Three people spoke as one to head her off. Alice MacKenzie, loudest of the trio, said, “So he’s stuck up there on Roche Rock, being attacked by hellhounds?”
“There’s more to the story,” said Rowan quickly, realizing that it had been a close call. “After a few days of listening to Tregeagle’s screams, the holy man of Roche Rock sent for one of Cornwall’s saints to move Tregeagle elsewhere, and he was set to weaving ropes of sand on the beach at Padstow. But Padstow’s patron saint grew tired of listening to the spirit’s howls of torment, so he shipped him off to Berepper, where he was ordered to clear all the sand from the beach. Unfortunately, during his labors he dropped a sack of sand and managed to permanently seal off the entrance to Helston Harbour with a sandbar.”
“Evicted again?” asked Emma Smith, a folklore enthusiast.
“Yes. He’s at Land’s End now, sweeping the sands from Porthcurno Cove into Mill Bay, but the ocean currents defeat him. They say you can hear his bellows of rage when gale winds blow the sand back on the beach.”
Emma looked thoughtful. “I suppose Jan Tregeagle is really the personification of some ancient Celtic god. The geographic connections to the story make it seem much older than seventeenth century.”
“Very likely,” Rowan agreed. “But he makes a colorful villain, doesn’t he?”
Susan piped up again. “In Minnesota, we have a legendary figure associated with lakes. He’s an Indian called Hiawatha. There’s a poem about him that I had to learn in the eighth grade. It’s by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Have you heard it?” She cleared her throat, and hastened on.
The others contrived to lag as far behind Susan as they possibly could for the remainder of the walk, but her flat voice carried very well across the moors, adding another dimension of agony to the haunted moor. Several members of the group were heard to mutter that they would much prefer to be set upon by hellhounds than listen to another stanza of “The Song of Hiawatha,” and for one altruistic moment Rowan Rover felt guilty about taking Mr. Kosminski’s money.
After a somewhat perfunctory admiration of Dozmary Pool and a few dutiful photographs taken by Charles Warren, the group trudged back to the Jamaica Inn car park, where Bernard was waiting, enveloped in a rock ‘n’ roll cloud.
“We shan’t be going far this time,” Rowan told the driver. “The turnoff for the village of Roche is about seven miles up the A30. I’ll direct you from there.”
“Right you are,” said Bernard, switching back to a classical lullaby. “Did everyone have a nice hike? What was the pool like?”
Alice MacKenzie paused on her way to her seat and scowled. “I was reminded of Lake Superior,” she snapped, stalking away.
Recognizing this reference to Minnesota, the others stole furtive glances in Susan’s direction and fought to keep straight faces.
Rowan Rover, pleased with the tide of popular opinion, reached for his trusty microphone and began to describe the next exhibit. “Our next destination is Roche Rock which is, as I told you, the summit to which Jan Tregeagle fled when he escaped from Dozmary Pool. It was also the home of a succession of Celtic saints, including St. Roche or St. Conan.”
“Why do Celtic saints always have two names?” asked Emma Smith.
“Probably because the Latin clergy always wanted to translate everything into their own language, the bureaucratic old perishers. Anyhow, Roche Rock is a stark pillar of rock rising above the flat landscape, and at the top of it is a ruined chapel, carved into the rock itself. That dates from 1409. Perhaps the hermit in residence kept a light burning in the chapel to guide travelers across the moors.”
“Not another walk!” moaned Susan Cohen, fanning herself with a postcard.
“Not at all,” said Rowan cheerfully. “A
Rowan leaped to his feet and motioned for Bernard to open the doors. “Here we are!” he announced, somewhat unnecessarily. “An ancient Celtic chapel that is not a tourist trap.” He smiled at Miriam Angel. “As you can see, there are no guides, no gates, and no admission fee. It is a simple country relic.”
