Scilly

“ In Scilly no two fields are alike, and it is difficult to find one that is flat and uninteresting. They cover the slopes facing to the west and south; very often they run down almost to the edge of the sea, with only a low stone hedge to divide them from the shore. What would Wordsworth have felt, I wonder, to see these waves of dancing daffodils? Perhaps he would have preferred the scattered groups and clusters that spring up of themselves in the hedges by the wayside, or even on the beach itself. ”

“ The names of the Scilly rocks and islets are themselves a pure delight, compact of romantic suggestion. There, off Bryher, exposed to the full fury of the Atlantic, are the two grim rocks called Scilly, that confer a name upon the entire group ”

“ In the beginning of this century, before steamboats were invented, when communication between Scilly and Penzance (the mainland) depended upon wind and weather, in winter its people were often reduced to great straits for want of provisions, which gave rise to the proverb, "There is always a feast or a fast in Scilly." This is, however, now far from being the truth, and Scilly is one of the most prosperous parts of Great Britain; its inhabitants, as a rule, are well educated, they are noted for their courteous manners ”

“ The gorse is one of the great glories of the islands; it grows on almost every open down, and on the slope of almost every hill. On a calm summer’s day, when the hot sun brings out the sweet and heavy odour, and the drowsy hum of myriads of bees, garnering their store from the golden blossoms, mingles with the gentle lapping of the sea upon the shore, then Scilly becomes a veritable land of the lotos-eaters, and one feels content to do no more than lie upon a slope of springy heather, and “watch the crisping ripples on the beach, and tender curving lines of creamy spray.” ”

“ MAP OF THE SCILLY ISLES George Philip & Son Ltd
I
INTRODUCTORY A “COLOUR-BOOK” on Scilly needs no apology, so far as the subject is concerned, for there is no corner of Great Britain which more demands or deserves a tribute to its colour than do these little islands, scattered about in the Atlantic twenty-eight miles from the Land’s End.
For they are all colour; they gleam and glow with it; they shimmer like jewels “set in the silver sea.” No smoke from city, factory, or railway contaminates their pure air, or dims the brilliancy of their sunshine. ”

“ There is one of the poet with the bumpy forehead, and wrinkly trousers, who wrote The Sorrows of the Amethyst, and one of the K.C. who wrote Duchesses in the Divorce Court—the Ollendorff man I call him; and one of the men who did the Gaiety play called The Up-and-Down Girl, which Lady Scilly acted in the provinces once, for a charity, till Lord Scilly stopped her. There he is in his volunteer uniform looking like a lamb. I do like Lord Scilly, and I think he’s put upon. So I am as nice to him as I can be when I see him, which isn’t often. He never comes into her room where I principally am. ”

“ But I took the boa to give Ariadne, I have no use for such things myself.
When Lady Scilly was ready she said—“We won’t lunch in, we will go to Prince’s and have a filet. Scilly’s in a bad temper because of bills. Well, bills must come,—and I may go, I suppose. There’s no reason one shouldn’t keep out of their way.”
She stuck a hat on with twenty feathers in it, and we went down, and she told the butler to call a hansom now, and tell the carriage to fetch us at three o’clock.
The butler said, “Very well, my lady. Your ladyship has a lunch-party of ten!” all in the same voice. ”

“ These visitors are neither so many nor of such a kind as to take away from the peaceful charm of the place. You can always get peace and quiet in Scilly, even in the most “tripperish” season, for the trippers follow a beaten track which it is easy enough to avoid. And the islands are, fortunately, quite unspoilt by any efforts to cater for their supposed wants. Not a single penny-in-the-slot machine flaunts its vermilion and yellow in your face; there are no niggers on the beach, nor brass bands, nor cinematographs; no dancing on the pier ”

“ Formerly Scilly was a favourite breeding-place for birds, but now they no longer employ it for this purpose, or do so to a very minor degree.
There are traces of streaming for tin in some of the isles, but no mineral veins are now known to run through the Scilly granite. Ferns abound, but [Pg 337] the islands are a little disappointing to the botanist, though to a florist they are a paradise.
To give a true idea of Scilly I must quote from Armorel, for such as have not the book:—​
“The visitor who comes by one boat and goes away by the next thinks he has seen this archipelago. ”

