 
 
 It is painful to think of, it must have been worse to witness this parting scene ; 
 so I thought at the time, I remember, and let Kate and her Uncle accompany them 
 to the ship's side without me. 
 
 When individuals leave their native home willingly, from a restless disposition, 
 to fare more luxuriously; or, more pardonably, from a taste for the picturesque, I 
 say, "joy go with them ;" but, to behold a poor family like this, driven from their 
 fatherland, and flung suddenly and helplessly, as it were, on the wide waters, and 
 only because "Tom Tackle is poor;" this is truly touching, even when the 
 suffering party are strangers to you. It is true our acquaintance was accidental ; 
 something better, let me say, for it began in the church. A nice pleasant-looking 
 mamma, generally with a child in each hand, took her station in the strangers' pew 
 whenever the weather was fine enough to permit a walk of, at least, two miles. 
 We continued to meet and part with a bow of courtesy at the church stile, till ' 
 Mr. P. observed to me, " We ought to call upon these people." I thought so too, 
 and never had we cause to regret our walk to make their acquaintance, till the sad 
 moment to which I have referred. 
 
 F
 
 22 Walks about St. Hilary. 
 
 But all this while I have left the assembled group to hear the mistress's letter, 
 for I judged it good policy to assemble them. The first who obeyed my invitation 
 was pretty Mrs. Boyle, who has a gentle sweet voice that mightily sets off her 
 strong brogue. Some voices would make music of High Dutch, though this 
 excellence in woman is, perhaps, the rarest of her accomplishments. Little Patrick 
 Boyle's head was bandaged in consequence of his having fallen a depth of six 
 fathoms in pursuit of a goose. Plasters and wraps would have little availed him, 
 poor child, if it had not been for the sollar (planks or beams fixed in the sides of 
 the shaft to guard against similar mishaps) ; and even that might have failed to keep 
 him from destruction, had his bulk and "celerity in sinking" equalled FalstarFs. 
 Mesdames Neale, Boyle, and Ladner were so pleased with the account I gave them 
 of the emigrants, that I promised, for Kate, that she would copy the mistress's 
 letter for the information of their husbands. 
 
 My visit to the Station, I grieve to say, was not altogether friendly, I was obliged 
 to tell tales of Mrs. Neale's twin girls always coming late to school, and, worse 
 than that, having deceived both mother and mistress on St. John's Eve, by falsely 
 affirming to the latter that they were bidden to meet their parents at Goldsithney. 
 
 Nothing could be more characteristic, I should say more Papistic, than Mrs. 
 Neale's proceedings thereupon. Without the least touch of maternal grief or 
 surprise at this duplicate atrocity, she summoned the culprits from the outer room, 
 commanding them to fall on their two pair of knees, and straightway to beg Mrs. 
 Pascoe's and God's pardon. Deeply shocked as I felt at this most profane 
 conjunction, I thought I should only make matters worse by expostulation, and so, 
 having performed this most orthodox duett, the twins were suffered to depart. 
 " Exeunt, kneeling." If I could possibly have anticipated such a farce, I believe I 
 should have found out a good Protestant punishment for the truants myself. 
 
 All the world runs riot just now. As we crossed the higher downs a Roman 
 candle fell at our feet, almost ; and, further on, a group of young boys and girls 
 presented a pretty transparency, clustering round a bonfire kindled in honor of St. 
 Peter, whose vigils they were celebrating. 
 
 Pity, while a.11 these traditionary revels are so piously observed, their coeval 
 virtues of reverence and obedience towards parents should have passed away from 
 the face of the earth.
 
 WALK XIV. 
 
 JULY, i: 
 
 Jenny Priske and her fancies. Pearce. Dewing. 
 
 ENNY PRISKE, who assured us, when we called a week ago, that her 
 " last moments were proceeding fast," had gadded off on her one leg, 
 having broken the other. 
 
 In one sense, at least, she imitated St. Paul's example, by " dying 
 daily;" but she has threatened me so long, that I have become as 
 hardened as the shepherd who suffered the poor boy to be at length 
 devoured by the wolf he had so often proclaimed. I mean no pun 
 when I say she now looks very sheepish whenever we enter her 
 cottage, though, before we leave it, we are sure to be told we shall never see her 
 alive again. I am sometimes afraid that Kate will laugh outright at these 
 contradictory bulletins. 
 
 Poor old Betty Vincent died at last, to prove the truth of her predictions, 
 though not for many a good year after the following affecting scene took place 
 at her cottage. I found her sick in bed, and she solemnly assured me, in the 
 " article of death." Among the many impressive truisms she uttered, I well re- 
 member her speaking of man, in this present state of existence, as no better 
 than " a flea that fleeth," " a bubble upon the water, crack ! and it is gone." A few 
 days after, Betty walked up to the Vicarage to " ax a croom o'honey for a hoize." 
 
 Poor Betty has long been gathered to her fathers, but she did some good in her 
 generation, and, after her death, her son's children, whom she kept together in 
 decency, were wholly neglected, running about dirty and almost naked ; with their 
 little uncovered heads bleached in the sun, they looked like a gang of white gipsies. 
 Poor Betty ! she was spared the sorrowof beholding the ruin of the eldest girl, 
 of whom she used to boast as a miracle of scholarship, and no wonder, for Betty 
 declared, with a somewhat startling metaphor, that all the learning came out Of 
 her own bowels, meaning that she had pinched herself in order to send her 
 grandchild to school, where, as she assured us, she would " lap her learning like
 
 24 Walks about St. Hilary. 
 
 nothing at all ! and come to read her Bible over like a tale." Betty was a golden 
 treasury of quaint sayings ; peace to her memory ! 
 
 Pomp could not take the dose of physic which Shakespeare prescribes, in a more 
 profitable form than in a visit to poor Pearce ; so humble, so thankful and devout 
 amid his sufferings and privations. I generally find him pondering over a pet text. 
 This evening it was " Behold, now is the day of salvation, now is the accepted 
 time." " Now ! mistress, nothing about repenting to-morrow : No, no such thing 
 as that to be found between the two covers of the Bible." If penitential tears 
 could wash away every sin, poor Pearce would have nothing to fear from a wild 
 youth and ill-spent manhood. Nor has he now, for he knows of a more cleansing 
 stream. But he has almost wept himself blind, and, like his prototype in patient 
 suffering, has nothing left to him but that most equivocal comfort, a talking wife. 
 
 I was waylaid by Catherine Gartrell, some of whose brother's family are inmates 
 of the Workhouse ; worse than orphans they may be truly deemed, for their great 
 ostrich mother has abandoned them entirely, bequeathing them a legacy of shame 
 which will cling to them poor things ! as long as the memory of the great Betty 
 and her evil courses lives in the parish. 
 
 To acquit myself of the promise to the aunt, I called in, late as it was, at the 
 Workhouse. The obliging governess assured me that the children should attend 
 our school as soon as the fixed work was out of the way, but that now the little 
 Eliza was wanted to hold a child whilst its more able-bodied mother worked at the 
 Farm. With this reasonable concession I was obliged to be content, and so must 
 Kattern, but " 'twas a wisht thing," she said, " to think the poor creature should 
 come to be bound out without knowing how to mend a hole in her stocking." The 
 Sunday School provided, in a measure, for her book-learning. 
 
 I could not but look in upon the old women, who I found, July though it was, 
 around the fire ; their withered trunks, as it were, shrinking away from the open 
 door till the back formed a centre angle ; as good an illustration of our Cornish 
 trees growing away from the blasts of the North coast (though not so droll a one), 
 as Mr. Fisher's simile of a goose tied by the tail. 'Un Polly Freethy, who, by 
 virtue of good sense and politer manners, is always the chief speaker, was " sorry 
 Miss Kate couldn't come too, feared I should find it 'dewing' out." I have often 
 heard this phrase, " dewing," but it never before seemed to me so pretty perhaps 
 in its appropriation to that soft, silent rain, that rather lights, begging Shakespeare's 
 pardon, than " drops" on the place beneath. I know no word more expressive of
 
 Walks about St. Hilary. 25 
 
 the thing than this of dew ; except indeed the French, which is still more rich in 
 association. What indeed induced them to give it the name of rosee, the 
 Etymologists best know, but to me it suggests the idea of a rich Provence rose 
 enjoying its refreshing bath after a day of cloudless sunshine. The stated return 
 of dew also affords to my mind an illustration of morning and evening prayer, 
 feeding and strengthening the soul of the Christian to meet his daily task, and 
 refreshing it on its return. 
 
 'Un Polly little thought of being the occasion of such flowery meditations all 
 
 the roses in L 's nursery garden being, in her estimation, not worth a stem of 
 
 tobacco. 
 
 WALK XV. 
 
 JULY, 1836. 
 Dame Williams s daughter. Adventure at the Sessions. 
 
 O 
 
 WALKED late in the direction of Camborne in the hope of meeting my 
 returning truants, "Uncle" and Kate. Saturday being pay-night, there 
 was a risk of meeting tipsy miners, a species of assailant with whom 
 numbers tell more than physical force, so I took with me Dolly, who was 
 pleased with the opportunity of saying " how do you do " to her mother en passant, 
 and still more to distribute some strawberries among the young ones. We only 
 met one of these, literally, knights-errant, who was propitiated by our yielding the 
 entire breadth of the road, across which it was his pleasure to stagger. Fearing to 
 miss the carriage, I sent Dolly with some strawberries to poor Mary Carter, and took 
 my station at Dame Williams's, whose cottage faced the road. I found its occupant 
 more than ever exasperated against her daughter (in service at Parson Hockin's). 
 She wept passionately, and reminded me of King Lear, all the milk of human 
 kindness having turned to gall. That she, who had sold her last bit of property to 
 
 G
 
 26 Walks about St. Hilary. 
 
 launch this child this General into the world, that she should disown a mother's 
 authority, and " take up with such a fellow !" " If it pleased the Almighty to give 
 her strength to fetch Phillack Rectory, she would surely expose her to her unsus- 
 pecting mistress, and let her know what a snake she was harbouring." Poor 
 woman, she seemed writhing under the anguish of its envenomed teeth, and if she 
 had been born poetical, would have railed in good blank verse. My truants did 
 not arrive till long after the increasing darkness had driven Dolly and me home ; 
 when they did at last make their appearance, we met as if we had been separated 
 a year or more. 
 
 Mr. Pascoe has related an interesting Sessions adventure. He had, on a former 
 occasion, mentioned, with much compassionate concern, an extremely juvenile 
 offender, who, in company with an elder brother and another boy all of them 
 orphans had been brought before the Camborne Bench at a former Meeting. 
 This little gang, after committing repeated thefts, had always, it appeared, evaded 
 detection by sheltering, together with their booty, in an old deserted ruin, 
 among the mines about Redruth. It was long enough before anyone thought of 
 going there for their lost property, but they did at last, and then the young 
 banditti were secured, tried, and would have been, to a boy, transported, but for 
 Mr. Pascoe's earnest interposition in favour of the youngest. The plea of 
 excessive youth even penetrated the coat of mail which generally guards the 
 breast of a parish officer, though one of these did tell their worships at the time 
 that, as sure as fate, the boy would return to his evil courses. 
 
 "As old experience doth attain 
 To something of prophetic strain," 
 
 with parish officers as surely as with star-gazing sages ; so, having .continual 
 dealings with juvenile offenders, it is to be feared that their propensity to think 
 the worst is too often borne out by the result. It was so now. The unhappy 
 little culprit again offended, was again committed for trial, and now appeared 
 before the Bench, accompanied by his former associates. "I forewarned you, my 
 poor boy," said his former kind advocate, " where, if you persisted in your 
 unlawful courses, our next meeting would be, and here I find you." The poor 
 child gave evidence by his looks that he recognised his former patron, and that he 
 had not forgotten his prediction. But now there remained no appeal to mercy. 
 The sentence was a heavy one fourteen years transportation, and the boy was
 
 Walks about St. Hilary. 27 
 
 removed to his solitary cell. There, in the course of that day, Mr. Pascoe visited 
 him. The poor little felon was lying crouched on the floor, side- by-side with his 
 young accomplices, to whom, in trying to stir them from their lair, the keeper 
 employed the same coarse tone and terms which a huntsman would have addressed 
 to his four-footed charge, not stopping first to ask pardon, like Shakespeare's 
 gentle executioner. Whether owing to the little extempore homily which Mr. 
 Pascoe preached, or to the tears which would come with it, the boy seemed to be 
 moved, and at length shed some gracious drops himself, accepting with apparent 
 thankfulness the sn:all Bible which, by a happy chance, Mr. Pascoe had in his 
 great-coat pocket. He promised to preserve and to peruse it, his integrity being 
 aided by the consciousness that its sale would not bring him one shilling sterling. 
 The sentence, I rejoice to say, has been mitigated to half the number of years. 
 
 There are griefs and sorrows of which extreme youth is justly accounted an 
 aggravation, but this of transportation strikes me as being an exception ; indeed, 
 the reflection is sufficiently palpable that it must be much easier to detach old 
 affections and superinduce new ones in the young mind, to say nothing of the lot 
 common to boyhood, of banishment from home, in one form or another, with this 
 balance in favour of the young convict, that he has previously been familiar with 
 labour and privation, while pursuing the hard and precarious existence of a 
 London pilferer, whereas the schoolboy or the midshipman, dissevered from the 
 apron-string of a caressing, cuddling mamma, at once exchanges the plenty of a 
 luxurious table for plain and, perhaps, scanty fare, and finds himself subjected to 
 the caprices not only of one, but of many taskmasters. This disproportioned 
 sympathy with youth is nothing new. I have heard my father speak of the outcry, 
 raised throughout the land, against the judge who condemned to death an idiot 
 girl for wilfully setting fire to a neighbour's cornstack ; his plea for this unpopular 
 measure being, in reality, regard for the public safety. Under the shelter of legal 
 impunity, any maliciously-disposed persons might employ idiots to fulfil their evil 
 wishes to the loss of property and even life ; and who shall say, as the case seems 
 to have been a solitary one, that the warning held out has not been efficacious ? 
 In the case, too, of that memorable murder committed in the Marr family (I can 
 remember that myself), how concern for the agonising terror and bloodshed, and 
 moral responsibility of three or four full-grown persons, seemed to have merged 
 in sympathy with the cradled infant, to whom a spasm of the stomach or the 
 cutting of a tooth would have caused more suffering than the knife of an assassin.
 
 WALK XVI. 
 
 JULY, 1836. 
 
 Mrs. Townsend. Dolly. Pack-horses. 
 
 LONG and late walk, memorable for nothing but its dulness and 
 dustiness. It was right and meet to enquire for dear Mrs. Townsend, 
 stopped in her activity by a fit of quinsey. As I could not have my 
 own Kate, I took Dolly, less for companion than man-at-arms, for 
 they tell me that, in these times, it is not good for woman to walk alone. Be it 
 so, but, assuredly, nothing can be less agreeable than to have your steps dogged 
 and your contemplations broken, by the ever- recurring fear of having your heels 
 stepped upon. Not but that little Dolly is modesty itself, and far from needing 
 the rebuke dealt by Tilburina* to her confidential attendant, only at rare intervals 
 drops the jocose or monitory word, which has been the indisputable charter of 
 waiting-maids from the time, or perhaps before the time, of the little Israelitish 
 Maid, who spoke to such good purpose when waiting on the wife of Naaman, the 
 Syrian. 
 
 Our homeward route was all among shafts, and mine-engines, and great heaps 
 of rubbish. The little verdure which these had spared was so choked with dust that 
 the poor whim-horses, just turned adrift, found it hard work to pick up a supper, 
 though, poor things, they tried hard, with their noses close to the arid ground. 
 It was, however, comforting to know that their ceaseless round of work was closed 
 for the night. Not so with a poor pack-horse, which stood lengthwise across Mr. 
 Townsend's Lane, while his ruthless master continued to load him with bale after 
 bale. 
 
 * Sheridan.
 
 WALK XVII, 
 
 AUGUST, 1836. 
 
 The Mill. Mary Peters. A Concert. 
 
 UCKILY, our bread was so dark that it was thought expedient to 
 :j%v expostulate with the miller in person, to beard him within the spray 
 of his own mill-stream, or I might have remained another twenty 
 years without walking to Carvis' Mill. I feel quite ashamed of my 
 ignorance of this picturesque little valley, complaining as I always am that we have 
 no pretty walks about the Vicarage. The indolent can always find a lion in the 
 way, but there had been two which presented themselves to my view whenever I 
 would turn my steps this way, a huge ill-mannered tithe-in-kind-paying farmer, 
 and his dog. We found the farmer as we passed down the lane, patrolling about 
 to watch his reapers. He was civil enough, pointed out the road, and said his dog 
 was harmless in respect of biting, but that he would probably bark after us from 
 the wheat-field below. Thus assured, we felt valiant as Pilgrim when passing 
 Pope and Pagan. The miller was from home, but his good old mother welcomed 
 us with that respectful courtesy which you generally meet from " tenants of fifty 
 years standing." They show one the more respect, perhaps, from the conscious- 
 ness that they deserve some themselves. I have fancied that there is more of this 
 dignity and elevation of character in the family of a miller than in any other 
 calling ; perhaps it may be traced to a remembrance of that sweet old song, 
 beginning 
 
 " Ere around that old oak that o'ershadows our Mill, 
 The fond ivy had dared to entwine,"* 
 
 and the association with the loveliest and most endeared of mills. And good 
 '"Un Mary Peters" (for she would not be dubbed mistress), with her hospitable 
 smile, her old-fashioned bonnet and gown, and the beautiful great loaf from which 
 she was cutting liberal slices for her three grand-children, kept up millocracy, 
 even in these upstart days. 
 
 * Old Glee. 
 
 H
 
 30 Walks about St. Hilary. 
 
 I am more than ever anxious to improve my acquaintance with this dear old 
 
 vestige of the past since a visit I paid to poor Jane , who is so cruelly 
 
 bruised and battered from having been trampled on by " a dismal great slug of a 
 horse " on her return from the Methodist Meeting last Sunday week. 
 
 Jane is a woman of irreproachable life and conversation, and as ready, not to 
 say the most ready, of any one in the Parish, to hold out a helping hand to a 
 neighbour, but the truth must be told, she has not been so due a church-goer, nor 
 could she ever be prevailed upon to attend at the Lord's Table ; the old flimsy 
 excuse, " not being worthy." But now I found her in quite a different mind. 
 Her " Week's Preparation " and her spectacles lay by her on the bed, and she 
 assured me that if she were ever raised from that bed, she hoped she should do 
 better, for that the dear old woman at the mill, 'Un Mary Peters, only the day before 
 her " misfortin," had been telling her they were surely under much condemnation 
 for having neglected the Church and its Sacraments. For herself, the old woman, 
 said, she had left it too late to mend ; her lameness kept her at home, and now 
 when she should wish to go she could not, but for Jane, who was years younger, 
 &c., &c. Perhaps, too, poor Jane's most heretical mischance, coming from Gold- 
 sithney Chapel, gave additional force to 'Un Mary's arguments. I devoutly hope 
 that their combined influence may be strong enough to bring her to attend this 
 holy (but oh ! how cruelly neglected) rite ; for I think Jane is not of the class that 
 gave occasion to the biting epigram, whose truth and wit excuse its coarseness and 
 staleness, 
 
 " The devil fell sick,"* &c., &c. 
 
 * See Scott's Black Dwarf.
 
 WALK XVIII. 
 
 AUGUST 10, 1836. 
 The Cove. The delights of retirement. 
 
 traversing grander scenery, and in grander company, for we 
 ^ ave b een rambling over the Land's End and Logan Rocks with our 
 guests, Lord and Lady C - , yet I gladly return to our pretty little 
 Gull's Nest, our Sans-souct, Land of Beulah, or whatever other name 
 fondness has bestowed on it to express the profound repose and delicate leisure of 
 the place. The constant sound of what I love best on earth, I was going to say, 
 the rock-bound ocean : the scenic variety of our little Cove, with its four or five 
 boats moored under the window, continually coming and going, with about the 
 same number of fishermen ; a scene at once soothing and enlivening, like the 
 company of a cheerful and affectionate inmate : the larger and more distant ship- 
 ping (of which our spy-glass shows us the minutest tackle) that glide along the 
 horizon, like the hooped and lappetted beauties of the last century, performing in 
 the ever-to-be-regretted minuet : the no less graceful sweep of cliff to the east, 
 which embraces all these, and adds to them by its rich vicissitude of light and 
 shadow ; and, talking of grace, let me not pass over the occasional visits of a 
 snow-white gull, that floats and skims and balances, as if she had nothing else to do 
 but to study attitudes. Then as " blessings brighten as they take their flight," the 
 consciousness that we are so soon to leave this scene of retired blessedness ! that 
 we are to receive company, pay visits, attend the consecration of a churchyard, which 
 is to draw crowds of holyday people, enough to vindicate the poet's exclamation, 
 
 " How vital, how populous is the Grave !" 
 
 Then we are to receive guest upon guest, preceded by the " peace-scaring knock- 
 er." By the way, I wonder whether the bards, who express so much spleen against 
 knockers, would have felt more in charity with their successors, the door-bells. 
 There are not, I can truly say, two lines in English poetry to which my feelings 
 more willingly respond, than those of the persecuted poet, 
 
 " Shut, shut the door."
 
 32 Walks about St. Hilary. 
 
 Sometimes, I think I could even go further, and almost be ill to evade the dreaded 
 incursion, I mean on condition that the sickness should depart at the time the 
 visitor might be expected to do so a few twinges of tooth or head-ache would 
 not so effectually upset one's mental arrangements as a mawkish visitor. 
 
 A sidelong glance at my Lochabar this moment reminds me that I have to bid 
 it farewell and prepare for a guest. 
 
 WALK XIX. 
 
 OCTOBER, 1836. 
 
 The Workhouse. Crazy Mary. 
 
 USED to fancy that a walk to the Workhouse would class amongst the 
 dull duties. It was a mistake few among our Parish perambulations are 
 more fruitful of mental interest. I am sorry they talk of breaking up 
 these little district sanctuaries for the old and helpless, to enclose them 
 in one huge mass of wretchedness in some central town, where none will have 
 heart or time to enter into their little personal wants and feelings like our good 
 Mrs. Treweeke. Her very foible is in their favour ; she is no doubt fond of a little 
 executive importance, a quality which has been improved by her former vocation of 
 monthly nurse. Really, her ministrations to the sick and feeble individuals of her 
 household are exemplary, and atone for that little self-importance with which she 
 records the proofs of reverential affection shown to her by them. Some of her 
 patients are quite her pets, there is Mary Stevens, whose tale of woe deserves a 
 page to itself, when I have leisure to relate it. 
 
 The nice little boy, who was an apprentice to Farmer White, little thought he was 
 going to point a moral for my pen when he stole away from his master's work to 
 look at that of a neighbouring steam-engine. I forget particulars, but somehow
 
 Walks about St. Hilary. 33 
 
 his leg was caught by some coil of this boa-constrictor, and so mutilated that 
 amputation was necessary. To look at him you would hardly think he could play 
 the truant, he seems so meek and steady; but possibly his sufferings, poor lamb ! 
 have given the expression to his mild pale face. Affliction (so it be not unblest 
 affliction) is a mighty improver of the physiognomy. 
 
 We were thinking of bringing him on to be a schoolmaster. It was a happy 
 thought of the parson to give him a little pair of crutches to bring him to school 
 and church. He sits just under the desk, alongside of Uncle John, who _takes 
 him under his special protection and ghostly direction. 
 
 To relate Mary Stevens' sad tale, I must begin with that of her mother, who was, 
 I have been told, the daughter of respectable parents at Tavistock, where, unfor- 
 tunately for her, some of our Cornish miners obtained work. John Stevens, from 
 this parish, was one of the wildest of the "pair;" and he was, moreover, a very 
 ill-tempered and passionate man, which his poor wife must too soon have dis- 
 covered. Hard fare and hard treatment soon gave the coup de grace to a delicate 
 constitution, and Mary's mother fell into a decline, after giving birth to the poor 
 girl to whom I have alluded. The father married a second wife, and there is no 
 reason to believe that she treated Mary with unkindness, though to look upon the 
 creature's starveling and dejected countenance, you would declare she had been 
 reared on a step-mother's bread and butter. 
 
 Poor Mary grew up and worked in the Devonshire mines, and became engaged 
 to a young miner, whose most shocking death, which she witnessed, brought on 
 fits of insanity. This part of my heroine's history, when brought back to the 
 Workhouse, was betrayed in her ravings. The mistress occasionally relates little 
 touching anecdotes of her mental wanderings. Here is the last. During her fits 
 she sometimes sings snatches of pretty hymns. Once, and once only, added the 
 mistress, had she heard from her a scrap of a song. I wish the fair warblers of 
 Moon's ballads could have witnessed the deep concern with which the good 
 woman made this confession, and heard her account of the poor wanderer's deep 
 compunction at hearing from one of the old women what she had done. " To see 
 the tears she shed," said the good governess, " to think what she had been guilty 
 of her eyes were like pools." (This image, by the way, is scriptural.) " She 
 could not put it from her mind ; so I told her God would not lay to her charge any 
 sins she committed at such times." 
 
 "Were they any bad words she sang, Mrs. Treweeke ?" "Why no, ma'am ; it 
 
 i
 
 34 Walks about St. Hilary. 
 
 was not that there was much harm in them either. I believe I can tell them pretty 
 nigh over, for she sang them so pretty and sweet. 
 
 " She trilled like a Linnet, 
 
 She mourned like a Dove, 
 
 And the words that she sang 
 
 Was concerning of Love." 
 
 Amid her Ophelia ravings she occasionally adverts to her lover's unhappy end, 
 of which it is thought she was a witness, for once she shrieked out, " Take him 
 up, take him up ; he's dashed to pieces pick up his fingers !" &c., &c. 
 
 WALK XX. 
 
 NOVEMBER, 1836. 
 
 Anne and the Twains. 
 
 )EW tales of sorrow could be more contrasted in their circumstances 
 than Mary's with that of Betsy Jones, who has occupied our time and 
 thoughts during the past week. Mistress of a pretty cottage and 
 garden, respected by her neighbours, a cherished wife and sister, and 
 the mother of two fine little boys, of whom one was only three minutes older than 
 the other ; with all these things worth living for, and despite the best nursing and 
 medical advice, she has been this morning called to her congenial skies, for a 
 sweeter, or more patient, or more grateful spirit, I never knew. Her first look on 
 waking from a fevered doze was always a seraphic smile, like one returned to the 
 body after a heavenly vision. I used to think of the " Kilmeny " of the Ettrick 
 Shepherd.* Now, however, she belongs entirely to the world of spirits. 
 
 The Queen's Wake, Night II.
 
 Walks about St. Hilary. 35 
 
 Thomas came up this morning to speak about the funeral. She died last night. 
 The friends wish, agreeably to an affecting custom that prevails here, to have the 
 twins christened at the same time, but as the mother will be borne to Breage, to 
 be buried by her relations, we have persuaded Thomas that it would be hazardous 
 to take the children out at so late an hour. We saw them yesterday at their grand- 
 mother's, in a bed hastily made up on the floor, so wrapped and blanketed around, 
 their little heads, as if that was not enough, coiled under their arms. 
 
 We expected that Thomas would have been more disconsolate, but there cannot 
 be a greater mistake than this notion. It is not when the first hideous idea of the 
 loss of a beloved object suggests itself that the acutest anguish is felt ; the fatigue, 
 anxiety, and loss of rest attendant on illness, break down the mind to a state of 
 passive endurance to the discipline, and when death at length takes place, the 
 thought that there is no more to be hoped is mitigated by the thought that there 
 is no more to be suffered. There is something, too weak mortals that we are 
 in the personal occupation and importance of the moment. The chief mourner is 
 also the chief object of observation and sympathy, the first person in the pageant, 
 the hero of the tragedy. Our poor widower's bitterest moments are to come. It 
 is when his little motherless boys become a burden to relations that they will be 
 felt such to him. And what is a man to do, as he pathetically asked, when first 
 alarmed for his wife's life. He might manage with one baby, but how shall he 
 manage with two ? I only hope that nice worthy sister Ann, who has so essentially 
 fulfilled the duties of a tender nurse to her deceased sister, may remain, for some 
 time at least, Thomas's housekeeper. She has a cottage in Breage with a field or 
 two, and makes up her livelihood by going out to work ; yet I should not wonder 
 if she were to abandon it all. She has that Jeanie Deans air of straightforward 
 integrity and benevolence, with those rarer qualities of self-forgetfulness and sim- 
 plicity, which leads one to expect from her such an act of self-devotion. 
 
 DK?/~
 
 WALK XXI. 
 
 NOVEMBER, 1836. 
 
 Mary Carter' 's revival. The Ark. The Twains. 
 
 >N my rambles through this chequer- work of joy and sorrow, I have seldom 
 met a greater contrast than my late and present walks suggest. 
 
 At the end of Frog Street, whose damp, swampy atmosphere is enough 
 of itself to foster melancholy and miasma, I found poor Mary Carter in 
 the identical spot and position in which she has lain night and day for nearly two 
 years, a happy example, however, during that trying time, that the spirit of man 
 (under the influence of piety) can " sustain his infirmity." But now, startling to 
 behold, the poor creature is writhing under the insupportable burden of a wounded 
 spirit. It appears that a spasmodic crisis in her bodily complaint had been mis- 
 taken by herself and her injudicious visitors for the " new birth," upon which 
 certain Methodistical Pharisees gathered round her bed and discussed her experi- 
 ences. 
 
 Alas ! for such people, who load men with grievous burthens of visionary 
 doctrines and mysterious precepts, and if they do not altogether shake themselves 
 free of the oppressive load, have shoulders better fitted to bear it than those of the 
 poor weak creature in question. The little body is giving way, too, under this 
 frightful attack, and her mental sanity hangs by a thread, nay, at times she is 
 
 quite insane. Mr. P found her with the words of the psalmist literally 
 
 fulfilled her tongue had quite dried up, and had fallen out of her mouth, owing 
 to her continual and passionate supplications for mercy, a mercy she never 
 doubted of before ; and I found her striving to obey the injunction of her Metho- 
 dist advisers to "keep fast hold of what she had got," using the action of one who 
 had got fast hold of a rope. The still more absurd vagary of a disturbed brain 
 was the imagination that Satan had visibly gone out of her. She said she had seen 
 him with her bodily eyes, and he had on a cocked hat. This is no less than noon- 
 day madness, yet, after a little soothing talk, she is as sensible as ever she was in 
 her life, and that is saying much ; for there are few of her class who naturally boast
 
 Walks about St. Hilary. 37 
 
 of better sense. We have heard of mental wanderings being affected by entire 
 change of place and objects, and the experiment is to be put to the proof. Mr. 
 
 P : , with an indulgence for which I cannot feel too grateful, has permitted me 
 
 to arrange for her removal, for the time, into lodgings in the churchtown, near our 
 gate. I pray for God's blessing on the scheme for here, if ever, it may be emphati- 
 cally said, " vain is the help of man." She is to be conveyed hither in the " ark," 
 which means a commodious covered cart from Tregembo, that obtained its name 
 from the following ludicrous circumstance. Ann (Mrs. W. Pascoe) came to tea in 
 it with all her six children, and when the time came for their departure, our servant 
 flung open the drawing-room door, and announced to the company that the ark was 
 at the door. Everybody stared, the proprietor of the vehicle with the rest, and 
 waited and waited the explanation, which, however, we did not obtain until I 
 privately questioned poor Jane as to why the carriage was thus announced. She 
 " didn't know what to call it," she said ; it was like nothing under the sun, she was 
 sure ; and having heard some one say it was like Noah's Ark, she gave it the 
 name : but it is time to go and give directions that Mary may be safely packed 
 into it. * * * * * * * 
 
 The people at whose house poor Mary was to have set up her bed, have heard 
 she is beside herself, and refuse to receive her. I deserve my disappointment for 
 believing that every heart would divest itself of selfishness, and open to the dis- 
 tressed. I could be very splenetic on the occasion, but will try to take a leaf out 
 of Kitty's book. On hearing of her poor sister's intended rejection, I sent for 
 her, and confess, for the moment, I should have been glad for her to share my 
 indignant feelings. Her beautiful meek reply was, " Well, ma'am, we have no 
 right to blame, it is for those whose duty it is to bear the trouble, we ought not 
 to expect it of strangers." I believe I have already recorded the sacrifice which 
 this admirable creature makes to her sense of duty, by giving up a gainful service, 
 to take charge of poor Mary and her six young children to feed scantily, to be 
 clothed how she can, and to toil from morn till night with Mary's family, every 
 faculty of mind and body at full stretch and all, not only without murmur, but 
 without the slightest mention or allusion to what she is doing and suffering. What 
 is heroism, if this is not ? Here are three examples, at least, of exalted virtue in 
 this one parish ; and, talking of this, we have been to visit Anne and her pretty 
 twins. Poor Anne ! I believe we drew forth the first smile from her benign face 
 since the death of her sister, by our pranks with the little fellows, who lay side by 
 
 K
 
 38 Walks about St. Hilary. 
 
 side in the same cradle : making them shake hands, and look upon one another, 
 which they seemed to do very knowingly ; but Anne said she feared to let them lie 
 face to face, lest, in spite of good Dr. Watts's exhortation, "their little hands should 
 tear each other's eyes." 
 
 I told Anne she was like the picture of the Welsh parson, for she sat knitting 
 her stocking, watching the babes with her eyes, and rocking them with her foot, 
 at the same moment. It is seldom I can call a beam of cheerfulness over her 
 countenance ; she is " for ever silent, and for ever sad," like the widowed Celadon,* 
 and with far greater cause, for besides her privation, in the death of a sister whom 
 she dearly loved, for they were nighest of an age, it must be " cruel wisht" to pass 
 the livelong day on the spot which so lately witnessed her mortal agonies, with no 
 creature by but the pair of infants. 
 
 How grossly do those err who deem the poor in condition must needs be vulgar ! 
 They should pay a visit to the good and delicate-minded Anne, and have called 
 
 with us a few days after on poor old Polly . We found her "prusing over" 
 
 an old carol with a fine picture at the top, by reason of which, and her deafness, 
 she did not remark our entrance, upon which her daughter-in-law, shocked at her 
 want of manners, jogged her vehemently ; and most reverential was the obedience 
 of the startled reader, while her plaintive looks seemed to deprecate our displeasure. 
 " What, you have kept your mother with you, Nancy ?" I asked. " If I hadn't, 
 ma'am," replied the kind creature, " I could never have looked for a blessing on 
 this roof: she is a good old soul." My observation on her apparent love for read- 
 ing drew forth another trait of kind-heartedness. 
 
 " Yes, ma'am, I brought her home that curl ; I gaved a penny for it I could 
 ill spare, but she do so delight in a croom of a book." I passed my finger over 
 the old woman's arm, to draw her attention to the piece of money I proffered her 
 she took it with a gesture of thankfulness, and turned her head away. " She is 
 crying now," exclaimed the daughter-in-law, smiling through her own tears ; "that 
 is always her way when she meets with kindness." Need I say her's were not the 
 only eyes moistened with pleasurable emotion ? yet it was a scene that painfully 
 rebuked the egotism of affluence, and made one blush for many a mis-spent half- 
 crown. f 
 
 * Thomson's Summer. 
 
 t Never was there human being who had less reason for self-reproach on this head than the writer of these " Walks," 
 she did not spend, she only gave. 3. L. \V.
 
 WALK XXII. 
 
 NOVEMBER, 1836. 
 
 Clowance fire. Anne King. Kitty James. A victim. 
 
 jONOR PEARCE actually kept me ten or more minutes in the rain, to 
 enquire into the burning down of Clowance, only to bring in that an 
 uncle of hers had been a servant of Sir John's, and his uncle before 
 him, for forty years. I could give her very little satisfaction on the 
 subject, for Mr. Pascoe, who had gone to the spot in his magisterial character, to 
 keep order, and prevent needless destruction of property, had not returned. I 
 could not, however, help sharing in Honor's regret that such a venerable building, 
 such a grey chronicle of olden times, should have been not destroyed (as appears 
 from Mr. P.'s report), but defaced, more by the hordes of miners who came to the 
 rescue, than even by the devouring flames. Alas ! if the owner had been by, the 
 thought might have occurred to him, how much more, in a moral sense, he had 
 done to disparage his ancestry, than the wild hands that tore their portraits from 
 the walls which they had adorned so many years, to cast them out of the frameless 
 windows and doors. 
 
 But this is nothing to Honor, whose uncle, it seems, when past his labour, had, 
 often and often, the gift of a guinea from Sir John ; and once, after presenting 
 him with two rare apples, his honour had given him a snuff-box and a guinea, 
 seeing he had raised the apples in his own little garden. I do not like Honor the 
 less for having the organ of veneration remarkably developed, I mean in her 
 behaviour. She came back to me, when I was in a monstrous hurry, to apologise 
 for not having made me a " fitty " reverence. 
 
 When I last called to enquire how her husband was (I generally call for a daily 
 bulletin), the poor invalid and his family had been brought into the room in the 
 Workhouse which adjoins our little day school, and upon which I confess I had set 
 my Ahab eyes, in order to make an addition to our small room, and thus enable me 
 to increase the number of my little sempstresses- from thirty to fifty. Yet, after 
 all, it is not unpleasing to have a few poor so sociably near.
 
 4-O Walks about Si. Hilary. 
 
 There is Anne King, who makes out her living with one of the few spinning- 
 wheels that are left in the land, who keeps the Sunday school children in such 
 tight order, and takes as great a delight in the spruceness of the aisles, and pews, 
 and communion table, and points out their beauty with as much unction, and far 
 more disinterestedness, than the exhibitors of Blenheim. Meanwhile, nothing 
 can surpass the exquisite neatness of her own apartment. I wish I could say as 
 much for her neighbour's. Alas ! it will not always do to inspect our national 
 houses in detail, yet the Painter of Nature must lay on his shadows as well as 
 lights, and if you shrink, dear M., from my chamber of horrors, pass by the next 
 Walks, for horrors have dodged my steps at every turning. 
 
 One is apt to compare every comfortless human dwelling to an Irish cabin ; but 
 I really think the latter would lose in comparison with the hovel we entered to-day, 
 to visit a sick woman. The domestication of the family pig at least implies that 
 there is a pig, and the shutting him up with the family, that there is a door, both 
 of which luxuries seemed to be wanting here. 
 
 Who that saw Kitty James in a high pew at church, dressed in a rich silk pelisse 
 of as tender a blue as her large roving eyes, with bright rings on her delicate slight 
 fingers, would have thought or rather let me say who would not have thought 
 of her coming to this ? Her father, a hard-drinking farmer, did not live quite 
 long enough to leave his widow and family penniless. There was enough from 
 the wreck of a good hereditary property to keep on the farm, and to give each of 
 the children 100 on their coming of age. 
 
 This small certainty had its baneful effect on the idle and vain. Kitty always 
 slighted the apostolic rule of working with the hands, and could not even submit 
 to the small labour of straw bonnet making, so that the money and time spent on 
 her apprenticeship were wholly thrown away. 
 
 During her subsequent times of distress, when she would gladly have turned a 
 bonnet to turn a penny, I gave her straw plait to make a hat for our little Harvey, 
 and positively there was neither form nor feature, poll or brim, to the thing : when 
 it was brought home, it threw the kitchen-folk into convulsions of laughter. If 
 poor little Harvey had assented to his title of " Goose-Gibbie," the head-dress, 
 with the addition of a cock's feather, would have suited him exactly. The tempt- 
 ing lure of 100 induced Jack Dawe to marry this ill-starred beauty, and to treat 
 her with kindness ; that is to say, he indulged her laziness by taking much of her 
 work on himself between cours, so that his health gave way, and he died.
 
 Walks about St. Hilary. 41 
 
 One anecdote characteristic of my heroine's habits, at this period, I well remem- 
 ber. Long ago as it happened, I can never lose the frightful impression of the 
 poor man's swollen face, as he lay under the operation of a supplementary sali- 
 vation, his helpless wife standing gazing at him. Her reply to my enquiries how 
 this effusion came on was as follows, " I'm sure I can't think, he was taken 
 dreadful in the night, his head swelling, and his poor mouth running like anybody 
 under salvation. So I had nothing to give him but two of the doctor's pills that 
 was left in the box, and I gave them to him." 
 
 Poor Dawe, of course, between the doctor's blunders and his wife's, was a corpse 
 before another day dawned. 
 
 I wish I could think I had finished the history of poor Kitty its sequel has 
 been a tissue of poverty, destitution, and disgrace ; such a one as 
 
 " Nature's sternest painter, but her best," 
 would have better delineated. 
 
 WALK XXIII. 
 
 DECEMBER, 1836. 
 
 Snow and kindly frost. Grace Trevaskis and church-going. 
 
 NOVELTY the ground covered with snow, the pools cased with 
 ice, and light, powdery showers, falling at short intervals, insomuch 
 that the few who besides myself ventured their noses out, expressed 
 their surprise at seeing me. Yet fenced as I was with cloak, veil, 
 double gloves, and list shoes, I felt warmer than I had done before many a bright 
 fire in a drawing-room. " Frosty, but kindly"* these words were running in my 
 head all the way ; from whence taken, I know not Shakespeare, most likely and 
 
 * Adam, in As you like it.
 
 42 Walks about Si. Hilary. 
 
 applied, I think, to cheery, healthy old age ; but, at all events, they chimed in 
 with my sensations and reflections, and, I may add, my errand, which was to take 
 
 a piece of surplus beef left from that which Mr. P bestows every Christmas 
 
 on the poor widows of the parish. Grace Trevaskis is no widow, but an old maid, 
 therefore she did not score, but surely a desolate spinster, " with all her friends in 
 the churchyard," and possessing little of the sympathy of her neighbours, is a 
 widow and mair ; in which opinion, by the way, I am borne out by the no less 
 authority than he (I forget who) that pronounces widow, " Vidua," to mean a 
 woman who has lost her husband, or never had one. How many smart things 
 occurred to my mind, in favour of spinsterhood, in my walk to Grace's ! But it is 
 more to my purpose to take up the thread of my thoughts on the kindliness of 
 frosty weather, which, though it partially blocked up doors and windows, imparted, 
 I thought, to the cottages around, an appearance of heat and comfort, suggesting 
 the idea of the inhabitants holding holyday around their bright fires within ; for 
 there is no working on the land this weather fine, to be sure as if the frost 
 suspended the appetite as well as the means of satisfying it. Of this I thought 
 not ; I only considered how much more comfortable an appearance it presented 
 than the late storm, of whose angry visitation I observed vestiges in shattered 
 roofs, kept together and hardly so by ropes and stones, or anything that came 
 to hand. 
 
 As I passed Jenny Curtis' s, the next door to Grace's, these sadly discourteous 
 words issued from the open door "You be a big Hard ;" followed by volley after 
 volley of the same sort of bon mots ; but I could see no one. As I looked in I 
 pronounced an audible and severe rebuke, which must have been the more 
 astounding as, under favour of my list shoes, they did not hear my approach. I 
 did not shew myself, but, having shot my bolt, and, as I hoped, hit my bird, pro- 
 ceeded on to Grace's. She was at home, cowering over a handful of fire, and 
 employed in mending her shoe with a needle and thread. " There was no work 
 to be had on the land." I looked about in vain for any eatables. Alas ! I found 
 there was nothing halcyon in a frosty holyday. Pussey (for who so destitute as 
 not to be able to keep a cat ?) seemed no less rejoiced and thankful than her mis- 
 tress, at seeing the turn-out of my little basket. Grace said she " did not come 
 with the rest, for she was a poor beggar, and, more than that, she was never 
 married." Her modesty stood in the way on both occasions, probably, for any- 
 body may be married in these parts such brides as I have seen !
 
