GooS CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY The Cornish penny; a novel. 3 1924 013 593 227 The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013593227 THE CORNISH PENNY A NOVEL BY COULSON CADE Author of "Dandelions," etc. NEW YORK FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY PUBLISHERS Copyright, 1922, l/y Frederick A. Stokes Company All Rights Reserved Printed in the United States of America La THE CORNISH PENNY THE CORNISH PENNY PRELUDE TOWARDS the close of the eighteenth century Henliston was a town of considerable social importance in the Duchy, and at the height of its prosperity. Ancient geographers describe it as "an old Court town." Henliston never deigned to cultivate an industry. Mrs. Bowden, a nonagenarian with wits unimpaired, who had long since ceased to think of the unimportant Present, often lured Robin to her cottage by stories of the town's im- portant Past. Her mother could "mind the time when Hill Street was that packed with carriage-folk that a body was feared to cross." In those good old Georgian days, when the woods that sloped to the waters of Poltrean Pool were carpeted with bluebells, and the golden splendour of the gorse on die Outer Green was a wonder to behold, when the sycamores were in their most transparent and tenderest green and the poplars below the Devil's Rock seemed to be standing in a mist of greenish- yellow, came, from Launceston to Land's End, the quality to Henliston. The married man and his family took up their residence in a house in Church Street or Hill Street or Packet Street; the bachelor dismounted at the Rose or the White Hart, the Dolphin or the George and Dragon. On the last day of April at four o'clock in the afternoon my Lord Myall, the popular Master of the Ceremonies, to open the season, gave a dinner-party at his house just off Hill Street to a score or so of gentlemen, the elite of the Duchy. The town gave itself up to the series of revels that began on May Day and on Mid- g THE CORNISH PENNY summer Day culminated in a masked ball in the Assembly Rooms. At the end of June a coach and four would draw up at a house in Church Street or Hill Street or Packet Street, and Sir John's lady and daughters would drive away escorted by Sir John on horseback — if the gout permitted. Happy in the knowledge that so eligible a suitor as Sir Robert Trepolpen demanded dearest Agnes in marriage at an early date, her ladyship would smile from time to time. Prue, the apple of her eye, was two years younger than Agnes, and far prettier; next year, perhaps . . . ? On his homeward journey. Sir John, too, would smile: an open smile when he thought of that noble trout he had drawn from the Pool, for instance : a smile more secret when he recalled certain other incidents of a pleasant two months. Occasionally a slight frown appeared on his cheerful face when he remembered the many golden guineas he had lost at the cards and dice, but it was quickly banished: always he told himself that Dame Fortune was fickle, and he would win next year. As for the bachelors, they rode away in merry bands from the Rose and the White Hart, the Dolphin and the George and Dragon: none of them considered his stay in Henliston was time wasted. I An unkind wit has written that Lord Myall's success as Master of the Ceremonies was due to his extreme unsuitability for the post; and there may be truth in the paradox. Many contradictory reasons have been handed down in the letters of men and women who professed to have been his intimate friends. We are inclined to think that he never had an in- timate friend in his life, for John Penellis was more a habit than an intimate friend, a worthy man who never put quill to paper if he could possibly avoid it. Lord Myall himself was a contradiction: it is impossible to reconcile the Lord Myall of Westminster with the Lord Myall of Henliston. The handsome buck of noble family, his successor, reigned for one short season. The quality vowed that with the death of Lord Myall a change had come over the spirit of the scene: the new regime having failed to satisfy, they hastened away before May was out, and Henliston saw them gathered to- gether no more. THE CORNISH PENNY i Small towns, like mighty empires, have their day. The dignified Assembly Rooms have been demolished, and a hideous Wesleyan chapel profanes the site. Most of the parlours of the old grey houses in Hill Street and Packet Street have been turned into shops, and the houses are inhabited by shopkeepers. Church Street, a cul-de-sac, tucked away below the church, is still cobble-stoned and much the same as of yore, and to step into it is to step right out of modern life into a bygone century. But there are small outward changes that reflect great inner ones. For example, at No. 7, once the Henliston residence of my Lord St. Aille, there is a dressmaker's brass plate on the front door. There are white cards that bear the word apart- ments in black letters in some of the windows. Many win- dows display red cards that bear the words not at home. Mrs. Trent's parlour window displays three red cards; one is almost enveloped in crape, just a written name is visible: Dick Trent was killed at the Marne. Henliston has two main streets. Packet Street, beginning at the row of cottages that skirts the north wall of the church- yard, goes down a little hill, passing Church Street on the right, and goes up a little hill to the market-house, that was erected early in Anne's reign; then it crosses Hill Street, and after a gradual ascent of a quarter of a mile, finding itself out of the town, continues in a south-easterly direction as the Lizard road. Hill Street is the more important — the road into the world. It passes through Henliston like a swift river, never pausing in its straight-running course after it feels the downward slope by the old toll-house, gathering speed until it swerves sharply to the left below the Rose, where it sends off "to the right a canal, a short avenue bordered by tall elms that leads to a two-storied house screened by a row of seven giant Lombardy poplars; beyond the toll-house it becomes the Truro road ; and when it swerves below the Rose it no longer hastens, but slowly curves past little shops and houses of humble degree down to the foot of the hill to which it owes its name, where it merges into the Penzance road. The third station and the terminus of a branch line from 4 THE CORNISH PENNY Borne Junction is Henliston. It consists of a single platform and a granite building containing the usual offices that per- tain to a small station; situated half a mile to the north of the town, it is approached by a