Chapter III: Part 3

In a letter written by John Grandison, Bishop of Exeter, to the Pope, in the reign of Edward III., he says that no bishops in person ever visited these islands, but were wont to depute friars for that purpose.

Bishop Phillpotts of Exeter came in 1831, and again in 1838 to consecrate the new church on St. Mary’s. The islands since then have come under the diocese of Truro.

Troutbeck, writing of St. Mary’s in 1794, says: “The clergyman who officiates has neither institution nor induction to this benefice, nor visitation nor a licence from the Bishop of Exeter, but holds his preferment at the will of his patron, the Lord-proprietor. Formerly he was the only clergyman upon the islands; and children were brought from the off-islands to be baptized, often at the risk of their lives; but as the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge has sent an assistant minister who resides at Tresco, and visits all the off-islands occasionally in fine weather, the inhabitants are not only benefited by his instructions and exemplary conversation, but freed from the inconveniences under which they formerly laboured.”

The other off-island churches were only supplied by native fishermen, who were appointed by the agent to read prayers and sermons agreeable to the doctrines of the Church of England.

Bryher is now the only inhabited island on which there is no resident clergyman; but a service is held every Sunday afternoon, and one evening during the week by the clergyman from Tresco. On Sunday mornings and evenings there is a service in the chapel, conducted by one of the fishermen-farmers, at which, I was told, Spurgeon’s sermons are read. “We’ve been having them forty years, and we aren’t tired of them yet.”

I inquired whether the attendance was greater at the church or at the chapel.

“Well, you see, it’s like this: the people as goes to church is the people as goes to chapel; and the people as don’t go to both don’t go anywhere at all. Church and chapel aren’t ever open at the same time, so there’s no rivalry.”

We once told a little girl on St. Agnes we were going to see the church. “Oh, but you must go and see the chapel too,” said she. I fear she would think it mere blind prejudice on my part that I have included views of two churches in this series, and not a single chapel!

Woodley writes that in his day the people would repair to the meeting-house in the morning, to church in the forenoon and afternoon, and again to the meeting in the evening.

Tresco is the only inhabited island on which there is no chapel. For many years the chapel-meetings were held every Sunday afternoon in the Church-room, with the approval of the Bishop of Truro, as well as of Mr. Augustus Smith, the Governor, who gave his consent willingly on condition that those who attended should be regular at Church in the morning and evening. The Plymouth Brethren now meet there in each other’s cottages.

John Wesley visited the islands in 1743. His followers have a large chapel and a resident minister at Hugh Town, and meeting-houses at Old Town and Holy Vale.

The Bible Christians have chapels on St. Mary’s, St. Martin’s, and St. Agnes, and three ministers, who do duty on each island in turn.

VII

STORIES OF THE WRECKS

Scillonians revel in a wreck, just as the soldier loves a battle and the fireman loves a fire. But theirs is a happier case than the soldier’s, for their duty calls them to save life instead of to destroy it.

I remember hearing of a girl near the Land’s End who had been describing a wreck and how she had taken the little babies from the arms of the rescuing seamen, and carried them up the shore, two at a time, to where they could be warmed and cared for. “A wreck is lovely,” said she; “I’d go miles to see one. Of course I’m very sorry for the poor people, but oh, I do love to be there when there’s a wreck!”

Here spake a true daughter of the sea, and the spirit that inspired her is the same that animates the brave fellows who man our life-boats. And it is the spirit of the Scillonians. The love of wrecks is in their island blood. Centuries of wrestling with the sea, and wresting from it the treasures it had stolen or was threatening to steal, have made this a part of their very nature. And how much better that it should be so; that the cry of “A wreck!” instead of inspiring them with horror and paralysing their efforts, should fill them with a kind of fearful joy, and nerve them to work wonders in saving life and property.

There is no need to say that to save human life is always their first consideration. If efforts in this direction are unsuccessful or only partially successful, a gloom falls over the islands, and the salvage-seeking loses much of its zest; but when all lives are saved the joy is unmixed, and no pity is wasted on the insurance companies, who are usually the chief sufferers.

There may or there may not be any truth in the stories that long years ago Scillonians used to show their love of wrecks by doing their best to cause them. Nowadays it is certainly true that they make every effort to prevent one when they get the chance. But it too often happens that the vessel is on the rocks before there is any consciousness of danger or signalling for help.

Now that the great sea-lights encircle the islands, and warn all vessels away from the danger-zone, it is seldom that any wrecks occur except during a continued fog. Fog was the cause of the great disaster in 1707, in which Sir Cloudesley Shovel lost his life, when four ships of the British fleet were wrecked on the western rocks. Fog, again, occasioned the loss of the “Schiller,” the German mail-steamer that struck on the Retarrier Ledges in 1875, and went down, with a death-roll of three hundred and ten. There are many who remember the terrible gloom that hung over the islands at that time, and the making of that sad array of nameless graves in the little burial-ground of Old Church.