 Walks about St. Hilary. 43 
 
 I questioned Grace about not seeing her at church, hers being that old-fashioned 
 sort of God-fearing, command-keeping faith which formerly brought people there. 
 " Where," as she said, " could anybody go better ? Mustn't they be brought there 
 first and last ? and didn't St. Paul declare that the church was the right thing ? 
 But then, St. Paul said, too, that everything must be done decently, and it was a 
 hard thing to go in dirt and rags to the House of God, to be mocked at by the 
 youngsters." 
 
 I wished to discover what Grace wanted to make her " fitty-like," but I could 
 only draw the confession from her piecemeal, for, like the unjust steward, " to beg 
 she was ashamed:" whilst confessing her wants, one would have thought, by her 
 averted, shy looks, that she was confessing her sins ; though on other topics her 
 eyes encounter mine with frank confidence. I do honour this trait of a delicate, 
 generous mind. But to return to the wardrobe : the gowns of which she had 
 once a good store were cut down to bed-gowns, so that there were none, and the 
 cloak had long given place to an old working jacket ; so it was beyond dispute, 
 what she averred, that she was in no church-going trim. "Your height, too," I 
 said, "makes your clothes more expensive." " It is so," she replied, in a tone of 
 humble resignation, " but 'tis God that gives the growth, so we must not complain." 
 This put me in mind of a man who came to me at the outset of my medical career. 
 He much complained, he was in such a low way, so patient that, when his wife 
 abused him ever so much, he could not return a railing word. Thirty years ago, 
 I would have given my dower for a few of Grace's despised inches ; but now, if I 
 go to market for supernumerary graces, it shall be to him who has on hand so large 
 a stock of patience and resignation. 
 
 As I was re-passing Jenny Curtis's door, a soft, contrite voice issued from it, " I 
 beg your pardon, ma'am, for the words I spoke ; " and, in the downcast, curtseying 
 little figure from whom it proceeded, I recognised, I thought, my little earring 
 friend. She took my rebuke and subsequent homily mighty well. 
 
 On returning, I just called on pretty little Sally Gilbert, whose tiny room was 
 half-occupied by the carcase of a huge pig, a delightful sight, although it was the 
 primary cause of an odious puddle, through which I had to wade, at the door, and 
 was anything but aromatic such is the magic of association ! As there was only 
 a narrow partition dividing this cottage from that of Hosking, I could not but call 
 in there, too. Kate's first-class scholar, Elizabeth, sat by the fire, mending her 
 frock ; the lively Peggy held the baby, and smiled as kindly, if not as sweetly,
 
 44 Walks about Si. Hilary. 
 
 upon me, as she used to do before that bal boy knocked out a whole side of pearly 
 teeth, and she ran up to the Vicarage to complain and be doctored. I passed a 
 man engaged in breaking the ice for his horse to drink, and then two boys pelting 
 each other with snow-balls, and so ended my frosty walk. 
 
 WALK XXIV. 
 
 DECEMBER, 1836. 
 
 A Thaw. Little boys frightened from their sport. 
 
 )HE snow was, yesterday, yielding to a slight thaw, which made walking 
 less agreeable ; but it still lingered over the distance, and beautified 
 the prospect, giving an interest even to a pile of refuse or a stone 
 hedge. The cottage gardens looked pretty, too, with their green 
 cabbage-heads studding the snow like emeralds set in crystals. I envy those 
 masters of language who, by a stroke, can represent the varieties of nature's lovely 
 face, as when Burns tells us 
 
 " Ilka blade 
 Droops wi' a diamond at his head." 
 
 Who does not feel as if actually brushing away the dew from the green sward 
 on a summer morning. 
 
 Near Relubbas, by the side of a pool, were three little bits of boys, with their 
 bits of shovels, as round, as pretty, and as mischievous as a group of Cupids. 
 They had continued to break the ice which had formed over this piece of dirty 
 water, and were splashing each other with its contents, amid peals of laughter 
 that, to borrow again from the rustic bard, 
 
 " My heart was sae fain to see them, 
 That I, for joy, stood laughing wi' them,"
 
 Walks about St. Hilary. 45 
 
 and, giving vent to my raptures as one does to children, I exclaimed theatrically, 
 " you little icicles." Whether frightened by a word they did not understand, or 
 that, in my crimson cloak, I seemed to them the Frost King come in person to 
 vindicate his rights, I know not ; but the trio took to their little heels, one of the 
 splashers shrieking at the top of his lungs till he reached his mother's door. 
 Thither I followed him to make my apology, and found him crouching down 
 inside the table, from which place of security he stole at me very fearful glances 
 as I conversed with his mother. On leaving the cottage, I perceived another of 
 the fugitives, who, at first, had put a bolder face on the matter, drumming, how- 
 ever, at his mother's door to be let in, and increasing his clamour at sight of me. 
 I hate, above all things, to be a spoil-sport, and generally am apt to pique myself 
 on being a favourite with children, so that I felt utterly mortified, on the whole, at 
 my adventure.
 
 1837.
 
 WALK XXV. 
 
 St. Erth Vicarage. A naughty girl. Phlllis, the spaniel. 
 
 JATE rode to Lelant Vicarage, and Spernow agreed to meet her, on her 
 way home, at that of St. Erth. Thither I always " go with cheerful 
 feet," for, besides old recollections which people the way-side, it is 
 the prettiest walk we have. I always think that I know when we have 
 passed the boundary line between the two parishes, by the size and colour of the 
 very primroses their hedge-rows are so much richer than ours, and the ruthless 
 hand of avarice has, here and there, spared an old hollow tree, fit for nothing but 
 to look picturesque, but which greatly relieves the monotony of a parish road. 
 
 There are also one or two prettyish-looking farms as we pass along, but the 
 sweetest passage is just above Trewinnard Mill, with that lovely bit of woodland 
 to the right, bounded by those outlines of Tregonning and Godolphin. Godolphin 
 Hill ! there is picturesque beauty in the very name, setting aside its brow of ma- 
 jestic and fine plum-bloom, and the assurance that the time is not long passed 
 when wild deer bounded over its heathy sides. It was when passing by this spot, 
 gladdened by the view, freshened by a clear, wintry atmosphere, and elastic from 
 a sense of perfect health and a tolerably easy conscience, that I said to myself, 
 " It would not do to feel happier than I do ; that would be heaven, not earth." I 
 love to linger through St. Erth village ; everything seems so exactly what and 
 where I left it the bridge ; the churchyard gate, through which I have so often 
 passed with those who, if they have left their like behind them, / never looked 
 upon them ; the Cellars, a miscellaneous shop at the head of a flight of steps, in 
 comparison of my notion of which, for the variety, costliness, and magnificence of 
 its stores, Howell and James's would seem a joke to me ; Goodman's public-house, 
 with the same identical porch and sign ; Miss Grace Jenkins's stone house, with 
 doors and windows all in the precise and miniature line, like herself and her maid 
 Avis in short, as I said, everything looked so exactly in statu qtio, that, if one 
 could do such a wrong to Godolphin as to suppose it guilty of expectorating
 
 48 Walks about St. Hilary. 
 
 flames and sulphur, it would be natural to think the old village had shared the 
 fate of Pompeii. I could even, in that case, imagine I recognised an acquaintance 
 of forty years standing, in the cat who sat on a door-sill, curled up into the form 
 of a hedgehog, with a physiognomy between sleepiness and curiosity, only that 
 she lazily turned her head from this side to that to observe the passengers, as one 
 has seen an old lady planted, from breakfast till dinner-time, in an arm-chair near 
 the window, looking ever and anon over her spectacles and the blind, with a who- 
 may-you-be expression of face. 
 
 But the charm of identity was rudely broken by the inhabitants themselves, who 
 appeared to me the most discourteous, uncouth crew I ever met they, at all events, 
 were not the same ; whether it was their new trade of mining had spoiled their 
 manner, or whether their strange looks reminded me that what I best loved had 
 passed away, as Shakespeare (who always supplies a fitting verse to every purpose) 
 says, 
 
 " Thy news makes thee a most ugly man." 
 
 Not prejudice itself, however, could mar the sweet countenance of that lovely 
 young mother who now fills my beloved aunt's place at the Vicarage, or make the 
 pretty Johnny, who gambols over the nursery floor, less pretty in my eyes. I am 
 really thankful that such as they are have succeeded to such as were, so that I 
 can admit them into the same picture-gallery without offence to my feelings. 
 
 A propos to grouping As Mrs. P sat at my feet on an ottoman, confidentially 
 
 communicating a painful domestic circumstance, the little Johnny caught a glimpse 
 of her tearful eyes, and, taking advantage of her low position, which put their 
 two pretty faces on a level, threw his little arms about her neck with repeated 
 kisses, as much as to say, " Never mind them, dear mamma ; Johnny will take care 
 of you." She said he cried whenever she struck herself, so that, instead of think- 
 ing of her own grievances, she has to comfort him. Pray God this disposition 
 may always accompany him. I couldn't bear to think that the sweet Margaret 
 should ever be otherwise than she now is, the happiest of wives and mothers. She 
 has married with her fresh, unpalmed sensibilities about her, and he is fully sensible 
 of his treasure. " Happy are the couple that are in such a case," and I may add, in 
 their case particularly, " Blessed are the people who have the Lord for their God." 
 As I passed the corner of a cottage in the purlieus of the village, I heard a very 
 contumacious little voice exclaim, " I waint, that I waint ; I'll burn them, that I
 
 Walks about St. Hilary. 49 
 
 will." Walking up to a dogged-looking girl who leant against the wall, swinging 
 her work-bag to and fro, I addressed her in the hypocritical phrase common upon 
 such occasions, "I hope it was not j'ou who uttered such shocking words" (she 
 hung her guilty head), " and, above all, I hope they were not spoken to your 
 mother." The girl seemed aware of the offender's charter, that he shall not be 
 obliged to incriminate himself she persisted in keeping silence till I touched the 
 chord of her imaginary wrong, when she passionately exclaimed, " Mother wouldn't 
 give me a halfpenny, and she gave Samuel one." " But who gave you that nice 
 pinafore and frock," I asked, "and that neat work-bag, which you wickedly threat- 
 ened to burn ? and, tell me, who is it that says, ' Honour thy father and thy 
 mother?'" Although the culprit held her peace, I was pleased to observe that 
 she was not offended, by her following close upon my heels, till I got out of the 
 village, and entered the way-field to the Vicarage, that scene of touching recol- 
 lections, where I have played at tea-things under the oak that used to rain cups 
 and saucers o'er merry little heads, in company with her whose beautiful image is 
 as fresh to my mind, after a separation of five-and-thirty years, as if we still sat 
 packed together in its old hollow trunk.* 
 
 Among other sketches which memory presented to my heart was a couple, f the 
 most loving that ever came together, walking along, arm in arm, followed by their 
 harum-scarum niece, and the more discreet Phillis, the most sagacious of liver- 
 coloured spaniels. When I have lost sight of my uncle and aunt at the junction 
 of many roads, she has taken her seat till I came up to the spot, indicating, I have 
 imagined, by the turn of her head, which path they had taken. Her mode of 
 begging entrance into the room was one common to parlourised dogs, that of 
 scratching at the door, but one day she surprised her mistress by demanding 
 entrance, in this manner, to her bed-chamber. On being admitted, she ran up, 
 and laid at my aunt's feel a sick chicken, having observed that her mistress had 
 nursed such while labouring under a fit of the gapes ; but, lest you, my dear, 
 should feel symptoms of a similar affection of the jaws, I spare you the rest of my 
 auld world stories. My walk out and home, in a word, was delightful ; I would 
 borrow Mr. Fisher's phrase, and call it an " integral " walk, had I not splashed my 
 stockings, both going and coming across the swamp. 
 
 * The author's sister, Mrs. O'Brien. 
 
 t Her uncle and aunt, Mr. and Mrs. Willyams.
 
 5 o Walks about St. Hilary. 
 
 "Would you like to get sixpence easily, as you may any day, by only placing a 
 few flat stones across the stream yonder?" I said to the miller's boy, who was 
 unloading his horse at that pretty mill. He replied, "Yes," with that frank readi- 
 ness, that " where-shall-I-go ? what-shall-I-do-for-you ?" look, which Sir Walter 
 brings before you in his mountaineer, so that I feel assured I shall, in future, pass 
 dry shod, nor ever again be exposed to the girlish impropriety of skipping over 
 running streams, and balancing upon treacherous stones. 
 
 WALK XXVI. 
 
 FEBRUARY 21, 1837. 
 
 Edward Briant. Church-goers. Armless. ' Un Sally. 
 
 JE were out this morning from ten till two positively I should be 
 ashamed of consuming so much time in walking, if we did not 
 turn it to account by calling upon all our cottage acquaintance by 
 the way-side ; and, after all, it is at least as well to trifle away 
 one's minutes alongside of a hedge, as within four walls. Our call at the Work- 
 house I have already mentioned ; from thence we cut up through Trewheela Lane, 
 in order to enquire what was become of dear old Edward Briant, the endearing 
 adjunct being drawn from my pen by the recollection of the old man's due attend- 
 ance at church, as long as breath and limbs would carry him thither. He was 
 emphatically a good church-goer, for he walked more than two miles out and home, 
 every Sunday, and in all weather, to attend it. How few such humble worshippers 
 are now left in the land ! I know but of one besides, and that is Ellick Roberts, 
 who fills Uncle Edward's place ; all the rest of the world are professors or profli- 
 gates, the godly or the godless ; they are either too good or too bad, far too 
 enlightened or too brutish to follow the worship of their fathers in an assembly
 
 Walks about Sf. Hilary. 5 1 
 
 where everyone is expected to be decent, and no one is eminent. The generic 
 description of the good old church-goer, as far as I have observed, is sobriety, 
 humbleness of mind, reverence for authority, and mostly taciturnity, especially 
 among mefikind. I knew one talking old woman, who, when she was too infirm 
 to attend the church, chose her residence in a joyless, rubbishy spot, because she 
 could see the steeple from her window. In another fifty years, the existence of 
 such a creature will be no more credited than that of the Kraken. I have widely 
 wandered from Uncle Edward, whom we found more than usually ailing ; only just 
 come down stairs, with his nose almost touching the grate, the " martyr-bend " of 
 his meek head having increased to a bow since I last saw him. I imagine he will 
 not much longer try the filial piety of his granddaughter, who, with the permission 
 of her husband, has determined to support and watch him to the last, rather than 
 suffer him to be removed to St. Erth Workhouse, as under the late act of injustice, 
 I had almost said, for what else is a retrospective law ? 
 
 En passant we peeped into Catherine 's cottage. Between fifteen and 
 
 twenty years ago, she was among the elite of my Sunday school, one of my own 
 class. We saw five out of the six little girls she has had in sequence, but the 
 mother herself was "out about the potatoes," an answer which we pretty commonly 
 receive at this season. 
 
 Mary King, however, was at home, and she had good reason to be, with her little 
 crippled, diseased infant, an abscess on its back, and both its feet turned inward, 
 so that they can never serve the purpose for which feet were intended. I hope it 
 is no breach of the sixth commandment to wish the poor innocent in heaven. 
 The supposed cause of this deformity was that engine of all mischief, a rude boy, 
 who let off a cracker near a thatched out-house, and set it in a blaze, a short time 
 previous to Mary's confinement. I seem to have cut into a vein of the horrible, 
 for my next call was upon Ann Curtis, who exhibited, with motherly pride, the 
 beautiful hand-writing of her armless boy. He holds the pen in his left stump 
 and guides it with his lips, and this tempts me to tell that story, too. Anne had a 
 sad drunken husband, and her roving and predatory habits had acquired for her 
 the nickname of " the prowler." One day, she left the youngest child in the cradle, 
 the door unbarred, and the pig unfed ! Horrible, most horrible ! but I must go 
 on with my story. A neighbour stepped in on some errand, but, finding Anne from 
 home, was departing, when a low moaning from the inner room arrested her steps. 
 She feared to enter it ; there might be Charley on the bed, and he was a perfect
 
 52 Walks about St. Hilary. 
 
 savage in his cups. She was turning to go, when a child a more horrible appa- 
 rition than that presented to Banquo passed her with two bleeding stumps, which 
 he deliberately plunged into a vessel of water, which stood in the centre of the 
 kitchen, plashing them to and fro, with the greatest sang froid, how long, the 
 spectator could not say, for she lay fainting against the wall, till another accidental 
 visitor dropped in, and raised an alarm. As a sample of the father, he clapped 
 his hands on hearing of the accident, exclaiming, " The boy is a gentleman for 
 life the parish must look after him." The less brutal mother exhibited some 
 traces of remorseful sorrow, and thought, I believe, that she made the boy the best 
 possible amende, by deserting the rest of her children, from that time forward, for 
 the greater part of the year, in order to exhibit the little mutilated fellow at fairs 
 and markets, and at coach-windows, to the peril of future generations. This 
 vagabond life was pursued by mother and son till a short time before the last 
 illness of Charley Curtis, the father, respecting which, I find the following 
 
 memorandum in an old pocket-book : " Mr. P visited a spent-out sot, 
 
 dying of a stricture. His poor mutilated son lay at his feet, disabled from a 
 drunken broil of the preceding night ; yet did the wretched father constantly 
 endeavour to neutralize the clergyman's admonitions to the younger sinner, by 
 offering excuses for him. We shall not often meet with such zeal in their Master's 
 cause among the children of light." The mother, I remember, drew a pitiable 
 picture of the impotent rage which her husband displayed towards this very lad, 
 when, after endeavouring to strike him with his dying hands, he would weep from 
 disappointed rage. But now, I rejoice to say, John is very steady, " brings in 
 his gettings ;" he is postman to a mine with a salary of two guineas a month, and 
 reads and writes of evenings. What a fine, flourishing specimen I reckon I shall 
 have for my scrap-book ! 
 
 We stopped a minute at the door of poor Bettens, sinking fast into the miner's 
 consumption, and finished our round by knocking at'Un Sally's door. "Nobody 
 in, sa-ar," cried a little voice, which proved to be Nickey's, who, like his betters, 
 had his private reasons for declaring himself " not at home." He was deeply 
 engaged in the contraband employment of roasting slices of potato on the fire, 
 and evidently wished us at Jericho for interrupting his cookery. I was restored to 
 favour, in the end, by giving him sixpence for as many bantam eggs, which were 
 hoarded in a tumbler, over the chimney, in furtherance of "a new hat agin Christ-. 
 mas." 'Un Sally had a new dream to tell. She had been ill, but her " sickness
 
 Walks about St. Hilary. 53 
 
 assuaged," she said, and she fell into a sleepy way. She imagined herself on a 
 public road, where were throngs of people, none of them caring to look upon 
 her ; so she passed alongside of the hedge, as usual, " mourning her cause," when 
 she perceived a person approach, who, they told her, was a great physician for the 
 soul, but whom she knew by intuition was the Saviour of mankind. He had a pen 
 or pencil in his hand, but she did not notice either book or tablet. Advancing 
 with passionate eagerness, she pronounced her name, Sally Fox, when the man 
 turned, and, looking graciously upon her, said, " That name I have written down 
 already." Her tone and action, when relating this part of the vision, were quite 
 Siddonian 'Un Sally is at least the tragic muse of humble life. 
 
 The circumstances of our visit to " the oldest woman," &c., I did not dilate 
 upon, because it was quite uninteresting ; at least, the only sensation excited by it 
 was that of fear, lest we should fall through the various holes in the floor of her 
 chamber, an eminence which we attained at the risk of pur necks, by means of a 
 really perpendicular ladder, which would have defied access to any person less 
 versed than Kate and I are in scrambling over the Cove rocks. 
 
 The old woman was a perfect vegetable ; at least, the only sign she gave of 
 animal life was the extending of her hand after her daughter had "insured her" 
 who it was who stood by her bedside, and bidding us to sit down upon the bed, 
 for there was nothing there to hurt us. Of spiritual life, alas ! there was no gleam. 
 " The dull, cold ear of death " itself would not be more deaf to the blessed name 
 which I tried to ring in her ears. Nay, the time will come when that will be roused 
 at His voice ! But, who knows ? she may have done her work before those evil 
 days come upon her.
 
 WALK XXVII, 
 
 THE COVE, FEBRUARY, 1837. 
 
 Mary King. An inexpensive mode of doing good. 
 
 is no sweet cottage smile that I love better to be greeted by, 
 than Mary King's altogether, I do not think I ever met such per- 
 fectly guileless manners. 
 
 We were unavoidably speaking of some frail parish sister, and 
 naturally slid into philippics on the degeneracy of female manners. " How are 
 they so?" asked Mary, in that half-pitying, half-reproachful voice, which showed 
 that she was a dove, and not a dragon, in virtue ; " I can't fancy how they are so " 
 then, with a rich blush, "I was married a twelvemonth before he there" (point- 
 ing to her eldest) " was born." She then related a little story of her own courtship, 
 which I might have divined, without being the conjuror she would have taken me 
 for, if I had said, " Mary, you admire your husband more now than when you 
 married him. 
 
 "'Once a man, and twice a child;' and worse than a child, a fine deal," said 
 old Polly Freathy, from her bed at the Workhouse, proving, by the way, that her 
 second childhood had not extended to her vigorous mind. I threw her into 
 ecstacies by the gift of a new pair of spectacles ; her eyes had long survived the 
 old ones. As soon as she had saddled her nose to her satisfaction, she seized her 
 Testament, and, plunging at once into the Book of Revelation, broke out into a 
 Doxology, which, but for the sacredness of the text, would have made me smile. 
 
 " Glory ! Honour ! Power ! This puts me back forty years ! Blessed be His 
 name!"&c. I have been more fortunate than Moses in the "Vicar of W r akefield," 
 in my bargain of spectacles ; these had, in truth, no silver rims to beguile my 
 judgment, but were all as rusty as an anchor, so I got them cheap, and in no con- 
 ceivable way, probably, could money have been better spent. Many a " small 
 prent" Bible is laid on the shelf; many a jacket left unmended ; many (for some 
 will work, whether they can see or not) an eye is made worse by straining it, for
 
 Walks about St. Hilary. 55 
 
 want of " a fitty pair of spurticles." Then, there is the collateral benefit for which 
 I always stipulate, that the superceded pair shall be given to some younger person, 
 who is beginning to feel the want of "glasses." I am really proud of having hit 
 on this means of doing good at a small expense. 
 
 WALK XXVIII. 
 
 THE COVE, MARCH, 1837. 
 
 The charms of spring. Gulls. 
 
 ,PRING ! This was the first spring day to the feelings, I mean. We 
 talk, we sing, all the year round, of the charms of spring, but, in fact, 
 know little about it, till suddenly, in a walk, or through an open 
 window, it steals upon our hearts by means of a hundred " sweet in- 
 fluences." Perhaps, the most tangible of these (query) is the first discovery of a 
 few half-opened primroses, peeping out, as I saw them two days ago, in Trelease 
 Lane, from out the embanked roots of a hedge-row tree, like infancy smiling from 
 the mother's lap, &c., &c. ; but that is another feature of spring, that it makes us 
 do our best to be poetical. ******* 
 
 I spied " Uncle John" sunning himself, or, as our miners term it, "eating the 
 sun," under a hedge, after his morning's labour of driving the horses at the mine, 
 and completed his felicity by giving him the portion of tobacco that fell to his 
 share. As the boy wished to be a king, that he might swing all day on a gate, 
 " and eat fat bacon," so Uncle John probably could imagine no better use of 
 royalty, than the privilege of lying in a sunny hedge, chewing his quid ; while I, for 
 my part, wish to be a queen, that I might bestow a handsome estate on Benjamin, 
 and build you a cottage, either among the wild thyme on the cliff-side, or in the 
 valley, which (sheltered and wooded as it is) commands a pretty little framed-in
 
 5 6 Walks about St. Hilary. 
 
 view of the sea and its passing sails. Now I think on't, I will build them both, 
 and then you can take up your winter quarters in Glen-Lou, and return to your 
 cliff dwelling in the month of June, to bless your eyes with the view with which 
 mine, as I write, are ever and anon feasted ; for, be it known, I have resumed my 
 perch at Bessey's Cove (where I hope soon to take up my permanent station) for 
 a day. Vellanoweth had almost spoiled it, by making a road for his carts to bring 
 up oreweed, just opposite our window. I was sorely vexed with him, in spite of 
 his beautiful old Cornish name, but he has shown so much good taste in his line- 
 of-beauty sweep, from the green summit down to the beach, that I have made up 
 my quarrel with him. Then, the carters' cadence, mingling with the voices of the 
 fishermen, and their hollow-sounding preparations for going out to sea, adds con- 
 siderably to the life of the scene not to omit the gull, whom I should have left 
 out, if she hadn't, at this very instant, sailed past the window. They certainly 
 must have taken the idea of the waltz from the elegance of her attitudes and 
 motions, only that our gull is too wise to make a teetotum of herself. The 
 posture-master has unquestionably borrowed his light from that graceful, self- 
 sustained flight, giving at once the impression of repose and vigour, pastime and 
 purpose ; for while our visitor sails over the Cove, with all that air of elegant 
 leisure which belongs to the high-bred dame, I observe she has generally some 
 good house-wifely object in view a pool full of " miller's thumbs," or, haply, a 
 straggling sea-fish, or (if all the truth must be told) those portions of the fish 
 which I do not like to name, nor the fishermen to bring away from the shingles, 
 the idea of which it is difficult to associate with that of a creature, whose pure 
 ivory whiteness should have been nourished by ambrosia, at least.
 
 WALK XXIX. 
 
 APRIL 26, 1837. 
 
 A Tragedy. 
 
 jiE went, this morning, to Goldsithney, in search of a poor woman, 
 whose husband had beaten her truly " within an inch of her life." 
 Report did say she was dead, but this, luckily for Jack Bawden, 
 was not the case, and unluckily for society, who have thus lost a 
 fine warning, and retained a pernicious member. We knew very well where the 
 woman lived, for she had been a patient of ours, but, as she had escaped, at mid- 
 night, from the ruffian's hand, we had to find out with which of her relations she 
 had found shelter. At length, we traced her to her brother's, Captain Edward 
 Williams, up at Wheal Carline, in what was formerly the 'count-house, and there 
 received from the sister-in-law such a harrowing relation of the case as Tragedy 
 herself, with Shakespeare for her amanuensis, could not have improved upon. 
 The narration, in fact, reminded me of some among his tales, and showed that he 
 had not exaggerated the effects of an evil temper, exasperated by jealousy. Not 
 Desdemona, nor Hermione, high dames as they were, possessed a higher value for 
 the jewel of their sex, than poor Betsey Bawden, or showed more conjugal devotion. 
 Often, her sister-in-law said, she had cheerfully brought fonvard the best in her 
 house, to give to her husband and his riotous companions, when she and her 
 children had gone hungry to bed. Latterly, the wretch had taken mightily to a 
 young man called Carter, brought him to his house at all hours, and woe had it 
 been to his wife if she had not received him cordially. It was on this object that 
 his jealousy suddenly fixed. After maligning his innocent wife at the alehouse on 
 a Saturday night, insomuch that he drew upon himself the indignant rebukes of 
 his not-over-sober companions, he rushed home, in order to vent his madness in 
 the dreadful manner which it is painful to relate, and difficult for my memory 
 has let slip some of the graphic touches, which made it so interesting from the 
 lips of the kind protectress. 
 
 Betsey Bawden, it seems, was lying on her bed, surrounded by her children and 
 
 p
 
 58 Walks about St. Hilary. 
 
 mother-in-law, about midnight, expecting the return of her husband. She was in 
 her clothes, for it had been her custom to retain them till his return, at whatever 
 late hour, since the time that he drove her, almost naked, into the night air, pur- 
 suing her with a knife, which, once or twice, came in contact with the bone of her 
 stays. On that occasion, she owed it to the kindness of a distant neighbour, that 
 she did not perish from cold. The wonder is that she should ever return to the 
 doors from which she had been thus expelled, but they enclosed her eight 
 children, and maternal love is stronger than death.' This happened several 
 months ago. Think of the wretch's refinement in cruelty ; at the time of which I 
 am writing, having announced to his wife that he intended to kill her, he sent down 
 his boy for a bason of water and his " own knife." It was a thing (blade and 
 handle) of a foot-and-a-half long, made by a blacksmith, under his own express 
 directions, a short time before. He commanded the child also to bar the door, 
 lest his mother's cries should bring assistance. One could hardly believe that a 
 child of ten years old would obey these directions, if one did not allow for the 
 stupefaction consequent on extreme fear, and the poor things, it seems, had long 
 lived under a reign of terror. With frightful premeditation, the man placed the 
 water by his side, knotted a strong cord into a scourge of nine knots (the poor 
 always "mind their quantities"), doubled it, made it secure by coiling it round his 
 right hand, while his left grasped her mouth, lest her cries should bring help. In 
 this situation, he bade her own her guilt, which she, meekly refusing to do 
 indeed, the detail is too revolting to write down, what must it have been to wit- 
 ness ! The old mother, past eighty, tottered to the spot, and threw herself across 
 the daughter-in-law, to defend her from the ruffian's blows, some of which, dreadful 
 to say, she received herself; the eldest daughter hung on his collar, entreating 
 mercy for her mother ; but such feeble resistance could not long suspend the work 
 of blood. After flinging his mother over stairs, and turning her into the night air, 
 when all the assistance she could afford was to cry murder, the brutal parricide 
 returned to his occupation. I forget how he disarmed the daughter, whose tender- 
 ness for her mother seemed to have risen above the fear which kept the other 
 children (even to the youngest) silent and motionless. I think he had her down 
 in some way. It is impossible (for if I had the heart I have not the power) to 
 record what followed in the strain of indignant eloquence, worthy of Paulina 
 herself, with which Mary told it. Two traits, I remember, one particularly touch- 
 ing, and another particularly shocking ! Between the dreadful acts, he took
 
 Walks abotit St. Hilary. 59 
 
 draughts of water to allay the thirst which, it seems, his victim's blood was 
 insufficient to slake, exclaiming, with a fiendish laugh, " now, this refreshes me." 
 The affecting trait, which to hear made poor Betsey Jenkins's heart overflow at 
 her eyes, was that, four distinct times, the poor soul obeyed her husband's com- 
 mands to kneel before him with meek submission, but, when told she might 
 purchase his mercy by confessing the truth of his accusation (owning to the guilt 
 she knew not), she steadily refused. I believe these were her words, as she knelt 
 before him with clasped hands : " How can I confess this lie, with nothing but 
 death before me ? I see you are intent on my murder ! how can I own to the sin 
 which I know not ? as soon could I deny my Saviour as tell you I deserve the name 
 you call me by : that babe on the bed is not more innocent of this charge than I 
 am, and I think I speak it with my dying breath." 
 
 And yet, the worthy creature afterwards told her sister that she never lost all 
 hope of life ; she thought she was not yet fit to die, and that God would surely 
 send her help before she was quite murdered, bitterly mangled as she was, with 
 scarcely a sound inch in her body, her ears nearly wrenched off, and her breast- 
 bone so crushed that she has yet hardly breath to tell her sad tale. Such meek 
 confidence in divine help is never deceived, but, in regard to the manner of 
 deliverance, we are often mistaken. 
 
 It might have been supposed that the old woman's shrieks would have brought 
 a rescue ; they did alarm the few neighbours, and draw some to the spot, but so 
 great was the popular terror of the bloodthirsty savage within, that even men, as 
 they called themselves, were not willing to venture in. There was one exception, 
 however blind Peter (my blessing on him for it), importunately besought the 
 bystanders to give him a stone, with which to " break abroad the door." Had 
 his prayer been granted, no doubt the villain would have stabbed him. After this, 
 blind Peter deserves a chapter to himself, and his story is well worth telling ; but, 
 to proceed with the one in hand, or, more properly, to go back with it : Jack 
 Bawden's brother left the tavern, where the wretch had so villified his poor wife, 
 at the same time as he did, and seeing how he was irritated by the testimony 
 which everyone present had borne to her exemplary character, observed to his 
 own wife on his return home, " Peggy, I am distrustful there will be mischief this 
 night up at Jack's." Peggy concurred in opinion, and, as well as his nephew, 
 insisted upon accompanying him thither, late as it was. They found things in the 
 state in which my narrative left them ; consternation without, and a death-like
 
 60 Walks about St. Hilary. 
 
 silence within. Robert Bawden stood under the window, calling to his brother 
 by the family name of Jack, and was answered by a peal of curses ; but there was 
 one ear that blessed the sound. " From that moment," said Betsey, " I felt my 
 deliverance was at hand." Yet, so stupified was she, that it was many minutes 
 before she could avail herself of the opportunity to escape afforded by her hus- 
 band's conversing with his brother at the window, or comprehend her daughter's 
 vehement gestures to seize the happy crisis ; but, from the moment she felt she 
 had got free from this man, she thinks her feet hardly touched the ground. Her 
 hands befriended her no less than her feet ; they at once found, and drew back, 
 the bolts. Her road to her brother's was quite straight and open, but it is probable 
 that she lengthened it, in her distraction, by scrambling through hedges, &c., for 
 thorns were extracted from her flesh for some days after she arrived at her brother's 
 door ; " in a whisht condition," the narrator might well say ; streaming with blood, 
 half her clothes torn away, her cap entirely so, her hair in strings, hanging over 
 her death-like face up in that desolate, rubbishing, shaft-windy place, too ! what 
 could anyone have thought, if they had met her, but that she was some vexed 
 spirit, returned to haunt the spot, or upbraid the author of her murder ? But, it 
 was in a far different temper that poor Betsey told her tale, and laid her mangled 
 body in her sister's warm bed. On the day we called there, she had just crawled 
 out to try if she could reach home to see her younger children, but she fainted by 
 the way. 
 
 The man, I should have told, absconded the following morning, not believing, 
 as he confessed to his brother, that the woman could have survived his ill-treat- 
 ment, but had probably died by the hedge, while making her escape. I can 
 hardly restrain the wish that he may long be tortured by this apprehension, so 
 much do our passions need the restraining words, " Vengeance is Mine."
 
 WALK XXX. 
 
 MAY 2, 1837. 
 
 Blind Peter. The motherless twins. Tom Floyd. 
 
 ,HAKESPEARE calls samphire-gathering "a dreadful trade," but 
 methinks the term more properly belongs to the occupation of 
 mining, for, besides the chance of breaking his neck, our miner lives 
 in constant peril of consumption, not to mention his peculiar temp- 
 tation to hasten his end by intoxication, and it is ten to one that he meets a prema- 
 ture death he may truly say with St. Paul, "in deaths oft;" for, grant that he 
 escapes with his life, mutilation in every revolting form threatens him ! 
 
 What horrors of this kind, during a residence of twenty years, have we witnessed ! 
 The loss of sight is by no means an uncommon case. Sometimes, it is partial, as 
 in the case of our Sunday school assistant-master, John Floyd, but poor Peter lost 
 the sight of the blessed sun at one stroke. He was, when the misfortune befel 
 him, engaged to a very pleasing, but of course very young, girl, for the miners and 
 minermw all marry early. If I remember right, their banns had been published. 
 Her friends and who could blame them ? wished to break off the match, but 
 Mary was staunch to her vows, and happily the large family which the prudent 
 ones prophesied never arrived ; they have only two little girls, who are well out of 
 the way, so that the mother is enabled to resume her occupation at the bal. Peter 
 himself can do a few things dig the ground for potatoes, and take the potatoes 
 from the ground, &c. with the help of his little girls ; and he can walk to 
 Helston, with their guidance, in order to receive his first pay of one shilling a 
 week. His income is further eked out by the voluntary contributions of his brother 
 miners. At their invitation, he attends the surrounding mines on pay-days, hat in 
 hand, and receives without solicitation whatever they can afford to drop into it. 
 I know this, because little Jennefer is sometimes kept home from the garden, and 
 Mary from the school, to " lead father." They are a pretty-mannered, gentle little 
 pair, bobbing up and down at every word, and side by side, like what they call " a 
 
 Q
 
 62 Walks about St. Hilary. 
 
 peer o' stamps," and so exceedingly timid that Jennefer, in her confusion, still 
 calls me " Miss," as well as Kate. I have had my eye on Jennefer, ever since my 
 first visit to the father's cottage. She couldn't be more than three years old, when, 
 hearing me make an observation to her mother respecting her " foolish necklace," 
 she slipped from the room, and returned with the offending ornament quite hidden 
 under the neck of her pinafore. If I remember right, she was, on our next visit, 
 rewarded by one of Kate's nice dolls. I introduced the history of Peter, at this 
 time, to eke out the scanty adventures of this day's walk ; run, I might more 
 properly call it. The weather was stormy and uninviting, but we had not seen the 
 twin orphans since their mother's funeral, and fancied their worthy protectress, 
 Anne, might deem it unkind. Anne, however, was not at home, we found she 
 was gone to Marazion on some house-wifely errand, so that Thomas was obliged 
 to marshall us upstairs, and draw the coverlet from the faces of the little Gemini, 
 who occupied the very bed and pillow on which I had lately seen their poor 
 mother's pale, haggard, patient face, and where she drew her last painful breath. 
 It was a touching sight. One of the twain did not look so thriving as her brother ; 
 they said he had had the thrush. There was great discussion as to what they 
 should be called : my heathenish suggestion was Romulus and Remus, the dimin- 
 utives of which, Rom and Re, would have done nicely for our nicknaming 
 
 neighbourhood ; Mr. P proposed Valentine and Orson ; somebody said 
 
 Joseph and Benjamin, or Ephraim and Manasseh ; but the' poor are never fantas- 
 tical, I think, in these matters ; besides, we afterwards heard that poor Betsey had 
 named one infant herself, after a brother who died two years before. 
 
 The family were disappointed, that they could not carry the babies to be 
 christened at the time of their mother's funeral, agreeably to a strange and, I 
 must say, very affecting custom which prevails here. She was taken to Breage 
 (five miles), to be laid by her relations, and the weather was too wet and boisterous 
 for them to be exposed to it. Accordingly, they were baptized in this church on 
 the following Sunday, and Thomas himself, looking most woe-begone, " stood 
 forth " for them. We just peeped in on Thomas's mother, who lies dangerously 
 ill at her little farm of Lower Chenoweth. After a long illness, she had at length 
 taken to her bed, being able, she said, to drag her old clay about till then, proving 
 the ascendancy of spirit over body, which makes the distinction, according to my 
 notion, between the vulgar and the refined. 
 
 There was a visit, which we paid a few weeks ago, to which I did not advert, at
 
 Walks about St. Hilary. 63 
 
 the time, though few have awakened more eventful recollections. At the end of 
 ten or twelve years, I can still recall the shudder with which I used to hurry by 
 the desolate dwelling, once inhabited by Jenny Tucker, contaminated by her 
 crimes, and finally the destined scene of a coroner's inquest on her body, which 
 was thought to bear the appearance of having been poisoned. He who had long 
 been the partner of her crimes, the husband of another woman, was the only 
 person at whom suspicion could glance in the affair. They were known to have 
 desperate quarrels, sometimes, but suspicion could only glance ; there was not 
 evidence enough to delay the interment of the blackened and defaced corpse, 
 respecting which, I recollect the following singular occurrence, related by Mr. 
 
 P , at the time : When fetched hastily to the poor creature, I think he 
 
 found her dying, or having just expired, but the countenance which lay before him 
 seemed not that of Jenny Tucker, though he knew it to be herself. "Who is she 
 like ?" he enquired abruptly of the woman who, sitting on the coffin-lid, watched 
 by her, or rather, waited by her, to perform the last offices. " Tom Floyd," replied 
 the woman, with a tone and look of corresponding horror both spectators re- 
 peatedly affirmed that it was more than likeness, it appeared identity. 
 
 Some have imagined that the intense emotion, the concentrated feeling, of the 
 soul in dying, will communicate its impress to the countenance. Certainly, it is 
 not uncommon to hear the remark, how very like he or she, in their last moments, 
 looked to such a person. The vulgar idea in this case seemed to be that the 
 murdered should resemble the murderer. After this, for many years, I heard but 
 little of Tom Floyd ; certainly no good. 
 
 Among the baskets brought to the Vicarage for flowers, this autumn, was that of 
 the woman inhabiting old 'Un Sally's cottage. I always admired the pretty 
 geraniums, through the casement, as we passed to the Workhouse, and made 
 them an excuse to call. 
 
 Whilst I was talking with the woman, a man entered the room, who seemed 
 quite out of character with the cottage and its appointments ; he was more fit, I 
 thought, for a banditti's cave for height of stature, and handsome features, he 
 might well have been chosen their captain. He seemed unaccountably agitated 
 at sight of us, and, as if to pass it off, took up a jug, and began to water the 
 window-plants. The woman looked surprised. " Don't water that, soase ; 'tis 
 just planted, and well watered my patience! what makes your hand shake so?" 
 Aye, indeed, thought I, what is it that thus palsies that dreadful hand, whose
 
 64 Walks about St. Hilary. 
 
 congenial employment is assuredly not watering flowers ; but I was really glad to 
 edge off as fast as manners would allow. 
 
 The old shaft-house (so called from a hideous chasm, which yawned so near it 
 that there was only room for a narrow passage between it and the cottage door) 
 has fallen to the ground, for want of a tenant. Only one person, and he was half 
 a villain, and the other half madman, had the hardihood to live in it, after the tale 
 I had related. I confess, between terrors ghostly and bodily, I should always 
 avoid the road, were it not a short cut to my favourite walk : and St. E-rth Vicarage, 
 without this abbreviation, is almost beyond the limits of a foot journey. 
 
 WALK XXXI. 
 
 THE COVE, JUNE 27, 1837. 
 
 Seaside flowers and insects. Youthful recollections. 
 
 JHAT a hideous chasm between this and my last walk ! An attack of 
 erysipelas in the head has done me this good, that it has brought 
 me hither to recruit. It was not my purpose to recall anything so 
 disagreeable as my late illness, except to make it stand in contrast 
 with a walk over the cliffs that divide our rocky dwelling from Pengersick Castle. 
 I was far too frail to think of reaching that interesting ruin, made more interest- 
 ing to Kate and me by a walk thither, last year, in the company of Mr. Fisher, 
 that phoenix of rock and wave companions, who, by the way, was captivated by 
 our scenery, the simplicity of our maniere d'etre our little dinner-table, under 
 which our four pair of knees almost met. He fell in love with that " omnibus " 
 of household work, Dolly ; was so delighted with Harry and his cat, Dido (who 
 watches his boat, from the time it leaves the strand, till it returns at night), that
 
 Walks about St. Hilary. 65 
 
 he has written to say he must try and join us during the present vacation. It will 
 be very agreeable to think sch an event possible, but, to use a rustic phrase, " I 
 don't put nothing upon it." Nor do I intend to quarrel with my venison, because 
 its flavour is not heightened by currant jelly sauce. This is the season when the 
 cliff sward is most enamelled with flowers, the minute and elaborate beauty of 
 which, I fancy, is nowhere equalled. The exquisite little blue butterfly, I think 
 they call it Alexis, with a fine green embroidery on its nether wings, flies about in 
 great numbers ; he scarcely stirs the flower on which he lights, and seems to feel 
 intensely happy, verifying, by his rapturous gestures, Kate's observation, that this 
 is the paradise of insects. Her quaint remark, when observing some of the 
 caterpillars, that "Adam had done well to imitate the obedience of these little 
 beings, and stuck to his allotted vegetable," is rather too fantastic to record, only 
 that the vow is upon you to pardon and, when you can, relish our nonsense. 
 
 I have more yet to add : we gathered samphire to eat with our cold veal ; we 
 eyed wishfully some water-cress that grew half-way down the cliff, and we admired 
 the sails, from the tiniest fishing-boat, up to the portly vessel (which Kate told 
 me I must call a barque, it being the generic name for all vessels of three masts) : 
 in short, there was nothing our eye took in we did not admire, except a steam- 
 vessel, with its diagonal pillar of smoke. One almost wonders the ocean does not 
 spurn this great unsightly monster from her pure and majestic bosom. 
 