“ I wished the Scilly motor-car might upset and spoil Lady Scilly a little sooner, and that Simon mightn’t be in it when that happened.
When Christina had tucked me in, and kissed us, and gone away, I made Ariadne make me a solemn promise that come what would, if she were ever married to Simon Hermyre, or indeed to any one else, that she would let all the others alone and not poach; for even if a young man seems unattached, you may be pretty sure there’s a girl worrying about him somewhere in the background. One woman, one man! ”

“ The Isles of Scilly have never been too remote for conquerors to descend upon and subdue them. Thus Athelstan not only subjugated Cornwall in the tenth century, but subdued Scilly as well; and they were fortified in the time of Queen Elizabeth, when the still-existing Star Castle, overlooking St. Mary's, was built, as the initials, E. R. and the date 1593, remain to prove. Scilly was not a safe place of refuge for Prince Charles in 1645. He landed at St. Mary's from Falmouth on March 4th, but the fleets of the Parliament rendered it advisable for him to depart for Guernsey on April 17th. ”

“ Now, Lady Scilly’s eyes are quite common, it is only the work round them that makes them tell, and that would be hidden by the mask. One saw that George was talking without thinking.
“Eyes without their context mean nothing!” she said, and then I knew the woman was Christina, for that was the very thing she had once said to Ariadne to tease her. She evidently thinks it good enough to say twice.
“Come!” she said to George. “Speak to me, say anything to me that the hour and the mood permit. I want to hear how a poet makes love!” ”

“ I believe that there does not live any single man who has actually explored all the isles of Scilly, stood upon every rock, climbed every hill, and searched on every island for its treasures of ancient barrows, plants, birds, cairns, and headlands. ”

“ Scillonians read of it in the newspapers that occasionally come their way, and ask visitors what it is!
Every one works in Scilly. I have seen it stated that Scillonians never hurry. The person who made that statement can never have witnessed the desperate efforts often made to pack the flowers, and get them on to the quay at St. Mary's in time for the steamer, which, in winter, when the flower-harvest is at its height, sails only thrice a week. If the steamer is missed, that consignment is worth just nothing at all, for it has to be on sale in London the next morning. ”

“ To most people it seems a far cry to the Scilly Isles, and it is therefore all the more desirable that some competent person should try and realize for us the atmosphere, colour, and outstanding features of such a story-haunted nook. ”

“ The Isles of Scilly lie twenty-seven miles off the mainland and forty miles from Penzance, the nearest harbour from which you can voyage to that fortunate archipelago. It is possible in these days to reach St. Mary's, the capital of Scilly, in a little over sixteen hours from London, doing it luxuriously, as far as the railway portion of the journey is concerned, by taking the 9.50 p.m. train from Paddington, which arrives at Penzance terminus at 7.30 the next morning, leaving two and a half hours' rest before the steamer Lyonesse leaves for the islands, a voyage of about four hours. ”

“ A bunch in Scilly is a dozen blooms; and therefore those fortunate few took twopence-halfpenny apiece for narcissi. It seems almost too good to be true, and still the Scillonians (there are no "Scilly people," as Sir Walter Besant makes Armorel say, in his delightful "Armorel of Lyonesse") talk in reverential tones of those wonderful days.
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At that time the islanders were making a moderate livelihood out of growing early potatoes; I have seen the quays of St. Mary's heaped high with boxes of them. But nowadays let those grow "new potatoes" who will. ”

“ So runs the legend, which sober, unromantic people spend their efforts and waste their breath [Pg 64] in trying to disprove. They prefer to think that the sea between Scilly and Cornwall is called in Cornish Lethowsow (i.e., lioness) on account of its violence and turbulence, and that King Arthur’s followers escaped by boat—or not at all! ”

