Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines

“How d’ee do, Oliver lad; going your rounds—eh?—Come, Rose, let’s have breakfast, lass, you were not wont to be behind with it. I’ll be bound this gay gallant—this hedge-jumper with his eyes shut—has been praising your voice and puffing up your heart, but don’t believe him, Rose; it’s the fashion of these fellows to tell lies on such matters.”

“You do me injustice, uncle,” said Oliver with a laugh; “but even if it were true that I am addicted to falsehood in praising women, it were impossible, in the present instance, to give way to my propensity, for Truth herself would find it difficult to select an expression sufficiently appropriate to apply to the beautiful voice of Rose Ellis!”

“Hey-day, young man,” exclaimed Mr Donnithorne, as he carefully filled his pipe with precious weed, “your oratorical powers are uncommon! Surely thy talents had been better bestowed in the Church or at the Bar than in the sickroom or the hospital. Demosthenes himself would have paled before thee, lad—though, if truth must be told, there is a dash more sound than sense in thine eloquence.”

“Sense, uncle! Surely your own good sense must compel you to admit that Rose sings splendidly?”

“Well, I won’t gainsay it,” replied Mr Donnithorne, “now that Rose has left the room, for I don’t much care to bespatter folk with too much praise to their faces. The child has indeed a sweet pipe of her own. By the way, you were asking about her guitar when I came in; I’ll tell you about that.

“Its history is somewhat curious,” said Mr Donnithorne, passing his fingers through the bunch of gay ribbons that hung from the head of the instrument. “You have heard, I dare say, of the burning of Penzance by the Spaniards more than two hundred years ago; in the year 1595, I think it was?”

“I have,” answered Oliver, “but I know nothing beyond the fact that such an event took place. I should like to hear the details of it exceedingly.”

“Well,” continued the old gentleman, “our country was, as you know, at war with Spain at the time; but it no more entered into the heads of Cornishmen that the Spaniards would dare to land on our shores than that the giants would rise from their graves. There was, indeed, an old prediction that such an event would happen, but the prediction was either forgotten or not believed, so that when several Spanish galleys suddenly made their appearance in Mounts Bay, and landed about two hundred men near Mousehole, the inhabitants were taken by surprise. Before they could arm and defend themselves, the Spaniards effected a landing, began to devastate the country, and set fire to the adjacent houses.

“It is false,” continued the old man sternly, “to say, as has been said by some, that the men of Mousehole were seized with panic, and that those of Newlyn and Penzance deserted their houses terror-stricken. The truth is, that the suddenness of the attack, and their unprepared condition to repel it, threw the people into temporary confusion, and forced them to retreat, as, all history shows us, the best and bravest will do at times. In Mousehole, the principal inhabitant was killed by a cannon-ball, so that, deprived of their leading spirit at the critical moment when a leader was necessary, it is no wonder that at first the fishermen were driven back by well-armed men trained to act in concert. To fire the houses was the work of a few minutes. The Spaniards then rushed on to Newlyn and Penzance, and fired these places also, after which they returned to their ships, intending to land the next day and renew their work of destruction.

“But that night was well spent by the enraged townsmen. They organised themselves as well as they could in the circumstances, and, when day came, attacked the Spaniards with guns and bows, and that so effectively, that the Dons were glad to hoist their sails and run out of the bay.

“Well, you must know there was one of the Spaniards, who, it has been said, either from bravado, or vanity, or a desire to insult the English, or from all three motives together, brought a guitar on shore with him at Mousehole, and sang and played to his comrades while they were burning the houses. This man left his guitar with those who were left to guard the boats, and accompanied the others to Penzance. On his return he again took his guitar, and, going up to a high point of the cliff, so that he might be seen by his companions and heard by any of the English who chanced to be in hiding near the place, sang several songs of defiance at the top of his voice, and even went the length of performing a Spanish dance, to the great amusement of his comrades below, who were embarking in their boats.

“While the half-crazed Spaniard was going on thus he little knew that, not three yards distant from him, a gigantic Mousehole fisherman, who went by the name of Gurnet, lay concealed among some low bushes, watching his proceedings with an expression of anger on his big stern countenance. When the boats were nearly ready to start the Spaniard descended from the rocky ledge on which he had been performing, intending to rejoin his comrades. He had to pass round the bush where Gurnet lay concealed, and in doing so was for a few seconds hid from his comrades, who immediately forgot him in the bustle of departure, or, if they thought of him at all, each boat’s crew imagined, no doubt, that he was with one of the others.