 It is not often that I cavil at any expression of yours, especially when it has 
 and when has it not ? poetry and feeling in it ; but, I said to Kate, I have a great 
 mind to carry home a nosegay of these flowers (in spite of dear Mrs. Wood); they 
 would become our cliff cottage better than ixias and roses. You remember the 
 little anthyllis, of every color and shade, that carpeted poor old Carthon, and 
 which, in those days of grammarie and romance, we named Titania's honeysuckle ? 
 It is now in its prime here, and powerfully restored to me those long-departed 
 scenes, " when first it moved remembrance." 
 
 Were you of the party (I think not) when, by a concerted scheme, and a hot 
 circuitous road, we conducted to a bank, covered with these flowers and nestled 
 amongst rocks, styled by us " Titania's bank," a party of young friends, affecting to 
 wish, all the way, as we scaled the cliff, that her fairyship would regale us with 
 tea not out of buttercups filled with dew, but a good substantial tea-kettle meal ? 
 
 Except Mrs. Siddons's scream, in the mad scene of " Venice Preserved," 
 nothing has made a livelier impression on my memory than dear Elizabeth 
 
 R
 
 66 Walks about St. Hilary. 
 
 Reynolds's shriek, on arriving on the brink of the little sheltered del), and seeing, 
 " withouten hands," all the spirit-reviving apparatus of a hearty English tea ! The 
 centre of the bank was covered with cakes, bread and butter, cream and treacle 
 (a conjunction always entitled "thunder and lightning" by the sea-side, and no- 
 where else), cherries, " ripe cherries," and strawberries. In an angle steamed a 
 large black tea-kettle, placed, gipsy fashion, over an extempore fire of dry turfs 
 and sticks. The Being of grosser element, meanwhile, who prepared all these 
 good things, kept out of sight. If I remember rightly, Louisa and Sarah acted 
 the Titania part ; to play Puck, and to take my guests as far, and make them as 
 thirsty, as I could, was mine. Alas ! shall I ever cease to be a child ? It is no 
 use to deny it, I should enjoy such a stratagem now, as much as I did thirty years 
 ago. 
 
 As we passed the Station, we saw the preventive-boat go by, in her best holyday 
 trim, filled with happy, fresh-looking Jack Tars, to help at the ceremony of our 
 Queen's Proclamation. 
 
 WALK XXXII. 
 
 JUNE, 1837. 
 
 Consumption. Polly Freethy. St. Peter 's Eve. Miners. 
 
 (HE poor young creature Tucker by name who was lately brought 
 home to the Workhouse, is assuredly dying. She owes, perhaps, her 
 chief interest to her complaint, consumption ; yet she showed she 
 was not devoid of sensibility, by weeping, when I adverted to the 
 mistress's great kindness. There is no knowing what is passing in her poor mind, 
 for she is habitually silent, and now wants breath to speak ; but she shakes her 
 head, with an air of sorrowful assent, when admonished to improve the short time 
 which remains to her. The happiest thought remaining to her is that " much has 
 not been given." She entered on service, stigmatized with a mother's shame ; fell
 
 Walks about St. Hilary. 67 
 
 into the hands of a godless master, to whose brutality she ascribes her broken 
 constitution ; and, without merit or friend to recommend her to decent service, 
 has since had reason to regret even the shelter that his roof afforded her. Bating 
 the sufferings of disease, the Workhouse must be the happiest asylum the poor 
 orphan has ever known. Her bed is clean, and tolerably warm ; the food, such as 
 it is, ample ; and the mistress ever ready to bestow that sympathy which is more 
 than diet and sleep to the destitute : moreover, I supply her with liquorice, which, 
 absurd as the anti-climax sounds, is the greatest comfort she knows. 
 
 Two doors off is poor old Polly Freethy, at length a confirmed bed-lier. For a 
 long time, she bore up bravely against this penalty of a protracted life her tall 
 figure has been a perfect triangle for years, to the added terror, no doubt, of her 
 little bunch of scholars. When forced to give up her school, and take refuge in 
 the Workhouse, she continued to exercise her scholarship and needle. Instead of 
 burning her nose over the grate, and grumbling that it was not duly replenished, 
 like her aged compeers, we generally found her making a couch of the window- 
 seat, with her poor bent back thus stayed, mending a night-cap, &c., or poring 
 over an old curl (carol), which she always read with a loud voice. I think she was 
 glad to see me, for we talked of old times, when I used to visit poor old Ralph, 
 her husband. He was an awesome man sick, and poor, and old, as he lay, I felt 
 really afraid of him. He is the only being I remember, who came up to Sir 
 Walter's description of "douce Davie Deans," and, if I had then (twenty years 
 ago), read "The Heart of Mid-Lothian," I should have believed I saw the old 
 covenanter on his death-bed. One little incident I cannot help recording, to my 
 own confusion. Paying him a visit, in company with my sister-in-law, Miss Pascoe, 
 he said, pointing to an open Bible, that " there was a passage he wished explained." 
 I felt alarmed at the thought of expounding before so great a critic, but obeyed the 
 summons by approaching his bed. " Not you," he cried, waving me off with the 
 official majesty of a prophet, " let her come near," meaning poor Sally, who con- 
 fessed afterwards that she quite quailed at the summons ; however, she needed 
 not, for the querist himself assumed the office of interpreter, and gave us a little 
 homily on the words, " the wicked have no bonds in their death." Ps. Ixxiii. 4. 
 
 To return to the Workhouse. Old Polly's reminiscences of her husband seemed, 
 I thought, tinctured with a little wholesome terror ; but she had had " a peck of 
 troubles since his death." Jenney and Effie I forget their real names both 
 married, and, at no long distance of time, died, leaving their old mother alone.
 
 68 Walks about St. Hilary. 
 
 Her son built her a room at the end of his new cottage on the higher downs. 
 He is one of Madame Trevelyan's* mud tenants, to whom she presents a Bible 
 each, and whose little shrubberies she enriches with a grant of fine shrubs, which 
 they take pride in shewing off, and calling by all manner of names. 
 
 Poor old Polly's gaunt form was so doubled up in her little tenement, that it 
 never recovered the perpendicular ; but her spirit, as I have said before, bowed 
 down as it was by sorrow and want, retained its energies, as many a luckless 
 scholar could testify. 
 
 June 29. I might have given you a nocturnal walk, for a change, dear Maria, 
 but I feared, for the first time in my life, the night air and wet grass. I declined, 
 therefore, to join the party to the Point, and so missed seeing the fireworks set off 
 round the Bay, in celebration of St. Peter's Eve (for what reason, the oldest in- 
 habitant could not explain), and I had the less reason to regret them, as Kate 
 returned " bedabbled with dew," and went straight to bed. 
 
 A few years ago (but the attraction then was the revels of Midsummer St. John's 
 Eve when the Bay and its Mount are circled with living fires), Gracef and I 
 walked to Cudden Point at a still later hour. It was pretty enough to see the 
 flickering of torches, which our Bachantes, running at full speed, carried, and the 
 more substantial bonfires on the heights. My handmaid was delighted, but I, 
 somehow, thought the glowworms, which gemmed the furze bushes all the way 
 along, the cliff, much more attractive, and they were to be seen every night the 
 one reason, perhaps, why no one cares for them. 
 
 The manner in which, in our country, folks congregate at the funeral of a person 
 who has died a violent death, is an example of the love of the uncommon. What 
 droves of women and children there will be to witness the interment of a poor 
 miner, whose death took place at a mine mis-called Wheal Prosper ! As he was 
 hacking in an old shaft, the ground gave way above him, so precipitately as not to 
 afford him time to recover his standing position. His nephew, who was working 
 near by, could hear him speak from beneath many thousand tons' weight of earth, 
 and distinguish the directions he gave about the part of the heap he would have 
 the best chance to extricate him from. Alas, the more exertion the young man 
 made to this end, the faster the earth fell in. " I can do no more, Uncle," he 
 
 * Note by Miss Willyams. " Madame Trevelyan," afterwards Lady Currington ; a most accomplished lady, and 
 a most kiud benefactress to her simple Cornish tenantry.
 
 Walks about St. Hilary. 69 
 
 said, " I must go for help." " Then I must trust in the Lord for help ; " and, 
 probably, these were the last words the poor man uttered, for, when a party of 
 miners at last reached down to where the body lay, it was without a symptom of 
 life. The deceased left nine children, most of whom, in defiance of this warning, 
 will pursue the same " dreadful trade." 
 
 The very sports of the miner, like those of the leviathan, are full of terror. No 
 later than Midsummer Eve (a week ago), a lad whom I know well had his cheek 
 shattered, and his eye blown out, by the untimely explosion of a kind of firework 
 which has been invented by the mine-boys. They bore, I apprehend, a succession 
 of holes in the rock, which they fill with gunpowder, and then set fire to, having 
 provided a sort of safety valve, which, in the ardour of play, they sometimes ne- 
 glect not unfrequently, indeed ; for it was only this time last year that a poor lad 
 fell back a corpse in the arms of his brother, owing to a precisely similar inad- 
 vertence. But warning avails nothing to a miner : they are all fatalists, and, in 
 nine instances out of ten, you will find that the doomed victim, or some of his 
 family, will have dreamed of the coming misfortune. 
 
 WALK XXXIII. 
 
 JUNE 30, 1837. 
 
 Emigrants. Vessels in danger, 
 
 UR hour-glass runs golden sands, and every minute that passes seems 
 a precious grain lost to us. This sounds fanciful, but it is not fancy ; 
 witness this morning, when, musing on my perfect happiness, I said 
 to myself, what could be the drawback to it ? I looked this way and 
 that, and found I could not recall it, or mend my lot ; and then I looked upward 
 in devout acknowledgment, and prayer that so rich a portion might not prove a 
 
 s
 
 jo Walks about St. Hilary. 
 
 snare to us for Kate and I, in point of taste and sentiment, are the Siamese twins. 
 
 There is to be a move in the Preventive Service for which we are sorry, because, 
 by the removal of her father to Scilly, we shall lose the good offices of the pretty, 
 gentle Dora Dora Neale, what a sweet name ! and she is as sweet as her name. 
 I want to get her a Cornish place, to rescue her from the improvident habits of an 
 Irish mother, and still more from the ignorance and error of, I cannot say the 
 Roman Catholic faith, for error implies its existence, and these poor people seem to 
 have no religion at all. They are too remote from a chapel (the nearest is at 
 Falmouth) to attend its worship, and may not enter a Protestant church ; there- 
 fore, Sabbath they have none. Yet Neale (so we were told by one of the English 
 boatmen's wives) has a most papistical disdain of our churchmen, taunting them 
 with their " few points of faith," he himself holding eight hundred and thirty. 
 When our old friend Mr. Crispo (the emigrant) commanded at the Station, he 
 used to call together these discordant professors, on rainy Sundays, and always of 
 an evening, to hear a good Christian homily; but since then the men have been 
 less fortunate in their presiding officer, and we have had a loss, in our way, of that 
 single-hearted couple, of whose further progress through the backwoods of Canada 
 I am longing to hear. I do not think their character and mode of life is much 
 
 changed. Mrs. C , with her one servant and nine children, must have lain 
 
 down as weary, and risen as full of care, at Prussia's Cove, as in her log-house, 
 and seen as few strange faces perhaps fewer, for she writes me they have neigh- 
 bours now within reachable distance. Then, Miss C and Sophia cannot, 
 
 in whatever quarter of the globe, but lend a hand to keep the children and mend 
 the clothes ; and John and Francis have well exchanged the culture of a few 
 weather-beaten cabbages for the more profitable exercises of cutting and chopping. 
 Their mother gives them the character of excellent axe-men, and says they supply 
 the house with fuel, which is no baby's play in such a climate. 
 
 There is another feature of emigration (I was thinking yesterday, when I heard 
 an arrangement for a party on the water, between our landlady, Kate, and Dolly) 
 which equally belongs to this primitive spot a community of labours and pleasures. 
 On the present occasion, however, Kate and self took fright at the idea of sea- 
 sickness, and so the maids went without her. 
 
 They sailed, in the first place, to view the " Bishop's Rock," which they say (sad 
 augury for Episcopacy) is tumbling down, and then proceeded to Porthleven, 
 where, to their unexpected delight, they arrived in the bustle of a fair, and
 
 Walks about St. Hilary. 71 
 
 rather a queer conjunction ! a Sunday-school tea-drinking. They returned very 
 late, Kate and I, a la Canada, boiling our own tea-kettle, and trying to soothe the 
 rugged heart of Captain Will, through the open window, by a moonlight duett 
 and an occasional nod of sympathy. He, after sniffing about for something to 
 eat, with the amiable demeanor of Bruin in the fairy tale, fetched himself out a 
 block of wood and a care-soothing pipe, and sat sullenly watching the coast all 
 along to Porthleven. 
 
 In pursuing my parallel between the emigrant's life and ours, I omitted one of 
 the most prominent affinities ; I mean our dependance on the day's sport for a 
 dinner. 
 
 These hot cliff suns have proved fatal to the provisions we brought with us ; we 
 have been obliged to give them to our Esquimaux, and in return to purchase their 
 turbot and mullet. Our host and his sons are not genuine fishermen ; they derive 
 their maintenance from lobster stores, the contents of which are duly called for 
 by a smack, and conveyed to London, &c. Now the first of all sorts which they 
 catch in a net called a trammel, are generally used for bait ; only that they favour 
 Dolly with the elite. Let me make your inland mouths water : yesterday we had 
 a turbot, which was hardly dry from the salt water before it was put into the fresh, 
 and the day before some red mullet, with livers large enough to vindicate their 
 knighthood and soubriquet of sea-woodcock. 
 
 July i. I can hear the sea murmur, in my little white bed, along the hollow 
 roof (for I think I have told you of the curious place of concealment, between the 
 roof and wall, contrived by the old Smuggler King, in order to outwit the excise- 
 man). Last night, it was something above a murmur that lulled me to sleep. 
 This place is so quiet that an impulsive movement, or an elevated voice, makes 
 one think something has happened. Thus it was this morning, when, sitting com- 
 posedly at work, I was attracted to the window by hearing a sudden exclamation 
 from Cornish (one of our young fishermen), who, with uplifted arm, was running 
 down the cliff, crying out, " She is surely on the Stone ! " 
 
 We could only watch with lively anxiety the motions of the seemingly fated 
 vessel. Our little congregated band of fishermen appeared to think that, if she 
 had not already fallen on the sunken rocks, she would never be able to thread 
 herself free of them, and promised us that, as soon as the danger was apparent, 
 they would " row to the assistance of the crew." But it was decreed otherwise, 
 and the vessel (with the souls on board no less unconscious, perhaps, of their late
 
 Walks about St. Hilary. 
 
 deliverance) bravely pursued her course. This is the second vessel for which our 
 experienced seamen have had serious apprehensions, in the course of the last few 
 days. Both were in danger past the skill of man to escape, but they have escaped, 
 unconsciously, perhaps, to themselves. " Oh, that men would therefore praise the 
 Lord." 
 
 In a former walk to the Cove, I think I mentioned that my all-observing com- 
 panion had spied the mast of a vessel, in what she thought an unnatural position, 
 and which, in the event, proved to be a wreck, drifted on this coast ; where from, 
 whither bound, no soul has been able to guess. The hulk took up her final station 
 off Great Cudden, from whose point her masts were sometimes visible ; but now 
 every vestige has disappeared, and her history will remain a secret till that day 
 when " the sea shall give up her dead." 
 
 You will think we never walk here, I write so journalwise, but indeed we do ; 
 we visit the boatmen's wives, pay a charity visit to a sick gude-wife, bring some 
 moths from the valley, and leaves for Kate to print off. Following Kate's idea of 
 the Insect Eden, I should say this is the Paradise of Weeds, and, for the self-same 
 reason of loneliness, the Paradise no less of Birds. The blackbirds and thrushes 
 will perch on a tree on either side of you, and challenge each other to a trial of 
 vocal skill, for as long as you will stay to listen ; and the sweet little yellow- 
 hammers will perch on a hedge-row twig long enough and near enough for you 
 to take a lesson from them. 
 
 And now tell the truth, dear M , are you not glad that this is Saturday 
 
 afternoon, when Kate and Dolly and I must soon set out for the Vicarage, in order 
 to receive the master, on his return from a week's Sessions ? Whether he will 
 consent to our coming hither again next week, is yet in the breast of absolute 
 authority, and not even to be guessed at ; but, at all events, I can say with Lord 
 Byron, " I have been blest."
 
 WALK XXXIV. 
 
 THE COVE, JULY 8, 1837. 
 
 A farewell. An escape. Spinny's history. 
 
 [E have had an adventure ! One of Kate's squirrels gnawed his way 
 through his cage, and escaped over cliff. The alarm was given ; 
 all the chivalry of the place were in arms dogs, cats, and fisher- 
 boys. Some of the latter jeoparded their lives by plunging into 
 the most precipitous parts of the cliff-brake, where they supposed the fugitive had 
 taken shelter (for Miss Kate is mighty popular). One man had his feet held whilst 
 he hung perpendicularly over cliff, in order to grope among the tangled weeds. 
 As a last resource, a muzzled hound was caught by a young farmer, and put on the 
 scent ; but all in vain. The refugee had, perhaps, found some snug cleft in the 
 rock, where he sat more at his ease than the poor Baron of Bradwardine under 
 similar circumstances ; for these creatures are little nothings, though they make a 
 very imposing appearance, with their plumy tails arched over their heads. It 
 would have been a sight to see him bounding from rock to rock, under the inspi- 
 ration of recovered liberty. This was the " tree squirrel;" the other is on his 
 native element, " the ground" and is much tamer. When Captain Will came home 
 at night, he was greatly concerned to hear of Miss Kate's misfortune, and in the 
 true spirit of the old smuggler, to whom difficulty is motive, vowed (I wish he 
 might not swear] that, " dead or alive, he would have him in the morning." He 
 went to bed, and, like Captain Hall's old sailor, slept with all his might, in order 
 to be up early : and so he was ; and over the hills before the sun, " a-chasing the 
 wild dear." At four o'clock, he knocked at the cabin window, bidding Harry rise 
 and come out, " dressed or undressed," to help him catch the squirrel, of which 
 he had caught a sight. Poor Harry, knowing with whom he had to deal, obeyed 
 to the letter, and positively pursued the fugitive without stocking or shoe, "thorough 
 brake, thorough briar," till the runaway was taken in the tank, and rescued from the 
 double danger of drowning and being devoured by Harry's cat. 
 
 T
 
 WALK XXXV. 
 
 THE COVE. 
 
 The Dove. Penair. 
 
 jEEING the cutter pass, which was to convey poor Neale and his family 
 to Scilly (in exchange for a sick preventive-man), we all three walked 
 to the Station to take leave. What a lovely thing was this preventive- 
 cutter ! She seemed almost conscious of her beauty as she lay at 
 anchor under the Station ; so beautifully proportioned, so slight, so delicately trim 
 and neat her fair " woven wings " half furled, yet seeming only to wait an impulse 
 to spread out and " flee away." I give him credit who named her the " Dove." 
 Before I take leave of those two good things, yourself and the Cove, I will just 
 tell you that we expect a visit to-night from Mr. Penrose, author of one of the 
 most celebrated series of the Bampton Lectures-^^w know them, I dare say and 
 he has written something else since. He is lionizing with his sisters at the Land's 
 End, and has a mind to rub up his old Penair acquaintance with me. I was very 
 young when I knew him first, and he was prodigiously tall, with a mouth like an 
 ogre. Playing with Julia, his cousin, in a hay-loft (two little girls we were then), 
 he strode up to us, and, before we had recovered our first surprise, he threw us into 
 a second by popping us one after another into a great corn-bin, stepping in after 
 us, and shutting down the cover ! It was well it was not a mistletoe bough affair 
 how it would have puzzled the curious to account for three such incongruous 
 skeletons ! Mrs. Penrose (his lately deceased wife) was the Mrs. Markham whom 
 future generations will have reason to bless for juvenile histories of England, 
 France, &c. Did you ever hear why she assumed the name ? Her father, Major 
 Cartright's seat was called Markham.
 
 WALK XXXVI. 
 
 ST. IVES, 1837. 
 
 An old sailor and his ship. 
 
 CHANGE came o'er the spirit of my dream," I may say with Lord 
 Byron, for I find myself in the midst of a busy seaport town ; I 
 hardly know how, though too surely I know why. Dear Kate's 
 health has long demanded such a change as a migration from the 
 bland south to the elastic north coast, and here we have the last in perfection. 
 The air is clear and springy, and the walks inviting and prolific of interest. Some- 
 times we go to the strand, and wander amongst the vessels which have been hauled 
 up for repair, after the injury they sustained in the late gale, so destructive by sea 
 and land. 
 
 This morning something went wrong in the labours of one of the proprietors of 
 a vessel under repair. He was an old captain, and of course expressed his indig- 
 nation pretty freely at these repeated contretemps. " Do not swear, my friend," said 
 
 Mr. P . " I tell you," he replied, " it is enough to make a parson swear." 
 
 " I hope not, my friend," rejoined the former ; but I believe the old seaman was 
 unconscious of his own repartee. 
 
 Away further off was a little thick-built man in a dreadnought, who, between 
 age and tobacco, had hardly a tooth left in his good-humoured round head, but 
 his merry eyes contained all their youthful fire, and he answered our questions with 
 ready frankness. 
 
 " Why, your vessel is like the Irishman's knife, my friend ; new blade and new 
 handle," said uncle. 
 
 " You say truly, sir, and more than that, for the blade is where the handle 
 should be. The old planks that came out of the bottom, I've made serve for her 
 deck." 
 
 "Was she new when you bought her?" 
 
 " New!" repeated Jack, turning an eye of fondness on her, as he might on the 
 wife of his bosom, on hearing her complimented on her young looks. " New,
 
 76 Walks about St. Hilary. 
 
 master ? I'll tell ye just how new she is. Ever since I have had a wish to be owner 
 of a vessel and that's as long as I can remember I've saved every bit of plank 
 that came honestly in my way, and all that I could reach in the way of purse I 
 bought, for I knew well enough it would all come handy. There they are, every 
 plank of them ; all heart of oak." 
 
 WALK XXXVII. 
 
 ST. IVES, 1837. 
 
 A great "traveller" An apparition. 
 
 )HE observation is common enough, and true as common, that Nature 
 teems with beauties and wonders, if we would give ourselves the 
 trouble to look into them. There are also moral wonders of which 
 we take as little heed, and but few turn aside to draw from their con- 
 cealment. For my part, I have a positive taste for inspecting and dissecting, as it 
 were, the minds of the honest people I encounter on my rambles, and feel myself 
 as well repaid as the disciple of Withering, who pokes his sagacious nose into every 
 bank and hedge. 
 
 Walking up the Terrace Hill this morning, I encountered an old woman, who, 
 wanting the usual keys to sympathy, the appearance of sickness or need, I ad- 
 dressed with the usual prologue, the weather. 
 
 "Aye, madam, it is fine weather, but slottery under foot." 
 "You seem a good traveller, however," 
 
 " Like enough : I have travelled afoot as much as most, I s'pose I have walked 
 to every place in the county, I may say ; why, I've travelled ninety-two miles in 
 twenty-four hours, and took never a wink of sleep, only just a dish of tea, from 
 St. Ives to Mevagissey and back again."
 
 Walks about St. Hilary. 77 
 
 " You know Mrs. S and Mr. R. H ," said I, rather for something to 
 
 talk about, than any doubt of the fact. 
 
 " Know Mr. H and Mrs. S ?" exclaimed Betty ; "yes, fie ! and poor 
 
 Miss Mary and Dr. H ." 
 
 There is a mischievous tenacity of memory in some folks the doctor, so dubbed 
 by Betty, now stood high in the squirearchy of St. Ives ; only second to his brother- 
 in-law, the member for that ilk ; and had probably almost forgotten himself that 
 he was an army surgeon ; and yet I think he would never forget having been, as I 
 have heard him say, professionally witness to the cutting off of one of the two 
 handsomest legs in England. The much-extolled limb belonged to the Marquis 
 of Anglesea, and was amputated after the battle of battles Waterloo. 
 
 To return to Betty's less symmetrical, though equally useful, supporters. 
 
 " Travelling as you do, night as well as day, and quite alone, don't you some- 
 times feel fearful ? " 
 
 " Never in my born days," stoutly replied Betty Quick, for that was her character- 
 istic name ; " never but once (she lowered her voice) ; it was by Rose ; " here 
 
 again I lost a gem of a name ; but, if I have' forgotten place where, I can remem- 
 ber time when, as Betty, like all describers of apparitions, began with, " It was 
 coming on to night not quite dark, either, for I could plainly discern what I shall 
 hereafter make mention of. Right afore me, and about the distance of yonder 
 brambles, I saw something right across the road. I can't say I felt altogether 
 afraid, to say afraid, so I walked up to it, thinking it was some sort of cattle, but 
 withal it seemed to fill the lane full of men," I fancied she said, and repeated 
 these words enquiringly, " Full of men?" " No, no, it was nought of mortal kind 
 that I saw that night," repeated Betty, somewhat piqued ; " I stooped down my 
 head in this fashion, and then I could discern that it had the snout of a swine, 
 and" 
 
 " Probably, it was a large animal of the pig kind," I said. 
 
 " What animal could that be," retorted Betty, angrily, "when the very nose of un 
 filled up the lane ? No, no, 'twas no animal ; 'twas the Evil One hisself, as you 
 shall hear ; for I called out with a loud voice these words, ' In the name of the 
 Holy One, can't I pass ?' Upon that, the form gathered up his fore-legs, and stood 
 along the other side of the hedge, and, as I passed, neither groaned nor growled, 
 and you may depend I did not know whether I was in the body or out of the body, 
 and, if ever the hair stood up on end on anybody's head, so it did upon mine, and 
 
 u
 
 7 8 Walks about St. Hilary. 
 
 yet I couldn't say altogether I was much afraid ; but a young man who passed there 
 that night, with the fright of what he saw, never left it alive." 
 
 "Why do you suppose God sent such an apparition ?" I asked. 
 
 " For a trial of faith," answered Betty, thinking, and justly, that a fable is nothing 
 without its appendant moral ; and, our roads diverging, we parted. 
 
 WALK XXXVIII. 
 
 Pierce. Mary King's garden. Jenny Priske. ' Un Sally. 
 
 AM glad, and I hope thankful, to walk again among mine own people, 
 after an illness trying to body and spirits ; but I find poor Pierce, my 
 nearest sick neighbour, has fallen a victim to it, that is to say, it has 
 given the coup de grace to a constitution worn down by near twenty years 
 of sickness. I was struck at seeing his vacant pillow, from which, at our entrance, 
 he always raised his head to make a meek bow ; but I felt glad it was so, as I told 
 his wife, poor Honour, who, with her wonted ingenuity at perplexing the Queen's 
 English, told me she had " no more doubt of his spiritual death than that knife 
 there, and this thought had dried up her tears, if there were any to dry." That 
 most impracticable ABC D-arian, her son, sat on the side of the bed all of a 
 scrump, and looking as if he had by no means made up his quarrel with his horn 
 book ; however, he and the girl have promised to attend the Sunday-school, and 
 I was glad to hear Honour expressing her determination to keep the family to- 
 gether. She is really a good intentioned being for a queer body as she is. 
 
 Mary King's husband has enclosed their bit of flower-garden in front, from 
 which I already see crocuses and wind-flowers peeping. She says her husband 
 works by moonlight, but that she tells him " that the boys will soon be coming on
 
 Walks about St. Hilary. 79 
 
 to bear a hand." The first shade I ever saw cross her frank, sunny face, was when 
 she enquired with solemnity whether we had observed " the element, and how 
 ghastly it looked, like a thing on fire, the night before last ? She had heard, but 
 couldn't vouch for the fact, that a bright star had been observed right afore the 
 moon." 
 
 How often have men's hearts failed them for fear at these elementary variations 
 before the time ! Our household had encountered the cold nights, as well as Mary, 
 to gaze at the strange Heavens. It gave me more the idea of a large sublunary 
 conflagration, than any meteorological influence. 
 
 The poor, I know not why, are tenacious of a compliment to their healthy looks ; 
 Mary laughed at mine, and said, " she believed ' her face did put upon her body,' 
 as the saying is (a saying, by the way, new to me, observer as I am of cottage 
 metaphor) for that she wasn't no great things." 
 
 We called, en passant, on poor Jenny Priske, whose son has taken away, on his 
 marriage, every chip of furniture, except the three-legged stool on which his poor 
 one-legged mother sits in the chimney-corner. Jenny's Ion mots do not much 
 enrich my pages, yet it is out of the abundance of her heart that she incessantly 
 repeats the burthen of her sad song, " very weak ; very weak, indeed." 
 
 Dear 'Un Sarah's indomitable mind rises even above the depressing malady 
 under which she still suffers. She had, as usual, her allegory, her gracious bene- 
 diction, her appropriate phrase ; and all strikingly dramatic. I never see her 
 without thinking of Mrs. Siddons, though it is to be doubted whether even our 
 tragic muse maintained so elevated a bearing on the bed of death. 
 
 We looked in at the Workhouse, which has lost, since we last visited it, one 
 sorrowful, suffering inmate the poor girl Floyd who, by the way, gave, in her 
 last agonies, another example of the " ruling passion." She lamented she could 
 not see "her dear mistress," and begged Mrs. Treweeke to "take the candle, and 
 look upon her." No sooner had its beams fallen on her convulsed features, than^ 
 seeming to have gained her object, she bowed her head and died. 
 
 Among our victims to influenza, there is not one I regret so much as old Philly 
 
 . Her daughter-in-law, whom I met yesterday, returning from her sale of 
 
 oranges, gave me a little account of the dear old soul's last moments. They came 
 on very sudden/ ly, she said, for that on the eve, of her death she threaded her 
 needle, with this startling observation : " My child, I have fastened my thread, 
 but I shall not live to sew it out." "You shall not sew for me, mother," rejoined
 
 80 Walks about St. Hilary. 
 
 the affectionate daughter-in-law, " sew for your own soul," and took away the work. 
 At night, the old woman lay down as usual, but not to rest. After a few hours, she 
 called Anne to her bed-side, saying, " Pray for me, my daughter." " My faith is 
 weak, dear mother, and my prayers feeble, but, such as they are, you are welcome 
 to them," said I. As the poor mourner told the tale, her tears bore witness to her 
 affection. " If it had pleased God, she wouldn't be without the dear old soul on 
 no account. She died in my arms," she added, with affectionate exultation. ^ 
 Anne had had a dream, too, which had comforted her heart. " Seeming to her, 
 she saw the dear old woman sitting up in bed, from which she had said, in a tone 
 of kind reproach, " How are ye here, mother, when you know I buried you, to the 
 best of my power, a week agone ? I am afraid it is not well with your soul." " Yes, 
 my child," said she, "it is well. I have been admitted inside of Heaven's Gate; 
 I have a place to stand within it, and, though it is no bigger than your little fringle 
 yonder, yet I catch the wind of the Saviour's mantle, as he passes along the Courts 
 of Heaven." " She then," pursued Anne, " told me that she was permitted to 
 return to tell me this, and furthermore she promised I should have comfort in my 
 'going out and coming in ;' and so I have found it," continued Anne, brightening 
 with the thought ; " so I have found it, ma'am, ever since."
 
 WALK XXXIX. 
 
 A scene at the Workhouse, 
 
 " Cold blows the wind to-night, 
 Cold are the drops of rain ; 
 The first true love that ever I had, 
 In greenwood he was slain." 
 
 jHIS is a snatch of what the good governess at the Workhouse calls the 
 old " tragedy tunes," that the poor girl, Mary Stevens, whose history 
 I have already related, chaunts forth in her fits, they call them, but 
 there is vastly too much method in her ravings for the effect of spasm. 
 She is either possessed or I do not like to write the word a deceiver. If the 
 latter, she is sworn sister to Caraboo, and hardly less adroit at the trade. 
 
 I ventured to hint my imaginings to the good governess, who told me the over- 
 seer (a shrewd man, and eke an old smuggler) had dropped a hint to the same 
 effect. 
 
 We were advised to drop in at noon, if we would see her in a fit, and the 
 exhibition took place very opportunely, just as we arrived. The evolution of bow- 
 ing the back, distorting the fingers, and absolutely turning the eyes inside out, were 
 gone through the last-named, I confess, somewhat staggered my incredulity. She 
 looked so thoroughly demoniacal so like the possessed in Raphael's picture of 
 the Transfiguration and there is something extraordinary in the change of colour, 
 from bright to livid, extending to her hands ; while, on the other side, the caution 
 of her language, which is known to have been habitually wild and low-lived ; her 
 exclusive praises of those who were present, even to old Polly Freethy, whom 
 she is known to hate cordially ; and the malicious pleasure which gleamed from 
 her eyes, when she knocked off the poor old creature's bonnet, who was officiously 
 endeavouring to hold her knees, expressing that she was " only sorry it was not her 
 head " were, in spite of myself, continually corroborating my suspicions. 
 
 v
 
 82 
 
 Walks about Si. Hilary. 
 
 Time, that best ally to truth, will shew ; but, if it turns out that I have wronged 
 the poor creature, I shall be ready to expiate my uncharitableness by going on 
 pilgrimage without boiling my peas. 
 
 WALK XL. 
 
 Parish map. Economy of time. Phrenology. 
 
 S we puzzled our way across the Higher Downs to Woodstock, I 
 thought how much I should like to have a map of the parish, and 
 how vastly more useful the study would be of local geography, than 
 that of the distant world, with which we may never come into con- 
 tact. 
 
 Our object this morning was to find out Nancy Harry's new little cottage, which 
 she has so often reproached us with never having " looked upon." No wonder she 
 should be proud of this monument of a husband's sobriety, industry, and skill ; 
 she never seems tired of repeating that every inch of it was his own performance ; 
 walls, planking, fireplace, even to the setting-in of the window-frames and panes ; 
 "and never lost an hour's work, neither." 
 
 Time is a material that some contrive to "put ten times so far as other some." 
 Why it is so, I have often heard asked, but never had satisfactorily answered. Is it, 
 I wonder, by taking heed to the 'tis buts ? 'Tis but an hour to bed-time, 'tis but ten 
 minutes to breakfast or dinner," or, "'tis but just to warm my hands ;" and so our 
 capital of waking hours is squandered, and there is nothing to show for it. 
 
 Ninety-nine out of a hundred miners would, on returning from " night core," 
 have gone to bed, or lain down under a warm hedge, " eating sun," or smoked his 
 pipe, that premeditated waste of time ; while Harry, this very morn, had finished
 
 Walks about St. Hilary. 83 
 
 his wife's day's work of drawing potatoes, to enable her to return to the wash-tub, 
 at which we found her, and then adjourned to the nice little square of garden- 
 ground, to prune the young trees that bordered it. What a pity there are no boys, 
 the havage being so good. 
 
 Three little blue-eyed girls sat in a row before the fire, and the fourth, a "maid," 
 was taken up from the cradle to be shown off, and repeatedly pressed to the mother's 
 bosom with a thrill of tenderness that did one's heart good to see. But the poor 
 thing had been ailing with her teeth-cutting, and nothing would quiet the pain but 
 the " doleful community," if you can guess what that is ; but perhaps I told you 
 this, among other malaprops, before, and you already know that the remedy is 
 neither a Quaker's Meeting, nor a community of Trappists, but simply Dolby's 
 Carminative. 
 
 We went this morning to bespeak a turkey of the good-wife of Trevabyn. A 
 forlorn-looking old creature sat by the open chimney, tearing abroad a faggot of 
 furze. I enquired her name. Hosking by her husband, but he was gone, she said, 
 and her children were all married, and had others to care for, and now she was 
 getting old ; her arms had gone to nothing, and her feet covered with chilblains, 
 &c., &c. The crippled, feeble movements confirmed her words, and I thought 
 that one who would grapple with such ills, rather than be beholden to charity, was 
 worth knowing, so I said, " Where do you live, my good woman ; I mean, where 
 is your home?" "I have no home," she replied, "but what the Almighty has 
 spread over my head." She meant the Heavens, and the sublimity of the senti- 
 ment seemed strangely at variance with her most ungraceful efforts to make an 
 oblong faggot of furze pass cross-ways through the door. It was a stubborn trial 
 of strength between the door-frame and tough furze-stalks, till the mistress came 
 and adroitly turned the faggot up on end. I wish Dr. Spurzheim had been there ; 
 he would doubtless have detected the organs of higher and lower. individuality in 
 the wizened head of the servant, and the fair, laughing brow of the young mistress. 
 " He " or " she is extremely clever," is used such is the penury of our language 
 to express indifferently the Prime Minister and his cook, Madame de Stael and 
 her fille-de-chambre. 
 
 I myself know a learned man who maintained, in the face of the whole family, 
 that a pair of bellows had but one aperture, and that was in the snout ; and I met 
 two others, both D.D.s, shuffling away briskly from a cloud that was sailing off, 
 still more briskly, before the wind, in an opposite direction.
 
 84 Walks about St. Hilary. 
 
 So, then, if my clever man had been destined to bellows-mending, he must have 
 starved, while our two doctors would have made sorry Generals, thus flying from a 
 retreating enemy. 
 
 WALK XLI. 
 
 Gratitude. Crazy Kitty. A good riddance. 
 
 gb?- JL would be worth walking to Goldsithney only to hear this declaration from 
 Ifra the lips of the mother of seven children. " Sometimes I think I am 
 hardly like a mother, I have had so little trouble or sorrow with my 
 children five of them boys, too- no broken limbs, no rude words, no 
 bad behaviour (' their father wouldn't bear it,' she said in parenthesis, unconscious 
 that she had furnished the master key to this lock of seven wards), so all I can 
 say is, I can't never be thankful enough." 
 
 The same sentiment, connected with still more touching circumstances, flows 
 from the lips of Kitty Bray, not long discharged, cured, from the Bodmin Asylum, 
 thanks to the kind, eccentric Dr. Potts. He and Mrs. Potts seem, by her report, 
 to have been kindly interested about her, and no wonder. If you would hear 
 another tale of misery the parish annals supply little else this is hers. Twenty 
 years ago, when we first came here, Kitty Johns was a comely, well-grown, sensible 
 young woman, and very " well to do," for her little shop had all the custom of the 
 churchtown. Perhaps she meant to do better, but she made a sad mistake, when 
 she retired from business to marry Bray. He was a man (to borrow the phrase by 
 which her friends would have described him) of an " ugly temper," a most 
 significant expression, if you know all it means to convey. It describes one who 
 is wicked for wickedness' sake, who has a vein of maliciousness, who does not 
 need to be drunk in order to beat his wife, thrash his children, and waste his sub-
 
 Walks about St. Hilary. 85 
 
 stance. It describes one who, reversing a fair maxim, regards vice as its own 
 reward, for he is only happy when he has broken the peace of all around him. 
 
 The continual grating of such a disposition on one of tenderer texture at length 
 plunged poor Kitty into a sort of crazy melancholy, as harmless as that of her 
 namesake, and almost as picturesque. She did not ask an " idle pin of all she 
 met," but used to follow us with the plaintive entreaty that her poor head might 
 be laid open, and the mischief looked into. 
 
 A sufficient sum of her maiden savings had been rescued from her husband's 
 grasp to maintain her awhile at the Asylum, and were there applied with, as I have 
 said, the happiest results. Kate is cured, and, what is better, the wretch miscalled 
 a husband has absconded, no one knows whither ; so that, by the aid of a chari- 
 table, eked out by a parish, subscription, Kitty is not only restored to her wits and 
 her family, but also to her shop, where we find her, "close-packed and smiling," 
 behind her little counter, whenever we go that way, for she likes a call from " my 
 ladyship." 
 
 " When I think ef what I have been, and what I am," said she to me the other 
 day, "my only trouble is that I cannot be thankful enough." 
 
 WALK XLII. 
 
 Betsey Peters and the vicissitudes of her life. 
 
 morning we met poor Betsey Peters, with a basket on her arm, and 
 exchanged " good morrows." I feared to say more, she looked so 
 intensely sad, as if another word would have been an intrusion on a 
 sorrow which words could not reach. 
 She is one of those " never-smile-again " mourners of whom we have specimens 
 
 w
 
 86 Walks about St. Hilary. 
 
 from the king on his throne to the afore-named " ' crazy Kate,' roaming the dreary 
 waste," and yet, only a few months ago such is human vicissitude there was not 
 a more substantial, influential person in the Parish of St. Hilary, not excepting the 
 parson and his wife, nor even Captain Tom Francis, the owner of that new stone 
 house at Goldsithney, and possessor of the patronage of more than one mine. 
 
 Long before I came to the parish, she was the greatest dealer in tobacco and 
 snuff for two miles round, and, I believe, an honest one, though she would take 
 especial care that the scale did not turn in the estimation of a grain of snuff, and 
 would divide and sub-divide her (very) brown paper, till it scarcely covered its 
 contents. In her haste to grow rich, she must needs also keep a school. Pity I 
 did not walk (with my pen, I mean) in those days. What tragic-comic scenes have 
 you not lost in this novel attempt to wield, at once, the Caducius of Mercury, the 
 SEgis of Minerva, and the thunders of Jove. I suppose no mortal ever exercised 
 so wide a dominion out of so small a space. I can think of nothing like it, unless 
 it be Buonaparte governing the whole world from his little Island of Elba, which 
 he did not ; wherefore Betsey (I forget her maiden name) may be pronounced 
 incomparable. 
 
 Perhaps you would like me to describe her person. One likes to know what sort 
 of a body it is which enshrines the master mind, and hers is worthy of its tenant, 
 which is by no means generally the case. Her face and her features, in spite of 
 their roundness, are strong and firm-set, her complexion is dark and unchangeful, 
 her figure tallish, and more than stout in proportion, measuring indifferently, from 
 her shoulders down, about one and a half of her own yards, that awful yard which, 
 while it dispensed tape to the customers, could also reach the row of little heads 
 that were ranged along the forms, as regular and close as the ha'p'oth of pins in 
 the window, where, after the fashion of village shops, stood tops, and twine, and 
 eggs, and combs, and tumblers full of thimbles, and balls of cotton festooned with 
 stay-laces of all hues, with here and there an orange or a biscuit, meriting the 
 character the farmer's boy gives of his Suffolk cheese, " too large to swallow, and 
 too hard to bite," and, hardest to forego, the sparkling crystals of a lump of sugar 
 candy. Ah, many is the time that the relentless Betsey, when seemingly occupied 
 in sub-dividing an atom, and returning half of it to the quivering scale, has never- 
 theless contrived to rap the sconce of the luckless urchin who was caught casting 
 sheep's eyes at it. Yet it is said to this day that no one brought on the children 
 so cleverly, and general was the regret of the mothers when, emancipating her
 
 Walks about St. Hilary. 87 
 
 smaller slaves, she married the aforesaid Peters, a mere oaf, who not only wore 
 her chains, but submitted to have them daily " clanked about his ears," a metaphor, 
 by the way, strong and original, addressed to the patron of the Truro Borough by 
 one whom you loved, and who loved and admired you, dear Maria. 
 
 But how shall I get back from such a flight to poor silly John Peters, now better 
 known by the title of Betsey Peters' husband ? 
 
 This rare couple had an only child, a son, who quickly imbibed the lesson taught 
 him, both practically and theoretically, by his mother he heartily despised, and 
 cruelly maltreated his father, whom if it were not too shocking to write the word 
 he is reported to have beaten. As soon as he grew up to big-boyhobd, he stout- 
 ly resisted even the authority of his awesome mother, crossing her will and vexing 
 her soul, till, like another Frankenstein, she became horrified by the being of her 
 own creation. By the time he had arrived at the age of fifteen or sixteen, she 
 had tried, in fruitless succession, a Sunday-school, a writing-school, a boarding- 
 school, and one or two different trades. The last step was to apprentice him to a 
 respectable saddler at Marazion, but his idle, vicious habits baffled all her plans ; 
 he would neither make bridles, nor submit to wear one ; he would be nothing long 
 but a lawless vagabond, and in this character it was that he came to the frightful 
 end that I have to record. 
 
