The girls learn early that "it is not good for man to live alone," and never forget it. It is the one text that sticks, and they make the running early for the boys, who are a shy and awkward lot, and want encouragement at first. Then the boys wake up, and the girls catch them, as they intended to do when they first started; and the boys grow into men, and are never "alone" any more. Marriages may be made in heaven for other folks, but the Cornish maidens like them better on earth, and please themselves pretty much in the matter. Misfits will happen sometimes, but they have a nice, soft, easy way of their own, and slip through life "as well as moast, and better'n some."

The women make very good wives, and seldom become acquainted with the learned president of the Divorce Court; and if they don't believe the men are "saints," they wink the other eye and say little. A country-woman, tired of her bargain, inquired of a solicitor where she could get a bottle of the "drops" for the dissolution of her marriage, apparently thinking that nothing weaker than legal aquafortis, or Dutch drops, would be any good to dissolve the bond. Very few Cornish women have figured in the Divorce Court, which stands to their credit, so many being the wives of sailors at sea nine months out of the year, or of miners in foreign lands, whom they may not see for years after a brief honeymoon. In the Cornish version of the old mystery play of the Deluge, willing obedience to the husband is shown in the dialogue between Noah and his spouse. Noah says it is time to get into the ark, and the lady says, "Oh, master dear! I will do everything like as thou wishest." In the Chester play on the same subject the wife of Noah is a perverse, wilful, passionate woman, who will not go into the ark unless every one of her "gossipes" go with her. And when her sons get her in by superior force, she gives poor Noah a slap in the face, saying, "Have that for thy note!" The unknown Cornish translator changed the note to suit his audience. A married woman makes the best of her bargain, and finds "Oh, master dear!" better than fisticuffs.

The women take a pride in doing little things for their husbands—polishing their Sunday boots, brushing and putting away their clothes, and turning them out spick-and-span, like dandies. A man isn't allowed to look after anything but his sea-boots and oileys, if he's a fisher; or his working togs, if some other trade. When there are girls in a family the boys are "tended" like little princes; and when the girls marry they look after their husbands so carefully that they seldom stray far away. Ladies who write social conundrums to the newspapers, and ask how it is that they only get a bit of their husbands, and that bit not worth the having, should live in a Cornish village for a season, and keep their eyes open. Not very exciting, to be sure, but, if all is true, worth the experiment. The beautiful influence of climate comes in, "and so it is; and you must put up with it, my dear," is the grease-box which makes the wheels run smoothly.

The women keep shop in the small towns and villages whilst the men go to sea, or fishing, or whatever work they profess to do. A bell tinkles when you open the door, and, by-and-by, the missus comes into view, wiping her hands on her apron. She may have what's wanted, but generally she's "run out," and is expecting it within a week or so. She goes on wiping her hands, and looks as contented as though she had sold something. Then the little shops look like a dry-goods store after an earthquake, and if the thing wanted isn't on top it is not much good looking for it.[G] It's just their way, and the business flourishes like a plant in native soil. Sometimes the post-office is mixed up with the "business," and a dear little cherub sits up aloft somewhere and watches over the property of the Postmaster-General. Letters and parcels muddle through, somehow, which is proof positive that the age of miracles is not over and done with.

For the spectator a wedding is a very dull and slow affair now, even in out-of-the-way districts and in the fishing coves and villages, where the old customs have struggled hard to live. Young people are married all the same, but much of the joy at the life that is to be has been gradually elbowed out of the ceremony, and all that belongs to it. It used to be a very different sort of thing when the people were more prone to dancing and fiddling and feasting, and only half enjoyed a thing unless all their world enjoyed with them. The Bookworm chanced on some faded letters describing some of the merry-makings not more than a century ago, when a wedding was an event, not for John and Mary merely, but for the whole parish. The fiddler skipped before the happy pair to church, and every one, not in the procession with wedding favours, lined up, and made nice little speeches, as the spirit moved them; and the spirit moved them so often that the bride had few blushes to spare when she reached the chancel steps. And then the feast and dance and mystic rites, concluding with the bedding of the bride. Then more dancing for the guests; and more young couples vowed that day to marry within the year than on any other occasion. It was a "quiet" wedding which finished up with a three days' rejoicing.

If John and Mary lived on a farm, or were servants at the "big house," then there were high jinks in the great kitchen and squire's hall, and no one merrier than parson and clerk, who led the revels with voice and flute, and the schoolmaster brought his fiddle, if he had one. A wedding was a very human affair, and everybody's business, not so very long ago. In the fishing villages there was more colour and boisterous mirth than elsewhere, for the men dressed their boats, and made sport, and sang and danced, and got drunk and sober, and then drunk again, until the morn broke. And the next day, and the next to that, the pot was kept a-boiling, and then the women captured their men and toddled them home, and hid away their boots, until the delirium of the wedding march had passed away.