“But he never reached the boats. As he passed the bush Gurnet sprang on him like a tiger and seized him round the throat with both hands, choking a shout that was coming up, and causing his eyes to start almost out of his head. Without uttering a word, and only giving now and then a terrible hiss through his clenched teeth, Gurnet pushed the Spaniard before him, keeping carefully out of sight of the beach, and holding him fast by the nape of the neck, so that when he perceived the slightest symptom of a tendency to cry out he had only to press his strong fingers and effectually nip it in the bud.

“He led him to a secluded place among the rocks, far beyond earshot of the shore, and there, setting him free, pointed to a flat rock and to his guitar, and hissed, rather than said, in tones that could neither be misunderstood nor gainsaid—

“‘There, dance and sing, will ’ee, till ’ee bu’st!’

“Gurnet clenched his huge fist as he spoke, and, as the Spaniard grew pale, and hesitated, he shook it close to his face—so close that he tapped the prominent bridge of the man’s nose, and hissed again, more fiercely than before—

“‘Ye haaf saved bucca, ye mazed totle, that can only frighten women an’ child’n, an burn housen; thee’rt fond o’ singin’ an’ dancin’—dance now, will ’ee, ye gurt bufflehead, or ef ye waant I’ll scat thee head in jowds, an’ send ’ee scrougin’ over cliffs, I will.’”

In justice to the narrator it is right to say that these words are not so bad as they sound.

“The fisherman’s look and action were so terrible whilst he poured forth his wrath, which was kept alive by the thought of the smouldering embers of his own cottage, that the Spaniard could not but obey. With a ludicrous compound of fun and terror he began to dance and sing, or rather to leap and wail, while Gurnet stood before him with a look of grim ferocity that never for a moment relaxed.

“Whenever the Spaniard stopped from exhaustion Gurnet shouted ‘Go on,’ in a voice of thunder, and the poor man, being thoroughly terrified, went on until he fell to the ground incapable of further exertion.

“Up to this point Gurnet had kept saying to himself, ‘He is fond o’ dancin’ an’ singin’, let un have it, then,’ but when the poor man fell his heart relented. He picked him up, threw him across his shoulder as if he had been a bolster, and bore him away. At first the men of the place wanted to hang him on the spot, but Gurnet claimed him as his prisoner, and would not allow this. He gave him his liberty, and the poor wretch maintained himself for many a day as a wandering minstrel. At last he managed to get on board of a Spanish vessel, and was never more heard of, but he left his guitar behind him. It was picked up on the shore, where he left it, probably, in his haste to get away.

“The truth of this story, of course, I cannot vouch for,” concluded Mr Donnithorne, with a smile, “but I have told it to you as nearly as possible in the words in which I have often heard my grandfather give it—and as for the guitar, why, here it is, having been sold to me by a descendant of the man who found it on the seashore.”

“A wonderful story indeed,” said Oliver—“if true.”

“The guitar you must admit is at least a fact,” said the old gentleman.

Oliver not only admitted this, but said it was a sweet-sounding fact, and was proceeding to comment further on the subject when Mr Donnithorne interrupted him—

“By the way, talking of sweet sounds, have you heard what that gruff-voiced scoundrel Maggot—that roaring bull of Bashan—has been about lately?”

“No, I have not,” said Oliver, who saw that the old gentleman’s ire was rising.

“Ha! lad, that man ought to be hanged. He is an arrant knave, a smuggler—a—an ungrateful rascal. Why, sir, you’ll scarcely believe it: he has come to me and demanded more money for the jewels which he and his comrade sold me in fair and open bargain, and because I refused, and called him a few well-merited names, he has actually gone and given information against me as possessor of treasure, which of right, so they say, belongs to Government, and last night I had a letter which tells me that the treasure, as they call it, must be delivered up without delay, on pain of I don’t know what penalties. Penalties, forsooth! as if I hadn’t been punished enough already by the harassing curtain-lectures of my over-scrupulous wife, ever since the unlucky day when the baubles were found, not to mention the uneasy probings of my own conscience, which, to say truth, I had feared was dead altogether owing to the villainous moral atmosphere of this smuggling place, but which I find quite lively and strong yet—a matter of some consolation too, for although I do have a weakness for cheap ’baccy and brandy, being of an economical turn of mind, I don’t like the notion of getting rid of my conscience altogether. But, man, ’tis hard to bear!”