long, straight road of fairly recent construction, the last turning to the left at the top of Hill Street. Thirty years or so ago when the line was first opened, it was an excitement to watch the trains come in. Several Henlistonians, adventurous spirits, travelled by train to Borne Junction, where they alighted and passed the day pleasantly in walks and talks until it was time for the train to take them back again. For nine days the railway was a novelty and regarded as dangerous, and those adventurous ones who had dared the journey to Borne Junction were looked on almost as heroes by their more timid fellows. Henlistonians rarely have cause to travel by train. The station is so far out of the town that, nowadays, they almost for- get it is there; but in the summer months they are reminded, when morning and evening they see the omnibus from the Rose lumbering up Hill Street or lumbering down. Occasionally arrivals by the train suffer themselves to be swallowed in the cavernous depths of the ponderous conveyance, and are dis- gorged at the Rose — in due time. They seldom sojourn at that most comfortable "hotel" for longer than a day or a night: usually on the morrow they pass on to the fishing-village or hotel on a headland that is their destination. Nearly all the folk who arrive by train seat themselves in the waiting motor- omnibus and are whirled away: to them Henliston means no more than the station for the Lizard district. Shade of Beau Myall! "Oh, yes, it is rather a complicated journey . . . One gets out, at last, at a place called Henliston — such a sleepy old town that must be simply deadly in winter," they say by and by. In summer-time, too, motor-cars, motor-bicycles and motor char-a-bancs, as they tear along that piece of the Penzance road that separates the small Inner Green from the larger Outer Green, churn the dust, causing it to rise in a yellow fog that chokes the pedestrian; they climb Hill Street at a slower pace, and nearly all stop at the Rose or the Dolphin for their THE CORNISH PENNY 5 own as well as their passengers' liquid refreshment before they continue their screeching, petrol-scented way Lizardwards, up Hill Street and Packet Street. ' During July, August and September, Henliston ceases to dream; no longer sleeps but drowses. Strangers disturb the quiet of the streets. They lose themselves in the maze of courts and alleys behind the market-house, searching for the curio shops that they expect to find — that are not there. They poke about in the churchyard, peering at half-obliterated names and dates and epitaphs; they catechise the taciturn sexton, who answers them in monosyllables, for he has "no patience with prying curiosity-mongers," and will not show them what they would greatly like to see: a lichened tombstone, hidden by an over-hanging barberry, on which one may with difficulty decipher: Here lies the body of JOHN TRESIDDER Esgre All his youth he did love to tell Of Bribe of Heaven and Threat of Hell But ere he died he made repent So vie hope to Heaven his soul is sent. His social life closed on the 8th June, 1783, in his sjth year. It can only be after tea, when the strangers have gone, that: the townsfolk may enjoy their bowls on the green. . . . Henliston, that once welcomed visitors so eagerly, is now shy and a little resentful of them. In days long past its visitors, one and all dwellers in the Duchy, came for May and June, when the year was at its fairest. Now they mostly come in sultry August, "for the day," returning in the evening to the place they came from in the train they arrived by in the morning: they are strangers, and Henliston does not know them, The moneys they may care to proffer Henliston will suffer itself to take, sc that when summer is over it may once more sleep 6 THE CORNISH PENNY undisturbed until another summer, a dream-laden sleep that deepens with the years. II When Pitt resigned office in 1761, George III, by scattering favours broadcast among the members of the House of Com- mons, set about making a "Royal" party who would vote with the ministers chosen by himself. Among His Majesty's most staunch supporters was Sir Senton Myall, sixth baronet, who for his services was created a baron of the United Kingdom. "I detest a pack of women about me," Lord Myall would often be heard to declare. Certainly he managed to enjoy life without their intrusions at his comfortable house In West- minster, tended by a staff of capable, middle-aged menservants. Among his intimates he went by the nickname of the Ram: nicknames were often bestowed perversely then, as now. At the age of five and thirty, in January of the year 1770, Lord Myall stated: "I am still a celibate; and a celibate I shall continue to remain" — or words to that effect. None doubted; though the ladies voted it was vastly droll, for a celibate of five and thirty in George the Third's reign was as rare a bird as the dodo of Mauritius. Imagine, then, the flutter of excitement in social circles when in February month my Lord Myall became affianced to a beautiful young heiress! He purchased a house in Grosvenor Square, which was decorated and furnished to the expensive taJste of Miss Maria Marsden, his fiancee: fathoms deep in love was my lord and in frantic haste, as only a man who had been all his life a stranger to women could be. In six weeks from the day he had first met his charmer, Lord Myall found him- self installed in his new house with a staff of servants of both sexes about him, and married to a wife that made him the envied of all his friends and acquaintances. To the house in Grosvenor Square came all the wit and beauty of the town — for three months: Jealousy, the green-eyed, came too, at last, an uninvited guest who, catching my lord's eye, winked know- ingly. THE CORNISH PENNY 7 Doubtless my lord thought he had very good reason for one morning whisking off his bride in a chaise and four en route for his ancestral home, Myall Manor, far away in the Duchy of the West. "How very odd to elope with one's own wife," was the cj'nical comment of the young Earl of Varlington, who, weary- ing of impecuniosity, shortly after married an heiress himself, and went to reside in the house in Grosvenor Square he had bought of Lord Myall: Lady Varlington was four and forty and plain-featured withal! In her little hour in London town Lady Myall, who was petite and graceful, who darted swiftly to and fro among her guests, who instinctively wore gay colours to enhance her gipsy beauty, who innocently loved to bask in the sun of male admira- tion, was likened by a traveller to the humming-bird of tropical forests : an apt simile. One can picture the