146 THE LAND'S END 



Something more will have to be said on the subject 

 of cruelty to animals in another chapter about wild 

 birds during severe weather. At present, to conclude 

 this chapter, we have to consider another matter which 

 is that of the gravest charge of all and is indicated in 

 the following words spoken to me by a professional 

 man, a resident in West Cornwall. " I have lived 

 and worked for twenty years among this people and 

 have long lost the last vestige of respect and affection 

 I once had for them. They are at heart what their 

 forefathers were ; their religion, softer manners and 

 apparent friendliness to strangers, is all on the surface 

 a veneer. The old barbarism lives and burns under 

 it, and if it were not for the watch kept on them and 

 the altered conditions generally they would go gladly 

 back to the ancient trade of wrecking." 



This spontaneous outburst on the part of a person 

 occupying an important position in the community 

 made me curious to know more about the man him- 

 self. He was in a sense a good man, a generous 

 giver according to his means, and as he gave secretly 

 even those who hated him (because they knew, I 

 imagine, that he despised and hated them) were never 

 unwilling to go to him for help when they required 

 it. But he was by nature an alien, one of those 

 downright uncompromising Saxons who cannot get 

 on with those of a different and in some things 

 antagonistic race. He had tried his best to bridge 

 the gulf over. His ambition had been to make him- 

 self the most loved man in the place and naturally his 

 signal failure had embittered him. 



