The White Horse of Zennor: And Other Stories

by Michael Morpurgo

  For the first time now she began to think of her family and how worried they would be, but the thought of walking in through the front door all dripping and dramatic made her almost choke with excitement.

  As she reached forward to brush a sharp stone from the sole of her foot, Cherry noticed that the narrow entrance to the cave was half sealed in. She ran her fingers over the stones and cement to make sure, for the light was poor. It was at that moment that she recognised exactly where she was. She recalled now the giant fledgling cuckoo one of her brothers had spotted being fed by a tiny rock pipit earlier in the holidays, how they had quarrelled over the binoculars and how, when she had finally usurped them and made her escape across the rocks, she had found the cuckoo perched at the entrance to a narrow cave some way up the cliff face from the beach.

  She had asked about the man-made walling, and her father had told her of the old tin mines whose lodes and adits criss-crossed the entire coastal area around Zennor. This one, he said, might have been the mine they called Wheel North Grylls, and he thought the adit must have been walled up to prevent the seas from entering the mine in a storm. It was said there had been an accident in the mine only a few years after it was opened over a hundred years before, and that the mine had had to close soon after when the mine owners ran out of money to make the necessary repairs. The entire story came back to her now, and she wondered where the cuckoo was and whether the rock pipit had died with the effort of keeping the fledgling alive. Tin mines, she thought, lead to the surface, and the way home. That thought and her natural inquisitiveness about the source of light persuaded her to her feet and into the tunnel.

  The adit became narrower and lower as she crept forward, so that she had to go down on her hands and knees, sometimes flat on her stomach. Although she was out of the wind now, it seemed colder. She felt she was moving downwards for a minute or two, for the blood was coming to her head and her weight was heavy on her hands. Then, quite suddenly, she found the ground levelling out and saw a large tunnel ahead of her. There was no doubt as to which way she should turn, for one way the tunnel was black, and the other way was lighted with candles that lined the lode wall as far as she could see. She called out, ‘Anyone there? Anyone there?’ She paused to listen for the reply; but all she could hear now was the muffled roar of the sea and the continuous echoing of dripping water.

  The tunnel widened now and she found she could walk upright again; but her feet hurt against the stone and so she moved slowly, feeling her way gently with each foot. She had gone only a short distance when she heard the tapping for the first time, distinct and rhythmic, a sound that was instantly recognisable as hammering. It became sharper and noticeably more metallic as she moved up the tunnel. She could hear the distant murmur of voices and the sound of falling stone. Even before she came out of the tunnel and into the vast cave she knew she had happened upon a working mine.

  The cave was dark in all but one corner and here she could see two men bending to their work, their backs towards her. One of them was inspecting the rock face closely whilst the other swung his hammer with controlled power, pausing only to spit on his hands from time to time. They wore round hats with turned up brims that served also as candlesticks, for a lighted candle was fixed to each, the light dancing with the shadows along the cave walls as they worked.

  Cherry watched for some moments until she made up her mind what to do. She longed to rush up to them and tell of her escape and to ask them to take her to the surface, but a certain shyness overcame her and she held back. Her chance to interrupt came when they sat down against the rock face and opened their canteens. She was in the shadows and they still could not see her.

  ‘Tea looks cold again,’ one of them said gruffly. ‘’Tis always cold. I’m sure she makes it wi’ cold water.’

  ‘Oh stop your moaning, Father,’ said the other, a younger voice, Cherry felt. ‘She does her best. She’s five little ones to look after and precious little to do it on. She does her best. You mustn’t keep on at her so. It upsets her. She does her best.’

  ‘So she does, lad, so she does. And so for that matter do I, but that don’t stop her moaning at me and it’ll not stop me moaning at her. If we didn’t moan at each other, lad, we’d have precious little else to talk about, and that’s a fact. She expects of it me, lad, and I expects it of her.’

  ‘Excuse me,’ Cherry said tentatively. She felt she had eavesdropped for long enough. She approached them slowly. ‘Excuse me, but I’ve got a bit lost. I climbed the cliff, you see, ’cos I was cut off from the Cove. I was trying to get back, but I couldn’t and I saw this light and so I climbed up. I want to get home and I wondered if you could help me get to the top?’