Poor Mr Donnithorne stopped here, partly owing to shortness of breath, and partly because he had excited himself to a pitch that rendered coherent speech difficult.

“Would it not be well at once to relieve your conscience, sir,” suggested Oliver respectfully, “by giving up the things that cause it pain? In my profession we always try to get at the root of a disease, and apply our remedies there.”

“Ha!” exclaimed the old gentleman, wiping his heated brow, “and lose twenty pounds as a sort of fee to Doctor Maggot, who, like other doctors I wot of, created the disease himself, and who will certainly never attempt to alleviate it by returning the fee.”

“Still, the disease may be cured by the remedy I recommend,” said Oliver.

“No, man, it can’t,” cried the old gentleman with a perplexed expression, “because the dirty things are already sold and the money is invested in Botallack shares, to sell which and pay back the cash in the present depressed state of things would be utter madness. But hush! here comes my better half, and although she is a dear good soul, with an unusual amount of wisdom for her size, it would be injudicious to prolong the lectures of the night into the early hours of morning.”

As he spoke little Mrs Donnithorne’s round good-looking face appeared like the rising sun in the doorway, and her cheery voice welcomed Oliver to breakfast.

“Thank you, aunt,” said Oliver, “but I have already breakfasted more than an hour ago, and am on my way to visit my patients. Indeed, I have to blame myself for calling at so early an hour, and would not have done so but for the irresistible attraction of a newly discovered voice, which—”

“Come, come, youngster,” interrupted Mr Donnithorne, “be pleased to bear in remembrance that the voice is connected with a pair of capital ears, remarkable for their sharpness, if not their length, and at no great distance off, I warrant.”

“You do Rose injustice,” observed Mrs Donnithorne, as the voice at that moment broke out into a lively carol in the region of the kitchen, whither its owner had gone to superintend culinary matters. “But tell me, Oliver, have you heard of the accident to poor Batten?”

“Yes, I saw him yesterday,” replied the doctor, “just after the accident happened, and I am anxious about him. I fear, though I am not quite certain, that his eyesight is destroyed.”

“Dear! dear!—oh, poor man,” said Mrs Donnithorne, whose sympathetic heart swelled, while her blue eyes instantly filled with tears. “It is so very sad, Oliver, for his delicate wife and four young children are entirely dependent upon him and his two sons—and they found it difficult enough to make the two ends meet, even when they were all in health; for it is hard times among the miners at present, as you know, Oliver; and now—dear, dear, it is very, very sad.”

Little Mrs Donnithorne said nothing more at that time, but her mind instantly reverted to a portly basket which she was much in the habit of carrying with her on her frequent visits to the poor and the sick—for the good lady was one of those whose inclinations as well as principles lead them to “consider the poor.”

It must not be imagined, however, that the poor formed a large class of the community in St. Just. The miners of that district, and indeed all over Cornwall, were, and still are, a self-reliant, independent, hard-working race, and as long as tough thews and sinews, and stout and willing hearts, could accomplish anything, they never failed to wrench a subsistence out of the stubborn rocks which contain the wealth of the land. Begging goes very much against the grain of a Cornishman, and the lowest depth to which he can sink socially, in his own esteem, is that of being dependent on charity.

In some cases this sentiment is carried too far, and has degenerated into pride; for, when God in His wisdom sees fit, by means of disabling accident or declining health, to incapacitate a man from labour, it is as honourable in him to receive charity as it is (although not always sufficiently esteemed so) a high privilege and luxury of the more fortunate to give.