And it was fog that caused the wreck of the “Minnehaha,” in April, 1910, when that great Atlantic liner, 600 feet long, and drawing six fathoms of water--the largest vessel that has ever been wrecked at Scilly--struck upon the Scilly rock. She was bound from New York to London, and for three days it had been quite impossible to take observations on account of fog. The look-out was searching eagerly for the “Bishop” light when suddenly rocks loomed up close to the vessel and the next moment she struck. The passengers, awakened by the shock, rushed on deck in great alarm, but being reassured by the captain, they went below again to dress. In a very short time boats arrived from Bryher, and the passengers, who were already in the ship’s boats, were safely piloted to that island, where they were treated with all possible kindness. Provisions ran short, but fresh supplies were fetched from the ship. So little inconvenience did the passengers suffer that some of them declared that the nicest way of arriving in England was to be wrecked! They could not speak highly enough of the way in which they were treated by every one--and of the care that was taken, not only of themselves but of their personal belongings, many of which had been left lying about in their cabins.

This was just the right kind of wreck, from the Scillonian point of view, for not a single life was lost, and there was a tremendous amount of salvage-work to be done in the weeks that followed. For further details I cannot do better than quote some letters I received from a friend who was there all the time.

* * * * *

“ST. MARY’S, _April 18th._

“The gun went last night or very early this morning. Of course I flew out of bed, and if it had not been for my landlady’s nerves I would have flown out of doors. The noise of the gun had hardly ceased to vibrate when men came out of the houses and began to run, and it has puzzled me ever since to know if the Scillonians sleep in their clothes, for they had them on, and how they got into them passes my comprehension.

“The life-boat I heard launched with a cheer about ten minutes after.

“It was a thick fog, and the boat, as you will see by the papers, is the ‘Minnehaha,’ with a crew of 100, 64 passengers, and 300 cattle. She struck on the Scilly Rock, near Bryher; and I believe everybody is safe on Bryher by now. They hope to float the vessel off at full tide. They have wired to Penzance for the ‘Lyonnesse’ to come and fetch the passengers, so I don’t think she will worry about such trifles as our mails to-day.

* * * * *

(_Later the same day._)

“‘Wrecking’ is delightful work. I feel quite capable now of tying a lantern to a cow’s-horn. All morning I have been out in the damp fog, and all St. Mary’s also. The policeman had to _shoo_ the children into the school.

“They are now landing the passengers’ luggage, and a cheer went down the quay on the arrival of a large teddy-bear. The purser of the vessel says they have been in fog three days. They struck just where the cocoanut vessel struck before.

“All the boats rushed across to the wreck this morning, but the captain stood with a pistol in his hand and dared the men to come on board. When the vessel is proclaimed hopeless there _will_ be a rush--thousands of tons of cargo on board, and they are throwing heaps overboard to try and get her off, but the universal prayer is that they won’t, as it will be a harvest for Scilly. All the same, there is much sympathy with the captain.

* * * * *

(_Later still._)

“The passengers have just arrived from Bryher, and considering they were wrecked whilst in their beds, they look intensely respectable. They were chaffing and joking as they came up from the quay. The crew also are here, and sleeping, I think, in the Town Hall. Everybody is half crazy with excitement. Tons of stuff are being thrown overboard, and grand pianos and motor-cars are floating in Hell Bay. (Nice for your sketch!)

* * * * *

“_April 20th._

“Between one hundred and two hundred men have come over from the mainland to help with the salvage, and they are sleeping in the Town Hall, Church Hall, Rechabite Hall, etc. Most of the crew leave to-morrow; the passengers got off yesterday, and will have reached London last night.

“What with the custom-house officers, salvage men, and police it is very difficult to smuggle anything, and so far I have only managed a pencil, not from lack of zeal but from lack of opportunity. Motor-cars and grand pianos are towed in--in cases. I believe a grand piano loose is of a sulky nature when in the sea, and instead of allowing itself to be towed it does its best to settle down comfortably at the bottom, and takes the boat with it if the rope is not quickly cut--at least, that is one experience of which I was told. The boats arrive laden with everything under the sun--clocks, and food, and anti-pain tablets, squirts, dress-lengths, wheels, typewriters, sewing-machines, phonographs, boxes of jewellery, boxes of oranges, barrels of apples, pencils, meat-skewers, and lots of tobacco and cigarettes. The policeman is kept quite busy trying to puzzle out the contents of the different boxes. One lady has lost a £1,500 motor-car. They say the value of the cargo is greater than that of all Scilly and Penzance put together. It is all insured, but unfortunately the vessel is not.

“The cattle are on Samson. The poor dears had to leap off the wreck into the water--a height as great as from the top of the church tower. To-day one could see the vessel quite well from here; it was not so foggy. I am hoping to get out to her soon, but it would mean paying pounds at present, as the men are all so busy.

“I think most of the boys have been bad from smuggled cigarettes, and everybody is having a fine time.

* * * * *

“_April 26th._

“I have just come in from the wreck; we went to Bryher this afternoon. The ‘Minnehaha’ is this side of the Scilly Rock, resting on a plateau of rock not far from Hell Bay. She does not look a bit as if she were wrecked. I believe they are putting bags of air under her in hopes of raising her to float her off on some high tide. The divers are at work, but many do not expect to get her off unless they cut her in halves. One diver landed on an old wreck--one that had struck on Scilly some time ago.