 Passing the little isthmus that joins the Mount to the mainland in a neighbour's 
 cart, and, it is to be feared, in a state incapable of guarding against the rocky 
 inequalities of the road, he was thrown under the wheels, and killed, it was said, 
 not on the spot, but that, rising and reeling a few paces, he fell down and " word 
 spake nevermore." 
 
 His mother heard of the dreadful catastrophe, and followed his remains to the 
 grave, without those indications of vulgar sorrow which have been compared to 
 the cow's lamentations for her calf, which, a few days gone by, she remembers 
 no more, and is agreeably engrossed by the surrounding daisies and buttercups, as 
 if naught had happened. 
 
 You can see that Betsey's is a life-long woe, a sorrow in fee ; one that making 
 bold to amplify a thought of Shakespeare's is for ever upbraiding the overwrought 
 heart for not breaking. What was it now to her that she possessed half the deeds 
 of the cottage-building miners, in pledge of payment for a long arrear of debt ? 
 What was it now to her that she had added house to house, and joined field to 
 field, when there was none to occupy ? She says it is his soul alone that she thinks
 
 Walks about St. Hilary. 
 
 about, nothing else ; yet did this poor woman set her child a life-long example of 
 Sabbath-breaking and church-slighting. 
 
 Thus are scoffers made to be preachers in their turn ! At first she soothed her 
 conscience by resolving never again to sell on Sundays, to attend regularly at 
 church, "and the means of grace" (being in the phrase of our country quite a 
 distinct thing) ; but all would not do, so the goods that blocked up the window 
 so long were removed and sold, and replaced by a huge vine in an enormous flower- 
 pot, being the only creditable vestige of the unhappy boy. He had planted the 
 seed of a raisin, and, strange to say, it had sprouted into a living vine. Possibly, 
 the poor mother derives comfort from the symbol. 
 
 The first time I took courage to call, I said, " You have given up your shop, 
 Mrs. Peters ; have you done well ?" " I was obliged to," she said ; " I should have 
 given away all I had." This short sentence, all she seemed disposed to utter, spoke 
 volumes. That one so thrifty by nature and habit should suddenly become wholly 
 regardless of personal interest ; the lately worshipped idol ground to dust and 
 scattered to the winds what was this but the hand of a jealous God ? 
 
 I should have had my fears for poor Betsey's wits so sad, so silent, so self- 
 imprisoned had I not glanced at the canary's cage, and seen that the little bright 
 pet had been duly fed and tended. And since then I had the satisfaction to hear 
 from a cantankerous gossip that lives opposite, that she had no great opinion of 
 Betsey's grief, for she had remarked her through the window, stirring about, and 
 going up and down the house quite bright.
 
 1838.
 
 WALK XLIII. 
 
 JANUARY i, 1838. 
 
 How to keep out the cold. Anne King. 
 
 HAPPY new year to you and yours," dear Maria. 
 
 You see we continue to walk, although the snow conies down, 
 and our wash-jugs and cream-pans are coated with ice. 
 
 I think I have made one good discovery, of which you shall have 
 the benefit. Warm well your shawl, cloak, and other wraps, especially your necker- 
 chief and shoes, before you venture your nose out of doors, for vainly shall you 
 put on " that over that, and over that again," as Betty Blackberry enumerates the 
 finery she intends to wear when she is a lady ; in spite of all you can heap on, the 
 cold and damp of unaired draperies will communicate itself to your system, and 
 send you forth chilled and comfortless, with clothes enough on your back, apparent- 
 ly, to defend you against a Hudson's Bay winter. 
 
 On you go, starving amid plenty, when one quarter of the clothing (the blood 
 being previously thawed) would be warmer as well as lighter. 
 
 But I preach in vain about temperance of clothing to my dear, naughty Kate ; 
 she carries the frosty Caucasus on her shoulders, and wonders she cannot keep up 
 with me. 
 
 I was glad to have Coombe on my side. You have read his physiology, and 
 perhaps his phrenology, also, but that I know nothing about ; only I thought it 
 very sensible of him to agree with me in opinion, and to send his readers to a 
 roasting fire before exposing themselves to the influence of a " bitter sky." 
 
 What a painful thought links on here that many go into this biting air, without 
 fire to warm their looped and windowed garments, to return to an empty grate. I 
 wish this may not be the case of poor Anne King, now Gilbert. Pity she had not 
 kept her maiden name, settled so comfortably as she was with Jenny and Aunt 
 Peggy, who, having neither chick nor child of their own, thought a great deal of 
 their pretty Anne. I am afraid I was proud of her, too. She was a picturesque
 
 Walks about St. Hilary. g i 
 
 appendage to my flower-beds, which she kept in order, since she was no bigger 
 than a sweet-pea stake. 
 
 A garden-girl should be slight and pretty, and have drop-curls (natural ones), 
 like poor Anne, if only to afford occasion for the quotation old Mr. Whitaker 
 applied to his daughter, " Herself the fairest flower." 
 
 You remember Miss W ? good and sensible, but singularly plain. Anne's 
 
 occupations out of hours were not less in character with her beauty. She was 
 charged by kind Aunt Peggy to weed the bit of garden, to milk the goats, and, 
 above all and everything, to be kind to 'Un Margaret, the blind annuitant. Besides 
 this, to please herself, she used, between the lights, to pluck "griglins" (English 
 twigs of heath) out of the broom, make them into crayons by burning the tips, 
 and then draw cocks, and horses, and pigs, like anything anything, i.e., than the 
 animals they were meant to represent. I have preserved a few specimens in my 
 scrap-book. 
 
 But oh ! what is genius ? what is prettiness ? 
 
 We found poor Anne, this bitter day, with a tireless grate and a littered house, 
 trying to pacify two cross children, and exhibiting an appearance so lanky, that 
 I suspect she had robbed her own wardrobe to eke out theirs. 
 
 " Her husband would continue to work ' on tribute,' " she said, " and not on 
 ' owner's account ' (you know something of mine phraseology, from your long 
 residence in Cuddra), so that she never knew what she had to spend." 
 
 Ruinous as the system is, I can imagine its temptation to one who has a turn for 
 gambling. I had almost said, who has not ? at least, among miners ; the labouring 
 for regular wages is a dictate of prudence, generally, not an impulse of preference ; 
 I must confess it would be that with me, but I am truly sorry for poor Anne, whose 
 honest, orderly habits must needs make such uncertain gains a cross and an in- 
 convenience.
 
 WALK XLIY. 
 
 The two twains. A final farewell. 
 
 I- &- AM glad, dear Maria, that you take an interest in poor Anne James and 
 . ifa her adopted children, for I can give you the conclusion of their history, 
 and that is what we can rarely do in real life. 
 
 We continued our occasional visits, though I may not have recorded 
 them, to the widower's cottage, and were always welcomed by Anne with a smile, 
 but it was such a one as made her woe-begone countenance seem more dejected. 
 No wonder ; there she sat the livelong day, alone, and immediately under the 
 chamber where her sister died. Then the infants' faces, instead of the dimpling 
 and crowing graces, which could not fail to have communicated a gleam of joy to 
 hers, bore the suffering, attenuated look of age ; little pale atoms of being, sons 
 of sorrow from their birth, and ever ailing. One of them, the strongest, too, 
 laboured under a complaint rare, I should think, in one so young, a decided case 
 I speak to the learned of hernia. 
 
 Driving over the green, one day last autumn, Kate and I remarked a man and 
 woman trudging along the sea side of us, each carrying a baby. Kate suggested 
 that they could be no other than Thomas and the good Anne, taking the twins in 
 to the Penzance Dispensary, and proposed that the latter should mount with her 
 burden into the carriage. 
 
 This saved the traveller some fatigue, but nothing had power to brighten her sad 
 countenance. 
 
 "She seemed as one with misery content," 
 
 and happy for her it was so, since her cup was not yet full to the brim. 
 
 The doctor thought very ill of his puny patient, and could only inflict present 
 torture with a doubtful promise of future relief, provided the prescribed remedies 
 were persevered in, but the steel denying the poor body one moment's relief from
 
 Walks about St. Hilary. 93 
 
 suffering might be said to have entered into the soul of the pitying aunt, so she 
 laid it aside, and wisely abandoned her charge to nature. 
 
 In the meantime, the weaker infant died of inflammation of the lungs, and, in 
 happy time, the other was laid beside it. I was from home at the time of their 
 death, but learnt on my return that the kind aunt, her occupation being gone, 
 proposed to return to her former home. 
 
 By the merest accident, I met her, passing along our little avenue, on the way 
 thither. She wore nearly the same dejected look as before, yet she seemed some- 
 what care-lightened, and was beautifully nice in her dress, which, of late, like 
 Shakespeare's lover, had betrayed an appearance of careless desolation. We 
 conversed a while on her duplicate sorrow ; I attempted some commonplace 
 consolation, about the babes being better cared for, and so forth. " Yes, ma'am, 
 I know they are better off than with me, but " her sad eyes filled with tears as she 
 added " they came very near." 
 
 We took leave, poor Anne and I, and went our different ways, no more to meet, 
 probably, on earth ; but I never expect to witness a more heroic instance of self- 
 devotion. 
 
 WALK XLV. 
 
 Superstition. Family pride. An important secret. Jenny Priske. 
 
 jlHO would credit it of the nineteenth century! but seeing is be- 
 lieving. 
 
 I saw with my own eyes the little black flag attached to our 
 churchwoman's bit of mignonette, which she assured me had 
 begun to quail away since the poor child, her grandson, was burnt to death, and 
 had revived after she put on it a bit of mourning. It was not, she added, seeing 
 me smile, that she put much upon it herself, but, I might depend upon it, her 
 daughter in Penzance had two-and-twenty plants, that the ladies used to stop at 
 
 Y
 
 94 Walks about St. Hilary. 
 
 the windows and admire, which began with one accord to droop from the time 
 that the accident happened, and would certainly have died if she had not given 
 them a suit of black apiece. " And perhaps a little water, Anne," I might have 
 rejoined ; but I should like to be quite sure the figment is morally wrong, before 
 I disturb any one's faith in a point which affords such evident satisfaction ; and, 
 indeed, shall not a poor pew-cleaner be pardoned for a weakness which moved a 
 President of the Royal Society, on the occasion of his mother's death, to order, by 
 letter, that his bees in the country should be invested with crape, lest they should 
 die? 
 
 I fell in with Jane Roberts on her way to " put abroad " some clothes, and we 
 had'a little parley, which glided from present to past times, for Jane is on the 
 shady side, as it is jocosely called, of sixty, I suppose. She adverted to her first 
 going into service with old Mrs. Jenkins of the churchtown. " Dear soul, she had 
 a poor temper, and she knew it well. She used to say to me, ' I was young and 
 healthy then, so what right had I to be -poor tempered ? Jane,' says she, 'thou 
 may bless God for thy good temper ; thou wilt go forth into the world, child, with- 
 out a burden on thy back ! ' ' This was philosophy worthy of the President 
 himself. 
 
 I went home by the moor-lane road to Goldsithney, for I always like to avoid a 
 bit of turnpike, not but that the lane was as dirty ; it was dirtier than Lanteran 
 Hill, and then there were abundance of ruts, deep and miry ; but these were not 
 the work of the incessant cars and vans, and other like vehicles, which ply on 
 public roads " from morn till dewy eve." They were made by our own rustic 
 ploughs and carts, and I knew the water that filled them would nourish the prim- 
 roses that are ready to burst forth on either side of the way. It will not do for 
 them to shew their noses yet ; the snow still stands in high piles under the north 
 hedge, cut by the passing wheels into smooth, druidical-like fragments. 
 
 I wanted an expounder at my elbow, to tell me why these remainder heaps differ 
 from the new-fallen snow in their component particles, which, in place of the usual 
 flaky, feathery appearance, present an infinitude of crystal globules, reminding one 
 of that anti-climax to the sublime, a tapioca pudding. 
 
 I was proud, and my poor Asylum Kitty more so, that I could supply myself, at 
 her shop, with the two yards of twopenny ribbon that I was on my way to purchase 
 at Mrs. Gundry's, the Howell and James of Goldsithney. 
 
 To-day's walk was rather fertile of adventure. Rather, do I say ? when I met
 
 Walks about St, Hilary. 95 
 
 the granddaughter of a lord, selling tapes and needles ; Lord C she claimed 
 
 for a relation on the mother's side, besides many big-wigs on the father's ; among 
 the rest, two Irish Danes, This little person, who accosted me in a high-toned 
 tragedy speech, appeared to have hauteur enough to supply the many distinguished 
 houses to which she professed to be related. Of this she was fully aware ; like 
 another great personage, King Nebuchadnezzar (I wonder she had not claimed 
 him for a relation, too) her pride had caused her downfall ; but, she added, 
 it was her " equals " that she despised only ; wherefore, I suppose, three months 
 after her return from a boarding-school, she eloped with one of low degree. Her 
 father offered to take her back, on her making oath that she was forcibly carried 
 off, but this she told him in the first place she could not do, for that she married 
 him with her full consent, and in the next place she would not, for she loved 
 him. " Yes," spouted she, " although he has deceased this two-and-twenty year, 
 and many is the bitter dreg of sorrow that I have drained since then, and al- 
 though I lived ten years with a second husband, by whom I had three children, 
 two girls and one boy, yet, believe me, madam" (I once before played the part of 
 confidante to a heroine it was Cleora, in " Tom Thumb," by the way, one of five 
 characters which, under a scarcity of dramatis persona, I had to sustain and in- 
 stantly recalled Princess Hunkabunka's confession of love to her father : ' Alas, 
 my lord, I value not myself that once I ate two fowls and half a pig, but oh ! ' 
 and then comes her love for Tom Thumb). So, as I was saying, Mrs. Whaley, 
 declining to accept the conditions of restoration to her family's favour, has been 
 left to starvation and itinerancy ; yet she has a home at the Mount, from which she 
 sallies forth daily, to carry the basket of odd ware nine miles round the welkin. 
 A son and daughter reside with her, dependent upon their mother's scanty re- 
 sources, for the boy will not work, and the girl cannot, having, in child-bed, what 
 they call " shot out her spine," and thus become a helpless cripple. 
 
 There is something fine, too, in the old lady's bearing under such distressing 
 circumstances. Mrs. Townsend once offered to introduce her to a lady from Ire- 
 land, who happened to know Captain Henry, of something Grove ; knew, also, that 
 he had a daughter who "married unequal." "But no, madam," says this little 
 dignified body ; " I would rather choose to walk ten mile o' ground to earn one 
 honest penny, than receive a guinea from the hand of charity." 
 
 I forgot she told me, a propos to what, I don't know, that she was a " rare secret- 
 keeper," adding, in proof of her temptation to divulge one which she had preserved
 
 96 Walks about St. Hilary. 
 
 for eleven years, that she might, if she chose, have hung her second spouse over 
 and over again, for that she discovered he had a wife and four children in England. 
 I wish this mirror of conjugal forbearance could have persuaded the poor, ignorant 
 thing in whose cottage I met her, to make her home more comfortable to her hus- 
 band (my quondam Ariel, you may remember), who has lately returned from 
 Devonshire, with a know-nothing young wife and two children. 
 
 " If sylphs and sylphesses could live now, 
 Under the blossom that hangs on the bough," 
 
 it would not signify ; but here are these four people lighting down on our poor old 
 friend, Jenny Priske, whom I have so often brought before you, that she has the 
 right to consider herself an old acquaintance. 
 
 It is certainly very hard upon her, to have all the party in her one room, and 
 the daughter-in-law such a slattern, too ; extremely provoking. Yet I cannot ever 
 prevail upon myself to believe what they say, that she once jumped out of bed 
 on her animal leg, and broke her vegetable one (her crutch, I mean) in three 
 parts, about the uncapped head of her unfortunate daughter-in-law. 
 
 No doubt, she foments the disagreements of the young couple, in spite of the 
 edifying things she whines out about living in peace. " Charity, ma'am, charity ; 
 that's what I always tell them : ' charity suffereth long and is kind ;' charity" '"Is 
 not puffed up,' Jenny," says I (Kate tittered) ; but Jenny as usual assented, and 
 pocketed the compliment. Say what you will, Jenny is sure to assent, and, really, 
 every other word in her mouth is "to be sure," and "so it is," or " exactly so ;" 
 and whatever you happen to advance is just what she "was going to say," and she 
 knows it all before you can tell her, and so one is brought up at once. It is running 
 a tilt with a feather bed. 
 
 A ludicrous illustration of this vain warfare just occurs to my memory. My dear 
 father, you may remember, was very provoking in one respect (he could afford to 
 be) he never would set things to rights about the place. We had been at him a 
 long while about trimming up the trees that overhung and spoiled our road to St. 
 Columb, they made it so miry. One evening, when he returned from a Justice 
 Meeting at that place, we opened at him again. He was long silent, till one said, 
 " I thought I should have been drenched with the dripping of the boughs." 
 "Drenched," repeated he, "but I, who was riding, thought my neck would have 
 been twisted off." We laughed, and gave up the point.
 
 WALK XLYI. 
 
 Grace Ellis. A peaceful end. 
 
 N a parish that radiates from its central Vicarage at least two to three miles, 
 and that contains some 3,000 inhabitants, the relation of our visits must 
 needs seem desultory and disjointed and, I fear, perplexing to you, dear 
 Maria. 
 
 At all events, you will remember Grace, our domestic factotum for nearly twenty 
 years, and will be glad to hear that she has attained that grand desideratum among 
 miners, a house of her own. It yet wants many of the concomitants of comfort ; 
 the plaister needs to have a finishing coat, and the planking must be new laid, that 
 one may not cross it at the peril of a sprained ancle, and the stairs must have a 
 side-railing. But " Rome was not built in a day." Every penny that the most 
 thrifty housekeeping can spare, is devoted to masons and carpenters ; but, to the 
 credit of this honest couple be it spoken, they do not advance one step further 
 than they can pay their way. 
 
 The trade of miner is and that is one reason why I would rather be the tinker 
 who lived in his own tea-kettle, and kept his own hours in every way unfavourable 
 to regularity. The miner neither eats, drinks, sleeps, or goes to church, with his 
 family, insomuch that the wife finds it as hard to regulate the disposition of time 
 as of money. Oftentimes, when she has set in for a job, she is suddenly interrupted 
 Grace, for instance, was in the midst of whitewashing her walls to-day, when 
 word is brought that Tom has "changed cour," and she must instantly "fit dinner" 
 for him. Away go the tubs and lime-brushes, higgledy-piggledy, and the bellows 
 are plied to get up a fire for the potatoes, the stew, or the fish. 
 
 Passing her house, I was glad of the excuse to call on Mrs. Gilbert, so titled by 
 virtue of a small rack-rent estate, but assuming nothing thereupon above her land- 
 less neighbours. One claim to pre-eminence she might truly plead, but she does 
 not. She seems to think she has done nothing uncommon in affording an asylum, 
 for sixteen years, to a sick, peevish sister, who demanded as much attendance as if 
 
 z
 
 98 Walks about St, Hilary. 
 
 she had a rich inheritance to bequeath. That, in truth, she had, as I told Mrs. 
 Gilbert ; the blessing of the poor destitute. But at length she is gone, and now 
 the kind survivor can talk of nothing else but the happy end her sister made ; " at 
 peace with God, herself, and all around her ; her evidence brightening more and 
 more," her very sufferings helping her forward upwards, rather, for she illustrated 
 them by a ladder, hard to mount, but of which every succeeding stave brought her 
 nearer to Heaven. 
 
 How strikingly this conversation would contrast with what one can imagine 
 would pass in genteel society under similar circumstances. Mrs. Mary, for exam- 
 ple, dies, and leaves Mrs. Grace in sole possession of the establishment and funds. 
 Mrs. Mary dead ! How old was she ? When did she die ? How rich was she ? 
 When will she be buried ? What did she leave ? Who will have it ? Any small 
 legacies to her friends ? Funeral public or private ? Inside or outside the church ? 
 In wood or lead ? Hearse or hand ? But not one syllable all this while about the 
 ladder and its staves. 
 
 WALK XLYII. 
 
 Betsey Pengelly and her devoted daughter. 
 
 EALLY, it is a charity to call on poor old Betsey Pengelly, who lies, 
 drawing every breath in pain and loneliness, from morning's light till 
 her excellent daughter comes back, in the evening, from bal. She is 
 meek and uncomplaining as a saint ; and patience on a hard sick-bed, 
 let me tell Shakespeare, is better than patience on a monument. 
 
 The crum o' breakfast which is to serve till supper-time, and the well-cared-for 
 fan to keep off faintness, are duly laid alongside the poor woman, by the most 
 affectionate daughter in the world ; and when Mary returns from the labour which
 
 Walks about St. Hilary. 99 
 
 supports them both, she calls " mother " befoje she ventures upstairs, lest she 
 should find her parent a corpse. 
 
 This devotion of all her time and all her strength to filial duty, is no common 
 merit in one surrounded by evil example a companion-at-work of boys and girls 
 who, on the slightest provocation, threaten to leave, and frequently do leave, the 
 paternal roof, and go " to quarters." 
 
 Few are the advantages which the poor have over the rich, but there are some 
 latent ones, which one is glad to detect, in order to " right the scales a bit." For 
 one, the child of poor parents is able to give some tangible proof of affection, and 
 to requite in kind the benefits received from them ; she can, in return, make those 
 sacrifices of self which, above all things, cement affection ; whereas, except in 
 some rare and favoured instances, what can the children of the rich do ? I mean, 
 what can they appear to do ? Among a family of six or eight daughters, how shall 
 we distinguish the dutiful, the self-denying, from the careless and self-engrossed ; 
 what sacrifices can the daughter of affluence make, which shall entitle her to the 
 almost reverential admiration we feel for my poor dear Mary ? I'll be bound to 
 say, she loves her mother more fondly for being dependent on her for everything. 
 
 In short, I hope I have proved though the thing never entered her head that 
 no young lady in the land, do what she would, could appear so truly a heroine as 
 poor Mary Pengelly. 
 
 WALK XLYIII. 
 
 The cradle and the grave. An unnatural mother. 
 
 NLY a few days ago, I was speaking to you of our former pretty 
 garden-girl, with her two little boys ; and this morning we found 
 the younger in his cradle a corpse, the father, mother, and a 
 visitor or two, in the same room, all looking very sorrowful, of 
 course ; but I was glad to find poor Anne herself employed in washing.
 
 ioo Walks about St. Hilary. 
 
 It is one great advantage which the poor have during these seasons of sorrow 
 they do not add the pains of idleness to other pains ; " the cradle must be rocked, 
 though the babe has only been an hour motherless." I mean the womenkind 
 poor ; our men seem to think it proper to hold holyday till after the burying, 
 which, on that account, is often indecently hastened. The dead must be put 
 out of sight, that the living may eat ; yet, to do them justice, house-room is the 
 only thing they grudge the deceased. They will suffer privation for a year, to 
 bestow on their dead a fine coffin ; and Anne, though she knows not when she 
 may be rich enough to buy another, has decorated the little creature, so soon to 
 be laid in the damp earth, in the best christening robe, and cap, too, as if in de- 
 rision of its little death-cold head. She was expecting the coffin every minute, she 
 said. What a terrible illustration of the oft-repeated truth, that there is but a step 
 from the cradle to the tomb ! 
 
 Passing near the Workhouse, we could not help expressing our sympathy in poor 
 
 Mrs. 's peck of new troubles ; the worst of it was the breaking out of a new 
 
 disease in the house, a thing without a name, which made it needful to wash every- 
 body and everything, to the very skin and mattress. Then the sow had brought 
 forth ten little pigs, and over-laid seven of them, an " uncultivated cratur." Yet 
 this very sow might read a lesson on maternal instinct to some of the establishment. 
 The loathesome disease above alluded to, was communicated by a wretch who 
 brought hither her infant, and then abandoned it to the mercy of strangers. 
 
 Who is it says a woman is like a nonpareil ? the best of her tribe, if good, and 
 the worst, if bad.
 
 WALK XLIX. 
 
 Friend Mary. An apology. 
 
 WALK to Marazion is generally so barren of events, except the 
 twenty-eight intervening stiles, that you would have heard nothing 
 about it, had we not chanced to meet your favourite, Mary, returning 
 from thence with a well-filled basket. I love to look on her honest 
 face, so I invited a little parley. 
 
 " You have been shopping, it seems, Mary ; buying something for yourself at 
 the new shop, I suppose ?" "Why yes, ma'am, I have been shopping, though I 
 can't say I have bought anything for myself like, but the little 'Lizabeth wanted a 
 crum o' cloak to put upon the tender limbs of her this cold weather. It have been 
 slight with John, you may depend, lately ; and I having counted, you see, and no 
 great occasion for anything for myself like " and thus she went on apologising 
 for what most people would have thought highly meritorious, namely, the purchase 
 of the pretty blue stuff, with a " small matter of lining," &c., for the child. 
 
 AA
 
 WALK L. 
 
 A conversion. The Hepatica. Uncle Edivard. 
 
 had once more occasion to pass near the dwelling of my armless 
 patient, and again we called in, for curious was I to hear the 
 particulars of his sudden conversion, and anxious to be assured 
 of its stability. 
 
 Nobody at home this time but the cock and hen, and Anne the mother, who 
 looked more cheerful than usual, and far more diligent. She was " working her 
 knuckles to the bones " on John's dirty bal clothes, and it seemed quite a pleasure 
 to her to be employed in his service. On my enquiring for John, Anne looked 
 most significantly pleased ; but you should know Anne, she is like nothing any- 
 body ever saw. It was the happiest of aliases, whoever gave her the nickname of 
 the "prowler." She has all the attributes of a nocturnal animal. "John is a very 
 fine young man to me, Miss Pascoe, you may depend ; a very fine young man, if it 
 do last." She went on to recount, at my request, the particulars of this blessed 
 change, which were as follows. 
 
 "After the worst of his illness had passed away, he was one day reading a godly 
 book, lent by one who had visited him when he lay ill. Suddenly, the tears began 
 to gush ; then he prayed, and then he sang. Afterwards, he asked pardon for his 
 behaviour to me," said Anne ; " and, for sartain, it is a bitter thing for a son to 
 strike a mother. 'Yes, my son,' says I, ' I do freely forgive thee ;' and now he do 
 talk to our youngsters, and tell them how 'tis never too soon. When he goes off 
 to work, 'tis ' God bless thee, mother ! ' and a shake of hands he've none, poor 
 lamb, but his stump like ; and when I ask what I shall fit for him at night, so timid 
 (meaning teazy) as he used to be, it is now ' fit what you will, why do you ask me ?' 
 and then 'tis pretty to see how he begs us to leave our sins, and agree to go on 
 pilgrimage together." 
 
 Whoever else was so disposed, a wild, prettiesh-looking bal-girl, who sat, play-
 
 Walks about St, Hilary. \ 03 
 
 ing hidey-mopsey, behind the door, did not seem likely to join the Ziomvard group. 
 This was the girl who told John he might spare his prayers, for " there never yet 
 was a Priske saved." Extraordinary levity this, to confront and scoff at eternal 
 perdition. It far outsteps the common thoughtlessness of youth ; it was a pitch 
 of hardness that no damsel who did not work at a bal could well arrive at. 
 
 We called a moment with some flowers to strew over the little lifeless tenant of 
 the cradle ; possibly, the roots from which they sprang were of its mother's plant- 
 ing. " An hepatica," said she, placing it on the child's breast, while a gleam of 
 pleasure for a moment visited her face, to think her baby was deemed worthy of 
 the best in the garden, and, may be (who knows ? ), pleased to display her floral 
 learning to her admiring husband. 
 
 They had told me Uncle Edward Briant had been removed from the roof of his 
 kind granddaughter, so thither we stretched our walk to see how matters stood. 
 It was all true that the Parish of St. Erth had refused to add to the shilling a week, 
 which was deemed by Joanna's husband insufficient to repay him for the old man's 
 support ; but, happily, his former master gave in aid a stipendiary sixpence, and 
 " Gaffer" can keep the children when summer comes, and the mother goes out to 
 work ; so altogether his living would be made up. How glad I am ! the removal 
 would have been a heart-breaking affair, besides that we have hardly so due a 
 churchman as Uncle Ed was so long as he could " fetch " the church. 
 
 [WALK LI. 
 
 An invalid. A faithful cat. Mine accident. 
 
 HAVE many times wished to pick acquaintance with John King, of whose 
 meekly-borne sufferings Mr. Pascoe spoke with cordial commendation. 
 
 By making a small detour on the Helston turnpike road, this object was 
 easily accomplished.
 
 104 Walks about St. Hilary. 
 
 The poor man was pale and languid, though not a professed invalid ; in fact, he 
 had just come in from building a gap in the hedge, to keep out the sheep from the 
 "taties ;" but his wife was obliged to bear the more laborious part of rolling in 
 the stones from the surrounding burrows, and even with her help it was " busy all " 
 his strength to complete the little jobs. He leaned his breast against the table at 
 which he sat, as if requiring such support, his faithful cat bearing him company, 
 and testifying much affectionate concern by walking up and down before him, at 
 every turn sweeping his face from chin to forehead with her erected tail. He was 
 sensibly gratified by our remarking her attachment to his person, and assured us 
 " she frequently held up her paw to invite him to shake hands, when he was never 
 looking for no such thing." Kate was tickled, and begged we might see him per- 
 form ; but it never answers to show off prodigies ; instead of seizing the proffered 
 hand, pussy only " snuffed at it " like any common cat, and followed it with puzzled 
 eyes. 
 
 To make up for this disappointment, I suppose, the poor man mentioned a 
 wonderful fall he once had ; not to be paralleled, I should think, even in the record 
 of mining casualties, dreadful and strange as they often are. He fell from a ladder, 
 " two steeples outright," that is, a sheer perpendicular depth of two church spires. 
 Seeing one just outside the dining-room window as I write, and trying to fancy 
 another stuck on the top of it, I can better conceive than describe the tumble. 
 Now only hear the state in which he was picked up, and yet survived to tell the 
 tale. 
 
 At which end of the poor creature shall I begin ? His head was fractured, his 
 collar-bone broken ; on each side, three ribs were knocked in ; something, I forget 
 particularly what, happened to one of his shoulders ; his nose was laid flat on his 
 face, and his two ankles " shot out." 
 
 I promised not to treat you often, dear Maria, with such a chapter of raw head 
 and bloody bones, for it is quite out of your way ; but how the opium-eater would 
 like this specimen of a dreadful accident, so perfectly good of its kind ! 
 
 A more fatal accident befel the club to which this poor fellow had subscribed 
 for many years. It broke, and with it vanished all his hopes of an independent 
 provision for age and sickness. I know nothing more deplorable (for this mis- 
 fortune can only befall the industrious and provident, who are thus, as it were, 
 betrayed into pauperism) than the case of this poor fellow, who cannot now subsist 
 without parochial assistance.
 
 WALK LI I. 
 
 Town and country. The heath walk. A summons. 
 
 DO not believe there ever was house, hut, or hovel, such a hole for living 
 soul to inhabit, as that which her three brothers have run up for the 
 widow, Grace Stevens, and her five children. Yet it was exceedingly kind 
 of the poor men, who all had families of their own, to make this effort 
 to rescue that of their sister from the ignoble destiny of a Workhouse. I wonder 
 if I can bring the poor woman to your recollection as the widow who " couldn't 
 never" chastise her children, for thinking of their father, till her "temper was up, 
 and then she gave it to them bitter." 
 
 I sincerely disclaim any shadow of merit in visiting the poor as we do in the 
 course of a refreshing country walk. In a town, I might be tempted to feel set 
 up, " that I was not as other men," resorting to the temples of fashion and amuse- 
 ment, but threading my distasteful way through dirty streets and infected alleys, to 
 find myself, too probably, the dupe of low cunning and vulgar extortion. 
 
 It is our favoured lot to walk through primrose meadows, and over downs 
 redolent of wild thyme and furze-blossom. I sometimes parody the sailor's paean, 
 and sing " the heath, the heath, the open heath," while my companion, in the 
 exuberance of her gladness, goes out of her way to bound over a pool ; for even 
 our downs, generally the driest walks on earth, are, at this most unseasonable 
 season of ours, saturated with rain. 
 
 Tell it not in Gath, but I never, my own venerable self, see a detached furze- 
 bush, without an almost irresistible desire to jump over it, "for auld lang syne;" 
 but this is a populous country, and I do not pass for being over canny, as it is, 
 reading aloud to myself, with a fine, theatrical intonation, sometimes. 
 
 "I value a young man more than a gosling." This is one of Miss Mitford's 
 lively sallies, and, just as I pronounced it, I came plump across John Roberts, who 
 looked, poor fellow, quite in character. 
 
 BB
 
 io6 Walks about St. Hilary. 
 
 But, if I had wandered from my path as I do from my subject, I should never 
 have reached my poor little Anne's, at Woodstock, where I was this morning sum- 
 moned, in the manner I am going to relate. 
 
 A nice notable little girl met Mr. Pascoe at the Vicarage gate, and, without 
 waiting for the usual " who are you ?" announced herself and her business abruptly 
 and distinctly, after the manner of Southey's Glendoveer. 
 
 " I am Mary Anne Vasker ; mother was called Annie Hoskin, now she is called 
 Annie Vasker, she lives to Woodstock, and she must speak to Mrs. Pascoe, please, 
 and she must come directly, for mother is very bad in bed." 
 
 Poor thing ! I immediately recollected the good little body and her wicked sister, 
 who, in connection, always reminded me of the pitcher story, which the wise and 
 witty still cite for its allegorical beauty. 
 
 Betsey H was a bold, sullen, ill-favoured girl, and with the very mouth 
 
 for expectorating toads and spiders, and subject to such fits of insane rage, that, 
 I remember it was just after I came into the parish she flung a knife at her 
 brother's head. The missile penetrated so deep as to put his life in peril, and, one 
 good thing, keep the creature in such a panic respecting her own, that she behaved 
 somewhat quieter thenceforth. 
 
 No doubt, Tom Eddy (that was the name of the poor fellow whom she found to 
 marry her) fared the better for this hearty fright. 
 
 Good little Annie, being well rid of such a turbulent comrade, continued to tend 
 and cherish her queer old father and queerer old mother to their last. It was a 
 frightful last to the poor old man "the coiner," he was called through the parish 
 but my memory here admonishes me that I have before introduced this disciple of 
 Bamfylde Moore Carew to your acquaintance, and told you of his hapless end. 
 He rose from his bed one winter's night, and, whether in or out of sleep they 
 know not, threw himself into " the plump, right afore the door." What Crabbe 
 would have made of him ! 
 
 It was edifying to hear Annie's tender, patient care of her old mother ; and she 
 was rewarded. For a long time, she met in class that likely young man, Thomas 
 Varkis, and they talked "diamonds and pearls" together, till it ended in a match. 
 But I had no notion they had settled down within walking distance.
 
 WALK LIII. 
 
 THE COVE- 
 
 Parson Vawdry. Horned cattle. A bit of true love. 
 A stuffed pet. " The master " 
 
 is a day for the Cove," is an observation that a fine day is sure 
 to call forth from one or other of our little party. The opinion was 
 unanimous, but uncle was forced to ride to see his poor old brother 
 clergyman at Gwinear, who had nominated him one of the trustees 
 to a will, the seal of which will probably be soon broken, and who wished to give 
 him a few farewell instructions concerning it. 
 
 To anyone who has the gift of tracing characters, Parson Vawdrey would afford 
 a beautiful subject, only that its reality would be doubted, on account of its rare 
 simplicity ; but I have not this gift, and will therefore try what I can do, dearest 
 
 M , to communicate to you my sense of the glad feelings called forth by this 
 
 fine weather, and the valley, and the station, and that climax of grandeur and 
 beauty the sea. Long, however, before we caught a glimpse of its gracious face, 
 we observed those marks of animal enjoyment, above, below, and round about, 
 which are symptoms of a bright spring day. The voice of mirth was heard on all 
 sides ; even where mirth was not, poor Mary Warne (invalid as she is) carolled 
 through the open door of her house, and Frankey whistled loud from his solitary 
 perch on the cobbler's stool, in that most unjocund state of his. Even Mr. 
 Richards, the perpetual overseer, a terror to evil-doers and parish paupers, seemed 
 to have " relaxed his brow severe," and stood in friendly sympathy with a few poor 
 men, one or two of whom had long been weights on the parish funds. 
 
 Human face or voice there were none along the little quiet valley which opens 
 so sweetly and vista-wise on the ocean ; and for that, among other reasons, I love 
 it. There were traces of children returning from school, in scattered patches of
 
 io8 Walks about St. Hilary. 
 
 pebbles and primroses, which they had scud* (a genuine Cornishism) along the 
 narrow foot-worn path. 
 
 Oh ! the delight of sweeping round that noble battery, with all the world of 
 waters before us, a hundred gallant little barks, as bright as the birds that sunned 
 themselves on the Enys. The beach was also populous with little people from 
 the Preventive Station ; not " dancing their ringlets to the whistling wind," but 
 gathering perriwrinkles and limpets. A propos, I fell to parodying Shakespeare, 
 who is always in one's head, near the sea, substituting "all" for "half-way down 
 stoop some who gather limpets pleasant trade;" though not, I should imagine, 
 very pleasant eating. Chagttun a son gout ; but it strikes me shockingly fee-fa- 
 fumish to see a supper-party pick these creatures out with a pin, and gobble them 
 down, scholar's hats and all. On "Goody Friday" (an old Roman Catholic vestige, 
 I suppose), all our bal-boys and girls bring them home by the basket-full, on mules, 
 in carts, or any way, in short ; relishing the scramble, I suspect, more than the 
 fish. 
 
 To-day, even Captain Will was amongst the wrinkle hunters, having a mind, as 
 he facetiously observed, " to some horned cattle for supper." Buffalo hunting, 
 methought, would have suited him better. It was a rare act of condescension in 
 one who, in his time, had held commerce with rocks and breakers on other scent 
 than that of gathering shell-fish for an evening's frolic. I only observed himself 
 and " Happy Harry," of the group ; Carter and Cornish were, I found, more 
 profitably employed in sawing timber for the mines. The latter, I suppose, is 
 feathering his nest, preparatory to catching his bird, for you are to know that all 
 our rocking, and spratting, and boating, during the past summer, above all, our 
 shoe-polishing and knife-cleaning in the workshop, where the young seamen spend 
 so much of their shore leisure, has ended in a bit of true love. " Why does Dolly 
 always wait till the boat comes in, to clean her knives ? I should think it very 
 unpleasant with the young men about." I could not, for my life, satisfy the discreet 
 Kate now the murder is out. 
 
 You are not to picture me, dear M , planted before our little parlour 
 
 casement, looking unutterable things at the sea, without turning my chair. The 
 truth is, I may not premeditatedly look upon it a dozen times while I remain, but 
 I can enjoy the consciousness of its proximity, as one does, you know, " the silence 
 
 * Note by Miss W. Scud is to spill, in Cornwall, so that, if anyone talked to us of a " scudding sail," we should 
 think of nothing better than a " leaky vessel. 1 '
 
 Walks about St. Hilary. 109 
 
 of a mind." It is sufficient that the freshness of its breezes, and the rippling sound 
 of its waters, come o'er two of my bodily senses, while a third is occupied with a 
 book, or a fourth (wretch that I am) with a mutton pie. 
 
 A predetermination to enjoy never answers ; it is grasping the butterfly that has 
 looked so bright on the wing ; its vivid, volant graces are no more ; only a little 
 dust remains to soil our rash fingers ; or, if you will have a grander simile, it is 
 storming a fair city, only to find its provisions exhausted and its beauties defaced. 
 
 But whether I go to the Cove with a resolution to enjoy it or not, Mrs. Richards, 
 i.e., Mrs. Captain Will, would consent to live on one meal for six days, to have a 
 sight of the Vicarage folk on the seventh. It is meat and drink to her, especially 
 Miss Kate's young face, not forgetting her gown and bonnet, for, seeming to her, 
 we have the prettiest fancies in prints and ribbons ; but she sees us and ours 
 through Claude Lorraine spectacles. Harry and she were sorry, sure enough, to 
 hear of the fate of Miss Kate's squirrel. Harry has undertaken to stuff it, having 
 tried his hand very successfully a short time ago, on an otter, which came into the 
 Cove, followed by her young one, whom she was teaching to swim. He described 
 quite graphically how the little animal had, seemingly, been turned adrift, to follow 
 the mother how it could, and how, when it shrieked for help, she seized it by the 
 ear, and towed it on a bit, till, in her wisdom, she again abandoned it to its re- 
 sources. How Harry could summon courage to shoot her, we cannot imagine, but 
 I suppose his education of pegging lobsters and crushing crabs has hardened his 
 heart ; yet he is a mighty petter of animals, can hardly be persuaded to let one of 
 Dido's many kittens be destroyed, and withal he kept the young otter running 
 about the kitchen, going daily to the pool to catch " miller's thumbs " for its 
 dinner, till the odd creature died of " the distemper," a good sweeping phrase, by 
 the way, standing in the place of " nerves " to the human subject. I expect the 
 inflated squirrel will be set up, beside the mamma otter, beneath our sitting-room 
 window, and thus prove as consolatory to Miss Kate's feelings, as did the stuffed 
 poodle to those of a lady I knew, who had the effigy of her pet placed at one end 
 of her sofa, 
 
 " For ever silent, and for ever sad." 
 
 The wise woman I speak of was a Mrs. Pearce, a daughter of our liege lord, Sir 
 J. St. Aubyn, who, having no one to pay her a similar compliment, slumbers, I 
 believe, in the family vault. 
 
 cc
 
 no Walks about St. Hilary. 
 
 I never beheld the new officer till this morning, when we encountered him just 
 under the station. He is charming (I mean, as a feature of the place) ; a perfect 
 corsair, pirate, giaour, of a man, hardly distinguishable, by his dress, from his own 
 boatmen, but illustrious, by the elevation of his look and step. On his appearing, 
 the Preventive children seemed to stop their play and quail before him. After he 
 had well passed, I asked a little girl who that was. She replied, in a quivering 
 tone, " The master, ma'am ; that is our master." 
 
 It is remarkable how mist and mystery set off greatness. Our Godolphin looks 
 like nothing under a bright sun, and our lieutenant, among the other thirty 
 Lieutenant Smiths (which I once counted in a navy list), might look like another 
 man ; but here in this solitude, the only gentleman, and with a post of command, 
 he seems something, especially as nobody, not even the sagacious Mrs. Ladner, 
 can think where he comes from, or why his maid-servant, whom he brought with 
 him, should look, and dress, and be treated, so like a lady ; why her linen, the 
 best that could be bought for money, should be marked A. F., and she not tell her 
 name, unless it be meant to signify " a fable," and she should be really, as some 
 surmise, his sister or his daughter ; for there is, as everyone can see, a great family 
 likeness, &c., &c. This is the substance of a flood of gossip poured out upon 
 Kate and me, when we paid our last visits to the station. 
 
 Buonaparte at Elba was not more an object of general interest, than Lieutenant 
 Smith at Prussia Cove. 
 
