Armorel of Lyonesse: A Romance of To-day

'I should like to see them very much,' said Roland.

'If you were here at night, we could go out and look for them. I have been here often after dark looking for them.'

'What did you see?'

She answered like unto the bold Sir Bedivere – who, perhaps, was standing on that occasion not far from this hill-top.

'I saw the moonlight on the rocks, and I heard the beating of the waves.'

Quoth Dick: 'The spook of a king of Lyonesse would be indeed worth coming out to see.'

Armorel led the way to a barrow, the top of which showed signs of the spade.

'See!' she said. 'Here is one that has been opened. It was a long time ago.'

There were the four slabs of stone still in position which formed the sides of the grave, and the slab which had been its cover lying close beside.

Armorel looked into the grave. 'They found,' she whispered, 'the bones of the king lying on the stone. But when someone touched them they turned to dust. There is the dust at your feet in the grave. The wind cannot bear it away. It may blow the sand and earth into it, but the dust remains. The rain can turn it into mud, but it cannot melt it. This is the dust of a king.'

The young men stood beside her silent, awed a little, partly by the serious look in the girl's face, and partly because, though it now lay open to the wind and rain, it was really a grave. One must not laugh beside the grave of a man. The wind lifted Armorel's long locks and blew them off her white forehead: her eyes were sad and even solemn. Even the short-sighted Dick saw that his friend was right: they were soft black eyes, not of the gipsy kind; and he repented him of a hasty inference. To the artist it seemed as if here was a princess of Lyonesse mourning over the grave of her buried king and – what? – father – brother – cousin – lover? Everything, in his imagination, vanished – except that one figure: even her clothes were changed for the raiment – say the court mourning – of that vanished realm. And also, like Sir Bedivere, he heard nothing but the wild water lapping on the crag.

And here followed a thing so strange that the historian hesitates about putting it down.

Let us remember that it is thirty years, or thereabouts, since this barrow was laid open; that we may suppose those who opened it to have had eyes in their heads; that it has been lying open ever since; and that every visitor – to be sure there are not many – who lands on Samson is bound to climb this hill and visit this open barrow with its perfect kistvaen. These things borne in mind, it will seem indeed wonderful that anything in the grave should have escaped discovery.

Roland Lee, leaning over, began idly to poke about the mould and dust of the grave with his stick. He was thinking of the girl and of the romance with which his imagination had already clothed this lonely spot; he was also thinking of a picture which might be made of her; he was wondering what excuse he could make for staying another week at Tregarthen's – when he was startled by striking his stick against metal. He knelt down and felt about with his hands. Then he found something and drew it out, and arose with the triumph that belongs to an archæologist who picks up an ancient thing – say, a rose noble in a newly ploughed field. The thing which he found was a hoop or ring. It was covered and encrusted with mould; he rubbed this off with his fingers. Lo! it was of gold: a hoop of gold as thick as a lady's little finger, twisted spirally, bent into the form of a circle, the two ends not joined, but turned back. Pure gold: yellow, soft gold.

'I believe,' he said, gasping, 'that this must be – it is– a torque. I think I have seen something like it in museums. And I've read of them. It was your king's necklace: it was buried with him: it lay around the skeleton neck all these thousand years. Take it, Miss Armorel. It is yours.'

'No! no! Let me look at it. Let me have it in my hands. It is yours' – in ignorance of ancient law and the rights of the lord proprietor – 'it is yours because you found it.'

'Then I will give it to you, because you are the Princess of the Island.'

She took it with a blush and placed it round her own neck, bending open the ends and closing them again. It lay there – the red, red gold – as if it belonged to her and had been made for her.

'The buried king is your ancestor,' said Roland. 'It is his legacy to his descendant. Wear the king's necklace.'

'My luck, as usual,' grumbled Dick, aside. 'Why couldn't I find a torque and say pretty things?'

'Come,' said Armorel, 'we have seen the barrows. There are others scattered about – but this is the best place for them. Now I will show you the island.'