No more feasting and fiddling now. The "day" is kept secret, and the "happy pair" arrive, somehow, before a registrar, and are hitched up, according to law. Mary may marry John now, and no one be the wiser—a cold, cheerless, colourless thing is this sort of wedding.

A funeral is still an event, and touches hidden springs, which must gush forth, and will take no denial. The people have a superstitious reverence for the dead. The doors and windows of the chamber are thrown open for the unfettered spirit to escape, and, one by one, neighbours and friends take a last look at familiar features. To be "a 'ansum corpse, white as a lily and light as cobwebs," is a consolation to an old rip, when looking at his wasted hands. A village funeral is a long procession with sacred hymns. Then a cup of tay and a bit of curranty cake amongst the women, who talk and sigh, and tell each other of their own complaints, and the complaints which carried off their friends. Widow-women are great at funerals, which freshen up their memories. "My man was teeled a year agone, an' I do miss 'un," says number one. "Ess, fath, my dear, and no wan do knaw what tes like them that's lonely," says number two. "Tes bitter cauld in winter, an' I tells my maid her poor father would be weth me now ef 'twadn't for want of bref. Tes a wisht complaint, that," continues number one, sighing. "'Twadn't like that weth my man, fur he had es bref up to the last," replies number two, triumphantly vindicating the superior merits of her dear departed.

Widow-women don't often change their names. If without money they are not tempted; and if they have enough they may tempt, but seldom yield. The next-of-kin are very watchful over the shekels; and the man who marries a widow with relations does not always enter paradise. A widow-woman is looked on in the light of an investment. Here is a short story. Mrs. Treloar was a widow-woman with a bit of property—just comfortable, as times go. She was no great beauty, but the chapel steward cast a longing eye towards her, and wished to lose no time. Said he: "We doan't want to go coorting, do us? Waste of precious time for us who are both old enuf to know our own minds." Said she: "You knaw, s'poase, ef I do marry agen, boy Tom'll have the property?" Then he: "Why, es that so? Then you won't sell at that price, I'm thinkin'. Good day, my dear." No harm done.

Guy made the observation that the people we saw about were not much given to frills. He supposed they had them packed up somewhere, but there being no swagger concerts, and bands on swagger piers, with swagger subscription tickets for the season, no one unpacked them. It would be too absurd to go about freshly dollied up, three times daily, to show one's self to sea-cliffs, and sea-sands, moss-grown monoliths, and British tumuli, and all that sort of thing. The piskies would laugh. The Bookworm remembered a French professor writing that when he visited the Acropolis at Athens he removed his rings and watchchain as being too much out of keeping with his surroundings. He said he smiled at the confession at the time as "too Frenchy," but it had a new meaning for him here. Wherever we went no one we met seemed to want to show off their "frills" to one another, or to the hoary fragments of antiquity permitted to survive—one would just as soon think of dressing up and showing off in a museum of extinct animals. It must take a lot off a woman's brain, Guy said, to know that she need not unpack her things; and he supposed that was one reason why so many took their fresh air and sunshine treatment now on Cornish moors and beaches, instead of crowding stuffy old German spas, where it was the rule to put in time in showing new "frills" to one another.

The curiosity of the people inhabiting highways, byways, and villages as to the going and coming of strangers has been so gratified of late, that little short of a dancing bear would cause a woman to run to her door, and stare wide-eyed and open-mouthed. The advent of the hatless one in many colours, making the sun to blush, or in oilskins in wet weather, seemingly satisfied the native, and made every other vagary, hats or no hats, clothes or none, not only possible, but something to be looked for amongst strangers. A tall, thin lady, showing much wrist and leg, swinging a stick, and wearing her hair short, passed along the road, taking it easy at five miles an hour. She was a new arrival at a whitewashed house with thatched roof at the end of the village. We were chatting to an old woman in a big blue sunbonnet (called a "gook"), who had rested her basket on the top step of the market cross.

"Stranger?" asked Guy.

"Iss, sure; we doan't grow that soart in this soil, but they may wan day, for I do mind when they ded'n grow mangel-wuzzels. What do I caal 'em? Why, I do caal 'em great he-shees—they'm spoiled fur women, and bain't vitty fur men."

This was a wayside verdict on a choice variety of the sort.