  ‘Top?’ said the older one, peering into the dark. ‘Come closer, lad, where we can see you.’

  ‘She’s not a lad, Father. Are you blind? Can you not see ’tis a filly. ’Tis a young filly, all wet through from the sea. Come,’ the young man said, standing up and beckoning Cherry in. ‘Don’t be afeared, little girl, we shan’t harm you. Come on, you can have some of my tea if you like.’

  They spoke their words in a manner Cherry had never heard before. It was not the usual Cornish burr, but heavier and rougher in tone, more old-fashioned somehow. There were so many questions in her mind.

  ‘But I thought the mine was closed a hundred years ago,’ she said nervously. ‘That’s what I was told, anyway.’

  ‘Well, you was told wrong,’ said the old man, whom Cherry could see more clearly now under his candle. His eyes were white and set far back in his head, unnaturally so, she thought, and his lips and mouth seemed a vivid red in the candlelight.

  ‘Closed, closed indeed, does it look closed to you? D’you think we’re digging for worms? Over four thousand tons of tin last year and nine thousand of copper ore, and you ask is the mine closed? Over twenty fathoms below the sea this mine goes. We’ll dig right out under the ocean, halfway to ’Merica afore we close down this mine.’

  He spoke passionately now, almost angrily, so that Cherry felt she had offended him.

  ‘Hush, Father,’ said the young man taking off his jacket and wrapping it round Cherry’s shoulders. ‘She doesn’t want to hear all about that. She’s cold and wet. Can’t you see? Now let’s make a little fire to warm her through. She’s shivered right through to her bones. You can see she is.’

  ‘They all are,’ said the old tinner pulling himself to his feet. ‘They all are.’ And he shuffled past her into the dark. ‘I’ll fetch the wood,’ he muttered, and then added, ‘for all the good it’ll do.’

  ‘What does he mean?’ Cherry asked the young man, for whom she felt an instant liking. ‘What did he mean by that?’

  ‘Oh pay him no heed, little girl,’ he said. ‘He’s an old man now and tired of the mine. We’re both tired of it, but we’re proud of it see, and we’ve nowhere else to go, nothing else to do.’

  He had a kind voice that was reassuring to Cherry. He seemed somehow to know the questions she wanted to ask, for he answered them now without her ever asking.

  ‘Sit down by me while you listen, girl,’ he said. ‘Father will make a fire to warm you and I shall tell you how we come to be here. You won’t be afeared now, will you?’

  Cherry looked up into his face which was younger than she had expected from his voice; but like his father’s, the eyes seemed sad and deep set, yet they smiled at her gently and she smiled back.

  ‘That’s my girl. It was a new mine this, promising everyone said. The best tin in Cornwall and that means the best tin in the world. 1865 it started up and they were looking for tinners, and so Father found a cottage down by Treveal and came to work here. I was already fourteen, so I joined him down the mine. We prospered and the mine prospered, to start with. Mother and the little children had full bellies and there was talk of sinking a fresh shaft. Times were good and promised to be better.’

  Cherry sat transfixed as the story of the disaster unfolded. She heard how they had been trapp
ed by a fall of rock, about how they had worked to pull them away, but behind every rock was another rock and another rock. She heard how they had never even heard any sound of rescue. They had died, he said, in two days or so because the air was bad and because there was too little of it.

  ‘Father has never accepted it; he still thinks he’s alive, that he goes home to Mother and the little children each evening. But he’s dead, just like me. I can’t tell him though, for he’d not understand and it would break his heart if he ever knew.’

  ‘So you aren’t real. I’m just imaging all this. You’re just a dream.’

  ‘No dream, my girl,’ said the young man laughing out loud. ‘No more’n we’re imagining you. We’re real right enough, but we’re dead and have been for a hundred years and more. Ghosts, spirits, that’s what living folk call us. Come to think of it, that’s what I called us when I was alive.’

  Cherry was on her feet suddenly and backing away.

