Tregaron

“ The tender mothers of Tregaron were startled at so unexpected a proceeding, and pathetically declared they had rather that their dear babes should be brought up like the calves and pigs, in the most bestial ignorance, than have knowledge beaten into them at the nether end with a birch rod. Catti immediately quieted their fears, by protesting that she entertained the utmost abhorrence of the flagellation system, and that the bunch of birch was cut and bound together for a very different purpose, namely, to be suspended as a sign over her door. ”

“ Amusing to the population of Tregaron was the singular sight of their crest-fallen magistrate and his hated gang, brought home in a woful plight, as inside passengers of a dung-cart, which had been hired for the purpose; and more than all, that their discomfiture should have been caused by their long-lost countryman, Twm Shôn Catti.
Our hero, in the mean time, like a princely chieftain of the days of old, enthroned upon his native tower of strength, marking in his soul’s high pride the awkward predicament of his baffled p. ”

“ At carding wool or spinning it, knitting stockings or mittins, the most envious admitted her superiority to every woman in Tregaron. She moreover had gained no small consideration in another character, which her jealous neighbours satirically denominated a hedge milliner, whose province it was to make hedging gloves and coarse frocks for ploughmen, to darn the heels of their stout woollen stockings, and also to make and mend horses’ collars ”

“ Twm’s mother affirms (and when a lady affirms anything the gentlemen feel bound to believe in, and swear by it,) that her son’s first predilection consisted of an intense affection for street rubbish. The gutters and sweepings of Tregaron furnished him with materials for an antiquarian exhibition which he held in a stable manger. ”

“ You remember a tall, thin, skeleton-like man, generally dressed in a suit of grey, who lived in a cottage on the mountain, in the neighbourhood of Tregaron, known by the nickname of Stalking Simon the Mooncalf, from his wandering by moon-light over the hills. ”

“ The boys of Tregaron amused themselves playing ball with the skulls, picking out their teeth, banging them against the wall to see if they would break, and the like. [65] They probably never heard the story told by Mrs. Morgan of Newport [Pg 146] to the Prophet Jones: of some people who were drinking at an inn there, ‘two of them officers of excise,’ when one of the men, to show his courage, declared he was afraid of no ghosts, and dared go to the charnel house and fetch a skull from that ghastly place. ”

“ There is a considerable tract of flat land lying along the sea coast, especially towards the south-west, the general aspect of which is so dreary and desolate, that it has been called, and with good reason, the desert of Wales. In that district it is almost possible to travel 30 miles in a straight line without seeing a house, or a road, or a human being. The principal mountains are Plinlimmon, just within the county boundary on the north-east, rising to the height of 2469 feet, and Tregaron mountain, near Tregaron, in the south east, 1778 feet in height. ”

“ It is to be hoped that none of our readers will be infidels enough to doubt the fact, when they are assured, on the indubitable testimony of his mother, that our hero’s earliest propensity was to grub up old trash and trumpery from the gutters of Tregaron—“filth,” as his parent wisely observed, “which had better have been left alone;” and we may safely appeal to any candid mind, and boldly ask whether this trait did not in the most decided manner bespeak the future antiquary. Not a puddle could be found but its depth and contents were duly examined by the indefatigable Twm ”

“ On being pressed to relate his adventures since our hero left him at Tregaron, he ran them over in the following off hand strain. “When you were a child, Twm, I was a merry happy lad; and you know, had the reputation as the funny fellow of Tregaron, a distinction that it was my highest ambition to attain. The comical tricks and humorous sayings of Wat the mole-catcher, made mirth at every farmer’s hearth, and their tables were spread with food p. 180for me whenever I called. As I grew older, my pleasures and antipathies acquired a stronger cast ”

“ CHAPTER XIX. Twm risks another visit to Tregaron. Alarms his friend Watt. Danger of betrayal by him. His cunning is more than a match for Watt, Parson Evans, and his wife. Escapes, and with a good booty. Disappearance of the Parson’s horse, great coat, and cash.
It was a dull heavy night, in which fog and darkness contended for precedence, and the moon gleamed as if about to retire altogether, when Twm Shon Catty shaped his course over the mountain, in the direction which led to Lampeter ”