girl-wife looking out of the window of the chaise, as they neared their journey's end, on the mist- covered Goonhilly Downs towards the close of what had been verily a wet November day that was mis-sorted among July's. One can imagine the talk: "It is all so cold and drear," with a shiver. Her husband's quick reply: "It is not always so. • . . You will soon grow used to such days." "Never! I vow. . . . But we shall not always live at Myall?" "It is a well-built house; a safe retreat: you will be far removed from the temptations of town." "I think Myall Manor will prove an odious place!" vehem- ently. "We shall see, my little one; we shall see," as he attempts to fondle her. Her sobbing: "Don't touch me! . . . Please! Oh, please ..." A humming-bird is happy in its own environment amid the bright flowers of a sunny climate. The poor little woman shut up in the lonely manor-house with an uxorious husband whom she could not love was like a wild bird caught and 8 THE CORNISH PENNY caged; she could not live away from familiar sights and sounds, from the world she knew. Lady Myall pined for a year and a half; gave birth to lusty twins, boy and girl; and, having justified her existence, died. The last word she uttered was "Rupert": her husband's name was Senton. A year after the death of his wife Lord Myall was spending Christmas at Henliston with his boyhood's friend, John Penel- lis, at the latter's house in Church Street. It was a com- fortable house in which to spend the festive season, as my lord knew full well: that was why he was there. Mrs. Penellis, a pleasant-featured buxom dame, in her ten years of married life had presented her husband with seven fine sons — all living — and looked splendidly well of it. Her chief merits — in her guest's opinion — were that she knew how to make a giblet-pie with the best, and was aware that children are only of cursory interest to others than their parents. As the men sat together late one night drinking punch the conversation turned on their respective progeny. Said Mr. Penellis: "You're a lucky devil, Senton! , . ,., Next time my wife conceives I hope it will be a daughter: seven sons are enough for any man. ... I wish the house was larger though. . . . What a fine position for a house — above the Devil's Rock! Pull down those two cottages and make the top of the rock a pleasure-garden: idea came to me t'other day when — " Lord Myall broke in : "And a very good idea too, my friend, that bears thinking on! . . . Myall is a bit lonely in winter- time. Since my wife's death I have come to understand. . . . Supposing one of the twins took ill. Take a time to bring Dr. Tyacke out of Henliston. ... I have thought of late that I am over-young to devote my remaining years to the study of the weather and the crops. . . . Somehow, since my elevation to the Lords, politics seem to have lost their flavour." A few weeks later Lord Myall gave orders for the demoli- tion of the cottages above the Devil's Rock, and the erection of a noble house of stone on the site they had occupied with its front facing Hill Street. He owned most of Henliston THE CORNISH PENNY g and much land in the district — as his descendant does today. Already a very wealthy man was Lord Myall when he had presented himself as a suitor for the hand of Miss Maria Marsden, and that young lady's worldly-wise guardian had deemed him none the less eligible on that score. To the tearful ward who had elected to fall in love with a penniless adven- turer, and who "hated money," her guardian, a zealous church- man who on occasions interpreted the scriptures literally, felt constrained to read a certain passage from St. Matthew's gospel : "For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance. ..." One can scarcely credit that the austere-looking portrait by Reynolds of Lord Myall painted shortly before his marriage in which he is shown with sallowish face, heavy jowl,' thin-cut lips and cold blue eyes is that of the man who became the popular Master of the Ceremonies, a lesser Beau Nash, who for fourteen years held sway in Henliston and was known throughout the Duchy for his "wit, tact, generosity, and all lovable qualities: a noble nobleman." Lord Myall died in 1785 at the age of fifty; and his house in Henliston was inhabited by his heirs and successors until Philip, third baron Myall, sold it for a nominal sum to his brother- in-law, John Trevarthon, when that gentleman had gambled away the Trevarthon estates. John Trevarthon married Cath- erine Myall, and had one son by her, who in the course of years married and became the father of twins, Anthony and Cynthia. Twins-begetting was a Myall trait, III Some months after the death of Anthony and Cynthia Trevarthon's father— he had died on their thirty-third birth- day, oddly enough the anniversary of his wife's death : she had pre-deceased him by two years— Anthony was spending a rainy December morning in the library dipping at random into one of his favourite books, The House of the Seven Gables. In it he found an atmosphere that was congenial; the intimate 10 THE CORNISH PENNY linking of the Present and the Past in the way of ancestry and descent appealed to him; the sentences yielded up some faint old-time fragrance which he had acknowledged long ago by flowers of lavender pressed here and there between the pages. Anthony chuckled as he read a favourite passage describing Hepzibah's fowls: "All of them {Chanticleer, his two wives and a solitary chicken) were pure specimens of a breed which had been trans- mitted down as an heirloom in the Pyncheon family, and were said, while in their prime, to have attained almost the size of, turkeys, and, on the score of delicate flesh, to be fit for a prince's table. In proof of the authenticity of this legendary renown, Hepzibah could have exhibited the shell of a great egg, which an ostrich need hardly have been ashamed of. Be that as it might, the hens were now scarcely larger than pigeons, and had a queer, rusty, withered aspect, and a gouty kind of move- ment, and a sleepy . and melancholy tone throughout all the variations of their clucking and cackling. It was evident that the race had degenerated, like many a noble race besides, in con- sequence of too strict a watchfulness to keep it pure. These', feathered people had existed too long in their distinct variety; a fact of which the present representatives, judging by their lugubrious deportment, seemed to be aware. They kept them- selves alive, unquestionably, and laid now and then an egg, and hatched a chicken, not for any pleasure of their own, but that the world might not absolutely lose what had once been so ad- mirable