“There is indignation amongst the men, as they have only been offered £2 a head for the cattle they saved, and last time they had £5; and they say these are larger and were more difficult to save.

“Wrecking is still the only topic with everybody. The goods are now being taken out of the stores and shipped to London. There were twenty-six carts working on Saturday, and they stretched from the Post Office to the quay. Fifty tons of coffee was only one little item of salvage amongst many others.”

Later came the welcome news that the “Minnehaha” had been successfully floated off. The rock was cleverly blasted away from inside of her, and with the help of several tugs she got clear away. Finally, with the pumps going all the time, she was able to make the journey to Falmouth by her own steam-power.

Quite another kind of wreck was that of the “Thomas W. Lawson,” which occurred at Christmas-time in 1907, and made a great and painful sensation in the islands. She was a seven-masted sailing-vessel, one of the largest in the world. Her sails were named after the seven days of the week; they were worked by electricity, and could all be set in three minutes. Her anchor was also raised and lowered by electricity. She was bound for London from Boston, and carried a cargo of oil, many thousands of gallons of oil, in tanks.

There was a heavy gale blowing, and she signalled for a pilot to bring her into harbour. Pilot Hicks on St. Agnes was busy planting potatoes, but he threw down his spade at once, and went aboard of her. She was then out beyond Annet amongst the western rocks. A graphic description of what followed was given to us by an islander:--

“We stood at the door and watched her; we could see her lights still in the same place when we went to bed between ten and eleven o’clock, but in the morning she was gone. It is supposed she dragged her anchor in the night, or that the heavy seas broke both the anchor-chains. St. Mary’s life-boat had been out to her, but their mast was broken, so they went back to repair it. Otherwise they would have stayed by her all night, and would probably have sunk with her when she went down. It was agreed that a flare should be sent up from the vessel if help was wanted from St. Agnes during the night, but no signal came. The gale increased in fury, and the vessel went down, and the pilot and nearly all on board were drowned.

“When she was knocked to pieces on the rocks, the tanks of oil escaped from her hold and burst open. The oil floated upon the waves; we could see it washing up here on the shore. At first we could not think what it was--it made the water look black; but soon we learnt from the smell--in fact, we were almost driven away by the smell. They say if it had caught fire it would have cleared the islands, it would have been like a sea of fire, and the smoke would have suffocated all the islanders. As it was, many of the rabbits and birds on Annet were killed by the oil, and lay dead upon the shore.

“It was a horrible time. Everything seemed to reek of the oil. The very spray on the windows ran down in oily blue streaks for long after, and even now, when eighteen months have passed, we can still smell it at times.”

The pilot’s son went off in a boat with some hope of finding his father, and then swam through the boiling surf with a rope round him and succeeded in rescuing two men, the captain and the engineer. They had been washed all along the west coast of Annet to Hellweathers, where they were picked up. A third man was saved, but he lost his reason and died. All of them were simply saturated with the oil, besides being terribly beaten about, and with limbs broken.

The pilot’s son had two magnificent gold watches sent him from America--one from the President of the United States, and the other from the owners of the vessel; and he was also awarded a silver medal for his bravery.

Sometimes great risks are run in doing salvage work. In August, 1909, there was a thick sea-fog, which lasted from Friday night to Sunday morning, and stopped the “Lyonnesse” from sailing. A grain-boat lost her bearings and struck on Lethegus’ Ledge, off St. Agnes. The crew were all saved; but a man and a boy from Hugh Town who were at work on the cargo went down with the vessel when, without warning, she sank. If she had lasted a little longer, forty or fifty islanders would have been occupied in saving the bags of grain, and must infallibly have been drowned. This tragedy attached a sad import to the notice which was posted up on the warehouses for weeks afterwards--“Maize for sale.”

VIII

ANNET AND THE SEA-BIRDS

The sea-birds are everywhere in Scilly. All the year round the gulls fill the air with their cries, and cormorants and shags skim the water and dive beneath its surface.

No “Scilly-scape,” if I may use the word, seems complete without a few gulls. We see them circling and wheeling high above us; dropping, suddenly, to rest upon the dancing waves; chasing each other in turn from the tops of the chimneys; sitting in rows on the ridges of the roofs; quarrelling for fish over St. Mary’s Pool; following the plough or harrow in greedy quest of worms; or standing stock-still on the rocks or sands, at equal distances from each other, and all primly facing the same way.

Herring-gulls, black-headed, and great and lesser black-backed are all plentiful.

The black-backed gulls are fierce and savage fellows. They will carry off young guillemots and kittiwakes in their powerful beaks when the parent-bird is out of the way, and kill and eat them; and they are ruthless robbers of eggs.

The great cormorant, or sea-crow (from the French of which latter name, “corbeau marin,” his ordinary name is taken) is not so common in Scilly as the smaller kind, the green or crested cormorant, or shag.

