POLLACK AND PILCHARDS 93 



which all next day women and children were en- 

 gaged in removing stacks of ruined treasures. The 

 buildings nothing could save, but so prompt is 

 charity in even the poorest stronghold of Cornish 

 Methodism that, with very little outside help, 

 the subscription subsequently raised realised more 

 than the amount required for their restoration r 

 and on my next visit I found fresh chapels on 

 sites where last had been heaps of debris. 



It was on that first visit to " Fishy gissey," as 

 the less prosperous Gorran folk call it in derision, 

 that I met the late Matthias Dunn, one of the 

 most remarkable of Cornwall's many great sons. 

 How well I remember my first sight of him : the 

 sturdy figure leaning on a stout stick, the features 

 unspoilt by any manner of excess, rugged with 

 the seal of all weathers, showing perhaps the mark 

 of much spiritual wrestling, for, as elder of his 

 chapel, he would have had to unravel many knotty 

 problems of exorcism and punishment, such as 

 exercise folk in that primitive valley of conscien- 

 tious dissent. The face was stern in repose and 

 even hard in argument, but ever and again illu- 

 mined by a smile of great charm. Beginning life 

 quite humbly in the fishing community of his 

 native village, working in later years in the employ 

 of the sardine-factory, Dunn learnt his lessons 

 straight from Nature's book, learnt to such good 

 purpose that his information was eagerly shared 



