The Delectable Duchy

Delectable Duchy, by Arthur
Thomas Quiller-Couch

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Title: The Delectable Duchy
Author: Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
Release Date: May 6, 2004 [EBook #12277]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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THE DELECTABLE DUCHY
BY Q

1906

SHORT STORY
To
ALFRED PARSONS

CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
THE SPINSTER'S MAYING
DAPHNIS
WHEN THE SAP ROSE
THE PAUPERS
CUCKOO VALLEY RAILWAY
THE CONSPIRACY ABOARD THE "MIDAS"
LEGENDS OF ST. PIRAN.
I St. Piran: the Millstone
II St. Piran: the Visitation
IN THE TRAIN.
I. Punch's Understudy
II. A Corrected Contempt
WOON GATE

FROM A COTTAGE IN GANTICK.
I. The Mourner's Horse
II. Silhouettes
THE DRAWN BLIND
A GOLDEN WEDDING
SCHOOL FRIENDS
PARENTS AND CHILDREN.
I. The Family Bible
II. Boanerges
TWO MONUMENTS
EGG-STEALING
SEVEN-AN'-SIX
THE REGENT'S WAGER
LOVE OF NAOMI
THE PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA'S POST-BAG.
I. An Interruption
II. The Great Fire on Freethy's Quay

PROLOGUE.
A week ago, my friend the Journalist wrote to remind me that once
upon a time I had offered him a bed in my cottage at Troy and

promised to show him the beauties of the place. He was about (he said)
to give himself a fortnight's holiday, and had some notion of using that
time to learn what Cornwall was like. He could spare but one day for
Troy, and hardly looked to exhaust its attractions; nevertheless, if my
promise held good.... By anticipation he spoke of my home as a "nook."
Its windows look down upon a harbour, wherein, day by day, vessels of
every nation and men of large experience are for ever going and
coming; and beyond the harbour, upon leagues of open sea, highway of
the vastest traffic in the world: whereas from his own far more
expensive house my friend sees only a dirty laurel-bush, a high green
fence, and the upper half of a suburban lamp post. Yet he is convinced
that I dwell in a nook.
I answered his letter, warmly repeating the invitation; and last week he
arrived. The change had bronzed his face, and from his talk I learnt that
he had already seen half the Duchy, in seven days. Yet he had been
unreasonably delayed in at least a dozen places, and used the strongest
language about 'bus and coach communication, local trains, misleading
sign-posts, and the like. Our scenery enraptured him--every aspect of it.
He had travelled up the Tamar to Launceston, crossed the moors,
climbing Roughtor and Brown Willy on his way, plunged down
towards Camelford, which he appeared to have reached by following
two valleys simultaneously, coached to Boscastle, walked to Tintagel,
climbed up to Uther's Castle, diverged inland to St. Nectan's Kieve,
driven on to Bedruthan Steps, Mawgan, the Vale of Lanherne,
Newquay, taken a train thence to Truro, a steamer from Truro to
Falmouth, crossed the ferry to St. Mawes, walked up the coast to
Mevagissey, driven from Mevagissey to St. Austell, and at St. Austell
taken another train for Troy. This brought half his holiday to a close:
the remaining half he meant to devote to the Mining District, St. Ives,
the Land's End, St. Michael's Mount, the Lizard, and perhaps the Scilly
Isles.
Then I began to feel that I lived in a nook, and to wonder how I could
spin out its attractions to cover a whole day: for I could not hear to
think of his departing with secret regret for his lavished time. In a flash
I saw the truth; that my love for this spot is built up of numberless

trivialities, of small memories all incommunicable, or ridiculous when
communicated; a scrap of local speech heard at this corner, a pleasant
native face remembered in that doorway, a battered vessel dropping
anchor--she went out in the spring with her crew singing dolefully; and
the grey-bearded man waiting in his boat beneath her counter till the
custom-house officers have made their survey is the father of one
among the crew, and is waiting to take his son's hand again, after
months of absence. Would this interest my friend, if I pointed it out to
him? Or, if I walk with him by the path above the creek, what will he
care to know that on this particular bank the violets always bloom
earliest--that one of a line of yews that top the churchyard wall is
remarkable because a pair of missel-thrushes have chosen