Shags may be seen in great numbers round the islands, swimming so low in the water that they look only like the tops of walking-sticks above the waves; and propelling their thin and keel-shaped bodies forward by using their wings as oars. Suddenly they disappear head first into the water, reappearing after what seems a very long time, in quite a different direction, and some distance away.

All cormorants are voracious (is not their very name a by-word for greed?), and they consume great quantities of fish, so they are no friend to the fisherman.

Shags are amongst the earliest breeders, and they are worth watching during their love-making, rubbing their snaky heads together and performing strange, ungainly antics. They make rough, untidy nests, with three or four eggs, on many of the uninhabited islands. If you go near them when they are sitting on their eggs, they will hiss at you like geese.

[ Illustration: A SHAG PARLIAMENT]

In spring tens of thousands of visitors arrive in flocks, for the breeding-season--puffins, Manx shearwaters, guillemots, razor-bills, terns, storm-petrels, and many non-resident gulls.

The island of Annet (_i.e._, Little Agnes) is the largest breeding-ground. It is a low-lying, sandy tract, serpentine in shape, rising towards the north to a height of sixty feet, and surrounded by dangerous rocks. It is covered with bracken and tufts of the sea-thrift, which latter is in full flower during the breeding-season, making a bright pink background for the white and black plumage of the birds.

Annet is known by the name of “Bird Island,” from the immense numbers that breed there. In the early summer the sea all round is black with puffins and razor-bills, their white breasts being hardly noticeable as they sit on the surface of the water; and the air above is dark with clouds of gulls, and full of their ceaseless cry. Puffins (also called sea-parrots) have bred on the islands from time immemorial. An old name for them was “Coulter-neb,” from the peculiar shape of their beaks, which were thought to resemble the coulter of a plough.

They were formerly much esteemed for food, chiefly pickled and salted, because by this means their rank and fishy flavour was disguised; and one imagines the three hundred puffins payable at Michaelmas for the rent of the islands in the time of Edward I. must have been destined for treating in this way rather than for eating fresh.

William of Worcester, writing in 1478, records the presence of “pophyns” on Rascow (_i.e._, Tresco); and Richard Carew (1602) says: “The Puffyn hatcheth in holes of the cliffe, whose young ones are thence ferreted out, being exceedingly fat, kept salted, and reputed for fish, as comming nearest thereto in their taste.”

Their flesh used to be allowed by the Church on Lenten days.

It is a most ludicrous-looking bird during the breeding season, for then its beak becomes enlarged to double its usual depth, quite out of proportion to the dimensions of its owner. And not only is the size of the beak remarkable, but it is gorgeously coloured with carmine, blue-grey, and yellow; so that for a bird which carries a sober yellow-brown beak all the winter it must be almost embarrassing to appear in such a garish guise! The legs are a bright orange-red, a ring of carmine encircles the eye, and altogether, with his black coat and white waistcoat, he presents a very striking appearance.

The puffin is entirely an oceanic bird, only coming to land to breed. It lays its solitary egg at the end of a long burrow dug in the sand or peat. The isle of Annet is simply honeycombed with these burrows, so that it is impossible to walk even a few steps without finding the ground give way beneath one’s feet, and sinking, sometimes knee-deep, into the soft soil. The springy tufts of sea-pink which cover the island offer more resistance and a firmer foothold than the sandy earth.

By the end of April the birds are busy digging a new hole with their sharp nails, or overhauling that of the previous year. In making the hole they throw themselves upon their backs, and with their bills and claws burrow inwards, until they have made a hole perhaps eight to ten feet long, and sometimes with several windings and turnings.

A week or ten days after the hole is ready a single round white egg is laid. Both birds assist in digging the burrow, and also in hatching, which takes about a month. Sometimes a forsaken rabbit-hole will save the pair the labour of digging out a habitation for themselves; and occasionally, where a spot between three stones has been carefully chosen for excavation, one may see a lintel and door-jambs of granite forming the entrance into the burrow! Puffins and Manx shearwaters will sometimes share the same hole; or they will have a common entrance with passages branching out in several directions, as in some of our “desirable residential flats.”

They feed their young on the fry of certain fish, and are particularly fond of the lance, or sand-eel. The parent bird may be seen returning to the burrow, with numbers of small fish hanging from its bill. How it could retain its hold of, say, the first nine caught while capturing the tenth used to be a subject for wondering conjecture: but an examination of the inside of the beak has shown an arrangement of barbed hooks projecting backwards, on which each fish is speared as it is caught. The discovery of this wonderful provision of Nature is due to Mr. C. J. King of St. Mary’s.

Visitors are only allowed to stay an hour at a time on Annet during the breeding season, out of consideration for the birds; and the Governor strictly forbids the shooting of the birds or the taking of their eggs. If, in defiance of this or out of curiosity, you thrust your hand into one of the burrows, you will very likely get a piece bitten out of it, and it will serve you right!