 Maria, I have often thought a thought, which the last observation has again 
 called up : if I could but bring it out, how cleverly you would wrap it up for me ; 
 but how shall you do this without knowing my meaning, which I must try to convey 
 by illustration. A giant builds a castle, a wonderful great castle, in order to be 
 admired by the pigmies ; yet this building would be compounded of such stone 
 and mortar as is employed by the pigmies themselves, only he can accumulate 
 more ; but then the beholders, by reason of their shortness, can only behold it 
 partially. He would have admiration in proportion to the magnitude of his work, 
 but finds that, however he may rule over matter, the enlargement of the human 
 capacity is beyond his control ; so he must even occupy his castle, and be content 
 with the applause of the pigmies, who would bestow an equal portion of it on a 
 meaner fabric, all of which they could see. Now for my part I would not give a 
 pin to be a giant, unless I had a world of giants to admire me ; and I feel no greater 
 envy at Buonaparte's elevation among men, than that of Lieutenant Smith. But
 
 Walks about St. Hilary. 
 
 I have so ill-expressed my meaning, and written so much nonsense, that if I had 
 not so notably numbered my pages, I would tear out the leaf. 
 
 Just this word or two more " pour finir son affaire" It is now concluded that 
 A. F. is a natural daughter of the master. She goes, along the row, by the name 
 of " daughter Jane." Let them take care her assumed papa does not hear them, 
 with that dark look and long scimitar of his ! 
 
 WALK LIV. 
 
 MARCH, 1838. 
 
 Miss Mitford. A tale of a tub. 
 
 I set out for St. Erth yesternoon, I said to myself (I had no 
 one else to say it to, for my poor Kate had rubbed the skin of her 
 heel, and could limp no further than the garden), " Maria," says I, 
 " has heard enough of my auld world loves and regrets. I will 
 not tell her one word about my walk to-day, though the weather is bright and 
 gladsome enough to make the very fishes talk out of the abundance of their hearts." 
 To assure my good behaviour, I took a book Miss Mitford's " Village," of all 
 things. How came it that I never heard of it before, to show me how Shakespeare 
 and I have happened to think of the same thing, he having only the trifling 
 advantage of thinking of it first and better. Accordingly, the expedient of the 
 
 book failed its object, for it set me fancying how Miss M would have described 
 
 the various little passages of my walk. The parody amused me ; would you like 
 to hear it ? 
 
 Books there may be more learned, but there are few wiser, if we would attend 
 to its covert meaning, than one, the delight of my nursery days, now, I fear, out 
 of print, entitled, " The world turned upside down," wherein our lecturing wives',
 
 1 1 2 Walks about St, Hilary. 
 
 dictatorial sons, and ranting demagogues, might view their own portraits in those 
 of the nag carrying down the groom, the cock brandishing the dripping ladle over 
 the spitted cook, the baby dandling the nurse, the doll the girl, with other diverting 
 topsy-turvyisms. I do not recollect among them the doughty young damsel 
 chaperoning the timid old lady, and if there should be a reprint of the work, as 
 I hope, I and my trusty little Jennefer will deserve a place in it. 
 
 In so far as my taste is concerned, I like nothing so well as a cum sola ramble 
 always excepting my dear Katie's company but the law has gone forth, that I shall 
 not take a distant walk without somebody. This law, then, I obey to the letter, 
 transgressing its spirit by choosing for my protector the smallest and most ineffi- 
 cient person in the establishment, little Jennefer. No such bad guardian, either, 
 one would think, for, till she became our garden-girl, her business was to lead 
 about her blind father, Peter, to the surrounding mines, where he collected, you 
 may remember, his monthly dole from the charity of his old comrades. The girl 
 told me she had walked as much as twenty-three miles in one day on this errand. 
 Now her younger sister takes her office, which has cost me one of the tidiest little 
 goodies in the school. 
 
 Anyone might know that Jennefer's early education had been to lead the blind, 
 for, in the first place, she sets out stoutly in front of me, and, when sent behind, 
 dogs my steps so closely, that I cannot diverge one inch this way or that, without 
 her. following me. Luckily, our fine weather is too recent to have made the roads 
 dusty, so I do not, like other testy folk, quarrel with my shadow. 
 
 Who could credit that I had so lately given the miller's boy sixpence, to place 
 stepping-stones across the stream that divided the mill from the marsh ? The 
 stones remained to prove how well he had earned his wages, but I needed them 
 not ; all the country was as dry as a biscuit, except the marsh itself, in which stood 
 two voluptuous rogues of horses, up to their knees in water, while they supinely 
 cropped the tender tops of grass that covered its surface and grew almost into their 
 mouths, thus eating and drinking at a bite. No need to envy their brethren of the 
 prairies ; I should have told them so, had I known the horsinian language. 
 
 I do rejoice in the enjoyment when it happens of that most respectable and 
 oppressed of quadrupeds. But truly this was a day for all breathing things to be 
 happy in. Our winter sorrows seem to have passed away, and given place to the 
 glad influences of spring, no one knows when or how. Everything rejoices and 
 flourishes in its own particular line. The very scolds of the village (let alone the
 
 Walks about St. Hilary. \ 1 3 
 
 cocks and hens) screamed louder and shriller than if it had been a dull day. One, 
 a shrew par excellence, was railing at a man with a cobbler's apron, for not having 
 paid the rent due for his house, while he angrily demanded the restoration of a 
 tub to which she had helped herself in part payment. How they did rail at one 
 another, the woman, as usual in a war of lungs, having the best of it, like a fiddle 
 at a concert, the shrillest, if not the loudest, instrument. 
 
 One continuous scream did she maintain, at the top of her "scrannel-pipe,"* 
 from the commencement of her harangue, till long after her own door had closed 
 upon her. " Well," thinks I, " how times are changed ; in my days, neither did 
 tenants withhold their rent, nor good wives call names, with other sounds that are 
 misery to hear. 
 
 Everyone was happy in those days ; wonderful what alteration forty years make 
 in any place. Then, too, I think children went to school against their will, and 
 here was a bit of an urchin crying and struggling out of the arms of a great girl, 
 who was endeavouring to lead her to school. She suffered herself to be dragged 
 along, yelping all the way. " She don't like to go to school, ma'am," said the 
 girl, in answer to my enquiring look ; " she is always so." The silly mother, no 
 doubt, had sometimes given way, permitted the child to be conscious of its power 
 over her feelings, and then it is sure to be " always so." 
 
 There were several bigger scholars, belonging to a more quality school, not yet 
 called in. A string of these, in red, blue, and green frocks, gay and variegated as 
 their samplers, were running up and down a few stone steps, or sliding down the 
 one-sided balustrades. 
 
 I was wondering what o'clock it was, and their countenances told as plainly that 
 it had not struck two, as if I had brought the old chased watch I was just before 
 regretting. Blessed buoyancy of youth ! their jailer might the next moment shew 
 his face, yet they seemed to exult in their freedom, as the lark that carolled, oh ! 
 how rapturously, over their silly heads. 
 
 That dear old way-field, which, more than any other spot on earth, reminds me 
 of bygone plays, and pleasures, and persons I cannot, even at this advanced 
 stage of my earthly pilgrimage, recall them without a stinging at the heart, but I 
 feel none of the pangs when I glance towards the final resting-place of some of 
 the dearest among them ; the churchyard harmonises better with my feelings than 
 the playground, and no wonder. 
 
 See Milton's Lycidas. 
 
 DD
 
 ii4 Walks about St. Hilary. 
 
 What a fantastic thing is an English March ! The other day, snow was weighing 
 down the very hedges which now teem with primroses, and such primroses ! I 
 fancy I can distinguish a St. Erth primrose among a million. Those consequential 
 burgesses, the rooks, too, caw, certainly, more musically than other rooks. 
 
 The sun is almost hot enough to hatch the four rare eggs which Jennefer carried 
 in her basket, a present for my pretty young neighbour. But oh ! the uncertainty 
 of this world. She and her sister, Miss Sutton, and her, everyone's, " sweet 
 Johnnie," had driven away to call at Phillack Rectory, over among those arid 
 mounds of land, that, viewed in connection with the scenery round and about the 
 Trencroven hills, with their rich velvety bloom, the windings of Hayle river, 
 Trevethow woods, park, mansion, and untold beauties, suggest the idea (in a small 
 way, to be sure) of Arabias, Happy and Desert. 
 
 So much for St. Erth, which I was going to say nothing about. As to Miss 
 Mitford, I lost sight of my parody the moment I set foot on the glebe meadow, 
 and saw the oak of other days. 
 
 It is a pity I missed the sight of Mr. Punnett's smile of " beautiful happiness." 
 That is a pretty expression of Miss Mitford's ; don't you think so ? 
 
 WALK LY. 
 
 Maiden aunt. Cabbages and pine-apples. A Colossus of all works. 
 
 NOTHER borrowed day." One can fancy how strange this idiom 
 of ours must sound to foreign ears. M. Nollet, who still attends 
 Kate for the guitar, improved his simper to a smile, when he replied, 
 " Ha, indeed ! borrow from where ; Italic, perhaps ?" This was 
 very well for a Frenchman, unless, indeed, he did not wish to lend his own goods,
 
 Walks about St. Hilary. \ 1 5 
 
 and so proffered those of a neighbour. Whoever claims the patent, it was a beau 
 soleil that gilded our path over the downs, to the cottage of the burnt child 
 scalded, I mean. He drank out of a fresh-filled tea-pot. I found it, on my return, 
 sound asleep in our kitchen, just relieved from great agony by Kate's nostrum 
 (probably, a spoonful of linseed oil), herself not a little proud of her success. 
 
 To-day, we were forced to enquire the way to James Sampson's, through that 
 labyrinth of shafts and rubbish which renders the new-built down cottages so hard 
 to reach, though you may nearly command them all by a glance of the eye. I 
 should not on any account have applied for a guide at the old man Sampson's, if 
 I had guessed that his wicked Delilah of a wife had returned from her disgraceful 
 wanderings, or that he could have been so weak as to re-admit her among his girls. 
 
 I never beheld such an instance of the withering, fading influence of sin. The 
 creature, once a lively, comely person, had become so odious, so squalid, bloated > 
 and sinister-looking, that we could hardly bear to receive her directions, standing 
 with our backs towards her. The child was " come charming," as might be inferred 
 from our finding the mother bonnetted and shawled, to attend the Goldsithney 
 market. 
 
 Lady Carrington has done what she could to atone for the grievous wrong of 
 bringing she could hardly have done worse by springing a mine, here in the 
 heart of her nice, new-built cottages. She has, I say, offered an amende pittoresque, 
 by planting trees of all sorts among the surrounding heaps. It is only amazing 
 how they keep their ground. They must have a charmed life to escape such 
 amateurs in mischief as our bal-boys and girls. I am told the charm is to " spale," 
 i.e., to keep back a portion of their pay, if they are caught meddling with a single 
 twig. 
 
 A pathway, the only good thing I ever knew of a mine, led us, with a short cut, 
 into the Helston turnpike-road, on some part of which, we were told, resided the 
 blind child we were in search of. What think you of three blind children on this 
 road, so near that they might almost grope their way to each other ? It is strange, 
 since small-pox is out of fashion. 
 
 We were directed to a row of cottages recessed from the main road, and left to 
 hit upon the right one, but that was not the first into which I popped my enquiring 
 nose, glad enough to get it out again. The occupant must have been an out-and- 
 out slattern. No tester for her in the dirty shoe which I spied on the taSle, among 
 unwashed basins and spoons and slops. In my heart I love a regular Saturday
 
 1 1 6 Walks about St. Hilary. 
 
 stirrage, an inside-out, upside-down affair, without a clear inch to sit down upon ; 
 it betokens a clean Sunday's menage. The tempest of good housekeeping, like 
 other hurricanes, clears the atmosphere, but your sloven and all around her, is in 
 a state of stagnant repose. Utensils remain where they were casually dropped, 
 dust "creams and mantles" wherever it alights, fixtures become litters, and litters 
 settle down into fixtures. 
 
 "The sight's enough, no need to smell a beau,"*&c., 
 
 so I hastily withdrew from this dirty cabin, to enter that of her neighbour, where 
 a pleasant surprise awaited us. The smiling, clean young woman, bearing in her 
 arms a baby, as smiling and clean as herself, proved to be an old servant of our 
 emigrant friends, and she, it appears, was the identical damsel who presented the 
 tenth little Crisp at the font, when Mr. Pascoe bestowed the name upon it, for bye 
 the christening dinner. This young woman had once a mind, she said, to accom- 
 pany her poor mistress out, but 'twas a " whished " distance from home, and her 
 heart failed her. She was sorry to hear of their difficulties, and most appropriately 
 shocked to find they could no longer afford to keep a servant. 
 
 In the next cottage, and, as usual, the last, we found what we were in search of. 
 The mother, indeed, had gone to visit her friends, but there was one to care for 
 her sightless one, " mother and mair." She was one of that class in whose favour 
 might be parodied those lines, " To a friend," which are in every young lady's 
 album : 
 
 " Hast thou a maiden aunt ? Thou hast indeed, 
 
 A large and rich supply ; 
 A store to serve thy every need, 
 
 Well managed, till you die." 
 
 How graceful are the ways of childhood, even through its infirmities ! 
 
 The sightless babe grasped my finger, then shrank intuitively from a stranger's 
 hand, into the good aunt's bosom, anon raised her innocent head, and seemed to 
 ask, with her still bright blue innocent eyes, what it all meant, and again suffered 
 me to retain the little pale hand. The scene was really touching. 
 
 For a long time, we have been wishing to call on our former acquaintance, 
 Martha Jarnes that was, but she lived far off, and was healthy and well-to-do ; in 
 
 * Cowper.
 
 Walks about St. Hilary. 1 1 7 
 
 short, did not need us ; but I felt sorry I had neglected her so long ; her lively joy 
 on seeing us was quite a reproach. " Here again is a mistress who has lived in 
 service," said I, stepping into a spruce little parlour ; " I was saying, Martha, you 
 may always know the dwelling of an old gentleman's servant by its neatness." 
 
 "Why sure, ma'am," replied the brisk Martha, "it would be hard, after putting 
 so much labour upon other folks' housen, one should not make one's own decent." 
 
 I have surely told you Martha's history before ; if so, as dear old Scott said of 
 his Galvanism, you can skip it, madam. 
 
 Martha was cook to those ill-starred gentlewomen who kept a school at Penzance 
 about a dozen years ago, and failed because, I was told then, they brought pine- 
 apples instead of cabbages to a country market. Poor sweet Caroline used to 
 complain piteously that, whereas she had paid a guinea-and-half each lesson of 
 dancing, the mammas thought it much to pay her half-a-crown. Emily, the 
 poetess (and there was poetry in her verses), went to India, married, and died, 
 and these three events occupied less than a year of her sad life. Her history out- 
 steps romance, but be easy, dear Maria, I am going back to Martha, who took from 
 her well-polished table in the best bedroom, where it was reverently placed, the 
 prayer-book she had from her own dear hands. Martha, in truth, was that kind of 
 spirity, stir-a-coose servant (you have no such words), that it breaks one's heart to 
 lose ; a culinary Atlas, a Colossus of all works. She was like those notable hens 
 in a poultry-yard, who find time to fuss and push for other fowls' chickens, as well 
 as their own, and, scarcely giving themselves time to lay a single egg, will hatch 
 and rear brood after brood. This last-named talent of Martha's, unluckily for her 
 mistress, won the hearts of two widowers in succession ; the first suitor, Peter 
 James, was the father of five boys, whom he just lived long enough to bequeath to 
 Martha's care, bidding her, with his dying breath, to follow him, " like Christiana 
 with her five boys," which charge, she assured me, weeping, she was resolved to 
 observe ; and surely none had a right to blame her, if, having watched and coddled 
 and laboured for them, till they were able to " shifty " for themselves, she bestowed 
 her hand and services on another " widow-man." 
 
 But I must walk walks, as well as write them. Kate waits for me to accompany 
 her to Marazion, with the intention to call on the bride, whom we attended to 
 church only last Wednesday. I leave you, therefore, to figure to yourself how 
 busy and happy Martha must be, having now to " scratch for ten." 
 
 EE
 
 WALK LYI. 
 
 A pet canary. Bed-tiers. Armless. 
 
 RIGHT "miscellaneous" walk, the detail of which will, I fear, only 
 puzzle your dear aching head. 
 
 We sometimes are obliged to make a kind of muster call on our 
 favourite cottagers, just to keep ourselves in their minds, and to shew 
 them that they are not out of ours. We did some good, too. Mary Symons really 
 believes her canary would have died, if Miss Kate had not, with her naturalist eyes, 
 spied a minute bladder under the left wing. Before this discovery, Mary " couldn't 
 never think what ailed the poor thing ; quite off his meat ; wouldn't be without it 
 for nothing;" with such a large brood of her own, nevertheless, of all ages, from 
 the girls plaiting straw in the window-seat, down to the infant of days, who hardly 
 filled the doll's cradle Miss Kate had lent for its accommodation ; for, as poor 
 Mary touchingly said, she had had so many, that the old cradle was fairly " rocked 
 to bits, and she was looking to have another child, but God knows what is best 
 for us." In the matter of the canary, saffron-water and puncturation have proved 
 effectual ; the pet is convalescent. 
 
 Another lucky hit this day, was a peep at old Susannah Cornish, whom we found 
 in "racks of pain;" nobody to hand her a cup of water, far less to run for the 
 doctor, for the promised powder. The poor maid must go to bal, to get " a cram 
 o' meat" to put in her own mouth. 
 
 It was not many days ago, that I was exhorting this very Susannah to call in, upon 
 a time, on Betsey Pengelly, who lay weary and lonely the livelong day. I told you 
 all about her and heroine Mary ; close by, too. She replied, she ought to visit her 
 friends more frequent, but I might depend it was busy all her strength, when she 
 came home from work, to right away her little chars, and fit a bit o' meat for her- 
 self and the chield, a strapping wench, who would cut up into three of her little 
 meek, travail-worn mother. Well, now the two worthy bed-liers are within twenty 
 yards of each other, abandoned to pain, and to that sore trial to the poor, solitude ;
 
 Walks about St. Hilary. 1 1 9 
 
 yet never indulging one repining thought, that such should be the meed of a 
 laborious, blameless life. Ah ! they know better ; " their all is not laid here." 
 This resigned spirit is the more commendable, that they never read Thomson's 
 excellent " Castle of Indolence," to learn how. 
 
 "Without it (toil) would come a heavier bale, 
 Loose life, unruly passions, and diseases pale." 
 
 Yes, yes, the fulfilment, in our eyes, of the prophecy, " In the sweat of thy 
 brow," &c., is an evidence of many thousand years in favour of revealed religion. 
 Sweat we must (it would be more polite to say perspire, only that would enfeeble 
 the image) ; sweat we must, if we would eat, i.e., relish our bread, for our own, 
 for other's good ; or else suffer from remorse at having done nothing towards 
 procuring either. 
 
 A propos, I cannot make up my mind to pass my hopeful disciple and patient, 
 Armless. Nothing can be more encouraging than Anne's present bulletin, " Not 
 a respectful word from his lips, and the best of destructions to the children." This 
 sentence is verbatim, and, in speaking it, a gladsome smile lighted up her smutty 
 features. I cannot affirm that she hadn't a clean inch about her, since the arms 
 were plunged to the elbows in soapsuds. At any rate, I hope her habits are 
 improving, for she shewed considerable concern, that Miss Kate was obliged to 
 retreat to the door, during our parley, owing to the intolerable effluvia from an 
 uncleaned drain at the entrance. 
 
 There are many excuses for poor Anne's sluttishness. She came into the world 
 a good-humoured slattern, had a bal education, a drunken husband, and many 
 years' itinerancy with her armless boy, whom she is said to have exhibited, as an 
 extempore show, at all the fairs, markets, and " throngs of men," this side London.
 
 WALK LYII 
 
 New cure for a pig. Brushing. Old eyes. Generosity of the poor. 
 
 TREDREA was, as usual, in a world of trouble. How shall I 
 bring back Jenny to your remembrance ? Will you recall her under 
 the amiable designation of the bitterest scold in the parish, with the 
 most shrewish of bantam cocks, who has been recorded to have out- 
 cackled his mistress ; or can you identify her as the unfortunate 
 householder, who was obliged to go into lodgings during that 
 memorable gale that carried away a moiety of her dwelling ? It is 
 now rebuilt and re-tenanted, and very wisely contracted to half its 
 original size, which was large for a cottage ; but, nobody being willing to " live in 
 a wide house with a brawling woman," the room, still unoccupied, could never 
 obtain a lodger. 
 
 Jenny's present grievance is a sick pig, which she was coaxing to eat when we 
 arrived, and which, disturbed at our approach, upset his tub, and almost ourselves 
 to boot. No wonder, poor wretch ! Jenny had been doctoring him after her own 
 head. I wonder was she ever subjected to this course of medicine ? First she 
 "guv un brimstone that was no use, then bold almanac,"* and now she is trying 
 " gunpowder hetted over the coals." 
 
 "Why, your frying-pan will blow up, Jenny," said Miss Kate. This was the first 
 time I had seen Jenny smile, during the best part of twenty years. It might be 
 truly called a successful sally. 
 
 We met your favourite Mary (Mary the friend) at the little corner plantation, and 
 called up the 
 
 " Orient blush of quick surprise " 
 
 into her honest cheeks. What a beautiful feature is a blush ! When Milton declares 
 
 * Bol Ammoniac.
 
 Walks about St, Hilary. \ 2 i 
 
 of his Eve, that no thought infirm altered her cheek, I hope and trust he did not 
 mean to say she did not change colour ; if so, she would have been a sad, insipid 
 beauty, which I by no means believe of her. I daresay she reddened when she 
 was dismissed from the bower on Raphael's visit ; I do not mean, like any of your 
 "working-day" misses, with indignation, but from a pardonable struggle between 
 her conjugal inferiority and the "conscience of her worth."* 
 
 A gentleman once said prettily of this come and go complexion which I am 
 admiring, that its effect was like breathing on a polished mirror. 
 
 Mary assured me they should have sent the " little 'Lizbeth to school, but for 
 fearing of her behaviour." 
 
 Have I never introduced you to 'Un Molly ? If I have not, it must be because 
 she is so distant the other side of that weary Relubbas and so un importunate, 
 that she slips out of mind. I do not think that 'Un Molly Gilbert ever asked me 
 anything towards sup or bite, cure or cover, since I have known her. I once 
 reproached her with this, and she told me it would be no better than a sin, to 
 beg for what she did not want. Neither did she ever apply for parish aid, so I 
 concluded she was wherever the means came from well provided for. Finding 
 her in the act of patching a pillow-slip (which she smilingly told me was forty 
 years old), just for a change, I began to doubt her " well-to-doness." 
 
 "Why do you work without spectacles, 'Un Molly?" 
 
 " Mine, ma'am, are grown too young for me, I'm thinking. I can see better, 
 seeming to me, without 'em, but the sewing is nothing particular." 
 
 " Capital for one of your age. Now, what is your age ?" 
 
 " I'll tell ye, mistress, if you please, the answer my mother gave to me, when I 
 asked her that same question. ' How old are ye, chield,' says she ; ' how shouldn't 
 ye know how old ye be ? Anybody can tell you that you was born the year after 
 the new style.' When that was, I can't say, but, from what I can learn about it, 
 I'm thinking I must be eighty-six, more or less." 
 
 " Astonishing ! I am going to make a bargain with you, 'Un Molly ; when I bring 
 you the new pillow-case, I must have the old one." 
 
 'Un Molly quite entered into the joke, and helped me to search for the primitive 
 portion of this curious piece of embroidery. She then told me a veracious story 
 of one Kate Pope, the pedigree and piecing of whose bolster-cloth wholly eclipsed 
 
 * Paradise Lost. Book viii., line 502. 
 
 FF
 
 Walks about St. Hilary. 
 
 hers, for, when 'Un Kate came to sell it to the ragman, it weighed how much 
 do you think ? eight pounds and an ounce. 'Un Molly had it from her own 
 lips, and the poor never think of suspecting each other of exaggeration (I am 
 afraid that is rather the snare of the wealthy). Their punctuality is sometimes 
 quite edifying, though it helps to spin out their narratives. 
 
 'Un Molly never had any children, though he whom she and her husband had 
 adopted a stranger to their blood, and an orphan seemed unto them as their 
 own. The old man, at his death, left him heir to his small savings, with a charge 
 to take care of 'Un Molly, which he has duly observed, she said, ever since, poor 
 labouring man as he is, with a heavy family. 'Un Molly said that, thanks to him 
 and a good providence, she had never been without a " meal's meat." 
 
 All this while, it never entered into her head to admire her own generosity in 
 this transaction, to be thus grateful for a small share of that which some would 
 have thought should have been all their own. 
 
 The tale was honourable to both parties, and sorely " shames those rich-left 
 heirs " who grudge, and will litigate for, the smallest portion of their ample in- 
 heritance. Alas ! there are more rich men than '"Un Mollys" in the world. 
 
 I think I shall be as pathetic as Burns, if I happen to survive my auld Molly ; 
 whether as poetical, is another matter. 
 
 At parting with Miss Kate, she wished her, with all due solemnity, a good 
 husband. Nothing could be further from the vulgar levity with which this is 
 usually said. 'Un Molly had herself been blessed with a good husband, and could 
 think of no greater blessing. By the bye, I saw Kate slipping a shilling into her 
 hand. I hope, for both their sakes, this took place before the parting benediction. 
 
 Long may it be before I have occasion to take up the bard's lament, and say, 
 
 " I've lost a frien' and naebor dear ; 
 'Un Molly's dead."
 
 WALK LYIII. 
 
 Spectacles. True wisdom. Jenny Priske. 
 
 WALK by proxy, and therefore a short one, for it is not easy to see, 
 
 far less to describe, from another's eyes. 
 
 A propos, it was to carry the promised spectacles to Molly, that 
 
 Kate was induced to leave me in bed with a cold. Out of three 
 pairs, the dear old soul chose the worst, because, she said, they fitted her nose 
 best ; the others were very well for seeing, but they kept slipping down. The 
 rejected ones were a fine stray waif for 'Un Polly Lukey, who had just before, she 
 told Kate, " knocked out her two eyes," but little thought, when she saw they were 
 out, she should have the good luck to knock them in again immediately. Our dear 
 little 'Un Polly, too, is wondrous wise, but hers is not the wisdom one is apt to 
 ascribe to the three sages of Thessaly, and other sages of this cast. Hers is the 
 wisdom which its gracious Author saw fit to " reveal unto babes " wisdom which 
 her native simpleness throws out in bolder relief; this "wisdom from above," in 
 which she exercises herself day and night. Every breath, one may say, is with 
 her a thanksgiving, every gesture, a prayer. She might truly say, that, by her 
 inability to read, she had lost her company. Did I say that 'Un Molly is enchanted 
 to find, on the authority of a printed book, that she is eighty-seven, a year older 
 than she had supposed ? The poor are exceedingly ambitious to be thought old 
 and sick ; this is their little vanity. 
 
 Harriet Priske, Kate found ironing her new cap, a great stride towards reforma- 
 tion. We shall really have hopes of her, when she covers her raven locks with a 
 matron's cap. 
 
 Old Jenny was full of dolor and complaint, as usual. Complaining is her elixir of 
 life and beauty. It is so with some people. I never trouble myself to dispute the 
 point with Jenny, but let her go on lauding and bewailing herself by turns. But 
 is it not strange, and one of our human anomalies, that she never alludes to her 
 real misfortunes the loss of her husband and her leg ? Yet she cannot fail to 
 value those only genuine claims to sympathy and toleration.
 
 WALK LIX. 
 
 OCTOBER 12, 1838. 
 
 A finale. 
 
 HAVE been quill-driving all yesterday and to-day, dearest M , in 
 
 order to make up and pack off this bundle of stuff, before my departure 
 for Carnanton, and before Mrs. Scott's for town. I shall think myself 
 lucky enough, if I can achieve both ; how far you will think yourself so, 
 remains to be proved. Before I send you any more, I ought by rights to have had 
 my cue. Tell me, dear, where did I break off last ? yet, what matter ? are you 
 not saying with^ Tommy Tudor, on occasion of a dry preacher, " Shut your book, 
 shut your book enough of the sort;" or like poor little Mosey, Mrs. Neynoe's 
 lap-dog, when the worthy alluded to came to "conclude ;" ready to spring off 
 your cushion with delight. 
 
 As we may probably exchange some letters before this reaches you, I do not see 
 the use of spinning it out longer than will suffice to take an affectionate leave. 
 
 Yours ever and anon, C. C. P. 
 
 Will Benjamin now say, "What ! no more ?" It is more likely he will leave out 
 the no. " What ! more ?"
 
 WALK LX. 
 
 A slattern's household. Great Eliza. ' Un Sally. 
 
 RASHLY pronounced Anne Prowle to be the queen of slatterns but no 
 such thing ; we were told of a family upon the downs, suffering the ex- 
 treme of poverty, but whatever we had heard or imagined, was outdone 
 in the reality. Dirt and destitution could no further go. And yet there 
 was no sickness ; the father was in regular and profitable employ as a mine-mason, 
 and, with small deduction for " a pint o' beer at a time," brought in his wages for 
 the maintenance of his family. He never had been a sot ; that master-key to 
 domestic neglect and misery was not here to solve the puzzle, but there was one 
 which answered the purpose as well a sluttish wife. Never did my eyes behold 
 such a loose, slammerkin, smiling, snuff-taking slattern as Mary Anne Hoskings, 
 with her red hair streaming down under her tattered cap, her snuffy nose and chin, 
 her light chintz gown " all in squads," with her ultra-fashionable sleeves dipping 
 every now and then into the washing-tub she was loitering over, her handkerchief 
 but I will pursue the search no further. Reverting to her approaching confine- 
 ment, and the dilapidated state of the premises, I asked, " What will you do with 
 those open beams ? you will catch your death." " Yes, I suppose I shall. John 
 was saying it oft to be boarded dangerous, too, for anyone slipping their foot 
 I was nearly down through, yesterday." 
 " Is this your only chamber ?" 
 
 " Oh yes, fie ! and a clever chamber it will be, when we have got a winder to 
 let in some light, and a bit of stairs to get up by. John was saying 
 
 As I advanced further into the room, I caught sight of a girl blowing the fire 
 (for that the lazy will do, whatever they leave undone). She was squalid-looking 
 thing, about eight years old, pale as ashes, and marked with the small-pox one 
 of those poor creatures that shrink from the light, and blink when they get into 
 it. But she had an additional motive now for trying to keep out of sight her 
 
 GG
 
 126 Walks about St. Hilary. 
 
 clothing was simply and solely, without hyperbole, nothing but her shift. You are 
 incredulous ! Stay a moment till I describe my next visit, when I found the 
 mother washing that shift. After some preliminary talk, and great abuse of the 
 great idle maid, her eldest daughter, who refused to work at the bal, I enquired 
 for "the little girl who blew the fire." The woman still grinned, but looked more 
 sheepish, as she made reply, " I won't tell ye no lies ; the maid Lavinia is up in 
 bed, while I'm washing her shift to put up to her." "And the others ?" I enquired. 
 " Be there, too." At this moment, one of the bed-liers cried out in a peevish tone, 
 " Mother, do speak to Lavin/a ; she will keep getting out on the plancheon* leving 
 me in the cold." The woman repeated her impotent commands to " lie quiet," 
 again and again, observing truly that " she might as well argay with the winds." 
 
 " I'll try," exclaimed I, in a thrill of indignation. " Fury lends arms " and 
 supplies legs also, or I should hardly have ventured on the ladder, in the rickety 
 condition of its staves. It reclined against the floor of the upper room, as one 
 has seen in a stable-loft, so that, by the time I had mounted half-way, I could peer 
 in and make my observations. On the two beds steads, I should say that con- 
 fronted me (for drapery there was none, except what the spiders had made, to give 
 them a claim to the title), the square, naked frame, to the sight, seemed all alive 
 with small heads, which popped up for an instant, and, in terror at the sight of 
 me, then clustered together in the centre, like pilchards' heads in that paragon of 
 Cornish dishes, a "star-gazing pie." 
 
 Apart from these wild bed-ouins, squatted the fugitive Lavinia, in that sort of 
 " hight a-guinea cock " attitude, which is not the most graceful, even with the 
 accompaniments of frock and sash, but, without them, and in profile, put me in 
 mind of a flesh-colour grasshopper. I expected to see her hop off in character at 
 sight of me ; but no ! there she stuck, staring at me over her elevated shoulder, 
 never heeding, and scarcely seeming to hear, persuasions or threats, till I thought 
 of offering a bribe. At the first hint of a new frock, she was " off like a lamp- 
 lighter," an image, dear Maria, whose obsoleteness I regret, and for the sake of 
 which I was sorry for the introduction of gas. I forget whether there were 
 lamplighters in your Truro days. One of these I shall never forget, and yet he 
 is the earliest thing I can remember, with his ladder and his smutty face, from 
 which he had not time to wipe away the clouds through which his bright eyes 
 
 Floor.
 
 Walks about Si. Hilary. 1 27 
 
 gleamed, like the sun through a smoked glass. On he dashed from post to post, 
 with his pot of oil to fill the lamp, and his torch to kindle it, and his ladder to get 
 up to it ; then down again, and up again in the twinkling of an eye, or rather, 
 before any twinkling had time to take place. I have never in my riper years seen 
 that human being who so completely came up to my notions of despatch in 
 business. 
 
 Mais pour revenir a nos caches. Mr. P could not endure the thought of 
 
 the poor soul's going through her approaching confinement with that hollow floor 
 under her, and so offered to lend John a few pounds to planch it, which, let me 
 here record, the trusty John returned more promptly and thankfully than many so 
 called his betters do. The exertions of the lazy, on the one or two occasions of 
 their lives when they do exert themselves, are preternatural. The flooring was 
 bought at Marazion, and, that the mason might not lose his day's wages, the 
 females brought it home those two miles on their backs. The eldest " the big 
 Eliza," who is the terror of all the country sustained Caliban's part of bearing 
 and grumbling, though as much pleased at heart as that worthy on his introduction 
 to Stephano's bottle. It was the first occasion, I believe, on which she had gone 
 to labour without a previous leathering; yet Eliza is "no vulgar boy," I might say 
 there is little need to alter the text for her she looks so like a great hulking 
 bal-boy, who has put on his mother's petticoats for a frolic. She has her good 
 qualities ; there is no shuffle, no vulgar prevarication, in her wickedness. When 
 she lies, she looks you in the face ; and when convicted, laughs. You then begin 
 to preach, but she " knows it all as well as you do," and audaciously pronounces 
 judgment on herself, " if so be she don't mend her ways," which, however, she 
 tells me she thinks she shall do " some day or other." This makes the neighbours 
 pronounce her to be past shame, and induces me to doubt whether she ever had 
 any. 
 
 Boldness in vice doesn't always infer that true hardihood of nature inseparably 
 connected with the highest efforts, whether it be of the martyr at the stake, the 
 soldier in the field, or, alas, the felon at the gallows which last (if her fortune be 
 truly told by her neighbours) is most likely to be my heroine's destiny. Her 
 felonious exploits have been chiefly confined to her father's house. " Why do you 
 not keep her without her meals," says I, "if nothing else will do?" "We are 
 afraid, if she should be a hungered, she should bring shame upon us ; better she 
 should rob we than do that." Accordingly, this said we Eliza considers as lawful
 
 128 Walks about St. Hilary. 
 
 game, and she can hardly be called a thief, for whatever she sees, or anything that 
 comes within her reach, she confidently appropriates hat, frock, or handkerchief, 
 though the owners should go without any, which is often the case ; when I meet 
 the other members of this accomplished family bonnetless on the downs, I am 
 told, as a matter of course, that the great Eliza took it. Well ! she has her moral 
 uses, like adversity she serves, if not for an example, yet for a warning, to the 
 little ones. 
 
 I have said very little of 'Un Sally lately, although my visits are duly continued, 
 because, dear Maria, I fancy you have a doubt, if not of the sincerity of her piety, 
 at least of its reality ; and, indeed, her sentiments are so much above the flight of 
 ordinary minds, that I can fancy, to one who only reads about her, she may have 
 a dramatic air. I have aided that impression, perhaps, by saying she is what Mrs. 
 Siddons might be amid age, sickness, and solitude, and in a thatched cottage. I 
 can imagine how her high-soaring visions and sentiments may tell lamely on paper ; 
 that you might at first sight think they were assumed ; but it is not by these I judge 
 'Un Sally's genuineness. 
 
 I have made two or three happy hits in my life, by reading character from minute 
 traits ; the portals may appear well defended, whilst a chink in the wall may betray 
 the carelessness of the garrison. 
 
 My ancient heroine might work herself up to a state of unnatural elevation 
 that's what you think from a consciousness that it pleases me ; but she would not 
 take her shillings and think no more of them ; she would enquire who had sent 
 those shillings, instead of her thoughts for ever running on those who have hap- 
 pened to drop a word of comfort and so on.* 
 
 * Although 'Un Sally lived for some years after this Walk was written, and her name occurs once again, this seems 
 a fitting place to add a letter on the subject of her death, from the pen of a valued friend of the author's, whose opinion 
 of her character is worth recording. M. R. 
 
 ' 
 
 Letter from Mr. Robert Hichens on the death of ' Un Sally. 
 
 LONDON, February 5, 1844. 
 
 My dear Mrs. Pascoe, 
 
 I am greatly obliged by your kind letter of the 22nd ult., informing me that our poor old 
 friend has cast off that earthly tabernacle which weighed down the immortal soul ; all her bright 
 visions are now more than realized. Faith, for her, is swallowed up in sight. Her quiet departure
 
 WALK LXI, 
 
 Clerk and sexton. Respect for superiors. 
 
 S you are interested in my history of one of our church functionaries, 
 I am disposed to introduce you to another, in the person of our clerk 
 and hind, honest Tom Bray, and relate a joint anecdote of both. 
 How I wish you could hear it, as I did, from Kate, who tells it con 
 amore ! 
 
 Now our dear old bailiff, Tom Bray, has, I believe, a sincere regard for his 
 master, and would, I really think, have been sorry to have seen him murdered by 
 the ruffians ; but Tom had served three, and survived two, vicars, and these things, 
 
 is what one could have wished for her, had one been permitted to choose, for those about her would 
 not have appreciated her transports, and might, perhaps, have cumbered and clogged, in some degree, 
 with earthly cares, the parting spirit. I was sincerely attached to her, and feel I have one friend, who 
 pleaded for me with God, less in the world. I recollect now her saying to me, " Maybe you will live 
 to bless God that you knew old Sally Fox ;" and I hope I do. I never shall forget her giving her 
 blessing, at my request, to my two sons, and I trust it will rest upon them. Did I ever tell you one 
 of her bursts, like the roll of an organ, when she asked me what day I was born ? "If anybody had 
 told me then, in my days of sin and folly, ' Sally Fox, there's a man-child born into the world to-day, 
 who will be a friend to you fifty years hence,' I should have laughed at them ; but so it is come to 
 pass." I then said to her that it was marvellous to consider how the threads of human life, crossed 
 and twisted in with each other, as it were, all arranged from the beginning by the divine will. This 
 set her marvellous imagination to work, and next day she told me of a splendid vision. When I 
 recollect how little I did for her, and how great was her gratitude and her love, I cannot but reflect 
 how few, even of those who have learnt the duty of Christian almsgiving, appear to have realized the 
 privileges of it. With the mite that is left, do what you please. It cannot be better appropriated 
 than as you propose. 
 
 * * With kindest regards to Mr. Pascoe, 
 
 I am, my dear Mrs. Pascoe, , 
 
 Very sincerely your friend, 
 
 RT. HICHENS. 
 HH
 
 130 Walks about St. Hilary. 
 
 as the eel-skinner said, were not much when you are used to them ; besides, if the 
 rioters did not reverence the parson, how should they take account of the sexton 
 or the clerk ? So, during the affray, argued these two casuists, and, if all the truth 
 must be told, Tom and Dick were observed skulking behind the church, whilst a 
 horrid tumult was raging in front of it. 
 
 "Tom," quoth Dick, "'tis a pity, if you plaise, we can't see a little of what's 
 going on out there." 
 
 '"Ti's a pity," said Tom ; " but what's the use of running our noses into danger?" 
 
 " Now you see," resumed the first speaker, "if I could climb that ash-tree yonder, 
 like Zaccheus for I too am small of stature " 
 
 " How should you climb a tree, uncle Dick, with your rheumatics ? besides, 
 'twer'n't no ash, 'twere a sycamore-tree that Zaccheus got up into," interposed the 
 higher authority. 
 
 " I ask your pardon," resumed Dick, " it was a sycamine, sure 'nough ; but 
 howsomedever, ash, or sycamine, or what you will " 
 
 And thus these two faithful adherents of the vicar (Kate declares, how ever she 
 learnt the story!) went on discussing matters behind, whilst tumult and sacrilege 
 were going on before ; but poor Tom, in justice I must add, has every virtue under 
 the sun but courage. 
 
 Whilst on the subject of the church, I will tell you what a stubborn old Methodist 
 told me the other day, that " he was hindered attending it, by seeing the Sunday- 
 school rise and curtsey as I passed." Now he was never more mistaken in his life, 
 if he thought it fed my pride, but there is nothing I know of prettier than a village 
 maid's smiling curtsey. It is an action which from an equal would be of good-will, 
 but to a superior is a devout recognition of His laws who has decreed difference 
 of rank and degree, and, if I know my own joints, they would not refuse to bend 
 to anyone of higher degree than my own, and I do love to be curtsied to after this 
 fashion. And I do love, as I listen on my homeward way, to hear from the lip of 
 childhood such texts as " God is Love," and a pious mason instructing an attentive 
 youth at the bottom of the ladder (I caught the words from his eminence), " he 
 shall then know the height and depth of it." But, alas ! the bright millenial vision 
 fled when I passed a public-house, the sight, the fumes, and din of which, shewed 
 too plainly that the principle of evil still held rule on our earth.
 
 WALK LXII. 
 
 1838. 
 
 The parish re-visited. Warm welcome to an old friend. 
 Little *Un Polly. 
 
 DO not know, dearest Maria, whether our Walks must be rigorously 
 restricted to walking ; for it is hard, writing to you, to keep back the 
 bits of philosophy and gossip which they now and then suggest. At all 
 
 events, I may tell you of Cousin C 's late visit to the Vicarage, 
 
 leading, as it has done, to the very cream of cottage visiting. 
 
 Cousin C : , you know, was born in our squire's house of Tregembo, of 
 
 whose haunted chambers she is fond to enthusiasm.* She speaks, even now, with 
 affectionate unction, of the old forest that had seen its best days before she was 
 born, and is now reduced to a few unsightly trunks, bearing somewhat the same 
 relation to their high-sounding name, that the bleached bones of a malefactor do 
 to the living hero, who kept all the neighbourhood in terrorum. 
 
 It was very touching, and I did not feel a bit jealous, to see the rapturous recep- 
 tion which C met from her I should say her parents' old protegees ; for 
 
 the little missie was too young to be a patroness. Great, however, was the love 
 and fervent the admiration, she even then attracted by her fair skin and golden 
 curls, which made one old woman liken her to "a little Sant in glory," and this 
 sentiment was kept alive by her " angel visits " from the neighbouring Vicarage 
 (then served by my uncle) of Breage. 
 
 On the present occasion, I had every reason to anticipate the warmth of welcome 
 which met us at every cottage door, especially at dear old Polly Luke's, for she had 
 told me, in the plenitude of her love for " Miss Shearlotte," that she would "travel 
 
 Note by C. G. B. K. HauntPd, indeed by graceful legends of past ages, more akin to some lost fairy mythology 
 than to the painful and clumsy inventions which bear the name of ghost stories. I would say hallowed, rather than 
 haunted, by the blessed memory of some whose days, within its aged walls, were marked by works of charity, and 
 proofs of priceless affection ; and even in later days endeared by the presence of one who bore in playful parlance the 
 name of " Anne of Tregembo," and with whose warm heart, kind hand, and cheery welcome, the charm hath passed 
 away from the old house on the hill.
 