  ‘No need to be afeared, little girl,’ said the young man holding out his hand towards her. ‘We won’t harm you. No one can harm you, not now. Look, he’s started the fire already. Come over and warm yourself. Come, it’ll be all right, girl. We’ll look after you. We’ll help you.’

  ‘But I want to go home,’ Cherry said, feeling the panic rising to her voice and trying to control it. ‘I know you’re kind, but I want to go home. My mother will be worried about me. They’ll be out looking for me. Your light saved my life and I want to thank you. But I must go else they’ll worry themselves sick, I know they will.’

  ‘You going back home?’ the young man asked, and then he nodded. ‘I s’pose you’ll want to see your family again.’

  ‘Course I am,’ said Cherry perplexed by the question. ‘Course I do.’

  ‘’Tis a pity,’ he said sadly. ‘Everyone passes through and no one stays. They all want to go home, but then so do I. You’ll want me to guide you to the surface I s’pose.’

  ‘I’m not the first then?’ Cherry said. ‘There’s been others climb up into the mine to escape from the sea? You’ve saved lots of people.’

  ‘A few,’ said the tinner nodding. ‘A few.’

  ‘You’re a kind person,’ Cherry said, warming to the sadness in the young man’s voice. ‘I never thought ghosts would be kind.’

  ‘We’re just people, people who’ve passed on,’ replied the young man, taking her elbow and leading her towards the fire. ‘There’s nice people and there’s nasty people. It’s the same if you’re alive or if you’re dead. You’re a nice person, I can tell that, even though I haven’t known you for long. I’m sad because I should like to be alive again with my friends and go rabbiting or blackberrying up by the chapel near Treveal like I used to. The sun always seemed to be shining then. After it happened I used to go up to the surface and move amongst the people in the village. I went often to see my family, but if I spoke to them they never seemed to hear me, and of course they can’t see you. You can see them, but they can’t see you. That’s the worst of it. So I don’t go up much now, just to collect wood for the fire and a bit of food now and then. I stay down here with Father in the mine and we work away day after day. From time to time someone like you comes up the tunnel from the sea and lightens our darkness. I shall be sad when you go.’

  The old man was hunched over the fire rubbing his hands and holding them out over the heat.

  ‘Not often we have a fire,’ he said, his voice more spritely now. ‘Only on special occasions. Birthdays, of course, we always have a fire on birthdays back at the cottage. Martha’s next. You don’t know her; she’s my only daughter – she’ll be eight on September 10th. She’s been poorly, you know – her lungs, that’s what the doctor said.’ He sighed deeply. ‘’Tis dreadful damp in the cottage. ’Tis well nigh impossible to keep it out.’ There was a tremor in the old man’s voice that betrayed his emotion. He looked up at Cherry and she could see the tears in his eyes. ‘She looks a bit like you, my dear, raven-haired and as pretty as a picture; but not so tall, not so tall. Come closer, my dear, you’ll be warmer that way.’

  Cherry sat with them by the fire till it died away to nothing. She longed to go, to get home amongst the living, but the old man talked on of his family and their little one-roomed cottage with a ladder to the bedroom where they all huddled together for warmth, of his friends that used to meet in the Tinners’ Arms every evening. There were tales of wrecking and smuggling, and all the while the young man sat silent, until there was a lull in the story.

  ‘Father,’ he said. ‘I think our little friend would like to go home now. Shall I take her up as I usually do?’ The old man nodded and waved his hand in dismissal.

  ‘Come back and see us sometime, if you’ve a mind to,’ he said, and then put his face in his hands.

  ‘Goodbye,’ said Cherry. ‘Thank you for the fire and for helping me. I won’t forget you.’ But the old man never replied.

  The journey through the mine was long and difficult. She held fast to the young tinner’s waist as they walked silently through the dark tunnels, stopping every now and then to climb a ladder to the Iode above until finally they could look up the shaft above them and see the daylight.

  ‘It’s dawn,’ said the young man, looking up.

  ‘I’ll be back in time for breakfast,’ said Cherry setting her foot on the ladder.