The shearwater becomes very eloquent when disturbed in its hole, and pours forth guttural melodies, the sounds of which are imitated in the nicknames of “Cockathodan” and “Crew,” bestowed upon it by Scillonians. Goldsmith compares the disagreeable sound they make when taken to “the efforts of a dumb person attempting to speak.” This bird is largely nocturnal in its habits, resting or sleeping on the water during a part of the day, and fishing chiefly at night.

The guillemot breeds on several of the rocky islands, Gorregan and Mincarlo among the number. It lays its large and beautiful egg on narrow ledges of the bare rock, without any sort of protection, so that it soon gets dirty and can sometimes hardly be distinguished from a lump of clay. But for the long and pointed shape of the egg, which causes it to roll round in a circle when disturbed, it would probably never remain on the ledge long enough to be hatched; for if it were round, like puffins’ eggs, at the slightest touch it would roll over into the sea beneath. The colour of the egg varies very greatly; it is dark blue, a lighter or greenish blue, white, or even claret colour, but always covered with black spots and markings.

The graceful terns, or sea-swallows, visit Scilly in great numbers in the spring, as also do the razor-bills (otherwise known as the common or black auk). The latter may be seen sitting in rows on the rocks in company with puffins and shags. The ledges of rock rising one above another, and the birds sitting on them, have been compared to the shelves and pots of a chemist’s shop. Like the puffin and the storm-petrel, razor-bills rarely leave the sea except for breeding.

The storm-petrel is a visitor in Scilly, and may be seen there “walking on the water” in the strange way peculiar to it; and on account of this habit it is supposed to derive its name from that of the Apostle Peter.

The scarlet-legged oyster-catcher, or “sea-pie,” makes Annet its breeding-ground; as also do many of the terns. The oyster-catcher’s eggs are laid on the loose shingle, and from their close resemblance to the rounded pebbles of the seashore they are not easily noticed, even if you search carefully for them.

Any one who has not before had the opportunity of seeing a breeding-ground of the sea-birds will find a visit to Annet in the early summer quite a revelation, for no imagination could picture these myriads of birds, darkening the air with their wings, as they wheel and hover, screaming, over their temporary home.

IX

ST. MARY’S

When you come to Scilly you naturally land first upon St. Mary’s Island, for there is the quay, where the steamer from England unloads her passengers and cargo.

You may or you may not on first arriving feel capable of appreciating the picturesqueness of the stone walls and gateway of the quay, with Star Castle appearing on the hill behind; but through this gateway you must pass in order to enter the town. The pier now in use has only been built just over seventy years, and was lengthened twenty years ago; yet already again the sand is silting up against it, and making it less serviceable.

From the pier you can see the houses of Hugh Town stretching in a long line round the curve of St. Mary’s Pool, the back walls of many of them rising straight out of the sea, if it happens to be high-water of a spring-tide.

This Hugh Town on St. Mary’s Island is the metropolis, port, and shopping centre of the little archipelago, and, generally speaking, the hub of the Scillonian universe. Formerly the presence of the fort behind it gave it yet another kind of importance, and made it the centre of the military as well as of the civil life. It is built chiefly on the narrow sandy neck which unites the promontory of the “Heugh” or “Hugh” (now better known as Garrison Hill) to the rest of the island.

Over and over again the prophets of evil have foretold that one day there would come some big sea and wash the little town away. Several times in days gone by the sea has entered the houses, carrying off the furniture, and driving the inhabitants to the upper floors; the waves have even swept across the isthmus from Porth Cressa to St. Mary’s Pool; but the banks have been raised since then, so still the little town stands, and the inhabitants seem to entertain no fears for their safety. The houses were built when the people feared foreign foes more than they feared the sea, so they clustered close under the shelter of Garrison Hill and Star Castle that crowns it.

The formation of Hugh Town is of necessity strictly determined by the shape of the land on which it is built. There is a group of houses just under Garrison Hill; and then a narrow, winding street runs the length of the sandy strip between the two bays, with a few short branch-streets where there happens to be room. As the isthmus widens out to join the main island the principal street also widens and divides into two branches, one of which soon ends in the country road leading to “Old Town” (of which more anon), and the other follows for a short distance the curve of St. Mary’s Pool, but also soon becomes a country road, and leads into the heart of the island.

It has been suggested that the Hugh, which gives its name to the town, was once, like Plymouth Hoe, the station for the “huer,” who stands on high places to indicate to fishermen by a particular “hue” or cry the approach and direction of shoals of fish; and that the Gugh, a similar promontory connected with St. Agnes, is a corruption of the same word.

* * * * *

At the fork of the main street there is an open space known as “The Parade,” because it was there that the soldiers used to drill. When the garrison no longer existed this space was used as a dumping-ground for salvage from wrecks, and for years it looked like an untidy shipwright’s yard, with all manner of appurtenances and portions of ships laid out to be sold by auction. In the houses on all the islands you may often come across relics of the wrecks; perhaps a lock from a cabin-door, or even a whole door; and sometimes the partition between two rooms will show clear signs of a nautical origin. “The inhabitants,” says Lieutenant Heath, “have wreck-furniture of various kinds sent them by the hand of Providence.”