 132 Walks about St. Hilary. 
 
 miles and miles upon her tippy-toes, only to kiss the dear fingers' ends of her." 
 At sight of her, however, love got the better of veneration, and the old woman 
 snatched her again and again to her bosom, as their talk of old times and departed 
 friends aroused her grateful feelings. "There's Mrs. Pascoe a-laughing," said she, 
 between whiles (for it was impossible I should not) ; " but I don't care, my tender, 
 dear Miss Shearlotte ! " and then another hug. 
 
 One has heard of the " penalties of popularity." One honest soul, with her 
 hands in the wash-tub, stood curtseying, and colouring, and dimpling, and asking 
 for old friends, and adverting to old times, till, seized with a sudden spasm of 
 
 tender recollection, she flung her unwipen hands round C 's neck, crying 
 
 out, "my tender, dear Miss Shearlotte, you're so naatural I couldn't help it." 
 
 We used to call Cousin C the Lady in Comus, but, whoever gave her this 
 
 name (you or I), it is quite misapplied. Her goodness is the very reverse of the 
 milk-and-water purity and didactic virtue of that heroine. The sprinkle of pickle 
 which glanced from her towards Louisa and me, while she sat with her hand locked 
 in 'Un Polly's, would have given Comus better hopes of her ; but he would have 
 been mistaken, for all the while her looks seemed to be asking the old woman's 
 pardon for the disposition to fun she could not restrain. 
 
 I never saw anyone (except, indeed, those she went to visit) so delighted as 
 
 C was with the adventures of her ten days' sojourn amongst us. Her mind 
 
 is of that tender, plaintive, perhaps rare, class, which loves the past better than 
 the present or the future ; loves it, not like some, boastfully or complainingly, but 
 out of purest, warmest devotion to persons and things gone by ; as somebody 
 sweetly said, 
 
 " Forms familiar gather fast, 
 
 Fondly loved and early known, 
 While the spectre of the past 
 O'er the present reigns alone." 
 
 Not quite alone, either, in her case, for she brims up and runs over with present 
 tenderness even to her neighbour's cat, else she would not deserve all the hugs 
 and tender squeezes I have recorded. 
 
 I do not remember ever telling you anything of this dear little 'Un Polly of ours ; 
 if I have not, it must be on the true love principle, that she lies too near my heart 
 to be talked about. Long before I wrote Walks, she had been my prime favourite,
 
 Walks about Si. Hilary. 133 
 
 from her fervent piety, wakeful charity, and strong, inconceivable energy, which 
 it is a wonder has not long ago worn out the most pigmy of bodies. Nor is this 
 all ; she has had to fret over a worthless husband, who abandoned her and her 
 children before I came to the parish ; so how she contrived to "fouchy away," so 
 as to keep herself from being chargeable to it, I cannot say. She was first brought 
 to my notice by dear Miss L. Grenfell (to whom she often refers as " Miss Liddy 
 in Heaven"), and was, I dare to say, greatly assisted by her ; for within these five 
 years I have myself been made the channel, by Mrs. Hitchins (the "Emma" of 
 Henry Martyn), of sending gowns and shimmies for the dear old grateful creature, 
 and my aunt (another of that sisterhood) was her life-long benefactress. You 
 
 will not wonder, then, at her rapturous reception of C C . The house 
 
 of Grenfell are not all the memories Aunt Polly has helped to embalm. I was 
 saying to one still more dear to memory* I know not whether it was during her 
 last visit here " There is a little good old woman in this parish, Lucy, to whom 
 I always repair when my spirit is heavy her cheerful piety is sure to restore its 
 elasticity." I was not aware that she marked my random words. Some days after, 
 when I stood beneath our ivy porch to see that dear one drive from it, and she 
 was near enough to observe the tears that somehow would flow, as if foreboding 
 what was so soon to come, she presented her lovely, pitying face at the carriage 
 window, and said earnestly (but it is nothing, unless you knew her half-playful, 
 half-plaintive manner of saying these things), " Go to Aunt Polly ; go to Aunt 
 Polly!" 
 
 Two favourite phrases are ever on 'Un Polly's lips, and ever linked together 
 " Well, my dear," and " Bless the Lord " and their abiding expression on her 
 countenance is heightened by the glad twinkle of her little loving eyes. She 
 enquires in her own primitive fashion for all my friends and relations, beginning 
 the catalogue with " How is sister ? how is cousin ?" and if she were to hear they 
 were all dying, she would exclaim, " Well, my dear," and " Bless the Lord." It 
 was in this tone she spoke of her daughter Kitty dying of consumption, and 
 leaving a kind husband and helpless family. 
 
 But there was one cross which, lying in her path daily aud hourly, Polly could 
 not so limberly get over. This is the habitual drunkenness of Reynolds, her last 
 remaining child, whose housekeeper she is, being, as he would describe himself, 
 
 * Mrs. Marsh, nte Napleton, who died May 5, 1836. 
 
 II
 
 134 Walks about St, Hilary. 
 
 young for marriage. I sometimes find her sadly cast down with this, though, in 
 relating the tale, she does not spare one of her favourite mollifyings. 
 
 " Home again drunk last night ; pity, isn't it ? Well, my dear, we must pray for 
 them, and we shall prevail, bless the Lord." But now Reynolds Luky is '"listed for 
 a teetotal," and brings home all his gettings, and civil words with them, and he 
 never swears, or but seldom. Of course, Polly's "well, my dears" and blessings 
 are redoubled ; she is better fed and clothed, and she can attend " the means of 
 grace," and be herself that means to any sick neighbour. 
 
 But perfect bliss is not for man, not even for the sunshiny bosom of 'Un Polly. 
 Some days since, she met me at the door, and told me, with uplifted hands, that 
 she was " come to a great misfortin a great misfortin, sure enough," wasn't it ? 
 and she would tell me how it was. " Reynolds's two canaries, my dear, and he so 
 good now, bless the Lord ! after I carried them up into his chamber, too, to keep 
 them from the cat." "Who eat them up after all, 'Un Polly?" "No, my dear 
 Miss Pascoe, 'twas all the auld fool's doing no blame to the cat. I must needs 
 be paddling about the cage, thinking to right up a bit of nest for them, and bent 
 the wires a crum, I reckon, for the little hen but you shall hear all. In comes 
 Alice Trethewy. ' 'Un Polly,' says she, ' I have a mind to see your two birds.' 
 'Yes, my dear,' says I, 'and welcome; they are up in the chamber.' 'Be they?' 
 says she and up we went. My dear Miss Pascoe, I looked to the cage, and what 
 did I see but both my birds gone ! I don't know what fashion I was. Alice looked 
 up and said, ' Don't ye go for to fainty, 'Un Polly ; here is one of the birds in my 
 hand, and likely we may find another before Reynolds comes home.' That was 
 all I thought about, my dear Miss Pascoe ; I was afraid he would swear, and he a 
 teetotaller, bless the Lord ! So home he comes. ' Reynolds, my dear child,' says 
 I, ' mother has done a bad job by ye ; but oh ! my son, my dear son, dontee 
 swear! be angry and sin not. Mother will get another canary, if she do travel all 
 the way to Penzance for one, only don't ye swear ; be vexed with mother, if you 
 will (I deserve you should), only, my dear son, remember what is said, ' Swear not 
 at all." And, bless the Lord, he refrained his tongue in a measure. How thankful 
 I oft to be, my dear, shouldn't we ? He neither cursed nor swore, bless the Lord ! " 
 
 'Un Polly* seemed overwhelmed with admiration at her son's placability, and 
 
 When Polly was on her death-bed, and the doctor, who was visiting a child ill of fever, called in to offer his 
 services, she said in reply, " Do me good, my dear man? no one on earth can do me good now, bless the Lord !'' The 
 d'>ctor said he had never been so moved before, as by the good old woman's energetic exhortation. She expired wliile 
 trying to pronounce the last words of the Doxology.
 
 Walks about St. Hilary. \ 3 5 
 
 now, but for the one drawback, that Reynolds will, for all she can say, go on telling 
 his prayers in bed, 'Un Polly's would be (as my own little canary used to say as 
 plain as bill could speak) 
 
 "Joy without alloy." 
 
 WALK LXIII. 
 
 NOVEMBER 29, 1838. 
 
 A gale. Tom Rapson, the cobbler. 
 
 j|lT must surely be a sympton of growing old (what else can it be ?), that I, 
 who used to exult and flap my wings, like any other curlew, in a storm, 
 should have shrunk from accompanying Kate and uncle to the Cove this 
 day. They drove up (walking was out of the question) to behold the fine 
 ground-swell of which yesterday's outrageous wind was a sure promise. Harry 
 himself declared he had never but once witnessed such a toss of the waves. Three 
 or four in succession passed sheer over Great and Little Cudden Head, their faces 
 well washed up to the grass top. They could talk of nothing else, all the rest of 
 the day, but the wonders of that great deep, and made me almost feel guilty in 
 not having gone to view them. But I had enough to do to breast the gale as far 
 as Tom Rapson's, in Relubbas Lane. They told me he and his wife were in a 
 perishing state ill, and wanting everything. You have heard of Tom Rapson 
 before, though you may not know it. 
 
 My magic lantern turns up its shadowy figures with such shadowy rapidity, that 
 even your memory must fail to retain the fugitive impression ; yet I think it would 
 hardly have lost the grotesque outline of Torn, had he ever presented himself 
 before you in his cobbler's niche, seated, or rather " scrumped up," before a low
 
 136 Walks about St. Hilary. 
 
 window, five of whose nine panes are blocked up by old rags and hats, and the 
 other four obscured by the dust of ages ; 
 
 " Tom in his straw, 
 While free from law," 
 
 like his namesake of Bedlam, " in his thoughts as great as a king." " Free from 
 the law " he has, it seems, always shaken himself first, of the law of sobriety, 
 having drank up I don't know how many " housen." This was before we came to 
 the parish, for I can remember him sitting tapping at that identical window, in the 
 " stall which serves him for parlour, kitchen, and hall." 
 
 Never was there so ill-matched a pair as he and his wife, unless I except his 
 own pair of legs, one being considerably shorter than the other. Kattern's every 
 third word is a petition for some gratuity, whilst Tom takes pains to prove he wants 
 for nought. The only boon I ever knew him catch at, was the professional gratuity 
 of a pair of high boots, for which I had vainly tortured my inventive faculties to 
 find a use. They were too small, I found, for those arrived at boot age, and too 
 inflexible for old women afflicted with corns in a word, hating waste as I do, I was 
 delighted, and so was Tom, who wore them to morning service, in consequence, 
 three Sundays following, besides being mounted on high weekly occasions. One 
 of these was a visit to the mistress of the Workhouse, then supposed to be dying. 
 I found Tom at the bottom of the stairs, laboriously pulling on his boot, in which 
 he stumped up to prove his grateful remembrance for one who had shown him 
 much friendship.
 
 WALK LXIY. 
 
 Garden-girl 1 s death. Blind Peter. 
 
 MOST melancholy walk, truly. It was to condole with the disconsolate 
 mother of my poor little Jennefer, for so many years our garden-girl, 
 errand-goer, letter-carrier, and, as I told you before, my companion 
 in need, when Katey happened to be otherways engaged, or unequal 
 to a long walk. But she is gone ! the poor little humble-mannered, ready creature, 
 and so suddenly ! 
 
 Mary, the mother, worked hard about getting up the potatoes (for blind Peter 
 can do nothing in helping forward these necessary matters), and so caught' a 
 desperate cold, that exhibited itself in the form of quinsey ; but I suppose it was 
 something of a more malignant character, for the baby first, and afterwards 
 Jennefer, took the infection. We heard the poor child was ill, but they said " the 
 fever had turned ; " so, though it was borne on my heart all yesterday, that I must 
 go to see her, I yielded to the arguments and entreaties poured upon me from 
 parlour and kitchen (Mem. Never resist a good impulse). "You could not stand 
 it up there on the downs," says one ; "you would be blown away," cried another; 
 " or drowned," adds a third, "the showers are so sudden and heavy." The skies, 
 in short, were more than forbidding, they were appalling. Then I should catch 
 the disorder, and the acme of evils infect the whole household ! 
 
 I went on with my tent-stitch, with an occasional qualm of conscience, till about 
 six in the afternoon, when little Mary came in weeping, to say "Jennefer had 
 passed half-an-hour ago." It was very strange and shocking, but we could gain 
 no further distinct information from the poor little frightened girl, as to the manner 
 of her sister's death ; so this morning I went to the house, only waiting for Kate 
 to plait up a cap, lest the mother, in the plenitude of her affection, should deck 
 the little death-cold head in her very best. It was a considerate thought, and as 
 I glanced at the dejected countenance of the worker, and the blush-satin strings, 
 
 KK
 
 138 Walks about St. Hilary. 
 
 and thought of the object of all this finery, I was irresistibly reminded of Flora 
 Mac Ivor, and the white favours, and the shroud.* 
 
 It is a proof of Scott's fidelity to nature, that one never meets an affecting trait 
 or scene, but it suggests to the memory something from his writings. Steeny 
 Muckleback's funeral was also in my head, as I sat opposite the grieving mother, 
 making abortive attempts at consolation, and turning out the contents of my 
 basket.f 
 
 What an elevation grief bestows ! In general, Mary is the humblest, civilest, 
 most thoughtful of human beings. Now I could fancy she looked with scorn on 
 my gifts, as if there was an impertinence in an attempt to divert or mollify her 
 sorrow ; and I positively felt ashamed, as I looked for some one to receive the 
 offerings which her sorrow seemed to disdain. But when the cap came forth, and 
 the mother heard it was Miss Kate's own work, she clasped her hands in an ecstasy 
 of sorrow, indeed, but it was evident this was the first ray of comfort which had 
 reached her heart, 
 
 "To see her bairn respectit." 
 
 The basket of flowers, the culling of the whole garden, was a less fortunate stroke. 
 They had been her care, and seemed to realize her loss. The poor mother turned 
 from them in an agony. " No more flowers now," she said ; "no more this was 
 the time when she might be looking for her return from work, but now she might 
 be looking long enough never, never more. What was all the world to her?" &c. 
 But she was mistaken, for when I remarked on the appearance of the babe she was 
 pressing close to her bosom, and rocking to and fro in her grief, she turned her 
 feverish eyes full on me, and patiently listened to some directions about dosing it. 
 "Would I please to look upon her?" she asked, as I rose to go. I was pained to 
 refuse, but I had half promised Kate to keep from the infected chamber, and owed 
 her this concession, since she had forborne visiting it herself, at my earnest request; 
 but I was quite sorry I said anything about infection it was a new stab to the 
 festering heart. " There was no infection with her" she said, so I thought I would 
 just follow the old nurse up the few stairs, as she went to fetch the basket that 
 conveyed the melancholy garland but oh, what a sight it was ! On their one 
 
 * Waverley, Chap. 68. 
 t Antiquary, Chap. 31.
 
 Walks about St. Hilary. 139 
 
 uncurtained bed, covered over with a scanty coarse rug, I could trace the little 
 skeleton form, before I drew from the face the homely coverlet ; it was yellow, 
 and dark, and wasted. I should not have recognised it, but the look was not 
 revolting, as I had been led to expect. I only remained while I could hold my 
 breath, but that moment's glance served to prove the truth of what the poor little 
 mother had just said " It is a dismal thing when death comes to naked walls ; 
 but oh ! " she added, " I didn't care for the nakedness, if she was here." 
 
 I think the bereaved soul was soothed at my visit to the chamber of death. Her 
 manner was less wild when, in reply to my offers of assistance, she said, though 
 with a fresh burst of sorrow, " I suppose, ma'am, we shall be still looking to you?" 
 She did not mean for any gratuity ; her delicate reserve in making known her 
 wants, has been truly surprising, considering their urgency. I do not think she 
 ever asked, or even spelt, for a thing, in all the years I have visited her cottage. 
 Who amongst us, that hasn't known want of food and raiment, can estimate this 
 fine quality ? 
 
 But all this while, I hope, dear M , you recognise as old acquaintances 
 
 poor blind Peter and his little faithful Mary, who would keep her faith with him, 
 in defiance of friends and prudence, after his eyes were blown out at the mine.
 
 18S9 to 1846.
 
 WALK LXY. 
 
 JANUARY 22, 1839. 
 
 The garden- girl's mother. 
 
 T will be eight weeks next Wednesday since our poor little Jennefer died, 
 and for that time I have been so taken up with guests, coming one after 
 another, for a day or two, a few days, and a week, that, what with bowing 
 out and bowing in, preparing and setting to rights, I have not had till 
 to-day a moment to call again on the poor sorrowing parents. I have a notion 
 that my visit of condolence there, was the last I recorded, before this phantasma 
 of visitors confused my brain. At least, so I thought as I ambled along the downs, 
 flattering myself that I should find the poor folk in better cheer, for in their line 
 of life, thought I, the hurry and 'exigencies of life, anticipating the office of time, 
 give a healthy tone to the wound, before it has time to skin over. But I reasoned 
 as one who never had a child. Mary was paler and sadder than at my first visit. 
 I do not remember that she raised her eyes or head while we stayed, except once, 
 on a sudden burst of grateful feeling to " Miss Kate," whom she should never, 
 never forget, she said, for that cap, nor Peter either. They would walk on hands 
 and knees to do her good ; they were saying so, only the evening before ; but oh ! 
 when those evenings came, and no Jennefer, nobody knew they might think they 
 did nobody could ever know what it was ! They were wishing for morning before 
 they laid their heads oa the pillow ; sometimes they might wink their eyes before 
 daybreak, but that made waking worse. Once she dreamed about her, "and oh !" 
 said Mary, " how beautiful, seeming to me, she looked. I spoke to her, and she 
 told me she was in happiness, but not yet in full joy." 
 
 Poor Mary loves Kate better, for that cap, than she does her more prudent aunt, 
 for the blankets, sheets, and bed-gowns, which warmed their poor bodies in spite 
 of themselves. 
 
 " How like the baby grows to her poor sister," I remarked, and indeed the 
 resemblance was quite striking ; for a moment she looked gladdened, then, with 
 a bitter shake of the head, added, " but 'tisn't she." 
 
 LL
 
 WALK LXYI, 
 
 Marazion. The two spinsters. Study for Crabbe. 
 
 WALK to Marazion promises little interest, real or fanciful, or, as it 
 is the fashion to say, moral or physical ; the only incident coming 
 fairly under the latter head, on the present occasion, is the filling up 
 of one of the twenty-eight stiles ; and, for the moral, what can I 
 hope to cull out of the two or three shops, and two or three old ladies, on whom 
 I daily call ? 
 
 There is Miss A , the Ninon of the village, with the tint of eighteen, 
 
 instead of eighty, on her well-formed cheek, sitting erect, like a lady in wax-work, 
 
 and she has around her, plants, &c., as bright as a new penny. Miss A 
 
 for, whether in consciousness of her remnant bloom, or her dislike of innovation, 
 she chooses to be called Miss is a sort of person who makes me mind my p's and 
 q's ; wherefore I am much better pleased to call on her opposite neighbour, Mrs. 
 
 K C . Opposite, indeed ! for, instead of the righteous rigidity of her 
 
 vts-d-vts, she is the most indulgent of spinsters ; and yet I am ashamed to think 
 how much shorter my half-hour's visit seems with her, than that spent with her 
 more discreet townswoman. The truth is, when I look on her mellow countenance, 
 and see her reclining on her layer of cushions, I feel sure that she is neither 
 criticising my ways nor my dress, nor censuring my sentiments. She has a ready, 
 genuine laugh to greet all you say, and her voice is as round as her person. 
 
 I can't help thinking what different popes these old ladies would have made. 
 
 If Miss C had filled the papal chair, there would have been carnival all the 
 
 year round ; had her slimmer neighbour I will not say filled but sat upright in 
 it, Christendomynight have looked to it ! 
 
 Marazion has, no doubt, its human gems and curiosities, if one had time to 
 delve for them, but if I walk thither, it is in my best bonnet and shawl, and I am 
 restricted in regard to time, and it requires, even in our intercourse with the poor, 
 some courage to break the ice of first acquaintance. Then I fancy one gets more
 
 Walks about St. Hilary. 143 
 
 stared at, when intruding on the inhabitants of a town. So, for one reason and 
 another, my charitable visits are restricted to a call on my old cook, Kattern 
 Phillips, and poor Mrs. Gurney, whose " o'erfraught heart" seems lightened by a 
 two minutes' talk about the virtues and graces of her lost daughter. 
 
 There are two or three eccentric characters that my friend Crabbe would have 
 rejoiced in. I can call to mind three who are worthy to sit to 
 
 " Nature's sternest painter, but the best." 
 
 Had he been alive, Crabbe would have rejoiced in " Happy Harry," so named by 
 my aunt, from the at once benign and merry cast of his countenance. If you meet 
 him ten times a day, he nods, and asks you how you do, with the smile of gratu- 
 lation you would welcome a friend just returned from a long voyage. 
 
 WALK LXYII. 
 
 A good son. Sunday walk. Hobble-de-hoys. Uncle Dick. 
 
 OR a novelty, a Sunday walk ! When I joined the Sunday-school this 
 morning, and cast my eyes round on the classes, I mentally exclaimed 
 with the disappointed Pyramus, 
 
 " But what see I ? No Thisbe do I see." 
 
 James Bettens' office of teacher to the second class of boys, was supplied by a 
 scholar from the first. He had sprained his wrist (Cornish wrested his arm), and 
 now what was to be done ? I do not mean in reference to the school ; his place, 
 poor fellow, might be easily supplied here ; for, though the best of good lads, I 
 cannot say he is particularly smart as a teacher, who ought to have three pair of
 
 144 Walks about St. Hilary. 
 
 hands, with a rod in each, besides eyes in the back of his head. No, it was of 
 the poor widowed mother and her six orphans I thought. Within the last year, 
 poor Bettens, the father, died of miners' slow but sure consumption, and James, 
 though but a lad, and not with " full gettings," undertook their care and main- 
 tenance, without seeming to think he had done anything very meritorious, either. 
 
 We could better have spared any arm in the parish, that's a sure thing, and so is 
 my " sprain ointment." Luckily, I found some ready-made, but the glory of the 
 cure, if it be one, must be shared with Betsey Peters, who had just charmed it. I 
 think I must have mentioned to you this good boy, whom I found with his arm in 
 a sling, looking dolefully at the bit of fire, which must be supplied by his labour 
 alone. 
 
 How I enjoyed my walk back ! Such a sense of rest, especially rest from man. 
 The very animals looked as if aware of their Sunday privilege. I fancied I could 
 read in their eyes what Lord Byron calls the " rapture of repose." At that moment, 
 the sound of the church bell, borne on the gentlest of spring zephyrs, saluted my 
 ear ; yet, ah me ! to how many a deaf ear does the charmer make his appeal. 
 
 However, we are bound to admit that things are a fine deal better than when 
 
 Mr. P took possession of the living. Then there was nought on all sides 
 
 but ill manners and rude merriment. The few church-goers were shocked and 
 obstructed by gangs of saucy, idle (I can neither call them men or boys, so will 
 borrow a term from old Mrs. Laity) "great men-fellows ;" but whatever you may 
 call them, they are the most unmanageable of human beings, unless they happen 
 to be good, and useful, and compliable, like my friend James Bettens. 
 
 The church bell ceased as I entered the churchyard gate, and by this means I 
 missed my usual Sunday parley with " Uncle Dick," which was a loss to him, as 
 well as to me, and probably to you, also, for he is a Bayley's dictionary of quaint 
 phrases. I never converse with him without culling an odd word or two, and he, 
 I can see, rejoices in these opportunities of displaying his exuberant politeness, 
 and profound reverence for his betters. Uncle Dick Briant is a short old man, 
 who makes himself shorter by his habitual courtesy, and, if it is not a calumny, 
 by a habit he got into during the late war, of stooping, in order to bring his stature 
 within the militia standard. I sometimes feel a misgiving whether Uncle Dick is 
 not the " sly old shaver " he is generally designated in the parish. I should be 
 sorry to think it, but there is a look in the little wizened face, strongly at variance 
 with the solemnity of his manner, and crying tone of his voice.
 
 Walks about St. Hilary. 14:5 
 
 Allowances should be made for what they call a " swivel eye," which is apt to 
 communicate a dash of pickledom to the most innocent of countenances. It 
 reminds me of that which lurks in the submission of a schoolboy, listening to a 
 jobation from his master. You are never sure, in the midst of his profound 
 attention, that he will not sputter out into a sudden fit of laughter. Uncle Dick 
 would be horrified to hear me say so, for, with his hat in mid-air, as if it partook 
 its wearer's reverence for his betters, he stands assenting to all you say, and inter- 
 larding his discourse with his pet phrase, " If you do plaise." In fact, all that 
 happens throughout the world the births, the buryings ; the hour of the day, the 
 state of the weather, or his own rheumatism ; the number of his children, or 
 grandchildren is all as I please, or anybody pleases, with whom Uncle Dick has 
 any dealings. 
 
 It is to be questioned whether he so much as lowers a coffin without this civility, 
 or would displace the bones of the " leastest " little still-born babe without asking 
 leave of the small proprietor ; though, let me recollect, he is reported not to be 
 always so courteous towards the dead ; there is a general complaint that he is 
 sparing of his pains in tolling for them (Kate avers that she has counted as few 
 as five premonitory tolls), and in other respects he is charged with being slack and 
 superficial in his mortuary labours, though he stoutly denies the charge. " Don't 
 ye tell me," said our cross cook, when he happened one day to enter her kitchen, 
 and accost her with his usual politeness, " please me this, and please me the other ! 
 Why don't ye have the good manners to dole longer and dig deeper ? that is what 
 would please me ; not that you shall ever have the burying of me, if I can help it." 
 
 I cannot enter into the indignation which many besides the cook express towards 
 our poor sexton. 
 
 Humility is with me a universal mollifier, and particularly engaging in a profession 
 inclining its followers to a sort of saucy philosophy, from Hamlet's grave-digger 
 down to George Harris, who preceded Uncle Dick in this department. 
 
 The grave on which I surprised him at our next interview, up to his ears in the 
 newly turned-up soil (if I had no objection), was decreed for John Gilbert, who 
 (if I pleased) was to be buried on Monday. " Master liked a deep grave," he said, 
 " seven feet at least," and so, hoping no offence, as he, John Gilbert, was to be 
 buried on Monday, he had thought it well to make a bit of a start, and begin on 
 the Saturday, "just to get things afore the night; and truly one may say, here is 
 the night," added the orator, accompanying the action to the words, by planting 
 
 MM
 
 146 Walks about St. Hilary. 
 
 his spade vigorously into the hollow ground, and then detaching it, in order to act 
 his next piece of philosophy, he wagged it to and fro, observing that " it would 
 not do for a man to be wavering, like to a door upon its hinges, now looking to 
 one world and now to another." 
 
 I was on my way to the singing gallery, and, announcing my intention to Uncle 
 Dick, he launched forth into praises of the new choir. " It was mighty pretty 
 music," if I had no objection ; he approved of it, his wife approved of it, Miss 
 Hoare down to the shop approved of it, and " who should know if Miss Hoare 
 didn't, who had a piany of her own ?" 
 
 WALK LXYIII. 
 
 THE COVE. 
 
 Lame boy. An attached servant and kind mother. 
 Truro Infirmary. 
 
 jlE do not, you perceive, come hither on purpose to be good for 
 nothing. No ; we ask each other, as at home, " Where shall we 
 walk this evening ? who go to see ?" and, as our visiting circle is 
 comparatively scanty, the answer generally is, at this time, " let us 
 walk to the lame boy's." This same poor lad, Thomas Drewe by name, has an 
 inveterate wound of the most dangerous character. What with weakness and pain, 
 he can seldom prosecute his business of journeyman tailor, though he can occa- 
 sionally earn a few pence by fetching sand or coal with the donkey. The sea air 
 does him good, though, as to ultimate recovery, he is almost out of hope. Now 
 he has a mind to make use of the County Infirmary, and we are accordingly looking 
 about us, to procure him an early recommendation, only the fond mother has 
 unluckily " heard tell that the living there is no great things."
 
 Walks about St, Hilary. 147 
 
 In the estimation of the poor, short 'commons, whether it be that there is " no 
 stomach to the meat, or no meat to the stomach," is the worst of symptoms, and 
 the heaviest of grievances. 
 
 His devoted mother, Peggy Drewe, deserves a page to herself, for her indomi- 
 table kind-heartedness, her surprising energy of action, the last growing out of 
 the first, and the circumstance of her having been in her youth a servant at St. 
 Hilary Vicarage. 
 
 She loves to tell and I to listen to the tale of those days ; how the old parson 
 was a free-spoken, merry-spirited man, kind to the poor after his way, neither 
 grudging them meat, clothes, nor smuggled brandy ; but how he came to be cruel 
 
 cast down with the unhappy marriage of his only daughter ; and Mr. , whom 
 
 she married, was "a hard man, sure enough," continued the pitying Peggy. "I 
 went to live with him after he married with Miss Josepha ; it was the old gentle- 
 man's desire, judging I should be kind and feel for his daughter, poor soul ! He 
 used to take me by his side in his one-horse chay (primitive times those), and say, 
 ' Peggy, you must be kind to your mistress ; there is good need.' I did all I could," 
 said Peggy ; " that wasn't much but poor dear missus was not the only sufferer. 
 There was a poor 'prentice maid who, if she did not feed his dogs to his mind, 
 or, indeed, if she did, seeing his temper was otherwise disturbed, he would beat 
 her. I don't like to think upon it even now, though I have put much trouble over 
 my own head since whiles. The poor maid would drop on her two knees and 
 beseech me to stand her friend. Many's the time I have gone without my own 
 victuals, to see her used in that fashion. At last," said the compassionate cook, 
 " I could bear it no longer, and I wrote (being I was brought up to brave scholar- 
 ship), I wrote a letter to the overseers of Probus. I thought no harm could come 
 of it, if no good, but thanks be to the Almighty, good did come, and that speedily ; 
 the maid was fetched away. I have often wished I could hear what became of her. 
 I used to think the poor maid might have sent me word (but maybe nobody came 
 our way), or write me a line (but then she didn't know a letter in the book) ;" and 
 so Peggy went on neutralizing, as they arose, those little acerbities arising from 
 offended love, generated by the ungrateful conduct of her protegee. 
 
 From this sketch, I leave you to infer what an indulgent mother she is likely to 
 prove to an afflicted, ailing son. She has often walked three or four miles after 
 night-fall, on her return from fetching Hayle sand, because Tommy happened to 
 express a wish for a roasted apple, and her bodily fatigue being the least unpleasant
 
 148 Walks about St. Hilary. 
 
 part of her day's work. So insurmountable is her repugnance to begging that I 
 seldom can make her take a thing beyond the express object of her application. 
 " No," says she, " that is what I came for, and that, so please you, I will have, and 
 no more." 
 
 It will be supposed that, with an unfortunate little grandson, cross, distempered, 
 and blind, her sick Tommy, and nine persons to cater, carve, and patch for, Peggy 
 has no time to spare ; accordingly, when we are gossiping of old times, she often 
 doubles up her tall form on a low, three-legged stool, takes from her pocket, first, 
 her spectacles (toil and scant fare are sad eye-dimmers), then unfolds her well-used 
 housewife, and stitches away with the same vigour as she does everything else. 
 
 * * * * * * To continue the story of Peggy, I must tell 
 you what has happened since writing the above. We walked to the turnpike one 
 day, to hear her adventures at the Truro Infirmary, whither she had conducted her 
 poor lame son. Tommy set out on his walk in tolerable spirits, she told us, but 
 " he was cruel taken down when she came to go away;" and no wonder. The 
 doctors had examined his poor leg, and pronounced it, in his hearing, " a bad look 
 out." These few words fell like icicles on a mother's heart. " I sat down in a 
 hedge," said she, " for I knew no one to ask me inside their door, and when I 
 fetched a mile this side of Truro, I hid my head in the hedge, and wept for better 
 than an hour, to think of those hard words. Still, there was one of the gentlemen 
 there of a kinder make ; he came forward, looking pitifully, methought, upon 
 Tom, while the old doctor cried out, ' Look ! here's a pretty business they've 
 brought me.' ' Poor fellow,' said he, ' it must give him a deal of pain ; 'tis a pity 
 for one so young.'" "A word spoken in season, how good is it!"
 
 WALK LXIX. 
 
 Dr. Bull and his Persian cats. 
 
 OMPANY at home has prevented either walking or writing for some 
 time. I now resume my history of the poor lame boy, whose cottage 
 Kate and I visited last evening, and found him returned from the 
 Infirmary. Although somewhat frightened at his first introduction to 
 the head doctor, with a Persian cat on each shoulder, yet he had found his mother's 
 indulgent inference true, that one so kind to dumb animals could not but be the 
 same to one of his own sort. 
 
 And now I cannot refrain from relating a little history of the said cats. Kate, 
 who has ever been sighing for a Persian cat (the only breed patronised by the 
 aforesaid gentleman, who is extremely chary over his kittens), communicated her 
 
 wishes to her friend Georgina T , and she engaged a friend to speak to 
 
 another friend, to ask Miss B to obtain from Dr. Bull a kitten of the right 
 
 sort. 
 
 Nothing could be more gracious than the manner in which the suit was received. 
 
 He knew Miss T , knew that she was a great belle, and very fond of cats, 
 
 kept them in the parlour ; in short, a most beautiful, long-haired, large-tailed, full- 
 ruffed kitten was despatched to Miss T , with certain conditions, as here 
 
 detailed. She was never to be touched by a child ; to be fed with meat, not raw 
 but underdressed ; and, above all, she was never to put her foot inside the kitchen. 
 Now I must here explain that this exclusive gift, intended, as the doctor fondly 
 thought, for the fair Georgina, was given by her to her (I will not say equally fair, 
 for who is ?) but still her fair friend Kate, and found its way to St. Hilary Vicarage, 
 
 where Lilla met a most enthusiastic welcome, and lived a happy life. Mr. T , 
 
 who, in his frequent visits to the Truro Infirmary, often met, and was duly catechised 
 by, the doctor, about pussey's health, was too well schooled to " let the cat out of 
 the bag," and confined himself to a simple bulletin. She was quite well, growing 
 handsome, a prodigious favourite. All went right until one day the doctor was so 
 
 NN
 
 150 Walks about St. Hilary. 
 
 charmed with Mr. T 's report, that he exclaimed, " I will call at the Rectory 
 
 soon, and judge for myself." 
 
 We were spared the panic that seized the whole family, for, all along, Kate and 
 I had imagined the doctor had known and acceded to the transfer. But " murder 
 will out," and I was the innocent blower-up of the plot. Thinking to ingratiate 
 the poor lame boy into favour, I bade his mother seize the first opportunity of 
 telling the doctor what a big beauty his kitten had become. She had not to wait 
 for an a propos, for, on the arrival of the simple pair at the Infirmary gate, they 
 were met by the doctor, with one cat on each shoulder, and several at his heels. 
 Peggy told me the doctor looked queer, but said nothing ; however, like the parrot, 
 he " thought the more." 
 
 The deception had been discovered, and a dignified letter demanding an ex- 
 planation was despatched to Mr. T , who takes his revenge by rallying Kate 
 
 on her inability to keep a secret. One sentence a little twinged my conscience, 
 
 and mollified my vexation, namely, " Had Charlotte W asked me for a 
 
 kitten," &c., &c. 
 
 I am sorry I cannot give my story what Junius used to call " a sharp point," were 
 it only that all the ten cats were let loose on the offender, with their twenty times 
 ten claws ; but I believe here the affair rests and will rest, only we can never hope 
 for another cat from Dr. Bull. 
 
 WALK LXX. 
 
 THE COVE. 
 
 B. Bettens and her brother. Wesley. 
 
 ERE, dear Maria, is a "Walk" that I slap-dashed down on my return 
 to the house ; read it or leave it at your pleasure. 
 
 I suppose there was hardly ever a thinking being who, in his own 
 conceit, had not something or other to pique himself upon ; some
 
 Walks about St. Hilary. i 5 1 
 
 reminiscence, personal or relative, whereby to tickle his self-love. Whether it was 
 that he had seen one of the royal family, caught one of the largest trout, had been 
 at the bottom of a mine, or at the top of a mountain, had seen (or else his father 
 had) Garrick in Abel Dragger, or remembered the coming in of the new style. 
 
 I, for my part, am proud to have it to say, that I have seen a fish's nest, and 
 been bitten by a large, curly, black dog, belonging, by-the-bye, to the Preventive- 
 men, and who, while I was conversing with " the mistress " (a generic title for the 
 officer's wife), walked deliberately round to my side, and seized my leg. Not having 
 " brought the blood," I have no right to dilate to you on my adventure ; still, I can 
 enjoy the hydrophobic horror which the faces of the listeners express. 
 
 For once, however, I am not going to be the heroine of my tale, but an old 
 woman whom I visited to-day, who has grown almost double by means of age, 
 disease, and privation, and has withal so grotesque a set of features, that she truly 
 described herself as "a wicked-looking old body." Her glorying is that she was 
 kissed by Mr. Wesley, on occasion of a visit he made to her father's cottage, 
 accompanied by Squire Brackenbury. I hasten to say that the damsel thus favoured 
 was a mere child, only nine years of age ; but she shall " never forget it," and will 
 take care that those around her shall not, either, that her children's children shall 
 record, " My granny was kissed by the famous John Wesley," whose traditional 
 kisses becoming scarcer by distance of time, will doubtless rise in value with each 
 succeeding generation. But till this comes to pass, posterity, I grieve to say, is 
 not likely to do much towards the maintenance of poor old Betty Bettens, who, at 
 this time, just keeps life and soul together by the one shilling she receives weekly 
 from the iron hand of a relieving officer, occasionally eked out by what she can 
 gain in the way of knitting for hire. What can she gain, alas ! at the age of four 
 score, with only one, and that a very dim, eye, and her head nearly touching a 
 chest that heaves frightfully from asthma ? 
 
 Betty's brother, seventy-seven years of age, and a cripple during the greater part 
 of them, resides with her ; but as he cannot knit, his weekly shilling seldom supplies 
 more than one meal a day. " But sometimes, ma'am," said he, with a cheerfulness 
 of tone that brought my heart up into my throat, " sometimes I have two " (oh that 
 I could make our relieving officers and guardians of the poor swallow the " physic " 
 Shakespeare decrees for " Pomp "). " But your clothes," enquired I, sitting be- 
 tween this impotent couple, who would have furnished good subjects for the Pool 
 of Bethesda. "We never look for any," they meekly replied, fearful, no doubt, of
 
 152 Walks about St. Hilary. 
 
 being dragged away into a Union for their audacity, and thus forfeit the all- 
 compensating comforts of native air, place, and kindred. The old man confessed 
 to having worn his one whole shirt three months without washing. "And when it 
 was washed, what did you do ? Did you lie abed ? " I was going to ask, but 
 amended the phrase for very shame, and promised to send him another. 
 
 How sore a reproach to the rich is the disproportioned gratitude of the poor! 
 If I, and others w r ith my means, bestowed as we ought, we should not be sent to 
 Heaven for the donation of some yards of fourpenny calico. 
 
 Betty is somewhat in 'Un Sally's line a person of reflection and sentiment, and 
 one who repeats poetry. How is it we never meet this spontaneous philosophy 
 at least, / never do among people of education, and yet it is by no means un- 
 common among the aged poor. I sounded Betty about her comparatively wealthy 
 relations. "Do not they come to see you?" "Seldom, if ever, ma'am. If we 
 had hoards to leave, perhaps they might." She will never seek them, for I can see 
 it is with evident reluctance that she receives the willing gratuity ; and though her 
 feelings are deeply grateful for sympathy or assistance, she soothes her wounded 
 dignity by continually adverting to the scores of hungry " bowels " her father 
 relieved, when he was a farmer, and she his eldest daughter and housekeeper. 
 
 I have promised the mistress to introduce her to this worthy couple, and I am 
 glad to bespeak for them so kind a friend, when winter shall shut us out from our 
 Cove neighbours. 
 
 Mrs. Drewe is an estimable person, with sufficient intelligence to save her from 
 being a tiresome companion, and withal is kindness itself; only she wants nursery 
 polish. I do not mean lacquer, as you may suppose, when I tell you she was a 
 pupil of Miss Nancy Warren, whom you may have met at Mr. T. John's. Her 
 name was Leverton of 7>?-something (of course), in the vicinage of Truro, so that 
 is another bond of amity.
 
 WALK LXXI. 
 
 Jemmy Buzzo and the Dunstanville Charity. 
 
 VISIT of congratulation ! You are to know that we once had a great 
 neighbour, entitled Lord de Dunstanville, the least of whose praise 
 was his descent from the hero of the following couplet : 
 
 " I, John of Gaunt, do give and grant 
 
 All my estate in fee, 
 From me and mine to thee and thine, 
 Bassett of Umberie." . 
 
 He was every inch a nobleman, and it was from such as he that" we are to suppose 
 the designation was framed. When he died, as if to relieve the sense of grateful 
 sorrow that pervaded every heart, from the land-holder to the land-labourer (for 
 all had in some sort tasted his princely spirit), a subscription was opened, with a 
 view to raise a monument to his memory, among the druidical vestiges on his own 
 Carn Brea. A large sum was subscribed (from /^2,ooo to ^3,000), and, after much 
 contrariety of counsel, it was resolved that the building should neither be so large 
 as to put the hill to shame (as some suggested), nor so small as to disparage the 
 public spirit of Cornwall (as others feared) ; a third party, meanwhile, having the 
 gratification of riding their hobby also, by seeing the overplus applied to the 
 excellent purpose of pensioning off some superannuated miners. 
 
 The first meeting in order to award these same pensions, took place at Truro the 
 other day, and, upon the " nothing venture," &c., principle, Mr. Pascoe resolved 
 to put in a word for our neighbour, Jemmy Buzzo. Jemmy married Peggy, and 
 Peggy was niece to the old blind Margaret, who, thanks to the Admiral, enjoyed 
 the Hetherington Charity for many years, and who used, to her dying day, to tell 
 about how she saw Miss Kate for the first time with a doll in her arms, and how I 
 smoothed the little girl's head, as she was shewing it off to the old woman, saying, 
 
 oo
 
 154 Walks about St. Hilary. 
 
 "This is my doll, 'Un Margaret." You would think there was never such a witticism 
 uttered before. I used to stand like Sully simpering at his own memoirs, as the bon 
 mot was duly repeated. Poor 'Un Margaret ! the scene was almost the last she 
 ever witnessed. No wonder, then, that it clung to her memory ; it was as the 
 glimpse of his native land to the condemned exile. 
 
 And now, to cut my story short, the good Peggy is rewarded for her filial cares 
 towards her old aunt to the day of her death, and the repetition of those patient 
 ministrations to the crossest-grained husband that ever poor woman was afflicted 
 with. 
 
 While Jemmy was able to work, he thought so much of himself and his per- 
 formances, that he never opened his mouth but to take in the best of everything 
 that their joint labour could procure, and to let out all manner of vituperation 
 against the much-enduring Peggy. She is a singularly clean, industrious, and 
 courteous-mannered person, and when there was nothing else to find fault with, 
 he would quarrel about the manner of her hanging up the bellows, though I could 
 never learn, any more than Peggy, that there was more than one way of performing 
 that feat of housewifery. 
 
 At length the disposition to palsy which, perhaps, was some apology for Jemmy's 
 bad temper, took a decided form, and he was forced (in miner's phrase) to "knack," 
 i.e., abstain wholly from labour, while his poor wife worked the harder. 
 
 'Un Margaret's pension stopped with her breath, and young Anne, our garden- 
 girl (the griglin genius, you remember), could not do more than milk the goats 
 and maintain herself; besides, her pretty face soon gained her a husband, and 
 Peggy was left to her Penelope labours of turning over heaps of often-turned 
 rubbish during the day, and breaking in upon her much-needed rest, to keep the 
 house such a pink as it always was ; to weed potatoes, fetch water, mend her own 
 and Jemmy's clothes, and even to " right up the crum o' gar'en." 
 
