Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe by S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
page 68 of 334 (20%)
page 68 of 334 (20%)
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mother lived with him. By some means the rumour got about that she was
dead, but as the man said nothing, it was not till this rumour became persistent that the authorities took cognisance of it, and visited the hovel. They found that the old woman's bed had been a hole scooped out of the bank that formed part of the wall; that she had been dead some considerable time, and that her face was eaten away by rats. Daniel Gumb was a stone-cutter who lived near the Cheese Wring on the Cornish moors in the eighteenth century. He inhabited a cave composed of masses of granite. It is an artificial cell about twelve feet deep and not quite that breadth. The roof consists of one flat stone of many tons weight. On the right hand of the entrance is cut "D. Gumb," with a date 1783 (or 5). On the upper part of the covering stone channels are cut to carry off the rain. Here he dwelt for several years with his wife and children, several of whom were born and died there. How instinctively the man of the present day will revert to primitive usages and to the ground as his natural refuge may be illustrated by a couple of instances. Mr. Hamerton, in "A Painter's Camp," says that near Sens on a height is a little pleasure-house and the remnant of a forgotten chapel dedicated to S. Bondus. This belonged of late years to a gentleman of Sens who was passionately attached to the spot. "Near my tent there is a hole in the chalk leading to the very bowels of the earth. A long passage, connecting cells far apart, winds till it arrives under the house, and it is said that the late owner intended to cut other passages and cells, but wherefore no man knows. One thing is certain, he loved the place, and spent money there for the love of it. Night and day he came up here from his little city on the plain, sat in his pleasant octagon room, and descended into his winding subterranean passages, and hermit-like visited the hollow cells." On his death he bequeathed it to the Archbishop of Sens. [Footnote: "A Painter's Camp," |
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