Now the centre of the Parade is a grass-plot, surrounded by shrubs and beds of flowers, and is dignified by the name of “The Park.”

Nearly all the houses in Scilly are built of the grey granite of which the islands are formed. They are generally roofed with tiles or slate, to which a hoary appearance is given by the addition of a coat of cement as an extra protection against the weather. The old way of roofing was with thatch, tied on with ropes, crossed in a chessboard pattern and fastened to iron or wooden pegs driven into the chinks of the stone walls a little way below the eaves. This was necessary to keep the roof from being blown away. Still here and there in Hugh Town, and more frequently in Old Town and on the off-islands, these picturesque thatched cottages are to be seen.

Duke Cosmo, to whom a thatched roof was quite unknown in his native Italy, was much impressed by those he saw in Scilly, but he altogether misunderstood their construction! He says: “The house-roofs are nothing but a simple mat, spread over the rafters, drawn tight all round, and fixed firmly to the top of the walls.”

On one of the off-islands there is a very primitive device for weighting down the slate roof of a chapel by the sea--just a stout rope thrown across the ridge, and tied at each end to a large mass of granite on the ground, with sods placed underneath the rope at the sharp edges to prevent its being cut.

It is said that formerly the houses of Hugh Town were built of turf with thatched roofs; but once in the summer, when all the men were out at sea, a fire broke out and the town was burned to the ground; so since then the houses have been built of stone.

The streets of Hugh Town are lighted with oil lamps, for which the necessary funds were partly raised by means of a concert. The inhabitants paid for music, and they got illumination into the bargain! These lamps are not burned in the wasteful way to which we are accustomed in London and elsewhere. I asked a Scillonian, half in fun, whether they _always_ kept their lamps alight as late as half-past nine. He replied in sober earnest: “Oh no, only if there is no moon; and on clear moonlight evenings we do not light them at all.”

But though the lights are put out early, the lamp-lighter is (to use a mixed metaphor) no cut-and-dried automaton, bound with red tape, and devoid of human feelings. If he sees you returning home as he goes his round, he will wait to see you safely indoors before letting the velvet dark drop down like a veil over the streets.

Not far from the quay a steep little hill bordered by trees leads up to the Garrison, which is entered through a strong stone gateway. Above it hangs a bell, used formerly when there was no public clock, to announce the time of day. There is a tablet beneath the bell with the inscription “G.R. 1742. F.G.” Lower down are two larger initials, “A.T.,” those of Abraham Tovey, the master-gunner, under whose direction the works were constructed, and who, being the “man on the spot,” saw to it that his memory should be kept green by letters of a larger size than those which commemorated the King and the Governor.

Star Castle, on the top of Garrison Hill, is not a very imposing building. Its name, which used to be “Stella Mariæ” (Star of Mary), is derived from the star-like plan of its projecting bastions, which surround a dwelling-house with corresponding projections. The walls are loopholed for musketry at every possible point, ninety-six loopholes altogether. Above the entrance are the initials of Queen Elizabeth, “E.R.,” and the date, “1593,” when the Castle was built.

Prisoners from the mainland have been confined here from time to time; Dr. Bastwick, of Colchester, in 1637, by order of the Star Chamber, for writing against the Church and Government; in 1655 John Biddle, the Unitarian, was sent to Scilly by Cromwell to keep him out of the way of his persecutors, and allowed a pension of 10s. a week; and in 1681 seven “Popish priests” were removed thither from Newgate.

It is a very beautiful walk round Garrison Hill--a walk of which one can never tire. Heath compares it to “the Mall at St. James’s, where people walk for health and amusement”; but to the Nature-lover the Mall is dull indeed compared with Garrison Hill. The circuit can easily be made in half an hour, for the distance is not more than a mile and a half; and yet in that short time a sight of nearly all the islands, and a good idea of their relative position, can be obtained.

From the north one looks down on St. Mary’s Pool, full of brown-sailed fishing-boats in the early summer, and never without a sprinkling of craft, large or small, upon its bosom. Beyond the Pool, to the right, may be seen the country-side of St. Mary’s, and following on, one after the other from east to west, St. Martin’s Isle; Tean; St. Helen’s, with the lighthouse tower of Round Island showing over its head; the wooded slopes of Tresco, and Cromwell’s Castle low down on its western shore, clearly visible across three miles of sea; green, hilly little Bryher; and the twin peaks of Samson.

As one bears round to the west and south-west, there are St. Agnes, and Annet, and the grim rocks of the western archipelago, with the white foam ever, even in the calmest weather, playing round their feet, and flying over their heads. On clear days the waves may be seen leaping up the slender shaft of the Bishop Lighthouse, more than five miles away.

On the south there is the illimitable ocean; and as the east side is reached there come into sight, first the rocky head of Peninnis, and then the curve of Porth Cressa, overlooked by Buzza Hill and the ruined windmill that crowns it. A little farther on, and the massive walls of the Garrison reach their highest, and are draped and curtained with mesembryanthemum; while beneath their shelter there are orchards full of fruit-trees, carpeted with daffodils; and one can see the columns of blue smoke rising from the chimneys of Hugh Town, which lies below.