 Poor dear Peggy's spirit sustained all this bravely, even the payment of a shilling 
 once a month or so to a death club, which had already engulphed enough money 
 to have given to themselves a good living to the end of their days ; but here was 
 her grief, as it was poor Jemmy's, though she did toil night and day, his bread 
 she could not win. To give her husband those comforts which, as she said, his 
 poor body frame looked for, she was forced to go in debt, and the deeds of the 
 pretty cottage to be lodged with Betsey Peters at the shop. 
 
 While things were at this low ebb, many an exhortation did Peggy receive, in
 
 Walks about St. Hilary. \ 5 5 
 
 favour of throwing herself upon the parish. "I never wouldn't," and "Would I 
 starve to please anybody?" and "The parish is bound to help they that want, and 
 I'm sure you want bad enough, and why shouldn't you have it, if you want it, as 
 well as another," with other such persuasive corollaries. But Peggy remained 
 staunch ; there were still the two reversionary resources for paying her debts the 
 death club and the cottage ; and as for herself, and how she was to be maintained, 
 there was time enough to think of that when the time came. 
 
 And now, well has poor Peggy been repaid for her simple acquiescence in the 
 Divine precept, " Take no thought for thy life, wherewithal thou shalt," &c. 
 Jemmy has been chosen one of seven annuitants on the Dunstanville Fund, to 
 the tune of ten pounds a year for his life, which could not have been if he had 
 ever received so much as a farthing of parish pay. 
 
 Does not your kind heart dance to this tune, dear Maria, as ours did ? They 
 say there was never any hesitation about Jemmy's election, from the moment the 
 committee read Mr. Pascoe's paper. Kate and I envied him the good tidings he 
 was the bearer of, and eagerly catechised him on his return, about what was said. 
 Peggy exclaimed, " Bless God and you, sir ; now I can pay my debts." Jemmy 
 wished he might kneel down and return thanks. 
 
 WALK LXXII. 
 
 Young Harry 's kind acts. A patient. 
 
 0-DAY, Tit and I (Tit being a loving diminutive for Susan Jago, a little 
 girl who accompanied us hither, and keeps Cousin Kate as busy and 
 anxious as a hen with one duckling), Tit and I carried a fish up to the 
 round cottage. It was the only one our young Harry (himself an odd
 
 Walks about St. Hilary. 
 
 fish, you remember) had caught for the day, and he was sorely puzzled how to get 
 it up to poor Betsey Hocking. " Harry always remembers the sick and the poor," 
 his mother-in-law observed, as soon as he left the room, and well did he deserve 
 this praise for having declined beforehand to let me, who would have paid for it, 
 have this very fish, and sending it so beautifully packed with fresh leaves in a fair 
 basket, fit for a queen, to the poor sick and, by-the-bye, homely-looking girl. She 
 was very glad to have it, and so would be the poor mother, who was gone to a 
 neighbour's house to have an amateur operation performed on her eye, because the 
 invalid could not bear to witness her anguish anguish indeed it seemed to be. I 
 met the good old creature groping her way home, with her head enveloped in a 
 cloak, and right proud was Tit to bear a hand in helping her over the stile, and to 
 assist in transfe'rring the fish from the basket to a dish. So here was another day 
 provided for the hand of Providence as apparent as if the old ravens, occupying 
 Great Cudden Point beyond the memory of man, had brought flesh and bread in 
 their beaks. 
 
 After making a few purchases at the village shop, a little sugar, and a pot of 
 treacle, and placing the basket on the arm of my red-ridinghood, we entered a 
 farmyard at the brow of the hamlet, to enquire for chicken. No chicken there, but 
 a patient or two. On we went, and, passing through a gate into a mowstead, we 
 perceived a grand seigneur of a cock, with a bevy of feathered beauties following 
 at his heels. This promised more success, but, while peering about for the chicken 
 which ought to be there, we discovered a party of ducks, with their bills plunged 
 into a pile of freshly winnowed wheat, and gobbling it down with all their might, 
 which was no joke ; so, while a little boy from an opposite field ran to call the 
 gude-wife, Tit and I kept the marauders at bay. 
 
 Mrs. Vellanoweth came quickly, and proved to be a frank-tempered, plain 
 farmer's wife, with manners as primitive as her name. She thanked us, and wished 
 she had chicken, for our sakes. She had tried to procure one, but in vain, for her 
 sick daughter. So here was another patient, and, as the case was a very simple 
 one, I expect to be thanked again when I call next. Severe and ever-recurring, 
 spirit-consuming heart-burn would be intolerable, were it not for its ready remedy ; 
 blessings on the chemist, I say, who invented carbonate of soda. Years of suffering 
 has he spared me, wherefore may his crucibles never crack, nor his glass retorts 
 burst, and be all his experiments crowned with success ! 
 
 There is one thing, however, better than carbonate of soda, and that is the drug
 
 Walks about St, Hilary. 157 
 
 which, if properly administered, would render the virtues of the latter remedy 
 needless (at least, so I have found it), and I wish, dear Maria, that your complaint 
 was one of the stomach instead of the head, that I might have the pleasure of 
 curing you with a mixture of calumbo root and magnesia. 
 
 A LETTER. 
 
 GARDEN SHED, APRIL 28, 1840. 
 
 Dearest Maria, 
 
 HAVE literally bade Betty " take my desk beneath the garden shed." Not 
 the garden shed, either, but one of two new ones with which the pastor 
 has surprised us " make pretend " surprise, that is, such as you practise 
 on little Clarissa, for Kate and I had taken a sly peep behind the scenes, 
 before we were formally conducted into the plantation at the bottom of the garden, 
 to see what our carpenter had done for us. It is quite a dome, and the upright split 
 firs of which it is formed are, I hear, to be made more weather-tight by a rustic 
 lining ; it is also to be furnished with a circular table and bench, and other appli- 
 ances, to aid the picturesque ; then it full-faces the bay, and commands such a view 
 of the Mount as you get of a beautiful face in an opposite opera box. For my 
 part, I would compound for less beauty, in either case, for a touch of the more 
 retiring graces, and so I am writing, by preference, in an angle of wall over which 
 "behoves no more than" a cover of thatch and four posts, to make a retreat that 
 you and I would not exchange for Windsor Castle. 
 
 You remember the garden avenue, and the little orchard at its head, and " Miss 
 Josepha's garden," namely, an oval of flowers, of which Miss Kate is the present 
 incumbent, since it goes with the living to the young ladies of the family. 
 
 The orchard is reduced to a tree or two, that form accidental porticos, and look 
 pretty between me and the amphitheatre of green. What fine words ! Porticos, 
 
 pp
 
 158 
 
 Walks about St. Hilary. 
 
 amphitheatres ! This comes of my philosophy, I suppose. Certainly I do feel, 
 
 dear M , as if, let me alone, I would ask for nothing on earth but this. I 
 
 envy none but Milton's Adam, who could talk with Him as he walked, without this 
 depressing sense of unmeetness and unworthiness. Not but that there is some- 
 thing in a measure purifying and ennobling in the grateful sense, the devout 
 consciousness, that He is the Fountain of all we admire, the Spring of all benefit, 
 the Source of all beauty. Wonderful ! that He should pervade, animate, beautify 
 all we behold ; that the giant, delighting to run his prodigious course above me in 
 the heavens, should call Him Master, while yet He thinks no scorn to make glad 
 the hearts of that pair of robins who, having, as I guess, a nest hereabouts, are 
 continually flitting and coquetting among the rosebuds in front of me. 
 
 This is weather when, if alone, my heart is always ejaculating with 'Un Polly, 
 " Bless the Lord." 
 
 WALK LXXIII. 
 
 Little Betsey' 's death. Plaintive reading. 
 
 poor little Betsey is, I find, gone to her long home. What a sweet 
 sound that has when the home, as in Betsey's case, is likely to be a 
 happy one ! but home is a magical word that in all languages implies 
 happiness, even, strange to say, where the home is not a happy one. 
 I knew it would please old Anne that I should look upon her daughter, although 
 Kate, who had seen the body, prepared me to feel shocked. It was thought better 
 that Miss Tit, being a nervous damsel, should not accompany us, but the poor 
 little soul followed, to beg, in a whisper, that I would give her " love to the dead." 
 We smile, but it is a fact that our learned countryman, Whitaker, sent a similar 
 message to his daughter Betsey, by a poor dying woman whom he clerically at- 
 tended.
 
 Walks about St. Hilary. 159 
 
 Poor Betsey Hocking was, indeed, woefully changed. Her features had, at the 
 best, been commonplace, except her eyes, to which consumption had superadded 
 the rich gem-like lustre that outvies the brightness of youth and joy. These were 
 now closed, and how do you think ? No wonder that Kate looked mysterious, and 
 Tit horror-stricken. A leaden tea-spoon had been laid on each, the concave side 
 uppermost. I was checked, by the presence of the mother, from uttering, like 
 poor Kate, a hasty exclamation on the withdrawal of the face-cloth, but Mrs. 
 Saunders (Betsey's aunt), on perceiving my emotion, removed the tea-spoons, 
 observing that, now her poor eyes were effectually closed, they were no longer 
 needed. I was glad she did not also displace the small bible, whose contents had 
 so often spoken peace to the breast on which it now rested. I can well recall 
 
 C C 's reading from it one of those plaintive psalms that suited so 
 
 well with her sweet, low voice. One has often heard of singing like an angel 
 
 (oftener than is true), but C C may be positively said to read like one. 
 
 Her tones seem to reach the soul, without needing the gross medium of bodily 
 organs. They are the whispered admonition of the "sister spirit " to "come away." 
 I can remember how poor Betsey's eyes followed the motions of the reader, their 
 sparkling lustre quenched in unutterable tenderness they were playmates in early 
 childhood, when my uncle and aunt took under their especial protection the widow 
 and her two orphans. 
 
 From C C I have gleaned these particulars of old Anne's former 
 
 history. Anne's relations, and no wonder, watched anxiously how she might bear 
 this incomparable sorrow, the loss of an only daughter. I was glad to observe 
 that her large, rolling eyes, which turned ever and anon towards the bed of death, 
 or the white coverlet, retained the customary expression of meek resignation, and 
 only for a single moment betrayed that her thoughts could be diverted from it. It 
 was when one of the condoling neighbours mentioned that a poor labourer had, 
 that very morning, his arm torn off at the shoulder-joint by that engine of calamity, 
 a thrashing machine. 
 
 A similar accident happened at Carnanton before my father came there. I rejoice 
 to recollect that he had no such Juggernautish appendage to his farm. 
 
 Agriculture, we see, claims its victims, no less than mining. Kate tells me she 
 shall know no rest till we have visited the victim in question. It will be a painful 
 visit.
 
 WALK LXXIV. 
 
 THE COVE, MAY 26, 1840. 
 
 Living or posthumous celebrity. Miss Seward. Old AnnJ s dream. 
 
 FTEN have I said to myself, " I would not live in a world without 
 poor," and I said it again to-day, when I was considering who and 
 who I should be able to call upon, now that we are removed to the 
 Cove, and a mile or two out of our usual walking track. I do not 
 think these things aloud, because it would be considered a vaunt, but now nobody 
 hears me except you, dear, and if it is decreed that my simple rambles shall ever invite 
 the attention of others, it will be when this ear is passed being soothed by flattery or stung 
 by censure. 
 
 I do not know, after all, why it should be thought ostentatious to profess pleasure 
 in relieving sufferings which it is pain to behold, or why any thinking being should 
 arrogate to itself merit for obeying such a mere human impulse. As well might 
 he be vain of seeing with his eyes, and hearing with his ears ; as well might that 
 noble sea, which I glance at while I write, be proud that it does not overflow the 
 bounds appointed to it by its maker. To be kind, and courteous, and bountiful, 
 against our native bias*, that indeed is praiseworthy. Let me not seem to under- 
 value benevolent instincts ; their loveliness I admit, while I dispute their merit ; 
 and I am free to confess that, admirable as it is to keep down a bad temper, it is 
 more agreeable to have to deal with a temper that needs no keeping down. 
 
 I am going to make another confession, which I do with some hesitation, because 
 I daresay the avowal would be considered a base one by most people. I fancy I 
 should prefer living to posthumous celebrity. I can imagine much gratification in 
 finding myself the object of admiring and kindly feelings, in seeing myself re- 
 cognized, as I passed along, for the one whose writings had conveyed pleasure, 
 instruction, or had even harmlessly beguiled a heavy hour ; but for that " secondary 
 existence " which Hannah More's biographer so happily describes, I have no long- 
 ing. Connected with it comes a ghostly thought or two, that drinks up all my joy
 
 Walks about St. Hilary. \ 6 1 
 
 in its contemplation of it chiefly this, that there must be an end, and another thing 
 is its want of identity. One man embodies Shakespeare to his fancy in one form, 
 another in another, so that your Shakespeare and mine are not the same person 
 we are both idolizing a phantom. I know you can upset my argument with a brush 
 from your pen, but shall therefore resume my first plea. 
 
 To one who sometimes dares to hope that after this flesh has perished he may 
 see and live for ever with the author of all wisdom, all beauty, and all intellect, 
 how indescribably poor and perishable seem the praises of man, whose breath is 
 in his nostrils; for oh! what is he to be (comparatively) accounted of? Would 
 that I knew the word Lord Byron wanted, but never found the word that should 
 have been lightning to express his thought with a force and brevity corresponding 
 to my sense of its truth ! 
 
 " Do you call this walking ?" you ask. 
 
 This morning the pastor and his dame went home to the Vicarage to the church 
 service, to represent, as usual on a week-day, the parson and congregation in their 
 several persons. On reaching the brow of the turfy ascent which is the land barrier 
 to our happy valley, I turned round to " cull a view," quoting Miss Seward, and to 
 bless my stars that the farewell I then took of my " Stormy Lannow " was but for 
 a few hours. 
 
 " You never sing that song now," said my companion ; " the words are beautiful. 
 Lord Byron admired them." So did Scott, who was nevertheless thrown into 
 
 horrors on hearing that Miss S had bequeathed him her voluminous MSS., 
 
 with which she meant he should enchant the world strange mistake while they 
 are all probably condemned to the appropriate use of making paper kites. This 
 one little effusion of feeling is fondly remembered ; the truth is that for one happy 
 
 moment Miss S forgot herself, forgot to be clever and fascinating, in the 
 
 warm interest she felt for that ill-starred hero of real life, Major Andre\ He was, 
 I believe, the lover of Miss Seward, afterwards Miss Edgeworth's mother, or 
 mother-in-law, the scornful nymph of the song. 
 
 For a quality not downright vice, affectation is the worst anybody can be charged 
 with. It finds no apology in any breast, for it is a perfect non-conductor to the 
 affections ; even admitting an affected person sometimes succeeds in obtaining 
 admiration, the affections instinctively arm themselves against their claims, while, 
 on the other hand, you shall see a person of vicious habits pitied, and pardoned, 
 and vindicated, for the sake of the one merit, that they make no claim to admi- 
 
 QQ
 
 1 62 Walks about St. Hilary. 
 
 ration, while the converse shews us one with every moral and kindly quality, 
 disliked, laughed at, loathed, avoided, because she is artificial. Vaulting ambition 
 is not the only folly that o'erleaps its object, and whose capers are apt to terminate 
 in a fall " on t'other side." 
 
 I hope you do not think I made all this long-winded speech to Mr. P ; 
 
 they are but the thoughts our little opening dialogue suggested. I thought thus to 
 myself as we plodded homewards. 
 
 At Tresiholles, I was pursued for some way by a bonnetless, breathless mother, 
 to beg some medicine for a sick child, which I promised to bring back, and changed 
 my ring, not to forget it. 
 
 At the little sugar-loaf cottage, I had other commissions, but I fear alleviation 
 of pain is all that can be done there. Poor old Anne, for as weak and broken- 
 hearted as she looks, will probably have to follow to the grave her only daughter 
 and sole companion. The poor girl had long helped to maintain her mother, just 
 such another meek, pleasing old woman as Susannah, of Union memory, and they 
 did not even ask the dole of sixpence a week. By dint of the most unremitting 
 diligence, they earned their bread, and duly paid the rent of that little dove-cot of 
 which they are such appropriate tenants, till poor Betsey got sick " overworked, 
 and never of the strongest," a neighbour told me ; then the best resource failed ; 
 it was little old Anne could earn, even when she could be spared from her poor 
 girl's side, and edifying it was to see how they both committed themselves, without 
 apparent solicitude, or one repining word, to the care of Him who providently 
 caters for his still more lonely creatures. In virtue of this confidence, they have 
 never, she frequently assures me, known want. The Lord raises up help, as sure 
 as they need. She says one neighbour or another comes in and drops his mite, 
 of which I had an instant proof in a handsome young woman, who, abashed at 
 seeing me, hung back, and after a few awkward and ineffectual efforts to speak, 
 drew from her pocket two oranges, which she placed, without comment, by the 
 sick girl, and left the cottage, or the room, which is the same thing. The comical 
 little building consists of one apartment, partially divided by a dresser, set off with 
 good store of crockery-ware on the entrance side, and supplying a back to the bed 
 on the other. 
 
 If I did not know 'Un Anne to be truth itself, I would not record the following 
 circumstance. On enquiring after her health one day, she told me her face was 
 beginning to trouble her again, but no matter, she knew what would cure it without
 
 Walks about St. Hilary. 163 
 
 fail. I am always glad to pick up an infallible nostrum, and as her complaint, from 
 her report, appeared to be what is called an evil (which had, at an earlier period of 
 her life, tormented her for five years, and incapacitated her from attending to her 
 family), I caught at the present opportunity of enriching my receipt-book. It was 
 communicated, she said, in a dream, dreamed three times following in one night, 
 so it must be true. She " saw a voice," which distinctly dictated to her this recipe. 
 Three herbs which she named were to be fried in cream, and applied hot. She 
 woke her husband, and got well scolded, slept and dreamed again and again, with 
 this emendation, that if cream could not be procured, lard was to be employed as 
 its substitute. Poor Anne was no great captain, so, instead of turning away in a 
 rage, she went in search of the simples, fried them, applied them, and she was 
 made whole from that hour, I must not say, but so speedily that it was only less 
 than a miracle. 
 
 These are unaccountable occurrences, and doctors and sceptics may try to get 
 over the difficulty they cannot remove, by talking of the doctrine of chances, &c., 
 &c. 
 
 I can believe that mind has much to do with the regulation of our bodily feelings ; 
 why else did I experience a greater sense of fatigue when I took my parting look 
 from that hill-top, than when, after a five or six mile walk, I again stood, my eye 
 exulting in a line of sea and a circle of coast, with its little graceful indents, 
 fringed by the foam that, rising high over opposing rocks, the moment after sub- 
 sides, and peacefully embraces their feet, like some generous tempers who relent 
 in their purpose while in the very act of avenging themselves ?
 
 WALK LXXV. 
 
 THE COVE, JULY 14, 1840. 
 
 C C and the coast. Miss Willy ams and Silvio Pellico. 
 
 |OW often have I recorded my Walks hither, and always with undimin- 
 ished delight ! pleasure was on the tip of my pen, but it is too cold 
 a word. 
 
 I have a new companion at present. She who added to the enjoy- 
 ment of our late sojourn here, was C C , and she, you know, is already 
 
 the heroine of one Walk, but she made herself too interesting as a talker at our 
 workings and walkings, to give me leisure to make her the subject of another. 
 During the week or more that she spent here (the heart of her early associations), 
 you may imagine how we feasted upon recollections, her quick, tenacious affections 
 kindling at the least touch of the past, and grateful at finding a ready listener in 
 me. My sympathy was repaid by auld world stories of my favourite cottagers, and 
 lessons on the geography of the coast, with which she was long familiar. 
 
 Day by day I rehearsed my lesson as we turned and fondly lingered on our hill- 
 side. I was a shocking dull scholar. It would be worth any phrenologist's while 
 to examine my skull, only to see how utterly deficient it is in the bump of locality. 
 The little fringed bay, the detached rock, the interlineation of bright, clear sand, 
 the range of hilly cliff, darker, bleaker, and higher than its neighbours, the far- 
 stretching sweep of coast, with another sweep behind it, bolder, but almost too 
 faint for the naked eye to detect all these beauties, I can trace and gloat over with 
 an insatiable delight, but it was not till after many a patient lesson, that poor 
 
 C could beat into me that the first point (I mean after that -bold, projecting 
 
 heap which defines our little Bessy's Cove to the east, seeming just under my nose 
 
 while I write), that point, why or wherefore, C ; C could not inform 
 
 me, is called the Hoe. After that is Praa Sands ; the next point, if I recollect 
 right, is Rinsey Head, with the Wolf Rock in the van ; the gloomy or bloomy (which 
 you will), fine line of cliff is Halzephron. Would it not be worth while to write a
 
 Walks about St. Hilary. 165 
 
 poem, only to introduce that name ? The strongly-contrasted white rock in front 
 
 is, C thought, the famous soap rock. After boasting of the poetry of our 
 
 names, how shall I confess that the last point is called Polpradanack, so provokingly 
 like Poll parrot ? 
 
 My present companion is also brimful of glowing pictures and romantic legends, 
 and must needs look on our baby wonders with disdain. It is Louisa, fresh from 
 Italy, and who spent months of last summer in the Chateau de Chillon, being 
 admitted en pension by the governor and his charming wife. I have an anecdote 
 relating to the spot, which will interest you, and while I think of it I will write it 
 down. One day a pale, interesting-looking stranger came to view the chateau. 
 On descending with him to the vaults of the dungeon, immortalized by Bonnivard's 
 pillar, Madame Valeton perceived the countenance of her companion materially 
 change, and though she had been accustomed to conjured-up emotions of all de- 
 grees and descriptions on these occasions had even seen four ladies fall simul- 
 taneously into hysterics, on mistaking a family mangle for the rack on which B 
 
 suffered yet there was something so real, she said, and so touching in the stranger's 
 manner, that she enquired if he were ill. He smiled as he replied, " I am like a 
 child who is always looking out for the phantom of which he is afraid ; wherever 
 I go, I enquire out all the dungeons in the neighbourhood, and visit them, but 
 Bonnivard's dungeon is a palace to mine. I am Silvio Pellico." 
 
 I am thankful to be thus relieved of the impression I had received, that this 
 captive Phoenix had degenerated into a nervous devotee, and finally that he was 
 dead. How it would rejoice me to be assured that I should meet and know this 
 beautiful spirit here or in Heaven ! 
 
 RR
 
 WALK LXXYI. 
 
 SEPTEMBER 12, 1840. 
 
 Flowers and sermons. 
 
 }ENT about to distribute the remaining Cottage Horticultural tickets 
 of admission, not so easy a work as I expected. The labouring 
 classes have rarely an hour to give to pleasure-seeking, at least 
 not in such hard times as the present. 
 Among the happy possessors of those which I had bestowed earlier in the day, 
 were three holiday folk, a father, daughter, and niece, in all their braveries, and 
 smiling from ear to ear. Not so poor Kitty Crebo and her daughter Susan, both 
 labouring under mental dejection, which I vainly assured them a sight of the gay 
 flowers would tend to dissipate. Mary Stribley would have liked nothing better, 
 but for her baby, who might take cold ; and her neighbour, that most precise of 
 beaux and bachelors, Nickey Roberts, said it would take too long to get ready. 
 
 Worthy, courteous old Barnard G I should never have thought of inviting 
 
 into a scene of even harmless dissipation, if I had not happened to meet him, with 
 my last undisposed-of ticket in my hand, as he was cheering his half-palsied frame 
 by a stroll in the sunshine. "JThank ye, ma'am, all the same," said he, " but I 
 would go further to hear a good sarment than to see the finest flowers the earth 
 doth yield." I should have told him how it was possible to extract the best of 
 sermons out of these sweet monitors, citing the first of human authorities, and, I 
 speak in reverence, the first of Divine authorities, also. I might have told him 
 how the lilies of the field, or even the senseless stone, preach to the willing ear. 
 I do so rejoice when I can detect our beloved Shakespeare drawing from the well- 
 spring of Scripture, and that really is not seldom the case. 
 
 My other tickets were severally offered to a thrifty old market gardener (a due 
 churchman), an amateur Sunday-school teacher, and the young printer's assistant 
 who printed so carefully and so meekly the perpetual inaccuracies he had to correct 
 for the author of the " Singer's Friend."
 
 Walks about St. Hilary. 167 
 
 The poor young widow, Jennefer Curtis, went to the show with cheerful feet, 
 wearing the first smile that has lighted up her woe-begone face since the death of 
 her husband. No wonder ; she carried in her hand a paper from Mr. Pascoe, 
 containing the sum of seven shillings and sixpence ; he was truly glad to exercise 
 his privilege of subscriber by recommending hers as the best kept garden of the 
 parish. 
 
 WALK LXXYII. 
 
 Frequent change of residence. Further tidings of old friends. 
 
 JES, this is a changeful world ! I make the remark just now in reference 
 to this particular parish, and by no means intending to palm it on you 
 as a new idea, for I doubt whether any rational being ever existed 
 without having made a similar observation. Poets have adorned it 
 with flowers of special rhetoric ; moralists have availed themselves of it to point 
 their appeals to the conscience of their hearers. Still, however varied are these 
 changes produced from this simple peal of " This is a changeful world," bards and 
 moralists and divines as ye are, ye know comparatively little of the matter, if you 
 do not reside in a mining district, where the shifting and changing, at least of 
 dwellings, is endless. " They are gone from there," is the general reply I get, 
 when intending to pay a visit after an interval of a few months. You may as soon 
 expect to find a cruizer at the port where you left her, as a Cornish miner's family 
 in the house they occupied on a last visit. 
 
 A cottage which is called, and will be so called as long as it hangs together, Ivy 
 Cottage (though a wretch of a mason has long ago stripped it of every leaf to 
 which it owed its picturesque name), and my recollections, if I could stay to enu- 
 merate them, would furnish the names of half-a-dozen or more successive occupiers,
 
 1 68 Walks about St. Hilary. 
 
 some of them familiar to you, I trust. There lived Jenny Priske of one-legged 
 memory, and there resided friend Mary, and there the great Betty watched her 
 dying husband, and through that door abandoned the orphans he left to her care. 
 
 It was at this cottage my steps were, it may be a year ago, arrested by a small 
 cart, containing some rickety furniture, which stood before it. The recognition 
 was reciprocal, for its occupier dropped a curtsey, and followed me with the same 
 pair of inflamed eyes upon which, some years ago, I had wasted so much skill and 
 golden ointment. " Can that be Maria," asked I, " who was a servant at Captain 
 Nickey's, and always so good a church-goer?" It was her very self, and I could 
 fancy it no more than a year since I had, Sunday after Sunday, seen the self-same 
 flowered gown in the identical low pew near the southern door. But to my morti- 
 fication she had sought a new service. I fear I did not suppress as I ought my 
 infinite surprise, at learning that poor Maria had found anybody to seek her in 
 wedlock. " You married, Maria ! you surprise me." " Yes, fie ! but he (pointing 
 to a great loon of a boy helping her to unpack), he was a son by my former 
 husband." 
 
 Not many months after, a cart stood again before Ivy Cottage, but this time they 
 were packing in moveables the second husband had been killed underground, and 
 poor Maria was again starting forth, like her illustrious namesake, with 
 
 " The world before, where to choose her place of rest, 
 
 And Providence her guide." 
 
 This little history of a Maria, somewhat differing from Sterne's, and still more 
 from mine, we must allow is no otherwise memorable, than as the germ of a 
 promise I, at that time, mentally made, that I would, the first moment of leisure, 
 avail myself of the singularly fluctuating state of things, to write a conclusion to 
 some of my histories. These are, I know, in their tiresome perplexity, vague and 
 desultory, and the fault of a populous parish ; therefore I mean, where I can, to 
 bring them to a speedy conclusion. 
 
 Let me prepare my intended denouement by imagining how different would have 
 been the chronicles of an agricultural district ; the labourer on the land, wearing 
 himself and his cottage fairly out in the service of one master, who, if he have 
 ample means and generous feelings, will spare his old servant the pang of quitting 
 his house till, to use his own phrase, he is carried "foot afore" out of it. Thus 
 you may call in, after an interval of many years, and find no change, but here and
 
 Walks about Si. Hilary. 1 69 
 
 there a grey head, or may be the pleasant transformation of dirty brats into stout 
 grown men and women, able to take the labouring oar in their turn. But how fares 
 it, meanwhile, in a mining neighbourhood ? You shall hear. 
 
 The widow Pearce, with whom my stories begin, that paragon of quaint diction, 
 went to live in a cheap cottage down amongst the burrows, with that alphabet- 
 hating son of hers whom I coaxed (Honor would say slocked] to school in vain, 
 after wasting upon him more instruction than would have made his fortune, had it 
 been bestowed upon his mother's pig. He took huff because he " hadn't no prize 
 at the school feast," and sturdily refused to come back. I hope, though, poor 
 fellow, that he did not spend his Sundays in so much evil as some of his comrades, 
 for he continued to reside with his mother and sister, and to bring in his gettings 
 to the common stock at least, so she always told me, and continued to exhort 
 him to " folly his church and his laming;" but learning, poor lad, was never his 
 forte, nor a disposition to follow friendly counsel, and so, about six weeks ago, 
 when his comrade bade him duck down his head, " for the kibble was coming foul 
 of it," he kept it in the same position, and, shocking to relate, was killed on the 
 spot, leaving his mother without a gleam of comfort or hope, except what she drew 
 from his having said that morning, on departing to his work, " God bless thee, 
 mother." This anecdote poor Honor duly repeated to each individual comforter 
 who dropped in to gratify their benevolence or curiosity, or a compound emotion 
 partaking of both, which is nourished in a neighbourhood for ever furnishing fresh 
 fuel for pity and honour. 
 
 My next Walk, I believe, treated of the family, but they, being regrators 
 
 of fish and oranges, and no miners, remain pretty much in statu quo, except that 
 the husband is dying of asthma, and the old house has been replaced by another. 
 - Mills, the consumptive miner, of whom you remember the "cunning woman" 
 at Redruth made a " perfect cure," died almost immediately after his walk thither 
 to consult her. His widow was a great, if not my greatest, favourite in the parish ; 
 so clean, so sensible, so meek, yet so clever and industrious, and above all, such a 
 pattern of discretion ; but unluckily her sister died, and the widower (whatever 
 possessed him) sent for Anne to keep his house and look after his orphans. Alas ! 
 when I heard what I feared how it would be (for I recollected the discreet Anne 
 and the twains) ; sure enough, this was another register affair, and I have thereby 
 lost two of my tidiest, most reverential little day scholars, and the cleanest menage 
 I ever put my nose into. 
 
 ss
 
 Walks about St. Hilary. 
 
 I am here antithetically reminded of that discreet bal-maiden, Mary Pengelly, 
 who, after her mother's death, went to live with Betsey Peters, at the earnest re- 
 quest of the redoubtable dame herself, in whose heart I fear the world has resumed 
 the influence it temporarily lost on the death of her only son, which, by the way, 
 puts my prophecy out of countenance, for I remember to have described her as of 
 the tribe of the " never smile again " mourners ; but that, with all my unskilful 
 hits, shall stand on record as bearing evidence against human consistency on the 
 one hand, and my own particular penetration on the other. Yet I cannot believe 
 that some thought Betsey induced poor Mary to take up her quarters with her, 
 having an eye to paying up, by means of her services out of bal hours, the small 
 remaining sum due for house-rent, until one day she detected, or fancied she saw, 
 her ill-fated husband casting sheep's eyes towards the ironing-table, of which, if 
 the charge were true, poor Mary was as innocent as the king the cat chooses to 
 look at. The awful Betsey picked a quarrel with her lodger on the spot, and gave 
 her notice to quit on the following day. 
 
 It was just about that time I met Mary carrying "a turn of water," and, though 
 the dolefullest-looking of spinsters, she quite giggled at the idea of anyone being 
 jealous of John Peters. But, as I said, the whole truth must be told, and even 
 Mary is one of your rolling stones who will gather no moss. Next she went to 
 reside with Mary Johns, the beau ideal of a pretty, modest widow, but there the 
 three nttle boys cried, and romped, and " made a shape, and had their way," and 
 off went Mary in search of quiet elsewhere. But nobody is perfect, and this loco- 
 motive propensity is all the harm I know of your favourite protegee, poor Mary. 
 
 Then there is 'Un Sally, whom I like and you do not like so much at least, her 
 sedentary habits (she being a bed-lier), you would say, must prevail, and she stout- 
 ly declared they never should take her from the house alive ; but what could she do 
 when that great Friar Tuck-looking Nickey Ford, her son, took her up from the 
 bed of her affections, as one would take up an infant, and placed her in a cart 
 destined to convey her to a new place of residence. She still speaks of her re- 
 moval, as a queen might of her dethronement, in a strain of indignant eloquence, 
 and I must say I share her regret, for it has become quite a labour to visit her at 
 that distance. 
 
 You must now hear another humbling confession. My Diogenes (you remember 
 the tall woman who included her height among her list of afflictions) turned out 
 no philosopher after all, but a vulgar, rapacious mortal, who, having got herself
 
 Walks about St. Hilary. 1 7 1 
 
 well supplied, between Kate and me, with church-going clothes, never did go to 
 church more than an afternoon or two, just as it appeared, to exhibit them. Yet 
 let me not be too hard upon this poor untaught being, who, in strenuously working 
 with her hands, instead of grumbling, Diogenes-like, over the bread of idleness, 
 shews herself the greater philosopher of the two. Let me remember / shall be a 
 better philosopher than either, if I cultivate that " more excellent way," to think 
 no evil of my fellow-creatures. 
 
 Thus far, you must allow, I have stuck to my text, that this mortal life of ours is 
 an ever-shifting scene. But oh ! was there ever beneath the fickle moon, whom 
 the poet represents as grieving to see herself outwitted by human life, was there 
 ever vicissitude equal to that which has befallen two of the establishments which 
 cut such a figure in the Walks, and have now passed away, as if they had never 
 been I speak of the Preventive Station and the Poor-house. 
 
 WALK LXXYIII. 
 
 FEBRUARY, 1844. 
 
 Jenny Priske. Edward Crebo. The churchwoman. 
 
 RETTY little widow Johns, with her three small boys grouped around 
 her the youngest on her lap, the second having his arm coaxingly 
 laid across it, the eldest hanging over her with an air of affectionate 
 protection seemed to be taking them all in at a glance of her loving, 
 dove-like eyes. She looked like Charity in the picture, though there was little 
 thought of the picturesque when, replying to my comment, she said, " Yes, ma'am, 
 they are fond of me ; they call me their dear little mother, and tell me I shall never 
 work when they grow up to be men." The idea ! such a trio of little fair, fragile 
 things. The father (poor Ally) was for years my scholar, and is often cited by me 
 to the present race of Sunday scholars.
 
 172 Walks about St. Hilary. 
 
 Old Jenny Priske must for shame die now ; " hyperbole can no further go." 
 She told me to-day that she was in eternity, and when I offered to send her cocoa, 
 pertinaciously replied that it was no use, for she was in eternity. Alas ! one I 
 know has entered that unfathomable gulf, in good earnest, within the course of a 
 few hours this Saturday evening. I stepped into Thomas Carpenter's shop just 
 now, to consult his foreman, Michael, as to whether there was time to take out and 
 dry the action, as heretofore, of the church piano, which, like other grandees, is 
 apt to be affected by " skiey influences." I did not give our musical Michael the 
 pain of refusing me, for, spying a rough-hewn coffin cover near him, and being 
 aware of the pious courtesy invariably observed towards the dead, I anticipated his 
 reply. " I see you cannot, but who is this intended for ?" It was very shocking to 
 hear him name one whom I believed to be a breathing man. He, Edward Crebo, 
 was the second of three brothers, who migrated from the land of my fathers when 
 I did they followed their eldest brother, who followed my cook. That was no 
 great relationship, to be sure, but Edward was a regular church-goer, and he was 
 a Mawgan man. My reason for liking his wife was even less substantial ; she was 
 the most ladylike, perfect beauty I ever beheld in humble life ; as a poor woman 
 once observed to me, " she was a lady to look upon, down to her finger nails." I 
 have always esteemed her for looking so like a broken-down lily under a disgrace 
 which our village brides, with few exceptions, regard as no disgrace at all. Some 
 said Edward was a don of a husband, and was far from regarding his wife as his 
 own (singularly ugly) body, according to the apostle's injunction. Certainly the 
 poor fellow, after laying Mary's beautifully-sculptured form in the grave, used 
 touchingly to exhort every married man who approached him to be tender over 
 their wives, for that many a light word spoken while they were living would rush 
 down their hearts like mill-streams after they were dead. 
 
 Returning to the Vicarage, I stepped into the churchwoman's room, "which 
 serves her for parlour, and bedroom, and hall," and we discussed poor Edward's 
 untimely fate and inexperienced family, and then mentioned 'Un Jenny's declara- 
 tion to my solemn and supercilious auditor, for our churchwomen, let them be ever 
 so lowly in their own eyes on entering into office, are sure to become oracular, and 
 hold their ecclesiastical noses exceedingly high afterwards. Anne, too, has a slow 
 and supercilious sniff, which adds great emphasis to what follows. After this 
 preparatory grimace, Anne expressed her disapprobation of the light mode some 
 had of dealing with solemn subjects. " I do not say," continued Anne, " that I
 
 Walks about St. Hilary. 173 
 
 am not myself sometimes caught off my watch, but then " another pause and sniff 
 " observe, I back to my post, while these I tell them my mind plainly, but I 
 can never find such ones are very willing to close with me. Now this is what I 
 say " Seeing preparations for another sniff, and being late, I suddenly recollected 
 that to-morrow is boiled beef day, and reminded her of the fact. To this she 
 replied, " The broth comes handy on a Sunday, for it saves both meat and fire, 
 too, while I am at church." When at church, Anne sits in the rear of four or five 
 rows of Sunday scholars, having within her reach a white wand, long enough to 
 tickle, if needful, the most" undefended part of the most distant offender, which 
 she effects so silently and adroitly, that the first intimation of punishment is a 
 sudden and fearful outcry from the delinquent. After all, Anne is a good and 
 conscientious woman, and, I really believe, has not much malicious gratification in 
 the sufferings of her victim. 
 
 WALK LXXIX. 
 
 THE COVE, MAY 9, 1844. 
 
 Anne Green. Margaret Christopher. Child burned. 
 Pauper relief. 
 
 jHE walk which recent occurrences have recalled to my recollection took 
 place a long time ago, witness the companion of my walk, who had 
 then no more thought of mating than the scarce-fledged lark who 
 carolled over her young head, but has now a little fellow by her side 
 beginning to call her " mamma." 
 
 At the door of a cottage stood a young so young a person that we took her for 
 a girl, and complimented her thereupon by the surprise we shewed at hearing she 
 was the mother of a fine boy and girl. A day or two ago she was brought back to 
 
 XT
 
 174 Walks about Si. Hilary. 
 
 my recollection by the kind haste of her neighbours to interest me in the case of 
 " a poor dear soul lying in a piteous condition, sure enough, up by Higher 
 Kenegie." Anne Green, who has herself miseries enough to afford new lights to 
 a parish register (see Crabbe), if that could be, nevertheless related with com- 
 passionate unction the story of our young-looking matron. Her misfortunes began 
 years ago, with a I will not say what, as the doctor did not ; however, it was, some 
 said, a very ougly wound in the loins, which was lanced, &c., the et cetera compre- 
 hending those minute particulars which I spare you, though I could not myself 
 escape from them. On the healing of this abscess, the poor creature went into 
 the fields to work, I fear prematurely ; but it is for only a small portion of the year 
 that field work is to be had, and the call for hands at these seasons of planting and 
 reaping makes the increased rate of wages a temptation to the thrifty housewife ; 
 the soil which fills our garners with corn and potatoes, is made to yield at the same 
 time a " crum o' trousers for the chield (meaning the boy), or a blanket for the 
 maad " (meaning the girl), or, for the mother, the inexpressible comfort of a 
 change of linen ; all of which might well be hoped for from the golden sovereign 
 which poor Margaret Christopher amassed last summer ; but soon after, the indus- 
 trious creature told her mother-in-law she could not think " what fashion she felt 
 on the opposite side to the healed wound." In fact, and to shorten a sad tale, a 
 fresh abscess had begun to form, and the sovereign destined to clothe was hence- 
 forth now required to feed, for John's gettings, like those of all our miners for 
 some time past, had proved inadequate to provide sufficient of the meanest sub- 
 sistence. At length, poor fellow, he was obliged to have recourse to that fund, the 
 poor rate, to which his forefathers had long contributed in the more dignified form 
 of landowners, and to see himself written down " John Christopher, pauper ! " 
 How all this must have chafed the spirit of his little active wife, now unable to 
 turn an inch in the bed, no less from the anguish of the fresh wound, than from 
 the breaking out of the old one. 
 
 Meanwhile, a little girl of seven (the age when a young lady tears her frocks for 
 others to mend, and makes litters for others to set to rights), this fine little girl 
 took upon her small self the multiplied cares of the family looked to the children, 
 tended her sick mother, cleaned up the house, and "fitted dinner" for her father 
 to take to bal or to eat on his return. It was during this last operation that her 
 flimsey petticoat was set on fire, and, as usual, acted the part of tar to the barrel. 
 Shrieking fearfully, and in a sheet of flame, she flew upstairs, where the unfortunate
 
 Walks about St. Hilary. 175 
 
 mother made some wild and futile attempts to subdue it, which, of course, produced 
 no other result than cruelly burning her own poor hands, and giving the fire time 
 to consume the few garments which had hitherto guarded the little victim. Neigh- 
 bours, as usual, flew to assist and condole, and during three weeks' suffering, as I 
 would not you should hear described (though I was forced to), the dear little girl 
 went to Heaven, by the universal assent of the most rigid among the gossips, who 
 decided that " she had her chastisement here, dear lamb;" and so this dreadful 
 casualty, which is happening in our cottages day by day, is reconciled and put aside, 
 because the poor cannot, and the rich will not, provide these little unguarded 
 victims with a few hundred yards of some less ignitable material. It might be 
 procured for sixpence a yard, perhaps less, and thus save a dozen or so of precious 
 lives, at a less expense than goes to invest the individual limbs of the squire's wife 
 or daughter in folds of velvet or embossed satin. As it is, I have often thought 
 the poor mother would have a right to upbraid the insinuating shopkeeper in the 
 words of the antiquary's fish-wife, " Ye are not selling twopenny pint jars, ye are 
 selling our children's lives." 
 
 Can the fair reader she who looks up from the daily newspaper, exclaiming, 
 "Another child burnt to death ; how very shocking ! " or pauses to charge with 
 neglect the overworked mother can she be aware that a few pounds would effect- 
 ually pinafore a whole district, or (to restore the more appropriate term) provide 
 all the young children in two or three parishes with save-alls ?" 
 
 A Parody. 
 
 " 'Tis an old tale, and often told, 
 
 But did my wishes and finance agree, 
 No youthful, tender, fellow-mould 
 Should lack this canvas panoply." 
 
