DRAMATIS PERSONAE CARL’ANTONIO, Duke of Adria TONINO, his young son LUCIO; Count of Vallescura, brother to the Duchess CESARIO, Captain of the Guard GAMBA, a Fool OTTILIA, Duchess and Regent of Adria LUCETTA, a Lady-in-Waiting FULVIA, a Lady of the Court Courtiers, Priests, Choristers, Soldiers, Mariners, Townsfolk, etc. The Scene is the Ducal Palace of […]

I have a sincere respect and liking for the Vicar of Gantick–“th’ old Parson Kendall,” as we call him–but have somewhat avoided his hospitality since Mrs. Kendall took up with the teetotal craze. I say nothing against the lady’s renouncing, an she choose, the light dinner claret, the cider, the port (pale with long maturing […]

Pilot Matthey came down to the little fishing-quay at five p.m. or thereabouts. He is an elderly man, tall and sizable, with a grizzled beard and eyes innocent-tender as a child’s, but set in deep crow’s-feet at the corners, as all seamen’s eyes are. It comes of facing the wind. Pilot Matthey spent the fore-half […]

“Mary, mother, well thou be!Mary, mother, think on me;Sweete Lady, maiden clean,Shield me from ill, shame, and teen;Shield me, Lady, from villainyAnd from all wicked company!” Speculum Christiani. Here is a little story I found one day among the legends of the Cornish Saints, like a chip in porridge. If you love simplicity, I think […]

I hardly can bring myself to part with this story, it has been such a private joy to me. Moreover, that I have lain awake in the night to laugh over it is no guarantee of your being passably amused. Yourselves, I dare say, have known what it is to awake in irrepressible mirth from […]

A CHRISTMAS STORY HEARD AT MIDSUMMER. We sat and talked in the Vicarage garden overlooking Mount’s Bay. The long summer day lingered out its departure, although the full moon was up and already touching with a faint radiance the towers on St. Michael’s Mount–‘the guarded Mount’–that rested as though at anchor in the silver-grey offing. […]

A LEGEND. Early on St. Stephen’s Day–which is the day after Christmas–young John Cara, son of old John Cara, the smith of Porthennis, took down his gun and went forth to kill small birds. He was not a sportsman; it hurt him to kill any living creature. But all the young men in the parish […]

“A great nation!” said the little Cure. “But yes, indeed, the English are a very great nation. And now I have seen them at home! But it passes expression, monsieur, what a traveller I find myself!” We stood together on the deck of the steamer, watching–after an eight hours’ passage from Plymouth–the Breton coast as […]

I. RUM FOR BOND. At the head of a diminutive creek of the Tamar River, a little above Saltash on the Cornish shore, stands the village of Botusfleming; and in early summer, when its cherry-orchards come into bloom, you will search far before finding a prettier. The years have dealt gently with Botusfleming. As it […]

The night-porter at the Admiralty had been sleeping in his chair. He was red-eyed and wore his livery coat buttoned at random. He grumbled to himself as he opened the great door. He carried a glass-screened candle, and held it somewhat above the level of his forehead–which was protuberant and heavily pock-marked. Under the light […]

I. “‘Erbert ‘Enery Bates!” “Wot cheer!” It was the morning of Speech-day on board the Industrial Training Ship Egeria–July the 31st, to be precise. At 3 p.m. Sir Felix Felix-Williams, Baronet, would arrive to distribute the prizes. He would be attended by a crowd of ladies and gentlemen; and the speeches, delivered beneath an awning […]

In the days of my childhood, and up to the year 1886, the Justices of the Peace for the Gantick Division of Hundred of Powder, in the county of Cornwall, held their Petty Sessions at Scawns, a bleak, foursquare building set on the knap of a windy hill, close beside the high road that leads […]

An old yellow van–the Comet–came jolting along the edge of the downs and shaking its occupants together like peas in a bladder. The bride and bridegroom did not mind this much; but the Registrar of Births, Deaths, and Marriages, who had bound them in wedlock at the Bible Christian Chapel two hours before, was discomforted […]

Has olim exuvias mihi perfidus ille reliquit,Pignora cara sui: quae nunc ego limine in ipso,Terra, tibi mando; debent haec pignora Daphnin–Ducite ab urbe domum, mea, carmina, ducite Daphnin. I knew the superstition lingered along the country-side: and I was sworn to find it. But the labourers and their wives smoothed all intelligence out of their […]

“The fields breathe sweet, the daisies kiss our feet,Young lovers meet, old wives a-sunning sit;In every street these tunes our ears do greet–Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-wee, to-witta-woo!Spring, the sweet Spring.” At two o’clock on May morning a fishing-boat, with a small row-boat in tow, stole up the harbour between the lights of the vessels that lay […]

A REPORTED TALE. Frenchman’s Creek runs up between overhanging woods from the western shore of Helford River, which flows down through an earthly paradise and meets the sea midway between Falmouth and the dreadful Manacles–a river of gradual golden sunsets such as Wilson painted; broad-bosomed, holding here and there a village as in an arm […]

A STORY FROM A CHIMNEY-CORNER. A good song, and thank’ ee, Sir, for singing it! Time was, you’d never miss hearing it in these parts, whether ’twas feast or harvest-supper or Saturday night at the public. A virtuous good song, too; and the merry fellow that made it won’t need to cast about and excuse […]

I.–SAINT PIRAN AND THE MILLSTONE. Should you visit the Blackmore tin-streamers on their feast-day, which falls on Friday-in-Lide (that is to say, the first Friday in March), you may note a truly Celtic ceremony. On that day the tinners pick out the sleepiest boy in the neighbourhood and send him up to the highest bound […]

“Are you going home to England? So am I. I’m Johnny; and I’ve never been to England before, but I know all about it. There’s great palaces of gold and ivory–that’s for the lords and bishops–and there’s Windsor Castle, the biggest of all, carved out of a single diamond–that’s for the queen. And she’s the […]

This century was still young and ardent when ruin fell upon Cuckoo Valley. Its head rested on the slope of a high and sombre moorland, scattered with granite and china-clay; and by the small town of Ponteglos, where it widened out into arable and grey pasture-land, the Cuckoo river grew deep enough to float up […]