In making the circuit of the hill we have kept our eyes fixed seaward all the way; but if we turn towards the hill itself we see that almost everywhere it is afire with gorse: and sorely it tempts me to tell again the oft-told tale of Linnæus and Putney Hill!

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.”

It is only since the latter part of the sixteenth century that Hugh Town has become the capital of the islands. Before that time there was another town whose houses clustered round the Castle of Ennor, a mile away from the present capital. The village that now remains is known as Old Town, and the bay on which it stands as Old Town Bay.

There is a tradition that when Old Town was the chief town of St. Mary’s, and when the chief landing-place of the island was in this bay, the monks levied a toll on all persons landing, and a chain was stretched across from Tolman Head to bar their entrance until the toll had been paid.

Great complaints were made to Richard, Earl of Cornwall, of the burden of this charge, which was levied even on priests and pilgrims, and on every fisherman when he came in with his catch. In answer to these complaints the Earl came himself, disguised as a pilgrim; and being refused entrance, he leaped over the chain, and in the heat of his anger struck the Prior who had thwarted him a mortal blow. The old priest with his last breath called down vengeance on his murderer, and to this curse was attributed the gradual decay of Old Town and its castle.

A portion of the old church near Old Town is still standing, but it now serves chiefly as a mortuary chapel. It dates from very early times, for there is a Norman arch at one end; and it was used, although sadly in want of repair, until a new church was built in Hugh Town in 1838. This little churchyard by the blue waters of Old Town Bay is still the burial-ground of St. Mary’s, and contains sad memorials of many wrecks. The graves are overshadowed by dracæna palm-trees, and round them grow aloes and euonymus-shrubs, all symbols by their evergreenness of the immortality of the soul; while the elm-trees which look so dead and lifeless now, but which will soon burst into fresh life at the touch of Spring, remind us of the old story which is ever new, and speak to us of the hope of resurrection.

Of the Castle of Ennor, which was built probably by the Earls of Cornwall under the Norman kings, and where, as we know, Ranulph de Blankminster lived six hundred years ago, scarce one stone is left upon another. 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. On the north and west the approach would be impossible, for there a mass of solid granite rises boldly from the plain below.

When Leland visited the islands, somewhere about 1539, this castle was a “moderately strong pile,” but it is said that many of the stones were carried away for the building of Star Castle, later in the same century. Now the pile of rocks, and the slopes leading up to the rocks, are all covered with vegetation, beds of narcissi and daffodils, sheltered by veronica hedges, and large patches of carnations, not yet in flower; while mesembryanthemum ramps all over the place, covering nearly every bit of wall and uncultivated ground, and pouring itself down in thick cascades of green from the topmost summit of the Castle Rocks.

From half-way up can be seen, spread out beneath, field upon field of yellow daffodils, stretching away across the island almost as far as to Porth Mellin; and beyond the streak of blue sea are the twin hills of Samson.

It is very quiet and peaceful up here, and yet if one sets oneself to listen, numberless sounds may be heard, so many that it is difficult to disentangle them.

There is the gentle plash of the waves on the sands of Old Town Bay behind; the shrill cry of the gulls, sounding for all the world like the clamour of children let loose from school; the distant panting of the fussy little motor-boat which takes the trawlers out to sea; the lowing of cattle in the neighbouring farmyard, with pigs and poultry joining in the chorus; the twitter and rustle of birds in the veronica hedge; the liquid love-song of a thrush as he puts the important question, ”_Will_ you, _will_ you, _will_ you?” and answers it himself with a sudden change of note, “She _will_, she _will_, she _will_.” And lying beneath and all around all other sounds are the myriad gentle murmurs of the Spring, that wondrous stirring and pulsation of life which can be felt but cannot be defined. And now a human note breaks in upon the rest. From a cottage near by there rises the song of a little girl, mingling with the clatter of cups and saucers as she washes up the breakfast-things, because mother is busy in the tying-shed.

“With smiles of peace and looks of love
Light in our dwellings we may make,”

shrills the childish voice; and so on through every verse to the end, till she finishes with a quaintly quavering and long-drawn-out, “A-a-amen.”

There is a very human legend which connects this old Castle with the convent that is said to have stood in Holy Vale.

The story runs that the Earl of Cornwall once had a young and beautiful ward, whom he kept shut up in the Castle of Ennor in charge of an ancient duenna. No one knew who the lovely girl was, but she was thought to be of noble birth.

There was a page in attendance at the Castle; and it is not to be wondered at if the hearts of this young pair, isolated as they were from others of their age and station, were drawn together by a mutual attraction.

Signs of this did not escape the lynx-eyes of the ancient dame, and she straightway sent a message to the Earl in Cornwall by the hands of the page, who little knew that he was the bearer of that which sealed his own fate and that of her he loved. He was detained on the mainland, and made an esquire in the Earl’s following, while she was ordered to be sent at once to the convent of Holy Vale.