Worthy Mrs Donnithorne’s charities were always bestowed with such delicacy that she managed, in some mysterious way, to make the recipients feel as though they had done her a favour in accepting them. And yet she was not a soft piece of indiscriminating amiability, whose chief delight in giving lay in the sensations which the act created within her own breast. By no means. None knew better than she when and where to give money, and when to give blankets, bread, or tea. She was equally sharp to perceive the spirit that rendered it advisable for her to say, “I want you to do me a favour—there’s a good woman now, you won’t refuse me, etcetera,” and to detect the spirit that called forth the sharp remark, accompanied with a dubious smile and a shake of her fat forefinger, “There now, see that you make better use of it this time, else I shall have to scold you.”

Having received a message for poor Mrs Batten, the miner’s wife, the doctor left the cottage, and proceeded to pay his visits. Let us accompany him.

Chapter Twelve.

In which Oliver gets “a Fall,” and sees some of the Shadows of the Miner’s Life

In crossing a hayfield, Oliver Trembath encountered the tall, bluff figure, and the grave, sedate smile of Mr Cornish, the manager.

“Good-morning, doctor,” said the old gentleman, extending his hand and giving the youth a grasp worthy of one of the old Cornish giants; “do you know I was thinking, as I saw you leap over the stile, that you would make a pretty fair miner?”

“Thanks, sir, for your good opinion of me,” said Oliver, with a smile, “but I would rather work above than below ground. Living the half of one’s life beyond the reach of sunlight is not conducive to health.”

“Nevertheless, the miners keep their health pretty well, considering the nature of their work,” replied Mr Cornish; “and you must admit that many of them are stout fellows. You would find them so if you got one of their Cornish hugs.”

“Perhaps,” said Oliver, with a modest look, for he had been a noted wrestler at school, “I might give them a pretty fair hug in return, for Cornish blood flows in my veins.”

“A fig for blood, doctor; it is of no avail without knowledge and practice, as well as muscle. With these, however, I do acknowledge that it makes weight—if by ‘blood’ you mean high spirit.”

“By the way, how comes it, sir,” said Oliver, “that Cornishmen are so much more addicted to wrestling than other Englishmen?”

“It were hard to tell, doctor, unless it be that they feel themselves stronger than other Englishmen, and being accustomed to violent exertion more than others, they take greater pleasure in it. Undoubtedly the Greeks introduced it among us, but whether they practised it as we now do cannot be certainly ascertained.”

Here Mr Cornish entered into an enthusiastic account of the art of wrestling; related many anecdotes of his own prowess in days gone by, and explained the peculiar method of performing the throw by the heel, the toe, and the hip; the heave forward, the back-heave, and the Cornish hug, to all of which the youth listened with deep interest.

“I should like much to witness one of your wrestling-matches,” he said, when the old gentleman concluded; “for I cannot imagine that any of your peculiar Cornish hugs or twists can be so potent as to overturn a stout fellow who is accustomed to wrestle in another fashion. Can you show me one of the particular grips or twists that are said to be so effective?”

“I think I can,” replied the old gentleman, with a smile, and a twinkle in his eye; “of course the style of grip and throw will vary according to the size of the man one has to deal with. Give me hold of your wrist, and plant yourself firmly on your legs. Now, you see, you must turn the arm—so, and use your toe—thus, so as to lift your man, and with a sudden twist—there! That’s the way to do it!” said the old gentleman, with a chuckle, as he threw Oliver head foremost into the middle of a haycock that lay opportunely near.

It is hard to say whether Mr Cornish or Oliver was most surprised at the result of the effort—the one, that so much of his ancient prowess should remain, and the other, that he should have been so easily overthrown by one who, although fully as large a man as himself, had his joints and muscles somewhat stiffened by age.

Oliver burst into a fit of laughter on rising, and exclaimed, “Well done, sir! You have effectually convinced me that there is something worth knowing in the Cornish mode of wrestling; although, had I known what you were about to do, it might not perhaps have been done so easily.”

“I doubt it not,” said Mr Cornish with a laugh; “but that shows the value of ‘science’ in such matters. Good-morning, doctor. Hope you’ll find your patients getting on well.”

He waved his hand as he turned off, while Oliver pursued his way to the miners’ cottages.

The first he entered belonged to a man whose chest was slightly affected for the first time. He was a stout man, about thirty-five years of age, and of temperate habits—took a little beer occasionally, but never exceeded; had a good appetite, but had caught cold frequently in consequence of having to go a considerable distance from the shaft’s mouth to the changing-house while exhausted with hard work underground and covered with profuse perspiration. Often he had to do this in wet weather and when bitterly cold winds were blowing—of late he had begun to spit blood.