The hill slopes gently northward till it reaches a headland or carn of granite boldly projecting. Here it breaks away sharply to the sea. Armorel climbed lightly up the carn and stood upon the highest boulder, a pretty figure against the sky. The young men followed and stood below her.

At their feet the waves broke in white foam (in the calmest weather the Atlantic surge rolling over the rocks is broken into foam), a broad sound or channel lay between Samson and the adjacent island: in the channel half a dozen rocks and islets showed black and threatening.

'The island across the channel,' said Armorel, 'is Bryher. This is Bryher Hill, because it faces Bryher Island. Yonder, on Bryher is Samson Hill, because it faces Samson Island. Bryher is a large place. There are houses and farms on Bryher, and a church where they have service every Sunday afternoon. If you were here on Sunday, you could go in our boat with Peter, Chessun, and me. Justinian and Dorcas mostly stay at home now, because they are old.'

'Can anybody stay on the island, then?' asked Roland, quickly.

'Once the doctor came for Justinian's rheumatism, and bad weather began and he had to stay a week.'

'His other patients meanly took advantage and got well, I suppose,' said Dick.

'I hope so,' Armorel replied simply.

She turned and looked to the north-east, where lie the eastern islands, the group between St. Martin's and St. Mary's, a miniature in little of the greater group. From this point they looked to the eye of ignorance like one island. Armorel distinguished them. There were Great and Little Arthur; Ganilly, with his two hills, like Samson; the Ganninicks and Meneweather, Ragged Island, and Inisvouls.

'They are not inhabited,' said the girl, pointing to them one by one; 'but it is pleasant to row about among them in fine weather. In the old time, when they made kelp, people would go and live there for weeks together. But they are not cultivated.'

Then she turned northwards, and showed them the long island of St. Martin's, with its white houses, its church, its gentle hills, and its white and red daymark on the highest point. Half of St. Martin's was hidden by Tresco, and more than half of Tresco by Bryher. Over the downs of Tresco rose the dome of Round Island, crowned with its white lighthouse. And over Bryher, out at sea, showed the rent and jagged crest of the great rock Menovawr.

'You should land on Tresco,' said Armorel. 'There is the church to see. Oh! it is a most beautiful church. They say that in Cornwall itself there is hardly any church so fine as Tresco Church. And then there are the gardens and the lake. Everybody goes to see the gardens, but they do not walk over the down to Cromwell's Castle. Yet there is nothing in the islands like Cromwell's Castle, standing on the Sound, with Shipman's Head beyond. And you must go out beyond Tresco, to the islands which we cannot see here – Tean and St. Helen's, and the rest.'

Then she turned westward. Lying scattered among the bright waters, whitened by the breeze, there lay before their eyes – dots and specks upon the biggest maps, but here great massive rocks and rugged islets piled with granite, surrounded by ledges and reefs, cut and carved by winds and flying foam into ragged edges, bold peaks, and defiant cliffs – places where all the year round the seals play and the sea-gulls scream, and, in spring, the puffins lay their eggs, with the oyster-catchers and the sherewaters, the shags and the hern. Over all shone the golden sun of September, and round them all the water leaped and sparkled in the light.

'Those are the Outer Islands.' The girl pointed them out, her eyes brightening. 'It is among the Outer Islands that I like best to sail. Look! that great rock with the ledge at foot is Castle Bryher; that noble rock beyond is Maiden Bower; the rock farthest out is Scilly. If you were going to stay, we would sail round Scilly and watch the waves always tearing at his sides. You cannot see from here, but he is divided by a narrow channel; the water always rushes through this channel roaring and tearing. But once we found it calm – and we got through; only Peter would never try again. If you were going to stay – sometimes in September it is very still – '

'I did not know,' said Roland, 'that there was anything near England so wonderful and so lovely.'

'You cannot see the islands in one morning. You cannot see half of them from this hill. You like them more and more as you stay longer, and see them every day with a different light and a different sea.'

'You know them all, I suppose?' Roland asked.