She remained sad and silent during the year of her novitiate, taking interest in nothing except the tending of a rose-bush, which she made her special care. When the time came for her to take the vows, she mysteriously disappeared from the chapel where she was keeping midnight vigil, and was seen no more until, many years later, she was found in that same chapel, lying dead before the altar, with no sign of age upon her pure face, and with a cluster of roses in her bosom.

Her lover is said to have been killed in battle many years before.

There is still a rose-tree growing up between the stones at Holy Vale, which the children used to look upon as the bush of Sister Mary.

There are no remains of the convent at Holy Vale, and there is only tradition to tell us that it ever existed. Whitfeld, writing in 1852, does indeed speak of the top of a freestone arch which he saw there, covering the entrance of a pig-sty, and which he supposes to have been a relic of the ancient monastic buildings. It is a beautiful sheltered spot, the most sheltered in the island, hidden away in a hollow, and surrounded by tall trees. Two farm-houses lie close together in the valley, near to a pond of fresh water under the trees; and on every side there are the fields of flowers, now the chief produce of the farms.

One of the pioneers of the flower industry, Mr. Mumford, used to live at Holy Vale.

The other, Mr. William Trevellick, lived at Rocky Hill on St. Mary’s until his death, in 1910, and was always ready to show his beautiful gardens to any one who wished to see them. Rows of palm-trees grow along the hedges at Rocky Hill, and form the boundary lines. “Look well at this,” Mr. Trevellick used to say. “It is not often that you will see in the British Isles a field surrounded by palm-trees.” He dearly loved his garden, and spent most of his time there. The robins knew him so well that even in summer-time at his call of “Dick, Dick” they would come and eat from his hand the food he kept ready for them in his capacious pockets.

Mr. Trevellick was also keenly interested in antiquities, and had collected at Rocky Hill a number of relics of the past of every description--ancient stone querns, quaint gaily-coloured figureheads from wrecks, Parliamentary cannon-balls, and a Druid trysting-stone, through the hole in which lovers used to clasp their hands when they plighted their troth. This last is in two halves, both of which had been built into a stone hedge; the second half was not discovered till many years after the first, and if you know anything of antiquarians, you can picture the joy with which its discovery was hailed! It was a day’s work to pull down the stone hedge, to secure the treasure, and then to build the wall up as before.

It was always a matter of great interest to Mr. Trevellick that an old Roman road runs through the Rocky Hill gardens, the large, evenly laid paving-stones showing very few signs of their age.

St. Mary’s Island is supposed to be nine miles round, but I would defy any one to restrict his first walk round it to nine miles. One is sure to be decoyed into many a By-path Meadow--but not of the kind in which there lurks a Giant Despair!

For beauty-spots are to be found in such plenty on St. Mary’s that it would be impossible to name them all. I have already spoken of the gorse-covered Garrison Hill, which is itself a little nest of beauty-spots. So in its way is Peninnis, “head of the island,” that wild and rugged peninsula which juts out between Porth Cressa and the Old Town Bay, and is sometimes thought to be the most beautiful part of St. Mary’s. It is strewn and scattered all along its coast with rocks and boulders of immense size, and of endless variety of form. I have already referred to two of these, which go by the names of the Pulpit and the Tooth. Close to the Tooth, on the head of Peninnis, there rises from the sea a huge rock, which is known as the Monk’s Cowl, from the fancied resemblance of the summit to a hooded head. From this point there is one of the finest views of the many-coloured rocks, covered here and there with shaggy grey-green lichen, standing boldly out of the sea or tumbled about in every direction, and with the little island of St. Agnes bordering the horizon. During a big storm the waves will dash right over the top of the Monk’s Cowl, and will swish along the top of the down behind it, before retreating in cascades of foam.

Not far away, hidden amongst a mass of other rocks, is the largest logan-stone in Scilly, which is estimated to weigh 313-1/2 tons. It is at least 15 feet high, and forms one side of a cavity, known as “Sleep’s Abode.” It can easily be rocked by two or three persons together, but was only discovered to be a logan-stone in 1893, when a man who was leaning against it in a high gale, felt it moving gently to and fro beneath him.

A small iron lighthouse has recently been erected on Peninnis, to take the place of the St. Agnes Tower, which has been declared superannuated.

The rugged coast-line of Peninnis may be followed, past the Pulpit Rock, to where the ground slopes down towards the Old Town Bay, on the shores of which will be seen the old church, partly hidden in palm-trees.

There are many other spots on St. Mary’s which are well worth a visit. There is the beautiful, peaceful bay known as Porth Hellick, almost closed across its mouth by a reef of rocks, so that when the sea is raging without it may be quite calm in the bay. But peaceful as it looks, it has now and again seen some sad sights.

It was here that the body of Sir Cloudesley Shovel was washed up, and found, but not recognised, by a soldier and his wife, who gave the great Admiral a nameless grave in the sand of the seashore. Later the body was dug up, and identified by means of a ring on one finger; and now it is buried, as all the world knows, in Westminster Abbey. But it is said that the hollow in the sand would never fill up, and the grass would never grow again over the place where the grave had been. Within recent years two blocks of quartz have been placed to mark the spot.