a breed of fowls." Looking up from the book he watched the rain lashing the window-panes. Leaning far back in his chair he mused: Our race has degenerated ; perhaps from "too strict a watch- fulness to keep it pure." No, degenerated was too severe a word. Himself was not a degenerate, whatever he might be, Godfrey had said when last he was at the Poplars: "Don't want to marry, do you, Anthony? If you ever do you'll make a shy breeder, I'm thinking: Trevarthons have been that way for many generations — the Myalls too, for the matter of that. . . . Now I fancy I'm a throw-back, one of those 'baronet- Myalls who sired a dozen and more — by his wife. Wait till 7 THE CORNISH PENNY n marry! There's spunk in your Cousin Godfrey." A coarse and clumsy-tongued boor was Godfrey — ^with no brains worth mentioning — ^yet he had his good points. . . . Did quality matter more than quantity? . . . The Trevarthons had been given to intermarrying; when they condescended to marry outside the family they had chosen mates from the oldest fam- ilies in the Duchy; no elder son had ever made a mesalliance. They were proud. His great-grandfather, a supporter of the Stuarts, had felt insulted when offered a peerage. "An an- cestor of mine was knighted on the field of battle. The Trevar- thons are too ancient a family to use a title: good wine needs no bush," was the message he sent to "the German gentleman who styles himself King of England." . . . Cynthia might marry, though it seemed doubtful. But if she were to she would change her name. He, Anthony, was the last of the Trevarthons — as far as he knew. . . . They had all died out: sad, in a way. . . . He might marry ; he was not anxious to do so. He was comparatively young. There was plenty of time. . . . Anthony gave a little shrug as he drew himself up. Having read once more the description of the fowls, he turned over the pages until he arrived at what it amused him to call the Episode of the Egg: "The second of Chanticleer s two wives, ever since Phoebe's arrival, had been in a state of heavy despondency, caused, as it afterwards appeared, by her inability to lay an egg. One day, however, by her self-important gait, the side-way turn of her head, and the cock of her eye, as she pried into one and another nook of the garden, — croaking to herself, all the while, with inexpressible complacency, — it was made evident that this iden- tical hen, much as mankind undervalued her, carried something about her person, the worth of which was not to be estimated either in gold or precious stones. Shortly after, there was a prodigious cackling and graiulation of Chanticleer and all his family, including the wizened chicken, who appeared to under- stand the matter quite as well as did his sire, his mother, or his aunt. That afternoon Phoebe found a diminutive egg, — not in the regular nest — it was far too precious to be trusted there, — ;i2 THE CORNISH PENNY but cunningly hidden under the currant-bushes on some dry stalks of last year's grass. Hepzibah, on learning the fact, took possession of the egg, and appropriated it to Clifford's break- fast, on account of a certain delicacy of flavour, for which, as she affirmed, these eggs had always been famous. Thus un- scrupulously did the old gentlewoman sacrifice the continuance, perhaps, of an ancient feathered race, with no better end than to supply her brother with a dainty that hardly filled the bowl of a tea-spoon!" Chanticleer in high dudgeon ! One could imagine him stalk- ing away on his long stilt-like legs, with the dignity of inter- minable descent in all his gestures — followed by the bereaved mother of the egg — after having failed to deliver himself of an harangue that might have proved as long as his own pedigree had he not been interrupted by the laughter of Phoebe, the stealer of the egg! Anthony smiled as he pictured the humorous scene played in the old ruined garden of the Pyncheons against a background of tall poles up which the scarlet-flowering bean-vines clam- bered, to the humming of the plundering bees that flew in and put of the great yellow squash-blossoms. It flashed across his mind that himself in time might grow into a sort of Clifford. iWould Cynthia grow into a Hepzibah? Only a week ago he might have thought that she would : yes, he haS thought Cynthia was destined for spinsterhood. She had had her chance ten years ago when Jack Penrose was a constant visitor at the Poplars. Jack had wished to marry her ; but she had frightened him away, at last : he was a silly fool who could not understand that a hard tongue may go with a, soft heart. . . .It had come as a shock that Cynthia had strong maternal instincts, for he believed he had plumbed the depths of her. ... A woman still might marry at three and thirty. The idea disquieted him, until he reflected that suitors for the hand of a plain woman of no particular charm were not plentiful. Cynthia was not beau- tiful, not even pretty; though he loved her with all brotherly love, he could not disguise from himself the truth of that. . . . As he gazed at her standing within the circle of lamplight -holding vthe-babyvjinihfiTo'arflJs 4ie fctdis?fipi5ned.stj;an^6gi^ed',be- THE CORNISH PENNY 13 fore him: his plain sister Cynthia appeared to him as strangely beautiful, and she silenced him with her eyes that he had never seen so blue and brightly-shining. He had traversed a dark passage, so that when he entered the room his eyes were a little dazzled. Perhaps his imagination was too vivid. . . . The fact remained that never again would he be able to tease Cyn- thia in the old way. How often had he said: "My dear, you have the mind of a shrewd trades/naw. There was a mistake made, at our birth: you should have been a male; I, the fe- male." His sister was after all just a woman, with a woman's feelings. . . . She had found the baby, and she meant to keep it — something in her attitude had told him that when he saw her standing there with it in her arms. Take the baby away, and Cynthia would be even more resentful than the Pyncheon- hen whose egg was stolen. . . . Very reluctantly had she con- sented to the appointment of Mrs. Jago as foster-mother; and only when she was forced to recognise the infant's requirements that she, as a maiden, could not supply. . . . For perhaps the hundredth time he wondered who was the baby's mother. Was she some astute woman of the town who had read Cynthia with her woman's eyes and, having read truly, decided that it was certain that her nameless child would be received with welcom- ing arms? . . . There were times when he felt a little lonely. It might be most amusing to have a small boy installed as an inmate of the house. It would give him the opportunity of testing his theory with regard to environment influencing, if not shaping, a child's character; though it was tiresome he was not acquainted with the child's ancestry : then, one might know the traits to look for and, if necessary, to combat. '. . . Cynthia had made her decisions with regard to the quixotic affair before he had had barely time to consider. The happenings of that eventful night had been so unlooked-for, so unexpected, and he disliked the unexpected, for it disturbed the even tenor of his ways. Anthony, closing the book, was arrested by the title on the cover. He rose, and crossing to the window stood looking out for several moments at the poplar-trees his grandfather had planted. 