The Cornish are born actors and actresses, but the natural talent is suppressed early, and it is not considered respectable to do or say anything like a "play-actor." But the talent breaks bounds and shows itself even in the last moments of the aged, composing their features, so as to "look 'ansum" after death.
The county has no theatre, no vaudeville, nothing in which to develop the dramatic instincts of a dramatic people. Now and again a travelling company, or piece of one, gives a performance in a hall licensed for dramatic presentations; but the people have become shy of being seen with uncovered faces at plays not labelled "sacred." Susannah, with realistic touches, would be popular, if the Lord Chamberlain could see his way to license the performance. When away from home the people patronize theatres and music-halls, and, on their return, sing favourite hymns to comic opera. Dancing is prohibited in places, and is "taboo" even when winked at; but some of the day schools are now teaching children how to use their feet and legs to music, under the head of "exercises" or "physical instruction." When an Italian organ-grinder comes into a village, the children dance as though they like it. The Flora, or Flurry, dance has some claim to be Cornish, and in time may be danced well again in the open air at fairs and feasts.
The Cornish are imaginative, vivacious, quick to realize situations. When there is any difficulty about words, a man or woman will get over it by acting the part. Watch the men disputing, and you see unrehearsed comedy—and very good comedy in its way. The old Cornish were very fond of mysteries and miracle-plays, which were performed in the open, and for the love of the thing. If one may believe, tens of thousands of people used to tramp over the pathless downs to see a miracle-play, or a series of plays, performed in some natural amphitheatre. The plays speak for themselves. Some still exist, and we have only to fancy the tens of thousands standing and squatting around, gazing rapt and full-eyed upon the stage hour after hour, and then day by day, until the mysteries were finished for the season. Men, women, and children all "trapsed" to these plays, and, like the Japs of to-day, never left the scene as long as there was anything to see. The performances were realistic enough, and angels and devils took their parts in a manner to upset any respectable system of theology. The actors learned their parts, and the prompter, book in hand, followed the actors and told them what to say when they were at a loss. The prompter was known as the "ordinary," and on one occasion the ordinary, being a pleasant conceited gentleman, played "a merry prank" with a poor actor who was not well up in his part. The story runs: "His turn came: quoth the ordinary, 'Go forth, man, and show thyself.' The gentleman steps out upon the stage, and, like a bad clerk in Scripture matters, cleaving more to the letter than the sense, pronounced those words aloud. 'Oh,' says the fellow softly in his ear, 'you mar all the play.' And with this his passion the actor makes the audience in like sort acquainted. Hereon the prompter falls to flat railing and cursing in the bitterest terms he could devise; which the gentleman with a set gesture and countenance still soberly related, until the ordinary, driven at last into mad rage, was fain to give all over; which trousse, though it break off the interlude, yet defrauded not the beholders, but dismissed them with a great deal more sport and laughter than twenty such guaries could have afforded."[E]
In former times, Midsummer Eve festivities were celebrated with much joyousness and dancing through the streets, and the lighting of bonfires at night, so that, seen from the sea, the coast-line showed a blaze of light. This was originally a pagan celebration of the summer solstice, and the Romish Church took it over and rechristened it, calling the rejoicing the festivals of St. John and St. Peter. The Reformed Church took over the festivals as a legacy, and they lingered on in the land until dissent brought out their fire brigades and at last extinguished them. There is another "pagan" celebration which will not die. The public May-time rejoicings were nearly extinguished once, but are active again, and the good people of Helston dress up, and sing and dance from morn to night, because the spring has come again, and the land may once more be made beautiful with flower and corn. At one time the Church encouraged these public rejoicings, and gave them as much of a religious appearance as possible, but now there is nothing to suggest religion except the "collection" which the dancers make for their own benefit.
When the Cornish language fell into disuse, fell also all prospect of a drama indigenous to a land of which one can never say how much is real. The sad autumn leaves fell upon the literary remembrances of the people when old Dolly Pentreath died, and as some one must have been the last to speak the language, as well Dolly as another, and better, perhaps, as we can see her portrait and her monolith. The old popular performances under the blue sky died out with the tongue, and then followed the travelling showman and the lady in tights and spangles, and then the old Christmas mummers with their diabolrie and three-men songs. The English drama in no form has any hold in the county now, and even Shakespeare is caviare to the general. Only one Cornishman made his mark upon the stage, and of no great credit he, so we let him pass; but the county is foster-mother to Sir Henry Irving, fittest of all men to have been a son, so well he "loved the fancies and legends of the people."[F]
"There are comedies and tragedies with scenes laid in Cornwall in plenty, but no Cornish drama or dramatist," said the Bookworm. And yet there might have been.
Tregeagle is the Cornish Faust. The story took a few centuries to develop, and there is nothing to be added now to heighten its dramatic effect. Tregeagle was a young man of ambition, with a vein of discontent running through his composition. One day, when brooding over what he was, and what he would be, seeing all things in false perspective, Old Artful made his acquaintance, and there was the usual bargain, signed, sealed and delivered. "This is my act and deed," said Tregeagle, putting his finger on the red seal drawn from his own veins. Tregeagle was to live in airy-fairy palaces, and have the run of every man's preserves until such time as Old Artful choose, and then—well, what was left of his tissue-paper soul would be wanted in another place. Old Artful behaved in the handsomest manner, and Mr. Tregeagle lived in a palace in up-to-date splendour, with men-servants and maid-servants, and every one took off his hat or curtsied as he passed, and he was as hard to the poor as a landlord's agent, and rode roughshod over whom he would. In fact, he couldn't be a greater swell before the days of motors. All went gaily with him, until, one day, he consulted his diary and found that his lease under the contract had nearly expired, and then he became "hurried in his mind," and lost appetite, and cast about to see if he could save himself, and pay no forfeit. Now, Old Artful was a good judge of character and knew his man, so, when the time was up, he let the fairy palace, with all its beautiful gardens and stables and greenhouses, sink into the earth, and covered them over with water so deep that some said no plummet could find bottom. Having trapped his man so nicely, Old Artful was in good humour, and gave Tregeagle a limpet-shell with a hole in it, and told him he might work out his redemption by emptying the lake; for, said he, "you can't expect to have all the good things of this world without paying for them, either in money or marbles." Tregeagle looked at the limpet-shell, so small that a thimbleful of water would overflow it, and then at the hole in the bottom, but he cared little for that as he could stop it up with his finger. It was a hopeless task, yet he was comforted by the thought that in the matter of the hole, by stopping it with his finger, he would score one off Old Artful. Then he commenced baling the water from the lake; and when he would rest, Old Artful's imps spurred him on and on until he shrieked and roared, so that all the people round about him shook in their shoes. "To roar like Tregeagle," became a saying when one was groaning under deserved punishment. The unhappy man is still working at his task, and it is said there is not so much water in the lake as aforetime.
"Then Old Artful will have outwitted himself after all, for he gave the fellow a task intended to be endless," said Guy.
"There is hope; and that is where the Cornish story differs from many variations of Faust," said the Bookworm.
"I like the Cornish all the better for that," said Guy.