A dirt trail led upward through the tangle of bushes to the foot of the rock, about a hundred yards from the road. Rowan led the way, answering questions about the shrubbery, and giving them more facts about the area. Finally, when they were all assembled on a small hill at the foot of the towering rock, the guide turned to the group and said, “Ready to go up?”
Frances Coles put her head back to survey the summit of the pinnacle. She looked up, and up, and up, until she nearly lost her balance. “Oh, my,” she murmured. “Where are the steps?”
Rowan Rover shook his head. He walked to the base of the rock and climbed three rungs up a vertical iron ladder that was hammered into the rock. There were no handrails and the rungs of the ladder were circular iron bars, hardly suited to steady footing. “Magnificent view at the top!” he told them. “Tell you what: I’ll go up to the top and help you up at the summit. Charles can stay at the foot of the ladder and steady you from below. That’s quite safe, isn’t it?”
Maud Marsh strode over to the foot of the ladder. “No guts, no glory,” she said with a shrug, and she began to follow the guide up the iron rungs.
After snapping another shot of the rock, Charles Warren did as he was instructed, taking up his place at the base of the ladder. “Who’s next?” he asked, grinning at the huddle of tourists. “Nancy?”
His wife grinned back at him. “Sure,” she said. “Just make sure you catch me, Charles.”
“Anybody else?” asked Charles, noting that Maud had nearly reached Rowan’s outstretched hand.
“I think the view is just fine from down here,” said Miriam Angel. “We’ll watch.” She sat down on a flat boulder with Emma and Martha Tabram to watch the climbers.
“We’re still deliberating!” yelled Kate Conway, who was standing with the undecided Alice MacKenzie and the horrified Frances Coles.
“You can be the next group!” Rowan called back from far above them. “There isn’t much room up here, so we’d better limit ourselves to four people at a time. I can take one more now. Susan? Not afraid, are you?”
Susan hesitated for a moment and looked down at her slick-soled Italian pumps. “You’d better not, Susan,” said Elizabeth, also looking at Susan’s footwear. “That ladder is awfully small. And it may be slippery.”
Susan cast her companion a look of scorn. “I have excellent balance,” she retorted. “In grade school I took several months of ballet.” She waved her hand at the group on the summit. “Here I come, you guys!”
Elizabeth sighed. “I’d better come with you, then.”
For anyone afraid of heights, the top of Roche Rock could fuel twenty years of nightmares. The roofless ruined chapel was missing walls on two sides so that only one’s sense of balance separated the climber from a sixty-foot plunge to the jagged rocks below. The space within the chapel was about the size of a walk-in closet, so that the climbers had to be very careful not to bump into each other as they changed positions to look at the scenery.
“You’re right about the view,” said Nancy Warren. “You can see for miles. Rowan, look almost straight down on the back side. Is that a schoolyard? What are those boys playing?”
“Football. Well, soccer to you,” Rowan replied. “What a perfect place to watch the game from. I wonder none of the school’s football fans has thought of it.”
Maud Marsh, who was looking across the fields to the northeast, motioned for Rowan to come and stand beside her. “That’s an odd-looking mountain over there,” she said, pointing to a bare hill with an escarpment of white clay.
“I’m afraid that what you’re looking at is a bit of industrial blight,” said Rowan sadly. “This part of Cornwall is the source of the clay used by the makers of fine china. You know, Wedgwood… Spode… all those wonderfully delicate works of ceramic art. That mound that you’re looking at is a refuse heap made by the china clay industry. They take the earth they want, and leave the rest behind in ugly mounds to sully the landscape. Ugly, isn’t it?”
Maud Marsh looked stern. “They’d never get away with that in Berkeley!”
“No,” said Rowan. “I expect your environmental terrorists would begin picketing before they’d deposited more than four shovels full of waste dirt.” Still, he felt a pang of sympathy for the clay quarriers. They made it possible to fashion creations of great and lasting beauty, but all anyone ever seemed to notice was their refuse dump. In his
