Mount Royal: A Novel. Volume 1 of 3

"I believe that is geographically – or geometrically impossible," said Angus laughing; "but pray go on."

"The light was often mistaken for a beacon, and the ships came ashore and were wrecked on the rocks."

"Naturally – and no doubt the monks improved the occasion. Why should a Cornish monk be better than his countrymen? 'One and all' is your motto."

"They were not Cornish monks," answered Christabel, "but a brotherhood of French monks from the monastery of St. Sergius, at Angers. They were established in a Priory here by William de Bottreaux, in the reign of Richard, Cœur de Lion; and, according to tradition, the townspeople resented their having built the church so far from the town. I feel sure the monks could have had no evil intention in burning a light; but one night a crew of wild sailors attacked the tower, and pulled the greater part of it down."

"And nobody in Boscastle has had public spirit enough to get it set up again. Where is your respect for those early Christian martyrs, St. Sergius and St. Bacchus, to whose memory your temple is dedicated?"

"I don't suppose it was so much want of respect for the martyrs as want of money," suggested Miss Bridgeman. "We have too many chapel people in Boscastle for our churches to be enriched or beautified. But Minster is not a bad little church after all."

"It is the dearest, sweetest, most innocent little church I ever knelt in," answered Angus; "and if I could but assist at one particular service there – "

He checked himself with a sigh; but this unfinished speech amounted in Miss Bridgeman's mind to a declaration. She stole a look at Christabel, whose fair face crimsoned for a moment or so, only to grow more purely pale afterwards.

They went into the church, and joined devoutly in the brief Saint's Day service. The congregation was not numerous. Two or three village goodies – the school children – a tourist, who had come to see the church, and found himself, as it were, entangled in saintly meshes – the lady who played the harmonium, and the incumbent who read prayers. These were all, besides the party from Mount Royal. There are plenty of people in country parishes who will be as pious as you please on Sunday, deeming three services not too much for their devotion, but who can hardly be persuaded to turn out of the beaten track of week-day life to offer homage to the memory of Evangelist or Apostle.

The pony-carriage was waiting in the lane when Mr. Hamleigh and the two ladies came out of the porch. Christabel and the gentleman looked at the equipage doubtfully.

"You slandered me, Miss Bridgeman, by your suggestion that I should be done up after a mile or so across the hills," said Mr. Hamleigh; "I never felt fresher in my life. Have you a hankering for the ribbons?" to Christabel; "or will you send your pony back to his stable and walk home?"

"I would ever so much rather walk."

"And so would I."

"In that case, if you don't mind, I think I'll go home with Felix," said Jessie Bridgeman, most unexpectedly. "I am not feeling quite myself to-day, and the walk has tired me. You won't mind going home alone with Mr. Hamleigh, will you, Christabel? You might show him the seals in Pentargon Bay."

What could Christabel do? If there had been anything in the way of an earthquake handy, she would have felt deeply grateful for a sudden rift in the surface of the soil, which would have allowed her to slip into the bosom of the hills, among the gnomes and the pixies. That Cornish coast was undermined with caverns, yet there was not one for her to drop into. Again, Jessie Bridgeman spoke in such an easy off-hand manner, as if it were the most natural thing in the world for Christabel and Mr. Hamleigh to be allowed a lonely ramble. To have refused, or even hesitated, would have seemed affectation, mock-modesty, self-consciousness. Yet Christabel almost involuntarily made a step towards the carriage.

"I think I had better drive," she said; "Aunt Diana will be wanting me."

"No, she won't," replied Jessie, resolutely. "And you shall not make a martyr of yourself for my sake. I know you love that walk over the hill, and Mr. Hamleigh is dying to see Pentargon Bay – "

"Positively expiring by inches; only it is one of those easy deaths that does not hurt one very much," said Angus, helping Miss Bridgeman into her seat, giving her the reins, and arranging the rug over her knees with absolute tenderness.

"Take care of Felix," pleaded Christabel; "and if you trot down the hills trot fast."

"I shall walk him every inch of the way. The responsibility would be too terrible otherwise."

But Felix had his own mind in the matter, and had no intention of walking when the way he went carried him towards his stable. So he trotted briskly up the lane, between tall, tangled blackberry hedges, leaving Christabel and Angus standing at the churchyard gate. The rest of the little congregation had dispersed; the church door had been locked; there was a gravedigger at work in the garden-like churchyard, amidst long grasses and fallen leaves, and the unchanged ferns and mosses of the bygone summer.

Mr. Hamleigh had scarcely concealed his delight at Miss Bridgeman's departure, yet, now that she was gone, he looked passing sad. Never a word did he speak, as they two stood idly at the gate, listening to the dull thud of the earth which the gravedigger threw out of his shovel on to the grass, and the shrill sweet song of a robin, piping to himself on a ragged thornbush near at hand, as if in an ecstasy of gladness about things in general. One sound so fraught with melancholy, the other so full of joy! The contrast struck sharply on Christabel's nerves, to-day at their utmost tension, and brought sudden tears in her eyes.

They stood for perhaps five minutes in this dreamy silence, the robin piping all the while; and then Mr. Hamleigh roused himself, seemingly with an effort.

"Are you going to show me the seals at Pentargon?" he asked, smilingly.

