by
Bob Brooke
[Extract]
The air was clammy cold. The sky the color of granite, a western wind brought with
it a drizzling rain. As I drove across the moor, a fine mist cloaked the surrounding
hills, called tors by the Cornish. The wind came in gusts. A somber feeling of
mystery penetrated to my very bones.
Not much has changed here on the moors of the Cornwall since
Daphne du Maurier
penned her famous novel, Jamaica Inn, from
her room in the establishment of the same name. She wrote of corruption and smuggling
during the early 19th century. As I look out over the moors, I can almost hear the wheels
of her heroine Mary Yellan's coach creak and groan as they sank into the ruts of the high
road. Mud splattered up against the windows, where it mingled with the driving rain, and
whatever view Mary had of the countryside was hopelessly obscured.
Unlike Mary, I have a heater to keep me dry and warm in my Ford Fiesta and windshield
wipers to push away the rain. Nonetheless, my view of the moors is bleak and desolate as I
make my way up the high road. Ahead of me, on the crest of a hill, stands a dark gray
slate building with tall chimneys. There's no other house or cottage in sight. This is
Jamaica Inn, standing all alone in its glory, as it had since it was built 400 years ago.
While Mary Yellan arrived in the dead of night and had to hammer on the door to gain
entrance from her wicked uncle, I have only to park my car and push open the door into the
cozy bar and restaurant.
The house and outbuildings form three sides of a cobblestone yard, in the center of
which is an old drinking trough. Beyond this lies the road, a thin white ribbon that
stretches on either hand to the horizon, surrounded on each side by moorland.
Cornwall is virtually an island, cut off from the rest of England by the River Tamar.
It was in the early 19th century that the first trickle of genteel
"excursionists" arrived with their easels and watercolors, but the earliest
visitors were made of sterner stuff--Phoenicians, came to barter wine and olive oil for
precious tin, Celts brought Christianity, peppering the landscape with castles to defend
their faith. Virtually untouched by Roman occupation, Celtic rule lasted until the 8th
century when the English overran the land. Even so, the Cornish language survived until
Tudor times and in remote districts Cornish speakers could still be found in the late 18th
century.
The sea is all around. In Cornwall, the waves still snatch the unwary and the foolhardy
from rock-faces, still batter and shrink the rock-faces themselves. Faced with the eternal
sea, time shrivels away.
As I look out upon the landscape, it's a different world from the one I had seen only a
day's journey back. The rain is now a lashing, pitiless downpour that stings the windows
of my room. There are no trees here, save one or two that stretch bare branches to the
four winds, bent and twisted from centuries of storm. This is a scrubby land, without
hedgerow or meadow, a country of stones, black heather and stunted broom.
The scene is never the same, for it can be high noon in the east, with the moor as
motionless as desert sand, and to the west arctic winter falls upon the hills, brought on
by a jagged cloud shaped like a highwayman's cloak. The air is strong and sweet smelling,
cold as the mountains and strangely pure. However grim and sullen this country, it spurred
me on to adventure.
The treacherous coasts of Cornwall are notorious for wrecks. The local people didn't
hesitate to ransack a ship unfortunate enough to be smashed on the rocks. Gangs of
unsavory men used to huddle against the jagged rocks that broke the expanse of beach
waiting to prey on the helpless ships. A small white star of light shone from the
headland, winking bravely in the night. This star was a false light placed there by
marauding bands to lead the unwary ships onto the rocks where they would break up emptying
their precious cargo into the rolling surf.
One story relates how the vicar of the parish church in Portemouth was drawing to the
end of a particularly dry sermon, and many of his congregation had dozed off. The sound of
someone opening the church door woke a few of them--a gale was blowing outside--and they
welcomed the diversion as he walked up to the pulpit and whispered in the vicar's ear. The
remainder of the congregation was immediately roused from their musings by the vicar
bellowing, "there's a ship ashore between Prawle and Pear Tree Point!" He began
to tear off his vestments, continuing as he tugged at the encumbering garments,
"...but let us all start fair." As one, the congregation stood up and charged
headlong to the beach with the vicar in the lead.
And all this western raggedness, as those who travel it know, is magic country. It
can't help it. Saints and artists and desperadoes have all been drawn to these uttermost
edges of the rocky west of England. Forget politics. The fact is that when I crossed the
border into Cornwall, I was outside England, almost outside Britain. I was in another
country.