'Oh! every one. If you had sailed among them so often, you would know them too. There are hundreds, and every one has got its name. I think I have stood on all, though there are some on which no one can land, even at low tide and in the calmest weather. And no one knows what beautiful bays and beaches and headlands there are hidden away and never seen by anyone. If you could stay, I would show them to you. But since you cannot – ' She sighed. 'Well, you have not even seen the whole of Samson yet – and that is only one of all the rest.'

She leaped lightly from the rocks, and led them southward.

'See!' she said. 'On this hill there are ten great barrows at least, every one the tomb of a king – a king of Lyonesse. And on the sides of the hill – they kept the top for the kings – there are smaller barrows, I suppose of the princes and princesses. I told you that the island was a royal burying-ground. At the foot of the hill – you can see them – are some walls which they say are the ruins of a church; but I suppose that in those days they had no church.'

They left these venerable tombs behind them and descended the hill. At its foot, between the two hills, there lies a pretty little bay, circular and fringed with a beach of white sand. If one wanted a port for Samson, here is the spot, looking straight across the Atlantic, with Mincarlo lying like a lion couchant on the water a mile out.

'This is Porth Bay,' said their guide. 'Out there at the end is Shark Point. There are sharks sometimes, I believe: but I have never seen them. Now we are going up the southern hill.'

It began with a gentle ascent. There were signs of former cultivation; stone walls remained, enclosing spaces which once were fields – nothing in them now but fern and gorse and bramble and wild flowers. Half-way up there stood a ruined cottage. The walls were standing, but the roof was gone and all the woodwork. The garden-wall remained, but the little garden was overrun with fern.

'This was my great-great-grandmother's cottage,' said Armorel. 'It was built by her husband. They lived in it for twelve months after they were married. Then he was drowned, and she came to live at the farm. See!' – she showed them in a corner of the garden a little wizened apple-tree, crouching under the stone wall out of the reach of the north wind – 'she planted this tree on her wedding-day. It is too old now to bear fruit; but she is still living, and her husband has been dead for seventy-five years. I often come to look at the place, and to wonder how it looked when it was first inhabited. There were flowers, I suppose, in the garden, when she was young and happy.'

'There are more ruins,' said Roland.

'Yes, there are other ruins. When all the people except ourselves went away, these cottages were deserted, and so they fell into decay. They used to live by smuggling and wrecking, you see, and when they could no longer do either, they had to go away or starve.'

They stood upon the highest point of Holy Hill, some twenty feet above the summit of the northern hill, and looked out upon the Southern Islands.

'There!' said Armorel, with a flush of pride, because the view here is so different and yet so lovely.

'Here you can see the South Islands. Look! there is Minalto, which you drifted past yesterday: those are the ledges of White Island, where you were nearly cast away and lost: there is Annet, where the sea-birds lay their eggs – oh! thousands and thousands of puffins, though now there are not any: you should see them in the spring. That is St. Agnes – a beautiful island. I should like to show you Camberdizl and St. Warna's Cove. And there are the Dogs of Scilly beyond – they look to be black spots from here. You should see them close: then you would understand how big they are and how terrible. There are Gorregan and Daisy, Rosevean and Rosevear, Crebawethan and Pednathias; and there – where you see a little circle of white – that is Retarrier Ledge. Not long ago there was a great ship coming slowly up the Channel in bad weather: she was filled with Germans from New York going home to spend the money they had saved in America: most of them had their money with them tied up in bags. Suddenly, the ship struck on Retarrier. It was ten o'clock in the evening and a great sea running. For two hours the ship kept bumping on the rocks: then she began to break up, and they were all drowned – all the women and all the children, and most of the men. Some of them had life-belts on, but they did not know how to tie them, and so the things only slipped down over their legs and helped to drown them. The money was found on them. In the old days the people of the islands would have had it all; but the coastguard took care of it. There, on the right of Retarrier, is the Bishop's Rock and lighthouse. In storms, the lighthouse rocks like a tree in the wind. You ought to sail over to those rocks, if it was only to see the surf dashing up their sides. But, since you cannot stay – ' Again she sighed.

'These are very interesting islands,' said Dick. 'Especially is it interesting to consider the consequences of being a native.'