Close by, at Castledour, corrupted to Castle Door in these days, stands a tall granite post, inscribed with some half-obliterated Roman inscription. An old Cornish historian tells, in quaint language, of an adventure which befell here.

“In a high way neere this toune (says Carew) there lieth a big and long moore stone, containing the remainder of certaine ingraued letters, purporting some memorable antiquity, as it should seeme, but past ability of reading.

“Not many yeres sithence, a Gentleman, dwelling not farre off, was perswaded, by some information, or imagination, that treasure lay hidden vnder this stone: wherefore, in a faire Moone-shine night, thither with certaine good fellowes hee hyeth to dig it vp: a working they fall, their labour shortneth, their hope increaseth, a pot of Gold is the least of their expectation. But see the chance. In midst of their toyling, the skie gathereth clouds, the Moone-light is ouer-cast with darkenesse, doune fals a mightie showre, vp riseth a blustering tempest, the thunder cracketh, the lightning flasheth: in conclusion, our money-seekers washed, instead of loden; or loden with water, in steade of yellow earth, and more afraid then hurt, are forced to abandon their enterprise, and seeke shelter of the next house they could get into. Whether this proceedeth from a naturall accident, or a working of the diuell, I will not,” says our historian, “vndertake to define. It may bee, God giueth him such power ouer those, who begin a matter, vpon covetousnesse to game by extra-ordinarie meanes, and prosecute it with a wrong, in entring and breaking another mans land, without his leaue, and direct the end thereof, to the princes defrauding, whose prerogatiue challengeth these casualties.”

In a wild moorland district like this, the devil, you will see, was likely to have the credit of anything that might happen. Even to-day, the countryside round about Par and Saint Austell is hardly less rugged and lonely than it was in the seventeenth century. Still, we are much more materialistic nowadays, and such happenings as that just quoted could scarcely fail of classification under the head of “natural accidents.”

But the great mining-field of Saint Austell (“Storsel,” in the local pronunciation), which begins here, almost deserted to-day, its engine-houses wrecked, its great heaps of mine refuse bare and gaunt, has taken on an air of desolation more favourable to uncanny beings than ever. It is not because the tin and copper have “petered out” that this once busy stretch of country now wears the air of some long-deserted mushroom-field of mining industry, sprung up suddenly, and untimely withered, like the Californian goldfields of pioneer times. No, the metals are still there, but at such depths and held in such iron grip of hard-hearted granite, that it would not pay to win the ore with the machinery available at this time. Meanwhile, the Cornish miners have mostly emigrated. To-day, if you would see the Cornishman in full work on his congenial and hereditary employments of tin and copper mining, you should go either to the Straits Settlements or to Australia, whence comes the greater part of those metals in these times.

There, in some Wooloomooloo, or other place of name infinitely repetitive, you shall, who seek, find him; but in Cornwall his kind tends to decrease continually.

But round about Par and Saint Austell enough metal remains to keep some few important mines at work; china-clay, too, is an increasingly important article of commerce. The streams and rivulets that hereabouts run down into Saint Austell or Tywardreath Bay are the very tricolours of water-courses—rust-red with pumpings from the mines, milk-white from the washings of china-clay, and, unpolluted, reflecting the heavenly blue of sunny skies.

A long and grimy road leads past Holmbush and Mount Charles to Saint Austell, all the way rutted with the wheels of heavy waggons, and muddy from the rains. I remember that, when we were dining at Fowey, we were told by a Cornishman with whom we talked that Saint Austell was the richest town in Cornwall. I do not wish to dispute that statement, for, with that town’s busy neighbourhood of mines, and, more particularly, china-clay works, it would seem to be in receipt of a very great deal of commerce. Waggons, piled up with great lumps of china-clay, are continually lumbering through its narrow and crooked streets; its shops are many and well appointed; and, earnest of enterprise and prosperity, Saint Austell is lighted by electricity, in the streets, and for domestic use; it was, in fact, a pioneer in the movement for the lighting of towns by electricity. But, with all these signs of wealth, the town is not attractive. Saint Austell remains a market-town of gloomy architecture and cramped thoroughfares, whose foot-pavements, of meagre proportions, would not suffice for the accommodation of a village. Yet the people who are seen in these streets are smartly dressed, and altogether un-provincial in appearance. We saw costumes, not few nor far between, that rivalled Bond Street or Piccadilly.

I remarked upon this to the Wreck, who, having had his full share of Saint Austell’s muddy streets, was sarcastically inclined, and observed that, if it was a swell town in one particular, it was a pity that particularity did not extend to its pavements, which had, apparently, shrunk.

We lunched at as well-appointed a restaurant as might have been found at the West End of London, and then looked through the very fine church that stands in midst of the town. It contains a very early font, sculptured in granite, the bowl of it covered with the Early Norman ideas of owls and griffins, and fearful things that surely never flew in air, or walked the earth, or swam the sea. The church of Saint Austell has one of the finest of Cornish church-towers, lofty and pinnacled, and covered, over the upper stages of it, with much panelled work, and about the body of it with sculptured emblems of the Passion and Crucifixion. The hammer and nails, the crown of thorns, the ladder, are sculptured in groups, together with pierced hands and feet; and so greatly has the significance of these emblems been lost, that many of them are popularly supposed to represent miners’ tools.