“ Visitors to Scilly, who commonly travel in summer and autumn, see nothing of these activities. Then, if ever, the islanders who are flower-farmers take things easily, and the little fields where the daffodils and the narcissi grow are of comparatively small interest, being bare of leaves or blossoms. ”

“ It is not etiquette to interfere with a lady who has her own cavalier, and that is why I annex Ernie, as Lady Scilly does Simon. We don’t dance. I don’t care to begin the dance racket till I am out and forced, not I, nor do I suppose the grown-ups want a couple of children getting into their legs and throwing them down. No, I watch them, and Ernie watches me.
Simon Hermyre and Lady Scilly dance half the time together. I suppose it is de rigueur. And when they are not dancing they are talking of money. I have heard them. I don’t mind listening, for, of course, money isn’t private. ”

“ Everybody leans there in the mornings, it’s fashionable, and if you lean a little forward or backward you can either see or not be seen by the person who is hanging over it a few yards further on. The boats were as usual unloading their big haul of herrings, and the sleepy-eyed sailors (they have been up all night!) were sitting smoking lazily on the edges of the boats. Lady Scilly was in white linen, so awfully pure and angelic-looking that the little boys dabbed her with fish-scales as they passed her. She was talking to Simon about money earnestly, and took no notice. ”

“ And strangers tend to increase in Scilly and its surrounding seas, in spite of the voyage from Penzance. The isles, truly the Fortunate Isles, where there is no income-tax and there are no motor-cars, and the post comes but once a day—and sometimes not even then—and the only police-force necessary is one officer, who combines all ranks, and even then has little to do, are further blest with a delightfully equable climate, and good hotel and other accommodation. They look with some pity upon the turmoils of the adjacent island of Great Britain. ”

“ The population now is less pure than on the mainland. Not only were there Irish colonists, but it is said that in the Civil Wars a Bedfordshire regiment was sent there—​and forgotten; so the soldiers looked about for comely Scilly maids, married, and were content to be no more remembered in the adjacent island of Great Britain. In 1649 Sir John Grenville employed Scilly as a great nursery for privateers, and so swept the seas that the Channel trade was seriously injured. ”

“ SMART women like having a fluffy dog or a child to drive with them in the afternoons. Lady Scilly hasn’t got either of her own, so she is always borrowing me, and sending for me to lunch and drive. She seldom asks Ariadne, because Ariadne is out and nearer her own age—too near. That’s what I tell Ariadne, when she is jealous, and makes me a scene about it, and it is true. If it were not for the honour and glory of the thing, I don’t care so very much about it myself, Lady Scilly’s motor is always getting into trouble, because it is so highly bred, I suppose. ”

“ Mary, Scilly, the shock was violent. On the shores of Cornwall, opposite to Scilly (in the parish of Senan, near the Land’s-end) the noise was heard like that of a spinning-wheel on a chamber-floor. Below stairs there was a cry, that the house was shaking; and the brass pans and pewter rattled one against another in several houses in the same parish. In the adjoining parish of St. Just, two young men being then swimming, felt a strong and very unusual agitation of the sea. In the town of Penzance, in one house the chamber-bell rung ”

“ From Hugh Town one comes to all that is left of it by a road bordered (as most roads are in Scilly) by flower-fields on the right and on the left; past masses of fragrant wallflowers and beds of sweet violets, until the curve of Old Town Bay is reached, with the houses of Old Town grouped together at its farther end.
The Castle Rocks rise steeply from the midst of the houses, and up them one must clamber. There is nothing whatever to show what was the original way of entrance into the fortress, but probably it was on the east side, where the ground slopes up more gently. ”

“ Let us visit the islands on an April day, and see for ourselves [Pg 13] this harvest of gold and silver. For once we will be day-trippers in fancy though we would scorn to be in fact.
Here in Scilly we find land and sea flooded with spring sunshine, while on the “adjacent island” which we have just left every one is lamenting the cold and the rain. The flower-harvest is nearly over, yet still there are wide fields of dazzling white and yellow, and many hundreds of boxes will yet leave the quay for the mainland. ”