54 THE CORNISH PENNY "A much more appropriate name for the house ! I must con- sult with Cynthia," he said aloud. In the far corner of the room the grandfather's clock emitted a wheezing sound as it prepared to strike the hour — ^just such a sound might one of the Pyncheon-fowls have made. As he turned away from the window Anthony exclaimed: ".Why not!", and went downstairs to luncheon as one inspired. His spirits sensibly lowered as on entering the dining-room he heard the chink of coins, and perceived Godfrey Myall straddling the hearthrug with his back to the fire, his hands thrust deep in his breeches' pockets. There was little In common between Anthony and Cynthia Trevarthon and their second cousin, Godfrey, Lord Myall, who was six years their junior. At the Poplars Anthony lived in his books and dreamed his dreams, while Cynthia kept house and interfered in the garden. Godfrey at Myall Manor lived the life of a country squire with great satisfaction to himself, knew the name of every pretty girl on the Lizard peninsula, and seldom rode to Henliston more often than once a month. Anthony the student and Godfrey the sportsman were as the poles asunder. Godfrey admired Anthony's "cleverness" — and said so; he was certainly attracted to him. Anthony acknowl- edged — to himself — Godfrey's virility. The two might criti- cise one another and disagree, yet in some strange way each was necessary to the other. As for Cynthia, her well-bred incivility occasionally exceeded the limit of delicate inattentions: she detested Godfrey. To his sister Anthony confided that he dreaded the days when Godfrey rode to town ; Godfrey's visit always put him out of temper for the rest of the day, he declared. "Why does he not stop at the Rose instead of arriving here at five minutes to the luncheon-hour? . . . Godfrey soaks up one's vitality as a sponge water." To which Cynthia would reply: "He comes because he likes you : if you do not care for his company you can surely tell him so! I would not allow myself to be upset or disturbed by a turnip-headed fool." THE CORNISH PENNY 15 Godfrey might be at times a boor, but boor was not a synonym for fool. When his sister called their cousin a fool Anthony felt irritated; he ahnost wished that he could be con- vinced Godfrey was a fool; he could not decide on the right docket for Godfrey— it seemed unlikely that he ever would: he was no nearer solving his character than when Godfrey, as a boy, had arrived, an uninvited luncheon-guest, at the Poplars on the day he had first ridden on a pony to town. Sometimes Godfrey would say a surprising thing, a good thing, an original thing; a thing that a wise man might say. Anthony, acutely expectant, would sit awaiting the hoped-for bon mot or mot juste', the rare nugget that presently might be discovered among all that gravel of words, for Godfrey would talk, talk, talk throughout the meal. When Anthony joined in the conversation Godfrey appeared to be considering carefully his cousin's every sentence; while Anthony was speaking Godfrey would screw up his eyelids and gaze downwards, as if he were examin- ing some insect through an imaginary microscope. Once he had observed : "Your words string together like beads on a rosary" — a surprising utterance for Godfrey. Godfrey never allowed himself to be influenced by any opinion or advice of Anthony's, even though he had asked for the opinion or advice : perhaps he found amusement in listening to Anthony. Apparently every- thing that Anthony said or did he regarded as wonderful. "I think if you could you would like to present me as a curio to a museum; and expect the public to stand awe-struck before such an unique specimen," Anthony had once startled his cousin by saying. In a word, Godfrey was an insoluble enigma to Anthony and, therefore, provokingly interesting. If Godfrey were to dis- continue his visits Anthony realised that he would miss them greatly; he welcomed his cousin politely, but not cordially, when that gentleman came to the Poplars. However exas- perating Godfrey might prove Anthony could not bring himself to give him his conge. After all, Godfrey seldom came more often than once a month. "Hullo, Godfrey! If you are not careful, noble lord, you i6 THE CORNISH PENNY will singe those breeches of yours, and possibly melt your spinal column. This is an unexpected pleasure ... on such a wet day, too." "He was only in town a week ago," said Cynthia bluntly, as she inspected a neat darn at one corner of the tablecloth. Godfrey did not care whether Cynthia chose to be polite or rude; he always gave her the minimum of attention: in his opinion if a woman were not pretty and sufficiently young she should be silent-tongued when men were present. Ignoring her remark Godfrey rushed towards Anthony in a way that suggested to that gentleman a bull charging across a field. "What's all this I hear?" he bellowed. "What do you hear?" returned Anthony politely, with a questioning glance at Cynthia who shook her head. "Oh, Lord ! As if he doesn't know what I mean," Godfrey apostrophised the room. "I heard the story at Myall this morning — that's why I'm here. I heard it again from Tyacke who drew up to tell me. It's all over the town." "Have you noticed, my dear Godfrey, how some people are given to the keen consideration of other people's afEairsr^. . . I do not know what you have heard, but it seems to have ex- cited you." "About this baby. ..." Anthony braced himself. "A baby, a very young baby, was deposited on our front door- step a few nights ago; Cynthia almost stepped on it. I had already gone to my room. Cynthia, who was reading the news- paper, had not yet retired, and on hearing the bell — the serv- ants, too, had gone to their rooms, it was past eleven o'clock — went to the door ... to find the baby. The night was pitch- dark and — " "Whose baby?" "I wish I knew! I have made all possible inquiries without avail. . . . Cynthia has expressed a wish — she — we have de- cided to adopt the infant. At present it — a boy it is — is being nursed by Mrs. Jago at Trewoof, who has fortunately — un- THE CORNISH PENNY 17 fortunately, I should say— been deprived by death of her own child. ... An infant would be most upsetting in an ordered household. I have persuaded Cynthia to allow it to remain with Mrs.