“ He is looking towards the lower side of the moor, over the shoulder of which lies the sea, fringed with surf where it frets the black precipice of a headland. He is watching a bird that flies close to the stunted furze. The white of its plumage gleams as the sun catches it. Threading the sinuous lanes between the bushes, appearing at the distance almost like the shadow of the overhanging magpie, is the hunted game; and though Tregellas cannot hear the chattering of the bird, he knows that it is mobbing the fox whose mask is set in the direction of Deadman. ”

“ As he skirted the large pool on the Land’s End moor his ever alert eyes fell on the tiny island in its midst; immediately there flashed on his mind an idea of the immunity from molestation such a retreat would afford. There, with the water around him, he felt that he would be safer than anywhere else; that neither fox nor cat, polecat nor weasel, would disturb him, nor man intrude; in short, that the islet offered the sanctuary he had often longed for and hitherto sought in vain. ”

“ Tregenna thought there was something of despair in his attitude, and in the wild gaze with which he looked about him, staring first at the gray sea, the edge of which was like a roll of white vapor, and then at the frowning cliff above him. He seemed to be listening for some voice, some footstep.
“Come,” said the lieutenant, in a cheery tone, “don’t lose thy spirit, boy; thou showedst enough and to spare but an hour since. Thy comrades are gone, ’tis true, and thou art left alone. ”

“ Tregarthen is a Cornishman, and—to be sure!—comes from Lanrean.”
“Does he?” said the captain quietly. “As I ain’t acquainted with him, who may he be?”
“Mr. Tregarthen is Kitty’s father.”
“Ay, ay!” cried the captain. “Now you speak! Tregarthen knows this village of Lanrean, then?”
“Beyond all doubt he does. I have often heard him mention it, as being his native place. He knows it well.”
“Stop half a moment,” said the captain. “We want a name here. You could ask Tregarthen (or if you couldn’t I could) what names of old men he remembers in his time in those diggings? Hey?” ”

“ As one stands by its dark waters, looking away towards the bare granite-crowned hills and listening to the wind sighing among the reeds and rushes and the coarse grass, one can realize to the full the weird legends connected with it, and one can see in imagination the huge figure of Tregeagle bending over the pool, dipping out the water with his poor little limpet-shell.
The Tregeagle legends are still believed in. When people go out to Dozmare Pool, they do not mention Tregeagle’s name for fear that the Giant will suddenly appear and chase them over the moors! ”

“ His first home was amidst a clump of rushes bordering a lonely pool on the high ground between two of the Cornish heights. Even when maternal instinct is strongest, fear of detection kept doe and leveret apart during the day; but she never failed to suckle him at nightfall and before sunrise, on her way back from the feeding-ground on the lowland. From dawn to dusk the leveret lay in the snuggest of couches in the trough between the hills, and when not asleep would watch the reeds waving over the shallows, or the moor-hen, whose nest was on the opposite bank, swim on the open water. ”

“ The Townlander COINCIDENT with a miniature thunderclap shattering the summer afternoon silence of the mountain forest a bullet whipped through the foliage, leaving a half-severed twig to flutter and dangle within easy arm’s reach. Tregarvon had never before been under fire, and he was a product of twentieth-century civilization and the cities. ”

“ THE TASKS OF TREGEAGLE The name of the demon Tregeagle is a household word in nearly every part of Cornwall. His wild spirit rages of nights along the rocky coasts, across the bleak moors and through the sheltered valleys. For Tregeagle is a Cornish "Wandering Jew"; his spirit can never rest, since in life he was the most evil man the Duchy ever knew. ”

“ Tregonell's delicate health was a reason against that. But there was generally some one staying in the house—some nice girl, whose vivacious talk and whose new music helped to beguile the mother from sad thoughts about her absent son—from wearying doubts as to the fulfilment of her plans for the future. There were people coming and going; old friends driving twenty miles to luncheon, and sometimes persuaded to stay to dinner; nearer neighbours walking three miles or so to afternoon tea. The cheery rector of Trevalga and his family, friends of twenty years' standing, were frequent guests. ”

