CHAPTER ONE

NEWLYN


Away beyond the village stands a white cottage with the sea lapping at low
cliffs beneath it. Plum and apple orchards slope upward behind this
building, and already, upon the former trees, there trembles a snowy gauze
where blossom buds are breaking. Higher yet, dark plowed fields, with
hedges whereon grow straight elms, cover the undulations of a great hill
even to its windy crest, and below, at the water line, lies Newlyn--a
village of gray stone and blue, with slate roofs now shining silver-bright
under morning sunlight and easterly wind. Smoke softens every outline;
red-brick walls and tanned sails bring warmth and color through the blue
vapor of many chimneys; a sun-flash glitters at this point and that,
denoting here a conservatory, there a studio. Enter this hive and you shall
find a network of narrow stone streets; a flutter of flannel underwear, or
blue stockings, and tawny garments drying upon lines; little windows, some
with rows of oranges and ginger-beer bottles in them; little shops; little
doors, at which cluster little children and many cats, the latter mostly
tortoise-shell and white. Infants watch their elders playing marbles in the
roadway, and the cats stretch lazy bodies on the mats, made of old
fishing-net, which lie at every cottage door. Newlyn stands on slight
elevations above the sea level, and at one point the road bends downward,
breaks and fringes the tide, leading among broken iron, rusty anchors, and
dismantled fishing-boats, past an ancient buoy whose sides now serve the
purposes of advertisement and tell of prayer-meetings, cheap tea, and so
forth. Hard by, the mighty blocks of the old breakwater stand, their fabric
dating from the reign of James I., and taking the place of one still older.
But the old breakwater is no more than a rialto for ancient gossips now;