Michaels Crag | Page 6

"We've every ground for knowing them," the father went on, glancing
down at her with tender affection. "We're Cornish to the backbone--
Cornish born and bred, if ever there were Cornishmen. Every man of
my ancestors was a Tre, Pol, or Pen, to the tenth generation backward;
and I'm descended from the Bassets, too--the Bassets of Tehidy. You
must have heard of the Bassets in Cornish history. They owned St.
Michael's Mount before these new-fangled St. Aubyn people."
"It's Lord St. Levan's now, isn't it?" Le Neve put in, anxious to show
off his knowledge of the local aristocracy.

"Yes, they've made him Lord St. Levan," the dignified stranger
answered, with an almost imperceptible curl of his delicate lower lip.
"They've made him Lord St. Levan. The queen can make one anything.
He was plain Sir John St. Aubyn before that, you know; his family
bought the Mount from my ancestors--the Bassets of Tehidy. They're
new people at Marazion--new people altogether. They've only been
there since 1660."
Le Neve smiled a quiet smile. That seemed to him in his innocence a
fairly decent antiquity as things go nowadays. But the dignified
stranger appeared to think so little of it that his new acquaintance
abstained from making note or comment on it. He waited half a
moment to see whether Cleer would speak again; he wanted to hear that
pleasant voice once more; but as she held her peace, he merely raised
his hat, and accepting the dismissal, continued his walk round the cliffs
alone. Yet, somehow, the rest of the way, the figure of that statuesque
stranger haunted him. He looked back once or twice. The descendant of
the Bassets of Tehidy had now resumed his high pedestal upon the airy
tor, and was gazing away seaward, like the mystic Great Vision of his
own Miltonic quotation, toward the Spanish coast, wrapped round in a
loose cloak of most poetic dimensions. Le Neve wondered who he was,
and what errand could have brought him there.
At the point called the Rill, he diverged from the path a bit, to get that
beautiful glimpse down into the rock-strewn cove and smooth white
sands at Kynance. A coastguard with brush and pail was busy as he
passed by renewing the whitewash on the landmark boulders that point
the path on dark nights to the stumbling wayfarer. Le Neve paused and
spoke to him. "That's a fine-looking man, my friend, the gentleman on
the tor there," he said, after a few commonplaces. "Do you happen to
know his name? Is he spending the summer about here?"
The man stopped in his work and looked up. His eye lighted with
pleasure on the dignified stranger. "Yes; he's one of the right sort, sir,"
he answered, with a sort of proprietary pride in the distinguished figure.
"A real old Cornish gentleman of the good old days, he is, if ever you
see one. That's Trevennack of Trevennack; and Miss Cleer's his

daughter. Fine old crusted Cornish names, every one of them; I'm a
Cornishman myself, and I know them well, the whole grand lot of them.
The Trevennacks and the Bassets, they was all one, time gone by; they
owned St. Michael's Mount, and Penzance, and Marazion, and Mullion
here. They owned Penmorgan, too, afore the Tyrrels bought it up.
Michael Basset Trevennack, that's the gentleman's full name; the eldest
son of the eldest son is always a Michael, to keep up the memory of the
times gone by, when they was Guardians of the Mount and St.
Michael's Constables. And the lady's Miss Cleer, after St. Cleer of
Cornwall--her that gives her name still to St. Cleer by Liskeard."
"And do they live here?" Le Neve asked, much interested in the
intelligent local tone of the man's conversation.
"Lord bless you, no, sir. They don't live nowhere. They're in the service,
don't you see. They lives in Malta or Gibraltar, or wherever the
Admiralty sends him. He's an Admiralty man, he is, connected with the
Vittling Yard. I was in the navy myself, on the good old Billy Ruffun,
afore I was put in the Coastguards, and I knowed him well when we
was both together on the Mediterranean Station. Always the same
grand old Cornish gentleman, with them gracious manners, so haughty
like, an' yet so condescending, wherever they put him. A gentleman
born. No gentleman on earth more THE gentleman all round than
Trevennack of Trevennack."
"Then he's staying down here on a visit?" Le Neve went on, curiously,
peering over the edge of the cliffs, as he spoke, to observe the
cormorants.
"Don't you go too nigh, sir," the coastguard put in, warningly. "She's
slippery just there. Yes, they're staying down in Oliver's lodgings at
Gunwalloe. He's on leave, that's where it is.