It is necessary here to remind the reader that matters in this respect—and in reference to the condition of the miner generally—are now much improved. The changing-houses, besides being placed as near to the several shafts as is convenient, are now warmed with fires, and supplied with water-troughs, so that the men have a comfortable place in which to wash themselves on coming “to grass,” and find their clothes thoroughly dried when they return in the morning to put them on before going underground. This renders them less liable to catch cold, but of course does not protect them from the evil influences of climbing the ladders, and of bad air. Few men have to undergo such severe toil as the Cornish miner, because of the extreme hardness of the rock with which he has to deal. To be bathed in perspiration, and engaged in almost unremitting and violent muscular exertion during at least eight hours of each day, may be said to be his normal condition.

Oliver advised this man to give up underground work for some time, and, having prescribed for him and spoken encouragingly to his wife, left the cottage to continue his rounds.

Several cases, more or less similar to the above, followed each other in succession; also one or two cases of slight illness among the children, which caused more alarm to the anxious mothers than there was any occasion for. These latter were quickly but good-naturedly disposed of, and the young doctor generally left a good impression behind him, for he had a hearty, though prompt, manner and a sympathetic spirit.

At one cottage he found a young man in the last stage of consumption. He lay on his lowly bed pale and restless—almost wishing for death to relieve him of his pains. His young wife sat by his bedside wiping the perspiration from his brow, while a ruddy-cheeked little boy romped about the room unnoticed—ignorant that the hour was drawing near which would render him fatherless, and his young mother a widow.

This young man had been a daring, high-spirited fellow, whose animal spirits led him into many a reckless deed. His complaint had been brought on by racing up the ladders—a blood-vessel had given way, and he had never rallied after. Just as Oliver was leaving him a Wesleyan minister entered the dwelling.

“He won’t be long with us, doctor, I fear,” he said in passing.

“Not long, sir,” replied Oliver.

“His release will be a happy one,” said the minister, “for his soul rests on Jesus; but, alas! for his young wife and child.”

He passed into the sickroom, and the doctor went on.

The next case was also a bad one, though different from the preceding. The patient was between forty and fifty years of age, and had been unable to go underground for several years. He was a staid, sober man, and an abstemious liver, but it was evident that his life on earth was drawing to a close. He had been employed chiefly in driving levels, and had worked a great deal in very bad air, where the candles could not be made to burn unless placed nine or ten feet behind the spot where he was at work. Indeed, he often got no fresh air except what was blown to him, and only a puff now and then. When he first went to work in the morning the candle would not keep alight, so that he had to take his coat and beat the air about before going into the level, and, after a time, went in when the candles could be got to burn by holding them on one side, and teasing out the wick very much. This used to create a great deal of smoke, which tended still further to vitiate the air. When he returned “to grass” his saliva used to be as black as ink. About five years before giving up underground work he had had inflammation of the lungs, followed by blood-spitting, which used to come on when he was at work in what he called “poor air,” or in “cold-damp,” and he had never been well since.

Oliver’s last visit that day was to the man John Batten; who had exploded a blast-hole in his face the day before. This man dwelt in a cottage in the small hamlet of Botallack, close to the mine of the same name. The room in which the miner lay was very small, and its furniture scanty; nevertheless it was clean and neatly arranged. Everything in and about the place bore evidence of the presence of a thrifty hand. The cotton curtain on the window was thin and worn, but it was well darned, and pure as the driven snow. The two chairs were old, as was also the table, but they were not rickety; it was obvious that they owed their stability to a hand skilled in mending and in patching pieces of things together. Even the squat little stool in the side of the chimney corner displayed a leg, the whiteness of which, compared with the other two, told of attention to small things. There was a peg for everything, and everything seemed to be on its peg. Nothing littered the well-scrubbed floor or defiled the well-brushed hearthstone, and it did not require a second thought on the part of the beholder to ascribe all this to the tidy little middle-aged woman, who, with an expression of deep anxiety on her good-looking countenance, attended to the wants of her injured husband.