^ Jago until it begins to run about, is old enough to be interesting. There is much to be said for the French and Italian system which modern doctors disapprove of. I be- lieve—" "You don't think that if you adopt this infant you will regret it? I mean, won't all the wantons in the district — ?" "If women are wantons, Godfrey, it is men that make them so," interrupted Cynthia pointedly. Godfrey affected not to hear. Having returned to monopo- lise the fire he rattled the coins in his pockets. "Well, it's a pretty kettle of fish, I must say, Anthony." "There's no must about it as far as you are concerned !" This time Godfrey glared in Cynthia's direction. On finding Godfrey in the dining-room Anthony had decided to wait until his departure before he broached the question of a new name for the house to Cynthia, but observing the eager expression on his cousin's face as they sat down to table he changed his mind ; he could see that Godfrey would enter on a discussion of the baby's adoption unless some other intriguing subject of conversation was immediately introduced! Anthony objected to the discussion of any sort of personal matter while a servant was present, and he knew by long experience that Godfrey did not. He addressed his sister hurriedly. "I wonder why our grandfather named this house the Poplars?" Cynthia, a little surprised and catching an eager note in his voice, asked: "What is the matter, Anthony?" "I think he might have named it House of the Seven Pop- lars." Anthony's ruse was more successful than he had dared to hope. Godfrey with the look in his eye of a detective who had tracked down his first criminal exclaimed : "I know where you got that idea!" 18 THE CORNISH PENNY "Really?" Anthony encouraged, a little wondering. "A fellow called Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote a book called The House of the Seven Gables. I have read it!" Recently, foi the first time in his life, Godfrey had taken to spending an occasional evening with the books in the well- stocked library at Myall. Of this Anthony was not aware. "My dear Godfrey, you astonish me! I thought you never read anything but the Western Morning News. Always have you stated most explicitly that you have not read a book of any sort or kind since you left college. Reading books is waste of time, you have often said." Godfrey had not his answer ready when Cynthia said quietly: "You do not purpose having House of the Seven Poplars painted on the front door, I hope, Anthony?" "How absurd you are, my dear! I do not purpose having it painted anywhere . . . but I thought the longer name would look well on the note-paper." "H'm; that means that you will have to go to the expense of a new die." "But a few shillings," Anthony urged. "Fancy you thinking of a name like that ! You are an imagi- native chap," from Godfrey, to whom the use of words had returned. He seemed perfectly genuine in his admiration; and his eyes held the " like to put you in a museum" look. "Such a notion would never have occurred to me," he added reflec- tively. "I believe you, my lord," said Cynthia briskly; and turning to her brother: "I do not see the point of stamping House of the Seven Poplars on the note-paper when the house will be referred to in the future as the Poplars, just as it has been in the past." Anthony had his way. He told his friends of the new name ; he told the servants who told the tradesfolk. Cynthia had been right: it was the note-paper that was changed. For a few months Anthony persisted in his whim until he was convinced, at last, that the name of a house in Henliston — THE CORNISH PENNY 19 such an one as he dwelt in — may not be changed. Once more he knew it as the Poplars. Only the note-paper was still headed House of the Seven Poplars. The old die had been lost; and as Cynthia pointed out: "It will mean having to go to the expense of another die, so let the silly name stay." IV On a fine evening towards the end of June, 1914, Mr. An- thony Trevarthon, having finished reading an article in the Spectator, yawned, pushed back his chair, and stretching him- self, rose. He descended to the lower room of the tower and, after gravely shaking a warning finger at a fat mouse that had run across the floor and was peeping out at him from a fold in a piece of sacking, passed out into the garden. "A mouse and an ostrich when alarmed behave contrariwise," said he whimsically, as he set off along a path to seek for Robin. "Will it not be pleasant to take a walk in the quietening world? Let us saunter down Hill Street to the Outer Green. There will be ample time to pause at our plateau and smoke a pipe under the oak-tree's spreading branches." "Very well, Uncle," Robin answered, as he gave the last pint of water in the watering-pot to a languishing heliotrope. "The poor thing is quite exhausted with the heat. Why should it be called cherry-pie?" Mr. Trevarthon stood toying with a red rosebud he had plucked from a tall standard. "I have heard it said that the heliotrope's delicious fragrance is not unlike — which reminds me : How are the murillos ripen- ing? That gourmand, Nero, feasted on African flamingoes, brains of Samian peacocks and tongues of nightingales; his emissaries ravished the earth for rare-tasting foods. Think you did they set before their imperial master a tart of Morello cherries ?" "Their red is fast changing to a beautiful deep purple: we 20 THE CORNISH PENNY should have our first tart within a fortnight. Nero may have tasted of a tart of Morello cherries, but I am quite sure he never tasted of a tart of Manaccan plums." A smile, half-affectionate, half-tolerant, spread over Robin's face as he regarded his uncle who was mechanically pulling the rosebud's stem through his buttonhole. Mr. Trevarthon was in a brown study; his expression and attitude suggested that he was listening to sounds unheard by ordinary mortals. Robin recalled his aunt's constantly recurring admonition: "I wish, Anthony, you could be persuaded to give ear to the folk of this world instead of straining to listen to the talk of eerie folk elsewhere." "Why do you smile, Robin ?" "You often smile to yourself, Uncle." "Do I? . . . I wonder . . ." "// we are going for our walk?" "I had forgotten : I was thinking of other things. . . . 