  ‘You’ll remember me?’ the young tinner asked, and Cherry nodded, unable to speak through her tears. She felt a strange affinity with him and his father. ‘And if you should ever need me, come back again. You may need me and I shall be here. I go nowhere else.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Cherry. ‘I won’t forget. I doubt anyone is going to believe me when I tell them about you. No one believes in ghosts, not up there.’

  ‘I doubt it too. Be happy, little friend,’ he said. And he was gone, back into the tunnel. Cherry waited until the light from the candle in his hat had vanished and then turned eagerly to the ladder and began to climb up towards the light.

  She found herself in a place she knew well, high on the moor by Zennor Quoit. She stood by the ruined mine workings and looked down at the sleeping village shrouded in mist, and the calm blue sea beyond. The storm had passed and there was scarcely a breath of wind even on the moor. It was only ten minutes’ walk down through the bracken, across the road by the Eagle’s Nest and down the farm track to the cottage where her family would be waiting. She began to run, but the clothes were still heavy and wet and she was soon reduced to a fast walk. All the while she was determining where she would begin her story, wondering how much they would believe. At the top of the lane she stopped to consider how best to make her entrance. Should she ring the bell and be found standing there, or should she just walk in and surprise them there at breakfast? She longed to see the joy on their faces, to feel the warmth of their arms round her and to bask once again in their affection.

  She saw as she came round the corner by the cottage that there was a long blue Land Rover parked in the lane, bristling with aerials. ‘Coastguard’ she read on the side. As she came down the steps she noticed that the back door of the cottage was open and she could hear voices inside. She stole in on tiptoe. The kitchen was full of uniformed men drinking tea, and around the table sat her family, dejection and despair etched on every face. They hadn’t seen her yet. One of the uniformed men had put down his cup and was speaking. His voice was low and hushed.

  ‘You’re sure the towel is hers, no doubts about it?’

  Cherry’s mother shook her head.

  ‘It’s her towel,’ she said quietly, ‘and they are her shells. She must have put them up there, must have been the last thing she did.’

  Cherry saw her shells spread out on the open towel and stifled a shout of joy.

  ‘We have to say,’ he went on. ‘We have to say then, most regrettably, that the chances of finding your daughter alive now are very slim. It seems she must have tried to climb the cliff to escape the heavy seas and fallen in. We’ve scoured the cli
ff top for miles in both directions and covered the entire beach, and there’s no sign of her. She must have been washed out to sea. We must conclude that she is missing. We have to presume that she is drowned.’

  Cherry could listen no longer but burst into the room shouting.

  ‘I’m home, I’m home. Look at me, I’m not drowned at all. I’m here! I’m home!’

  The tears were running down her face.

  But no one in the room even turned to look in her direction. Her brothers cried openly, one of them clutching the giant’s necklace.

  ‘But it’s me,’ she shouted again. ‘Me, can’t you see? It’s me and I’ve come back. I’m all right. Look at me.’

  But no one did, and no one heard.

  The giant’s necklace lay spread out on the table.

  ‘So she’ll never finish it after all,’ said her mother softly. ‘Poor Cherry. Poor dear Cherry.’

  And in that one moment Cherry knew and understood that she was right, that she would never finish her necklace, that she belonged no longer with the living but had passed on beyond.

  THE WHITE HORSE OF ZENNOR

  THE FAMILY HAD FARMED THE LAND IN THE Foage Valley at Zennor for over five hundred years. They had been there it was said ever since Miguel Veluna first crawled ashore half-drowned at Porthzennor Cove from the wreck of his galleon off Gunnards Head. As soon as he could make himself understood, so the story goes, he married the farmer’s daughter who had just nursed him back to life; and with her came the farm in the fertile valley that runs down from the north coast to the south with the high moors rising on either side. Through the generations the Velunas prospered, sowing their corn along the sheltered fields and grazing their hardy cattle on the moors above. They became tough and circumspect, as are all the farmers whose roots lie deep in the rocks and soil of Penwith, the last bastion of land against the mighty Atlantic that seeks with every storm to subdue the peninsula and to rejoin the Channel a few short miles to the south. Over the centuries the family had survived famine and disease, invasion and depression; but now the Velunas were staring ruin in the face and there seemed no way forward for them.