"I don't know about seals – there is a local idea that seals are to be seen playing about in the bay; but one is not often so lucky as to find them there. People have been very cruel in killing them, and I'm afraid there are very few seals left on our coast now."

"At any rate, you can show me Pentargon, if you are not tired."

"Tired!" cried Christabel, laughing at such a ridiculous idea, being a damsel to whom ten miles were less than three to a town-bred young lady. Embarrassed though she felt by being left alone with Mr. Hamleigh, she could not even pretend that the proposed walk was too much for her.

"I shall be very glad to take you to Pentargon," she said, "it is hardly a mile out of our way; but I fear you'll be disappointed; there is really nothing particular to see."

"I shall not be disappointed – I shall be deeply grateful."

They walked along the narrow hill-side paths, where it was almost impossible for two to walk abreast; yet Angus contrived somehow to be at Christabel's side, guiding and guarding her by ways which were so much more familiar to her than to him, that there was a touch of humour in this pretence of protection. But Christabel did not see things in their humorous aspect to-day. Her little hand trembled as it touched Angus Hamleigh's, when he led her across a craggy bit of path, or over a tiny water-pool. At the stiles in the valley on the other side of the bridge, which are civilized stiles, and by no means difficult, Christabel was too quick and light of foot to give any opportunity for that assistance which her companion was so eager to afford. And now they were in the depths of the valley, and had to mount another hill, on the road to Bude, till they came to a field-gate, above which appeared a sign-board, and the mystic words, "To Pentargon."

"What is Pentargon, that they put up its name in such big letters?" asked Mr. Hamleigh, staring at the board. "Is it a borough town – or a cattle market – or a cathedral city – or what? They seem tremendously proud of it."

"It is nothing – or only a shallow bay, with a waterfall and a wonderful cave, which I am always longing to explore. I believe it is nearly as beautiful as the cavern in Shelley's 'Alastor.' But you will see what Pentargon is like in less than five minutes."

They crossed a ploughed field, and then, by a big five-barred gate, entered the magic region which was said to be the paradise of seals. A narrow walk cut in a steep and rocky bank, where the gorse and heather grew luxuriantly above slate and spar, described a shallow semicircle round one of the loveliest bays in the world – a spot so exquisitely tranquil in this calm autumn weather, so guarded and fenced in by the massive headlands that jutted out towards the main – a peaceful haven, seemingly so remote from that outer world to which belonged yonder white-winged ship on the verge of the blue – that Angus Hamleigh exclaimed involuntarily, —

"Here is peace! Surely this must be a bay in that Lotus land which Tennyson has painted for us!"

Hitherto their conversation had been desultory – mere fragmentary talk about the landscape and the loveliness of the autumn day, with its clear bright sky and soft west wind. They had been always in motion, and there had been a certain adventurousness in the way that seemed to give occupation to their thoughts. But now Mr. Hamleigh came to a dead stop, and stood looking at the rugged amphitheatre, and the low weedy rocks washed smooth by the sea.

"Would you mind sitting down for a few minutes?" he asked; "this Pentargon of yours is a lovely spot, and I don't want to leave it instantly. I have a very slow appreciation of Nature. It takes me a long time to grasp her beauties."

Christabel seated herself on the bank which he had selected for her accommodation, and Mr. Hamleigh placed himself a little lower, almost at her feet, her face turned seaward, his half towards her, as if that lily face, with its wild rose bloom, were even lovelier than the sunlit ocean in all its variety of colour.

"It is a delicious spot," said Angus, "I wonder whether Tristan and Iseult ever came here! I can fancy the queen stealing away from the Court and Court foolery, and walking across the sunlit hills with her lover. It would be rather a long walk, and there might be a difficulty about getting back in time for supper; but one can picture them wandering by flowery fields, or by the cliffs above that everlasting sea, and coming here to rest and talk of their sorrow and their love. Can you not fancy her as Matthew Arnold paints her? —

"Let her have her youth again —
Let her be as she was then!
Let her have her proud dark eyes,
And her petulant, quick replies:
Let her sweep her dazzling hand,
With its gesture of command,
And shake back her raven hair
With the old imperious air.

I have an idea that the Hibernian Iseult must have been a tartar, though Matthew Arnold glosses over her peccadilloes so pleasantly. I wonder whether she had a strong brogue, and a sneaking fondness for usquebaugh."

"Please, don't make a joke of her," pleaded Christabel; "she is very real to me. I see her as a lovely lady – tall and royal-looking, dressed in long robes of flowered silk, fringed with gold. And Tristan – "

"What of Tristan? Is his image as clear in your mind? How do you depict the doomed knight, born to suffer and to sin, destined to sorrow from the time of his forest-birth – motherless, beset with enemies, consumed by hopeless passion. I hope you feel sorry for Tristan?"

"Who could help being sorry for him?"

"Albeit he was a sinner? I assure you, in the old romance which you have not read – which you would hardly care to read – neither Tristan nor Iseult are spotless."

"I have never thought of their wrong-doing. Their fate was so sad, and they loved each other so truly."

"And, again, you can believe, perhaps – you who are so innocent and confiding – that a man who has sinned may forsake the old evil ways and lead a good life, until every stain of that bygone sin is purified. You can believe, as the Greeks believed, in atonement and purification."

"I believe, as I hope all Christians do, that repentance can wash away sin."