'We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep.' " The horses of the omnibus had been stabled at the Rose. The motor vehicles had returned on their screeching way, and no longer was there a fog of dust on the Penzance road. The Inner Green was deserted save for two frolicking boys. Brown paths on the Outer Green spread out before them in a net- work that enmeshed the grey-green furze-brakes and the dark green patches of bracken, with here and there a tree or thorn- bush. It seemed that the hot day had exhausted the townsfolk, so that they had not the energy to stir out of the town: the two only passed a pair of lovers, linked arm-in-arm and laugh- ing happily, before they reached a little plateau in the heart of the Green, where they sat down under an oak-tree. "There was a time when your aunt strongly objected to my smoking a pipe in the house. I have never considered a pipe vulgar, unless it were of a vulgar shape," Mr. Trevarthon ob- served, as he produced a blackened briar and tobacco-pouch. "Yesterday I met the worthy vicar who, as you know, neither smokes, takes wine, nor — an immaculate nature has the vicar. He asked after my health, and I informed him I had been suf- THE CORNISH PENNY 21 fering from a little trouble of the digestion. . . . Now I think he was wrong: smoking has not upset my digestive organs. He reproached me for smoking too much. I seem to remember that he suggested that I might abstain from smoking during next year's season of Lent, and by so doing derive spiritual and physical benefit — he is full of good but unpleasant sugges- tions. As I profess and call myself a pagan — ^which he knows full well — I fail to see why I should look forward to a forty days' penance. ... He could not think how I could manage to consume an ounce a day ! Robin, I gave him Lamb's famous answer to Parr: '/ toiled after it, sir, as some men toil after^ virtue.' The vicar, who could never be accused by his worst enemy of being a student, left me hurriedly ; he may have been offended?" "You cannot offend the vicar," observed Robin sagely. "I fear you are very right," agreed his uncle with a chuckle, watching the blue smoke-spirals ascend from the bowl of his pipe and disappear into air so still as to remind him of a tired bird that had folded its pinions and gone to sleep. "The most spiritual hour of the day is the hour before the sun sets," he resumed suddenly, after a long pause. "The hour when Hen- liston casts her spell. ... If I were walking along Church Street now I should walk softly, for that is a street of memo- ries; one conjures up shadows there at every step. At the moth-hour one never meets stray night-staying tourists in the older ways ; their noisy chattering is not heard in Church Street where sounds seem muffled: that is part of the spell. ... I have lived in Henliston all my life in the house that my father and grandfather lived and died in. Today when I hear the word Henliston mentioned I visualise something more than merely a town set on a hill. ... I remember when it was a joy to ride across the Goonhilly Downs on summer days . . ., to follow the white, white road. In those days Kynance was our own, unshared. . . . You will find, my dear nephew, when you have lived in Henliston for half a century that you will love the place as I do: then you will look up at the soaring aeroplanes and say with a scowl, 'I remember. . . .' "Perhaps," a trifle impatiently. 32 THE CORNISH PENNY "To eighteen fifty-two is old. As one grows older one post- pones the period of old age. When I was twenty I said : When I am forty; now I am fifty I say : When I am eighty. Truth- fully I can say I feel very much as I did at thirty. I only realise I am fifty when I recall the enthusiasms of twenty." "I love Henliston, too: to me there is no place like it, nor ever will be. But Henliston is not enough ! Never having had robust health, you have adapted yourself to circumstances. Your nature is different to mine. / cannot look forward to a placid existence — to the passing of spring, summer, autumn, winter, in endless monotony — until the end." "But, Robin, consider! You are handicapped - . . those dreadful attacks of asthma that come when least expected. How can you hope to carve out a — " "Dr. Tyacke sounded me six weeks ago when I had that last attack: he said I was sound as a bell." "But in time ... the strain on the heart must tell. Then, those fumes of stramonium. ..." "We have talked like this before, Uncle, and it's such waste of time. You say that I am handicapped by asthma and that I must, therefore, make up my mind to lead an uneventful, stay-at-home life. I say asthma or no asthma I am going to live. Dr. Tyacke says that most likely I shall grow out of it when I am one and twenty — I assume that I shall." "You have an adventurous imagination, I fear." "I shall not be satisfied to be a somebody among the nobodies ; I would rather be a nobody among the somebodies." Robin laughed. Mr. Trevarthon looked pained. The boy, he knew, had spoken impulsively, but he might have remembered that him- self was an important individual among the unimportant, or as Robin expressed it, a somebody among the nobodies: Mr. Trevarthon of the Poplars, a dreamer of a dream-town. . . . "I suppose I have led a placid existence," a little wistfully. "Uncle Anthony, I was not thinking of you. I meant to .. . ." Robin broke in ruefully, as in a flash he realised that what he had said applied to his uncle. THE CORNISH PENNY 23 Mr. Trevarthon shook his head and made a silencing ges- ture. Then he said : "I am trying to be honest with myself; Robin. If my life has been uneventful, it has been, after all, a happy one. As a boy and as a young man I was delicate. My father never urged me to adopt a profession: I was his only son, and he could not bear me to be out of his sight. Perhaps I have over- fathered you as my father did me! . . . Very soon I acquired the dream-habit. I will say to you, my dear nephew, what Charles Kingsley said to the sweet maid : 'Do noble things, not dream them all day long, , . . ' It would please me to believe that Henliston's secret motto is 'Yesterday'; it is more likely to be 'Tomorrow' — I admit it. If, in my youth, I dreamt of going out into the world in quest of gay adventure I said to myself, 'I will start tomorrow.' So the habit of dreaming grew, and tomorrow was always the next day and, as time passed, the next week, the next month, the next year, until — well, never mind. , . . If you wish, later on, you may set out. Sir Nobody!" "Meaning tomorrow?" "No, On this occasion I mean it not in the sense of a vague