“ J. C. Tregarthen’s “Wild Life at the Land’s End.” It is altogether an honest, bluff, happy record of observations by one who loves the Cornish country with a genuine patriotism, and knows it as well as he loves it.’—World.
‘Mr. Tregarthen’s brightly written and exquisitely illustrated book is absolutely redolent of the breezy uplands and the surf-beaten beetling cliffs of the western duchy, and is evidently the work of a sportsman-naturalist of the old-fashioned and best type.’—Nature. ”

“ Over the moor and across the downs they all went like the wind, the witch keeping well in advance. Uphill and downhill and through the lanes they flew, and never once did they stop till they came to Place Hill, where the great stone gateway of Place House stood greyly out from a background of beech-trees and oaks. Here the six little maids stopped to get breath, but the old hag, though ready to drop from her broom with fatigue, paused not a second, and went on down the hill with little Thrush Betty, and Pincher the dog close behind her. ”

“ So, four o’clock found my clerk and myself in Tregarthen’s eminently comfortable parlour in his excellent rooms. He had not come in, but everything betokened his immediate arrival. There was a bright, warm fire; there was tea laid out for three; there was a soft-footed man-servant ready to do service whenever he was wanted. And suddenly there was a sound of footsteps in the little hall, and the door opened and Tregarthen entered, and stripping off a big ulster presented to my astonished eyes the face and figure—minus the eye-patch and the crutch—of the tiger-selling gazer of Budge Row. ”

“ Another of Tregeagle's tasks is to make and carry away a truss of sand bound with a rope of sand from Gwenvor (the cove at Whitsand Bay) near the Land's End. But his unquiet spirit finds no rest, for whilst he is trying to do his never-ending work the devil hunts him from place to place, until he hides for refuge in a hermit's ruined chapel on St. Roche's rocks (East Cornwall) .
"When the sea roars before a storm people in the Land's End district say "Tregeagle is calling," and often, too, his voice may be heard lamenting around Loe-pool. ”

“ There was no pool of water there, no spring, as far as I could see; and a small cave at the foot of the high bank was dry, for, boylike, I peeped in over the drift that half-filled its mouth.
Leaving the field, we made for Trevean farmhouse. The snow in the unfrequented lane that we followed was unmarked by any footprint except the track of a hare. Soon we could smell the reek of burning furze, and as we came in sight of the high stone chimney, we heard the mooing of the cattle that had been driven in from the wild moors around. ”

“ Obeying the instinct of self-preservation in pure automatism, Tregarvon dropped silently behind the nearest boulder on his own side of the stream. When he looked again he saw that the man was not Hartridge; he was a much younger man; a handsome young fellow, well-built and athletic-looking, with nothing in his appearance to connect him with the mountain and its natives. ”

“ To satisfy himself that he was mistaken he kept raising his head and looking round until, unable to endure the misery any longer, he stole from the seat and hurried back to the highest part of the farm, where a hedge had taken his fancy as he had crossed from the barley to the oats.
There, amongst the coarse grasses, beneath the fronds of a solitary brake-fern, he sat with his face to the dawn-wind, which played with his whiskers, swayed the ears of the barley, and buffeted the smoke rising from the chimney of the homestead. ”

“ In those halcyon moments no common human care is allowed to intrude itself. To one who has thus entered in upon the heroism of romance his own daily work, his dinners, clothes, income, father and mother, sisters and brothers, his own street and house are nothing. Hunting, shooting, rowing, Alpine-climbing, even speeches in Parliament,—if they perchance have been attained to,—all become leather or prunella. The heavens have been opened to him, and he walks among them like a god. So it had been with Tregear. ”

“ While Tregarvon looked, a warbling bird whistle rose shrill and clear on the windless air. The watcher saw the young man hastily pocket the pistol and heard him whistle a reply. Almost at the same instant the figure of a woman [355] appeared at the buried up-hill heel of the great boulder. She stood for a moment in the yellow light of the westering sun, long enough for Tregarvon to recognize her beyond any question of doubt. Then she ran, slipping and sliding, down the leaf-carpeted hazard slope, to be caught in the arms of the waiting man. ”