 How have I wandered from poor Margaret Christopher ! They did not apply to 
 the Union (I believe) till this additional calamity, and the expenses of burial, made 
 it unavoidable ; then, there being by good luck a humane chairman, an order was 
 made out at the Helston Board for three shillings a week, and the attendance of 
 the Union Doctor, yclept (you would say in sport) Mr. Caudle ; but it was far from 
 a joking matter to poor Margaret, when this amiable functionary called, redolent 
 of rum, and, by virtue of his professional authority, insisted on cutting the tumour. 
 The patient did not fancy it had arrived at the stage proper for the lancet, and
 
 176 Walks about St. Hilary. 
 
 though, with the despair of helplessness, she submitted, it proved she was right ; 
 no discharge resulted from the incision, and the subsequent pain became intolera- 
 ble, though only in paroxysms, more resembling tic doloureux, which made me, in 
 my ignorance, suspect that the operation might have injured a nerve unintention- 
 ally, of course ; only the surgeon could have helped smelling of rum before, and 
 repairing to the " Falmouth Packet" after, his unlucky performance. In justice I 
 must say for this boon doctor, that he shewed a fellow-feeling for his patient in one 
 respect he admonished the Board of the absolute necessity of supplying her with 
 abundance of nourishment, especially in a liquid form. It did not come at first in 
 any form except the shape of a dawdle, who consented to leave her own two 
 children in the Union, for the gratuity of one shilling per week, which, it seemed, 
 poor John was to provide, in addition to the food of the imposed inmate. John, 
 being of a " contented make," acquiesced in all, and thought how he would bestow 
 his sleeping hours " between cour and cour " in walking to Penzance and back 
 (twelve miles), in order to lay out the allotted three shillings to the best advantage 
 for the invalid. It would go further, he rightly said, in porter than in wine, and 
 in good juicy meat than the half-fed article sold in the villages. But that matter 
 was also settled for him ; he was informed, after walking hither and thither, and 
 being handed over from one parish authority to another, like a shuttlecock, with 
 nothing but a huff for his pains, that the three shillings was to be cut down to two 
 shillings, the amount of which was to be supplied, not in money, but in material, 
 to wit two pounds of beef and a half pint of wine. Again poor Christopher 
 meekly bowed, and again travelled hither and thither, to present the following 
 documents, on two separate bits o'f paper, addressed to two officials. 
 My blood boiled, if the poor young man's did not, on reading these precious 
 sentences. 
 
 " Deliver to pauper John Christopher two pounds of beef. 
 
 Deliver to pauper John C half pint of wine." 
 
 And just fancy ! this wretched supply, which was to repair the vital drain of the 
 week, was not procurable till Saturday. I drop the pen in sheer heart-sickness at 
 this more than negro treatment. 
 
 Note by C. G. B. R. The beloved writer whose heart was so tenderly moved by this one tale of suffering and 
 endurance, has been mercifully spared the sight of the wide-spread calamities of 1877-8. We wonder what would be 
 the feelings of those who have been accustomed to see the smallest symptoms of distress met by turbulent outrage, 
 could they behold the sad faces and shrunken limbs that cower among the ruined houses and fireless hearths of West 
 Cornwall. No strikes, no violence, only endurance, and reluctance to profit by public charity, would he find in the 
 half -roofless villages which cover our once busy and populous hillsides.
 
 WALK LXXX, 
 
 THE COVE, JULY 29, 1845. 
 
 G. Jones' death. The apple stealer. Green geese. Want of courtesy. 
 
 walk, but voices under my window, at the witching hour of twelve. 
 I thought not of robbers, I thought not of ghosts ; the spot was too 
 simple, too canny, for either ; but I did recollect the preventive men, 
 whose dismal duty it is to perambulate these rocky, shafty heights 
 all night long. But then, what could mean the woman's treble which intersected 
 the deep bass tones ? I soon learnt, through the casement Mr. Pascoe threw down, 
 that Lizzie Richards, the fisherman's daughter, had been keeping Katherine Jones 
 company, alongside the body of her lately deceased husband, at that little lone 
 cottage on the western cliff. She came, she said, to ask Captain Will to help put 
 the corpse into the coffin just brought by the carpenter, and urged, in excuse of 
 this untimely visit, Mary's argument to our Lord, when opposing the disinterment 
 of her dead. Captain Will, to his honour, though suffering from a cold, instantly 
 rose, and went on his appalling errand. 
 
 The deceased, George Jones, was an awesome subject to deal with, living or 
 dead ; he certainly must have been a descendant of the Jones who drew on himself 
 the hatred of the mildest of poets, Wordsworth. 
 
 " I hate that Andrew Jones ; his sons 
 
 Will all be trained to waste and pillage. 
 I wish the drum 
 
 With row-dow-dow would come, 
 And sweep them from the village." 
 
 Yet ruffian as he was, a bad father, a cruel husband, a swearer, a scoffer, and eke 
 a desperate poacher, his heart was open to the all-powerful influence of con- 
 science, as I learn by the boatman's wife whom I met this evening on the cliff. 
 She volunteered the following narration. He was leaning his head upon his arms, 
 at the end of the table. " George," says I, " do ye think you shall recover ?" " I 
 reckon," says he, " I never shall." " Then," says I, " my dear soul, call upon the 
 
 uu
 
 178 Walks about St. Hilary. 
 
 Lord." " I would," says he, " if I knew how. How can I tell whether He will hark 
 to me ? He is one that won't be mocked." "Well," says I, " nobody else can do 
 nothing for you ; you must labour for your own soul ; there is no giving one for 
 another " (referring, I suppose, to the Divine atonement). "And so, poor fellow, he 
 pitched to cry for mercy ; he fairly sweated with earnestness, till he fell asleep from 
 weakness ; but Kattern, his wife, when she went out, charged us straitly not to leave 
 him sleep a moment, so when she came in she poked him, and besought him to 
 keep crying upon the Lord." " I do," said he, and passed his hand lovingly over 
 her cheek. The narrator said she seemed to " vally " this slight loving gesture, 
 perhaps the first indication of the heart of flesh Jones had ever shewn to his 
 unhappy yoke-fellow. Yet some rough virtue appeared even on that stony soil. 
 He was honest, bating poaching, his view of which was probably different from 
 the richer lovers of sylvan sport. The instant he admitted a conviction that he 
 might not recover, he sent for his landlord and said, " I'm thinking I shall never 
 work no more, and its no use for you to be looking for. the quarter's rent from those 
 I leave behind me they have nothing to give for it ; but there is an old boat of 
 mine down under, you can take that and pay yourself." And now, this Friday 
 morning, the poor fellow is to be borne from his pretty cliff cottage, under such a 
 torrent of rain as has drawn us continually to the window. Cataracts are streaming 
 and gurgling down the opposite cliff roads, till, realizing Lady Macbeth's simile, 
 they have " made the green sea red," or, to tell the sober truth, reddish brown, a 
 good way out, and the poor pastor has to go home through these floods, to lay 
 poor Jones's body in that churchyard which it seldom if ever crossed, but where, 
 nevertheless, it must remain, till incorporated with the consecrated soil. 
 
 Friends are assembling round the widow, and we see one poor half-drowned 
 relative after another scrambling down our back hill, of which, in fine weather, it 
 needs all one's wits about one to get safe to the bottom. The last pilgrim to the 
 . house of mourning was a female, with her best black bonnet enveloped in a hand- 
 kerchief, and the best gown caught-up a foot or two. Alas ! for the white petticoat 
 that appears under it ! 
 
 It seems to me that the rancour of the poor never pursues its object beyond the 
 grave, and they have readiness to believe in the sudden beatification of the habitual 
 life-long sinner, which latitude of candour, however to be lamented in a religious 
 view, argues placability of mind in them. 
 
 The boatman's tall wife sang this sort of placebo to-day over poor Jones, which
 
 Walks about St. Hilary. 179 
 
 I felt myself in conscience bound to qualify by the successful little allegory (wherever 
 I picked it up) of the boy who, feeling himself in the clutches of the master, and 
 foreboding a severe punishment, calls vigorously for mercy, and fails not to promise 
 he will never steal apples again. "Now who, Betsey," asked I, "will venture to 
 assert that the same boy, when he again passes that orchard, will not get over the 
 hedge, and fill his pocket with more apples ?" " Likely he might, ma'am," replies 
 Betsey. " Give me, then," say I, " the good boy, who, seeing the apples look red 
 on the bough, can hold on his honest way, thinking within himself, ' It is pleasant 
 to eat apples, but it is more pleasant to have the favour of my kind, generous, and 
 gracious Master, who has said, Thou shall not steal' " The lesson might be profitable 
 to older and richer delinquents than " the apple-munching urchin," if we would 
 but apply it. 
 
 I do think this is an honest neighbourhood. There is a woman taken up for 
 stealing geese to the amount of twenty or more (I don't bring this in proof of my 
 observation, you may suppose but wait, you are coming to that). She appears to 
 have perambulated the country, in particular the downs, with a large empty basket 
 on her arm, and, watching her opportunity, has clapped the heedless wanderers 
 into it, then offered them for sale, with this legend attached to lull suspicion. A 
 brother had gone to America, and left her a legacy of an old goose, or an old 
 gander, or a few goslings, according as her day's success had been. She came, 
 among others, to our door at the Vicarage. I never look at poultry so proffered, 
 however urgently invited, because I would not betray my profound ignorance of 
 young and old, smooth or rough-legged, well-feathered or hairy-breasted, and other 
 indications on which the knowing ones descant. I was contented to hear they were 
 young, and to ask whether they could by any means be made fit for the table 
 against the coming of expected guests. " Green geese would be such a variety." 
 " Impossible ; they were no better than carrion," cook said ; " get as good out on 
 the downs." Then came the story of the brother, and so, despite Anne's critical 
 looks, I purchased the green geese at the nominated price, my cook, I could plainly 
 see, thinking her mistress the greenest goose of the three, resisting the temptation 
 to parody the old catch, 
 
 " Why shouldn't my goose 
 Be ate as well as thy goose, 
 Since I paid for my goose," &c.
 
 i8o Walks about St. Hilary. 
 
 We began, as soon as we heard of the woman's cunning, to enquire out an owner 
 for the stolen property. Watty Curtis had lost two geese, exactly the number ; he 
 would know them among a flight, for their feet were punched. His claim was 
 corroborated by dear old Tom's observation ; he testified that one at least had 
 undergone that barbarous operation, and Watty was invited down, in order that, if 
 satisfied of his goose's identity, he might take it home ; but the honest fellow came 
 out of the poultry-yard without either they were none of his. 
 
 Next we called on John Williams, a small farmer, of St. Perran, so small a farmer 
 that the loss of six geese was to him a heavy calamity ; but he and his wife said 
 that, bating one old goose, blind of an eye, his were no better than goslings, so 
 they were none of his, either. 
 
 At last our pains were rewarded by tidings that Waters, a still smaller farmer 
 (of Rugeon), mourned the loss of two geese. I was quite charmed with my com- 
 mission, to call and inform the good wife that her geese were likely to be restored 
 
 to her, the better by a gallon or two of Mr. P 's good oats, to which she 
 
 responded with high glee ; and one had a mark in the feet, too. " Were yours, 
 ma'am, slit?" "No, punched." "Then," said she, with a fallen crest, "they are 
 none of ours." There was not the demur of an instant in disclaiming the proffered 
 good ; no glance of thought whether it were not more profitable to be honest, 
 more creditable to tell the truth ; so, as I began my commendation of the poor for 
 their honesty, I may conclude it with commendation of their truthfulness. 
 
 As I made an old woman, namely myself, laugh (Moliere's well-known test of 
 wit) at the following account, given in a letter to a friend, of a walk on the road to 
 the Cove, I have a right to think it a laughable occurrence. Speaking of the 
 lamentable want of courtesy (or bump of veneration) in Cornwall, I observed that 
 I was on one occasion rather gratified by indications of its absence, in a little boy 
 driving over the down some " wilfu' beasties," who, do what he would, persisted in 
 going the wrong way. By shrouding my lordly person in a hedge, I prevented 
 what he seemed to apprehend as an additional difficulty. " Haven't I helped you ?" 
 I said. He grinned his gratitude, and as I pursued my way, congratulating myself 
 that I could yet be of some use in the world, I heard a shrill, imperative scream, 
 " Dreave back them bullocks, will ye ?" and turning, found on my hands some four 
 or five young steers flying in all directions and attitudes.
 
 WALK LXXXI. 
 
 THE COVE, JULY, 1846. 
 
 Peggy Green. 
 
 )N Peggy Green, then, is gone ! the last of her generation in that 
 smuggler group, among whom (if she held a less romantic vocation 
 than her predecessor Betsey, to whom this indentation of the Cove 
 owes its name, and, it is said, used to sell the winds to the mariners 
 " bottle them up," says somebody) she was no less useful a personage. Peggy's 
 business was to carry about under her cloak the contraband article, supplying with 
 it that class of the community who do not mind doing dishonest things within the 
 pale of custom. Poor old Peggy was a tall, gaunt, strengthy female, with an ex- 
 pression gleaming from her eye that promised no less vigour of mind ; you were 
 sure, at a glance, that hot pincers would not have drawn from her the secret of her 
 employers. Many were the lawless orgies, I venture to say, at which she has 
 assisted in that cellar underneath, where Captain Will is now sawing up planks to 
 make her coffin, conformably to a promise she extracted, some weeks before her 
 death, from her old companion and co-offender in gone-by days. They say for the 
 last few weeks of her life she permitted him no rest on this point. 
 
 vv
 
 WALK LXXXII. 
 
 Luxuries and privations of the poor. 
 
 )OW do the poor get on ! how are they able to sustain their accumulated 
 burthen of privation, cold, and sickness ? How do they get on ? 
 Every one who habitually visits their dwellings will often ask himself 
 this question, but if he chance to bring it on the tapis, I mean literally 
 on a warm Brussels carpet, he will be sure to receive the plain answer, "They are 
 used to it." This is a comfortable way of viewing the matter, but I believe it to 
 be quite false, and question whether the nursery training in the most aristocratic 
 quarters is not more calculated to enable its object to endure hardness in after life, 
 than the system pursued in their ignorance and kindness, poor things ! by the 
 inmates of the hut. To begin, there is that passive luxury of giving them their 
 own way, which the poor mother in the story book does, on the plea that she has 
 nothing else to give them,* and then they are never tantalized ; self-denial is never 
 exercised, like the children of the rich, by seeing that before them of which they 
 may not partake. The tiniest fingers are plunged at pleasure into the family dish, 
 and if it contains one morsel more dainty than another, the greedy propensities are 
 fostered by the mother's admonition, " lev she have it." Precisely the same prin- 
 ciple prevails in regard to clothing. I have repeatedly seen the mother tear up her 
 last maiden garment to make "a crum o' something for the youngest, tender lamb ! " 
 She must have it, whoever goes bare ; and on that careful bosom the happy little 
 creature nestles at night, lying as warm and soft as the son of a duke warmer, by 
 the way, unless the duchess happens to nurse her own children. 
 
 When the children are old enough to work, much solicitude is shewn that they 
 shall have warm clothing and food, I am sure, for often have I known a miner's 
 wife, after making her own miserable, hasty dinner on barley bread and stained 
 water, rise and take a nice hot pasty from under the baker, and, no other child 
 
 * See Guy Mannering.
 
 Walks about St. Hilary. 183 
 
 being at hand, walk a mile or two with it to the boy or the maiden at bal, on the 
 plea which she forgets to advance for herself, that, working hard, they would " look 
 for something comfortable." 
 
 Then, in regard to the third element of happiness, fire (and all children are 
 salamanders, with the exception of the one out of twenty who are yearly burnt to 
 death in every parish), who does not know that the young cottager basks within a 
 few inches of the little grate, and comes and goes, and strokes the cat, and lights 
 straws, at pleasure, no nursery-maid, or tall fender, or big school-fellow, bidding 
 him stand back ; and when the time arrives that these children cease to be thus 
 humoured and petted, why then they can take their own part, and claim their own 
 share, and elbow into their own place, unfettered by the strait jacket of public 
 opinion, of good taste, and good breeding. Work being over, they do what they 
 like, go where they like, dress as they like, spend Sunday as they like, and marry 
 as they like, which last privilege varies according to the popular calling. In a 
 mining parish it is on the average at seventeen or eighteen that the bal boy and 
 girl, having kept company for a year or two, look about, and seldom prematurely, 
 for a family dwelling, and it is from this point that they enter upon their task of 
 compelled labour, care, ceaseless short commons, and, nine times out of ten, the 
 heavier load of domestic strife, debt, and sickness. " Oh, but they are used to it," 
 cries the gentleman who has exchanged the bare commons and tyrannical treatment 
 of a public school, for a scamper at will on the back of a free-paced, showy horse ; 
 or a " yes, they are used to it," says the young lady from her soft couch, whereon 
 she reposes the muscles to which the dancing master and governess once allowed 
 no minute's rest. " They are used to it, my dear," replies the older gent, crackling 
 his newspaper over the well-filled grate, or eclipsing with it the two candles ; and 
 his wife but no, perhaps she does not respond, if she is a careful mother and 
 mistress, thinking that no use can make care and suffering agreeable. 
 
 I know, dear Maria, you won't think I have brought the higher class into juxta- 
 position with the bal boy or girl, in order to insinuate that the latter class are hardly 
 dealt with. I know this to be untrue ; nor is it by rote that I say there is an 
 equalization of enjoyment throughout all ranks but this text would lead to another 
 tedious homily, which I shall spare you. All I want to establish is the falseness 
 and cruelty of shutting up our sympathy and our purses against the poor, on the 
 eel-skinning plea that they are used to it.
 
 WALK LXXXIII. 
 
 Doctor Dick and his patients. 
 
 iHIS pompous heading will apprize you that you are to expect a Character 
 instead of a Walk. " Forewarned, forearmed." You can, if you like, 
 skip, and go on to another Walk ; but oh ! what would not Doctor 
 Dick be in the hand which has, alas ! forgotten its matchless cunning. 
 Feeble are now the fingers which presume to picture this exquisite wight, to set the 
 seal of portraiture on him, to make the grotesque become durable, though it is 
 shameful to parody what Southey said so sweetly of Kirke White. 
 
 Neither was Dick Bennetts "a vulgar boy," in that sense which implies conformity 
 to rules and rudiments, though in no other that I know of did he resemble Beattie's 
 Minstrel, for, if not vulgar, he was decidedly as desperate and idle a one as ever 
 wore paper cap and made a drum of an old kettle (the origin, no doubt, of kettle- 
 drums), or went about recruiting dunces and minchers, till he became as great a 
 pest, in a small way, as an invading army, and the terror of peaceable householders. 
 Talent is sometimes hereditary, and when so, I have observed, mostly derived 
 from the maternal side. " Old Nanny," the only name by which our hero's mother 
 was known in the parish, was the veriest oddity and hardest worker I ever knew ; 
 she worked like any man, and smoked like one, too, having this advantage over 
 masculine puffers, that she could whip her pipe into her skirt pocket as soon as 
 master appeared. Mr. Pascoe hates the smell of tobacco, as Nanny knew to her 
 cost, for, popping her lighted pipe one day hastily into a tindery pocket, while the 
 ashes were on fire, she had very nearly made ashes of herself. She would, I doubt 
 not, have proceeded to this extremity, such was her Cherokee hardihood, and her 
 reverence for master, had he not spied the smoke curling out of her pocket, and 
 helped her to extinguish it. 
 
 Nanny was left a widow with one boy and two girls, whom she maintained in 
 idleness and snuff, insomuch that probably that embryo Esculapius of hers would 
 never have turned his hand to earn an honest livelihood, if old Doctor Turner, the
 
 Walks about St. Hilary. 185 
 
 most corpulent and humorous of apothecaries, had not happened to want a lad to 
 sweep his shop, and to regard Dick Bennetts, in virtue of his idleness and waggery, 
 the very chap to serve his purpose. Here my narrator (for I was then new to the 
 parish) lost sight of Dick, and it is left to fancy to pourtray how he pounded and 
 compounded, and spread and spatulated, and broomed, inhaling science and dust, 
 and dog-latin, till he became that mirror of M.D.s whom it was our good fortune 
 to meet this morning, for the first time, at poor Susannah Cornish's but let me 
 not forestall. 
 
 Doctor Turner was in due time gathered to his patients, a well worn out parish 
 doctor, and (what great results from trifling causes spring !) bequeathed to Dick his 
 medical books, instruments of surgical torture, and his buckskin inexpressibles. 
 
 There is no resisting destiny. Dick returned home with these insignia of office, 
 hired a little shop, where he was bottled up as tight as his own elixir, and forthwith 
 began to exercise his calling. His first essay in the healing art was to kill his 
 affectionate, hard-working old mother, a fact I can assert on the authority of Doctor 
 Turner's surviving partner, who assured me Dick Bennetts had applied to him for, 
 and, as he afterwards learned, administered to old Nanny, a dose of hyoscyamus 
 large enough to have killed all the old women in this and all the neighbouring 
 parishes. 
 
 Shortly after, our hero committed another mortal blunder, and this time it was 
 literally blood-shedding, for, having heard of a surgical operation in a case which 
 medicine could not reach, our bold debutant made an incision into the liver side of 
 a hapless patient, and the poor man actually died of this newly-discovered opening 
 dose. These two bold strokes improved his popularity, and increased his practise, 
 so I conclude ; for now, instead of " that Dick Bennetts," I hear of " Doctor Dick " 
 and "Doctor Bennetts," and sometimes "the doctor." As soon as he came so 
 much into fashion that every one was calling him in, there appeared great danger 
 of his being called out by some of the regular craft, who at first scorned him for 
 an ignorant, low fellow, but, finding he ran away with their patients, now threatened 
 to pull him up for practising without a license. Not so the parish officers ; they, 
 with a forbearance a little suspicious, left him unmolested to try his practise on all 
 old women and chargeable children. But I hope this dabbler in drugs has left off 
 killing ; only this I have remembered, he has had three wives, two of them young 
 and healthy when he married them. 
 
 Strange that Doctor Dick and I should have gone on so many years practising 
 
 ww
 
 1 86 Walks about St. Hilary. 
 
 as brother quacks without ever meeting, like two parallel lines in geometry. You 
 might have known how greatly I desired this rencontre, by Kate's rapturous excla- 
 mation, as we left Betty Pengelly's door, "Aunt, I declare there is Doctor Dick 
 gone into Susannah Cornish's ; now we shall see him at last." It was not, however, 
 so easy a matter, for his pony, a wicked-looking black sprite of a creature, chose 
 to occupy the whole road, with the air of meditating a kick, or, as Dick himself 
 would have expressed it, " fetching a dab," at anyone who should attempt to pass 
 him. We did, however, manage to slip by in whole skin, and learned from the 
 maid Hannah that the doctor was with her mother in the adjoining room, a slip of 
 a place. We kept her talking, in order to amuse ourselves with the oracular 
 speeches we hoped to hear from thence, but our malice was disappointed ; nothing 
 was to be gathered from the unpretending tones of Doctor Dick, but that he took 
 abundance of snuff. His prescriptions were no less unaffected. " My dear soul, 
 take gruel, and keep up a gentle sweat." "Where am I to get gruel ?" enquired 
 the patient, while I, unable to resist the pitying instinct to set her heart at rest (as 
 Kate reproached me), walked into the chamber, and broke the charm. There stood 
 the doctor, wedged in between the bed and the wall no escape ; I had him like a 
 moth under a tumbler, and could inspect his plumage at my pleasure. It was a 
 rare specimen of the sphinx atropos, all head and drapery. He wore, I thought, 
 moustachios, or, to keep up the metaphor, antennae on his upper lip, but this turned 
 out to be snuff, which, for the greater convenience of his nose, he keeps, they say, 
 in the pocket of his waistcoat, while for the same reason, I suppose, that garment 
 is so singularly short, that, with the long, flowing frock-coat, his figure reminded 
 me of the times of short waists, when we belles were accused of tying our petti- 
 coats round our throats, and putting our arms through the pocket-holes. His face 
 was as short as his waistcoat (I think I never saw any face so short, except my own, 
 when 1 have caught its reflection in a silver spoon), and as merry as a mountebank's. 
 In a moment all my pre-conceived notions of him were upset. Without waiting 
 for me to accost him, he said he had been long meaning to ask me (a consultation, 
 to be sure, thought I) whether I had "a few flower roots to bestow upon his bit of 
 gar'n." I saw at once that he hadn't a spice of the scorn with which established 
 dignitaries are too apt to treat intruders into their peculiar mysteries. A single 
 glance at his vis comica sufficed to shew that he was the identical idle rogue, with 
 the same turn for drumming and masquerading, as when he headed the little troop 
 of ragamuffins, in a paper cap adorned with a cock's feather. In a minute we were
 
 Walks about St. Hilary. 187 
 
 the best of friends. I promised the roots, which he said he would call up for, 
 bringing his wife's reticule to convey them home, while he in his turn invited us 
 to call in and see his organ, which, employing a bold metaphor, he said he had 
 " gone bare of back and belly " to purchase. Nobody has any right to accuse you 
 of the former, thought I, as the doctor turned his back, and displayed the ample 
 skirts of a coat, once, I suppose, the property of his old master, a ton of a man, 
 but a world too wide for his slender shanks, and so comically contrasted with his 
 rivulet of waistcoat, that they reminded me of the tall woman and the little man 
 in the show. No doubt this antithetical style of dress is much in his favour with 
 his employers ; it is a set-off against the insignificance of his bodily presence, and 
 the smirking expression of his short face that face that, if he attended me in an 
 illness, and if he did not kill me with anything else, would kill me with laughing. 
 I am surprised the sick poor can tolerate him near their beds ; he must look as if 
 he were making a joke of their dolours and dumps, of which they are generally 
 very tenacious, and he seems to take no pains to rein in his risibility. By-the-bye, 
 Kate could by no means restrain hers, when she saw him vault on the back of the 
 wicked little pony, whose hind quarters were so completely covered by the long 
 and full skirts of his rider, that it seemed hard to pronounce, as they trotted off, 
 whether the compound animal was biped or quadruped or milleped. On it 
 scudded, stopping for a minute at one door and another, just touching up the 
 living, as Old Mortality did the dead, and, who knows ? like that worthy, sometimes 
 putting a finishing stroke. They would make admirable pendants, such as one sees 
 hanging cheek by jowl against old-fashioned walls. " Before and After Marriage," 
 "Summer and Winter," "Ancient and Modern Chivalry," &c. ; and why not 
 " Mortality and Vitality." I wish Emma would turn her mind to it. 
 
 Now of Doctor Dick more anon ; for the present, you have had enough of him. 
 His patients must furnish materials for future Walks, and I will begin, now my hand 
 is in for the likeness, with the sick woman to whom I owe the honour of an intro- 
 duction to him. Although you have heard of Susannah Cornish before, I must 
 recall her to you as a thin, loving, humble being, shorter than me by half a head, 
 with a much-enduring expression of face, and a voice kind and pitying as that with 
 which one says " poo-or thing ;" the phrase might well be applied to her own little 
 self. Left a widow with five little children, and no provision for them, but that 
 feeling of beautiful self-respect which shrinks from being beholden to charity, she 
 worked more than her constitution would allow, to keep them off the parish. " It
 
 1 88 Walks about St. Hilary. 
 
 is what I am now suffering for," she would often say, glancing at her wasted arms, 
 and hands deformed by labour and rheumatism. One child, a daughter, remained 
 to her unmarried, or I believe her meek spirit would have bowed even to the refuge 
 of the Union, and reconciled her to passing the remnant of her well-spent life in 
 the society of the profligate and malignant ; but the " little maid " (as she termed 
 a bouncing lass of eighteen, who would have sliced down into two or three such 
 little bodies as her mother), the little maid wanted a home ; she was young and 
 friendless, and giddy, and, moreover, not over wise to pilot herself; and so Susannah 
 was willing, she said, " to struggle for her own bit of meat, and try to fetch the rent 
 of the crum of house." Such a crum ! nothing so small was ever inhabited, since 
 the vinegar bottle in the nursery tale. Towards this her daughter would assist, out 
 of her bal wages. At length Susannah herself got employed in a gentleman's 
 garden, washing potatoes, feeding swine, and performing those "slaggery" jobs 
 which the other hirelings of the establishment thought themselves too good to do. 
 While these resources remained, we heard no complaints. 
 
 Our frequent peeps over the hutch, as we passed down Relubbus Lane, were 
 gratefully welcomed, whenever its inmate happened to be at home. It was a 
 pleasure then to look on her patient face, to hear the sweet minor tones of her 
 voice, and glance round her beautifully clean cottage. On one such occasion, I 
 was alarmed at receiving, in place of the usual gladsome welcome, a feeble answer 
 from the inner room. There lay poor little Susannah on a comfortless, curtainless 
 bed, groaning under the torture of rheumatic fever, yet spending the little breath 
 that remained to her in prayer and thanksgiving. How admirable, how enviable it 
 is to perceive the aspirations of the soul, as is the case with the devout poor, rising 
 above the privations and sufferings of the body ! This buoyant principle of 
 Christianity was never more evident than in my poor little widow, who, however, 
 after a long period of patient suffering, recovered her health, although her poor 
 fingers were warped and crooked ever after. 
 
 How, then, was she to gain a livelihood ? She thought that if the Junion would 
 be pleased to allow her so little as sixpence a week, to help out the house-rent, she 
 might pick up her " crum o' living, by going from house to house to hold the child," 
 whilst the mother was otherwise employed. Her married children had great families 
 and small gettings, and could do no more for her. 
 
 " Sixpence a week ! well, that is easily got," said we, and accordingly Mr. Pascoe 
 wrote to the Helston Board about it, Susannah belonged to that district. The
 
 Walks about St. Hilary. 1 89 
 
 gentleman whom he tried to interest promised his aid, provided the applicant would 
 attend their meetings. So, after all, it was no such light matter as we thought, but 
 having packed up and packed in, to our own warm cart, the dear old soul, on a 
 wretched bleak wintry day, we regarded the thing as done, and that she could not 
 escape sixpence a week to the end of her days. 
 
 Those wretched farmers, who with us have quite o'ermastered all the benevolent 
 and gentlemanly influences, bade the dear old creature "go to the place provided 
 for her and such as her" (awful words these to have retorted on them), and the 
 gentleman said he could do nothing ; so home she came, with an accession of 
 misery and rheumatism. 
 
 After this, we picked up acquaintance with the curate of Breage, and interested 
 him in Susannah's story, and obtained through him the promise of a shilling 
 weekly, until his return from a visit he was about to make to some distant friends. 
 Mr. Perry told me he had small hope of prevailing to get the dole continued after 
 that period ; as it was, it could only be obtained by weekly application at the place 
 of payment, a journey of six or seven miles. A neighbour going that way under- 
 took to call for the promised shilling, but brought instead the intelligence that an 
 order should be made out for the relieving officer of our division, and that to him 
 Susannah must apply. Now her seeing this person was a mere contingency. She 
 might have watched for a month together at her little casement, for the chance of 
 seeing him go along, nor had she any means of sending to him. Thus was she 
 thrown back, almost without resource, for a week or two. 
 
 Private charity, in a populous and poor parish, cannot do everything for every- 
 body, and if it could, modest misery, rather than intrude, would suffer itself to slip 
 out of remembrance. Nothing is so terrible to a delicate spirit as a rebuff. I have 
 before now felt my own cheeks tingle, at sight of the burning blush that an 
 impatient word has called up into the face of an ill-timed suitor, and apologised 
 until I daresay the cook has said to herself, "What a poor creature my mistress is !" 
 
 A weary time it was before Maister Warren shewed his official face in Relubbus, 
 and when he did, Susannah was told he had received no such order, and couldn't 
 pay the money. 
 
 I have drawn out my tale to a tedious length, to what would be tedious to those 
 who feel not the force of your lately-quoted maxim from Terence (I would he had 
 been our relieving officer), that " nothing of human suffering can be indifferent to 
 a human being." 
 
 xx
 
 190 Walks about St. Hilary. 
 
 Calling, as usual, to enquire after Susannah's health, and if the money had been 
 paid, I found the dear old soul just returned from gathering a few sticks, like her 
 sister widow of Zarephath, that she and her daughter might " eat and die." Not 
 that the dear little simple body made any such sublime allusion ; she only said that 
 she had been about the lanes, seeing if could she " pick up a little fire-'ood, for 
 coals were fine and dear ; " and she spoke cheerfully, told me she was thinking 
 (plase the Lord !) of coming up to church next day, and promised to " call in to 
 Vicarage." Her concluding words were a wish that God might requite my kindness 
 to her when she was in her grave. 
 
 Next day, when we assembled in the gallery, to rehearse the psalms of the day, 
 one of the choir told me that poor old Susannah Cornish had been found that day 
 dead in her bed ! The touching particulars I had from her daughter's quivering 
 lips. " Mother blacked her shoes as uyal agin church, and we said our prayers 
 together ; then mother said, ' Be a good maid, dear, and God will bless you when 
 I am in my grave.' She seemed tired like, and so we did not say any more that 
 night, but when I went to kiss her next morning, her face was as cold as a stone 
 mother was dead." 
 
 How terrified the relieving officer looked, when I told him of the catastrophe ; 
 he reminded me of Macbeth. " Dead ! dead in her bed ! That case did not belong 
 to our Board ; thou canst not say I did it ; cold and hunger killed the old woman ; 
 I only withheld the means to live."
 
 WALK LXXXIY. 
 
 Doctor Dick again. 
 
 SAID you should soon hear more of Doctor Dick, and as I think it is a 
 fault of the " Walks," that they are too desultory for a stranger to preserve 
 a personal interest in the individuals, of whose history and character they 
 are composed, I will proceed with a few hints I threw down one day, after 
 Kate and I had puzzled, had plodded, had scrambled and climbed our way to 
 Doctor Dick's newly-built and self-planned house for all these manoeuvres were 
 necessary, in order to attain it. Surely it may be ranked amongst the eccentricities 
 of genius ; it is a nondescript, like its master, wherefore I can only describe the 
 situation, perched as it is on an abrupt and narrow rising ground, between Relubbus 
 and the Godolphin Hills, and occupying, like Jack the Giant Killer's castle, the 
 whole, or almost the whole, of the eminence on which it rests. But another point 
 of resemblance is that, though visible to all men, it can be approached by few. 
 
 We saw no breathing thing, but an exceedingly woe-begone, owlish-looking boy, 
 sprawling upon a hedge, who, in reply to our enquiry, told us he was Doctor 
 Bennetts' boy, the son, probably, of a former wife, for the baby which lay in the 
 
 arms of the present Mrs. B , and the little girl that held by her apron, looked 
 
 well fed and clothed, and it was plain to see, had not, any more than their mother, 
 been practised upon. She was a buxom matron, well able to take her own and 
 their part ; besides, it was her happiness to have met with her spouse when patients 
 had become more plenty. She spoke of him as " the doctor," and seemed to have 
 much pride in shewing off his finery. First we were ushered into a square of 
 flower garden, the beds being studded round with bullies (beach pebbles), and 
 looking gay with annuals, all the doctor's planting, as neat as could be in itself, 
 but strewn round and blocked up with rubbish and raw material. The house was 
 after the same fashion ; a roof, shapeless and dilapidated as the heir-apparent, 
 covered rooms of science and specimens of the fine arts. On entering the parlour, 
 into which we were reverentially ushered by Mrs. Doctor Dick, my eyes were at
 
 1 92 Walks about St. Hilary. 
 
 once treated with a sight of the aforenamed fine gilded barrel-organ, the possession 
 of which had cost its owner so dear. "A beautiful instrument, and excellent," 
 
 Mrs. B said, only that somehow it would not make any sound when played 
 
 upon, and besides, it hadn't a good ground bass. These were its only faults, which 
 I hinted were to be the less regretted, as the handle appeared to be wanting, but 
 that, she observed, was only mislaid ; so I could not but agree with her, the height, 
 breadth, and gilding considered, that it was a fine instrument, though it could not, 
 in its present mute condition, be strictly termed an instrument of music. The piano 
 occupying the -other side of the sanctum might be pronounced both, for Mrs. 
 
 Doctor D assured us that it wanted nothing on earth but tuning, which it 
 
 was soon to have from a young man of Relubbus, who played the clarionet " capital 
 well," and he had undertaken to cure it of a way it had of sounding all the notes 
 alike. I did not think of it at the time, but this explains the great gamut letters 
 which I found the doctor had printed with his own hand on all the white keys, in 
 order that the eye might supply the deficiencies of the ear. Why the notes would 
 sound all alike, I am unable to explain, but can attest the fact on my own ex- 
 perience, for, beginning what I intended to be a tune, in order to avert attention 
 from Kate's giggles, I was obliged to join in it, and make the best apology I could 
 for both of us. 
 
 I have had adventures before now with old pianos. I remember going with 
 Julia and Elizabeth Reynolds, to dine at Acton Castle. We were the only ladies, 
 and when we adjourned to the drawing-room, felt an irresistible desire to try the 
 old instrument, which I will be bound to say had not seen the light since the arrival 
 in these parts of its eccentric owner. If you> have ever heard of Captain, after- 
 wards Admiral Praed, you will know he was not a man with whom you could take 
 liberties, any more than Blue Beard. For a long time we hesitated and parleyed, 
 after the manner of the heroine of that drama, 
 
 " Shall we venture ? Yes or no ? 
 What can make us tremble so ? 
 Mischief is not " 
 
 Now whether it was so or not, at the first application of poor Julia's fingers, off 
 flew the ivories in all directions. She uttered a faint shriek, hastily shut the piano, 
 the gentlemen came in, and I have never heard to this day, some twenty years 
 having elapsed, what was the result perhaps the piano has never been opened
 
 Walks about St. Hilary. 
 
 '93 
 
 since. No doubt pianos have distinctive traits, as well as other things, and are 
 no more alike than any two sheep's faces, and certainly my experience proved the 
 truth of this remark. 
 
 WALK LXXXY, 
 
 Summary of parish events and changes. 
 
 [HAT a world of change this is !" we go on exclaiming, as if we 
 had dropped from some bright, stationary star, where leaves do 
 not turn yellow, nor empires decay. I say so when I visit Truro, 
 where I first opened my eyes more than half a century ago, and 
 where, dear Maria, they first had the happiness to light upon you. I find old 
 houses have toppled down, and been replaced by smart shops ; young, laughing 
 faces puckered up with care and age, out of all recognition ; or if by chance I meet 
 a countenance I fancy I know, it turns out to be a son or grandson of the man I 
 took him for. Now this is all in the current of events, and we have no right to be 
 surprised ; but occasionally there is so sudden an alteration in the face of things, 
 as to justify the sapient ejaculation with which I began the record of this Walk. 
 
 I went to see Uncle John at the old Workhouse, the place which, when 
 
 I first visited it, swarmed with inhabitants of all descriptions young, old, and 
 middle-aged, the depraved and the estimable, the shrewd and the idiotic. Then 
 there was, a host in herself, the vivacious governess, who was always so glad when 
 we came. A hundred times I have said I would sketch her for you, but, like Madam 
 Blaize's deeds of charity, it is unknown what good things I should have done in 
 this way, only for want of time. With all her official importance, there was an 
 irrepressible youthiness about good Mrs. Treweeke, which made her pleasant 
 company both to me and my young companion. It was the delight of her heart 
 
 YY
 
 194 Walks about St. Hilary. 
 
 to have a laugh with Miss Kate in that snug kitchen of hers, and comical enough 
 to see the sudden resumption of authority, when any unlucky pauper intruded into 
 its dignified precincts. Yet she was essentially kind to those placed under her 
 charge, often abridging her rest for the sick, and her wardrobe for the ill-clothed, 
 piquing herself more on her popularity than on her supremacy in the establishment. 
 You could see she was proud of being called " my dear missus," a form of address 
 adopted by some from pure love, and by others for what they could get. I have 
 hardly yet reconciled myself to poor Mrs. Treweeke's death ; it came so suddenly 
 and unexpectedly, and the previous scene of suffering and depression assimilated 
 so ill with her buoyant, joyous spirit. 
 
 Active, scheming, vivacious characters are not generally amongst those of whom 
 it may be pronounced, 
 
 "No * * * life 
 Became them like the leaving it." 
 
 I think of this with dismay sometimes, and recur with pain to poor Mrs. T 's 
 
 few latter days, when her ardent, restless spirit, thrown back on itself, assumed 
 features of impatience and querulousness so foreign to her native character. 
 
 Well ! she is gone, and the old women of the establishment (with the exception 
 of one) had their prayer, and died before the time appointed for their removal to 
 the Union arrived. Others, whose terrors, real and ideal, became more exaggerated 
 as the time approached, rushed on nakedness and starvation, by taking themselves 
 off the list of paupers. Childhood and imbecility made no effort to avoid their 
 destiny ; of the latter class were poor silly George and Catty Brand. In short, all 
 went but the few who were thought eligible to assist in the work of the farm, which 
 the parish determined, as a speculation, to keep on, under the superintendence of 
 the matron's worthy husband and survivor, John Treweeke. 
 
 Among those few A.B.s whom the parish magnates, the farmers, saw fit to retain, 
 was the heroine of a former Walk, Mary Stevens, long since tired of the convulsive 
 farce, of which I tried, you may remember, to treat you with a representation, but 
 who, I learnt on my last visit, had, true to her trade, decoyed away two girls of the 
 establishment, and decamped with them, the parish officers cannot guess where. 
 So this morning, as I said, the mansion that had been "vital and populous as the 
 grave," was now scarcely less silent. 
 
 Old Joanna marshalled me upstairs to her dying husband, so she called him,
 
 Walks about St. Hilary. 195 
 
 but I think he will survive, in spite of her prognostics, to thresh more sheaves. It 
 was in the performance of this surprising achievement, at the age of eighty-two, 
 that the brave-spirited old man was seized with what all considered, he amongst 
 the rest, his last illness. A beautiful example is Uncle John of that manly energy 
 which triumphs over privation, pain, age I should be sorry to say propriety for 
 yesterday, after he had been joining with the devoutest fervour in the prayers for 
 the sick, Mr. Pascoe told me he suddenly started up from his pillow, on hearing a 
 stir below stairs, and eagerly called out, "Are the rogues overtaken ?" Now this 
 was said out of pure love of discipline, for Uncle John deprecates, no less than the 
 fugitives themselves, being carried to the /union. 
 
 WALK LXXXYI. 
 
 Gratitude of the poor. 
 
 )HE Lord have mercy on the rich ! " These words concluded a 
 soliloquy, into which I fell as I turned away from a cottage in 
 Relubbus, wherein I held the following dialogue with a poor woman, 
 whose family consisted of a sickly husband (and he walked ten miles 
 a day to work for twenty-five shillings a month), a fine-looking boy of sixteen, with 
 a cancer in his throat, three girls, of whom the youngest was a cripple, and a baby. 
 " How is your poor boy ?" I asked. "Just the same in respect of health, ma'am, 
 but, thank the Lord, beginning to have thoughts about his poor soul, and that is 
 the main thing, after all. He never goes to bed or board now without bending his 
 knee, for all, poor soul, he don't know a letter in the book." " He should come to 
 the Sunday-school." " He do mean to, ma'am, so soon as he can git a flock 
 (blouse) ; his do get very dirty by Saturday night," said the poor mother, in an
 
 1 96 Walks about St. Hilary. 
 
 apologetic tone, "and then it is too late to wash un 'gin Sunday ; but (brightening 
 up) he has got five little chicks, and when they are big enough, they'll fetch as 
 much as will buy one." " Well ! bring me your chicken, and I will get the frock ; 
 but there will be more than enough for that." The woman eyed me with such 
 grateful and delighted looks as a poor curate might be supposed to bestow on a 
 bishop who had presented him with a snug living, and with the same respectful 
 hesitation as the same new incumbent might ask for a chaplaincy attached to the 
 presentation, did the poor creature timidly suggest that "if for eight-pence a-piece 
 would be ample for the frock, as she did not desire anything very great there 
 should be something towards a bit of a shirt winter coming on, and he might not 
 be able to bear the cold as he used to it would be clever, sure enough. The last 
 he ever had was bought by money given her by a relation for the baby, but he 
 wanted it more." 
 
 Was it strange that I should conclude my reflections with this exclamation, 
 "The Lord have mercy on the rich ?" 
 
 BEARE AND SON, STEAM PRINTERS, PENZANCE.