postponement, but when your health allows, when you have jbeen free of an attack for a whole sjx months." Robin sighed as he gazed at Henliston bathed in soft yellow light, at the magical outlines of the church-tower and the market-house away on the world's rim. "If I could only look into the future," he said. "Never mind the future, Look at my dream-town!" Mr. Trevarthon exclaimed. "I am looking. ... It is very beautiful." "Not so very long ago there was a word-picture in one of the weekly reviews, entitled 'Henliston: An old-world town.' The writer might have composed it while sitting under this very tree at eventide. It was not without merit : but how can one describe a beautiful woman, a stranger, whom one has never heard speak?" "And the picture?" interestedly. "At a first glance one gains an impression of many small 24 THE CORNISH PENNY houses, some white, some grey — for though they are all built of stone, many of them have been whitewashed — that occupy the ledges of the rocks that in some far-off time seem to have been flung against the face of a precipitous cliff and become imbedded there, like pellets thrown at a bank of clay. If one has newly come from cities, centres of culture, looking up at the town from this point one may playfully inquire if in Henliston there is such an instrument as a baby-grand — not to mention an adult! On more careful scrutiny one may discover paths, and even roads, that zigzag in and out among little terraces of houses and clumps of pines and poplars; and one may come to the conclusion that, after all, it might be possible for a horse and cart to carry a baby-grand, if not a grand piano, to a house on the top-most terrace: what at first glance appeared as a precipitous cliif becomes revealed as a rocky headland that juts out into the lake that is the brown stretch of the Inner Green." Mr. Trevarthon paused, and puffed at his pipe. "Does the description amuse you, Robin? 'Centres of culture' and that bit about pianos I will vouch for." "It is as if you were reading the article aloud! Do go on, please." "Henliston proper is above and behind the great square- shaped rock — known as the Devil's Rock — that crowns the headland." "Of course he noticed the tower?" For Mr. Trevarthon's eyes were looking unseeingly at the sunset sky, and Robin feared that his thoughts had gone a-wandering. "I am trying to recall ... ah! It was to the effect that at some distant epoch the devil either must have disliked the Duchy exceedingly, for one was continually finding rocks that he had hurled at it and that bear his name, or it may have been that the devil once was young, that the rocks were his marbles, the Duchy where he played them." "And then?" "The top of the rock on its three precipitous sides is edged by high stone walls: one glimpses them with difficulty, for pop- lars interspersed with bushy firs seem fain to conceal from curious eyes that look upwards from the Greens. At the angle THE CORNISH PENNY 25 made by two of the walls a round tower forms a corner-piece and is silhouetted deeply mauve against a saffron sky, ..." "Those were not his words, Uncle." A rare smile lit up Mr. Trevarthon's face: he appreciated the compliment implied. "Maybe not," he admitted modestly, "but I have not done him justice in one respect: for the moment the word eluded me: he called the tower a bartizan: a very choice word that, though not quite appropriate." "Yes, yes." "Almost hidden by high enclosing walls, and set back on the mainland, is a grey-roofed house, its upper windows just visible ; behind the grey roof the tops of a line of very tall poplars point darkly; beyond, grey roofs ascend to the market-house, the grey roofs of the old Georgian houses that one passes on the right coming down Hill Street before one arrives at the ancient inn, the Rose. . . . Mr. Author is pleased to say that the house on the Devil's Rock occupies the best position in the town, that its grey roof blends with the other grey roofs, and is in the picture ; but he feels vaguely disappointed : a mediaeval castle would not seem out of place crowning the rock that crowns the>headland. He blames the bartizan for suggesting the castle. "I wish you had shown me the article. I don't believe it is half as good as the one you have just composed." "I meant to show it to you : that was why I cut it out. . . . I certainly kept it." A hopeful expression appeared on his face. "I wonder if I placed it in that hideous green vase that stands on the library mantelshelf." "You must not let Aunt Cynthia hear you call it hideous! She says it is a remarkably fine piece of Bristol glass, and of considerable value. Whenever I see it I wonder what a green blancmange would taste like." "I may have done so," said Mr. Trevarthon, after a pause in which he may or may not have been considering the merits or demerits of the vase: "I often stuff cuttings down its green throat. Dear me. what a lot of dust that vase must have swallowed smce I last sorted out its contents. I Will not tliVe 26 THE CORNISH PENNY the library dusted so often and my papers and books upset!" Lowering his voice he confided: "Your aunt has presented me with a brand new duste*r that I may do my own dusting, but I cannot remember where I put it. Well, well. Whenever / find the room dusty, I will borrow an old duster from the good Selina." "When we go home I will turn out the vase, and search about for the duster: I have been known to find misplaced articles before." "You speak truly, O clever youth !" They sat watching a gorgeous sunset of rose and gold. In the windows of the little grey houses below the Devil's Rock lights were appearing, one by one. "There was a time," said Mr. Trevarthon, knocking out the dottle of his pipe, "when I secretly considered if it would not be possible for that valuable vase to meet with an accident; but as I could never decide on the best kind of accident, the vase remains whole. If it were to be removed now I should miss it: eventually, if I live long enough, I may even ad- mire it." "It is growing chilly," said Robin, with a little shiver, "and we shall be late for supper." ' "My dear Robin, why did you not give the signal before? I hope the mist that is rising will not affect you adversely." "Oh, no. I feel all right." "My rosebud is drooping," observed Mr. Trevarthon, as they walked towards the town. "I wish I had not picked it: by tomorrow it would have become a beautiful red rose." It was Mr. Trevarthon who caught a chill : he died before another sunset with the lines from the Rubaiyat of the Persian philosopher-poet on his lips: "Into this Universe, and Why not knovnnff Nor Whence, like Water