"_God keep us from rocks and shelving sands And save us from Breage and Germoe men's hands._"
But those days have passed away, though Germoe still has a reputation of a kind. It is said that once the men had good singing voices, but were so proud of them that the voices failed; while another distich shows the estimation in which they held themselves:
"_Camborne men are bulldogs, Breage men are brags, Three or four Germoe men 'Ull scat'um all to rags._"
Local jealousies between neighbouring towns are by no means rare in Cornwall. For instance, there is the old enmity between Zennor and St. Ives. It is said that the fishermen belonging to the latter were greatly annoyed one season by the ravages of the hake among the mackerel. They therefore caught the largest they could, whipped him soundly, and restored him to the water--_pour encourager les autres_.
When a Zennor man wishes to be disagreeable to a native of St. Ives, therefore, he says: "Who whipped the hake?"
But Zennor, one might think, would have hesitated to throw stones, for it is locally known as the place where the cow ate the bellrope, the neighbourhood being so barren and rocky that the straw bellrope was the only provender the poor animal could find--which is suggestive of the Cornish vet. who sent in his bill "to curing your old cow till she died."
One more local story before we go on to Helston, and that because the retort is so neat and the lady, as usual, had the last word. Pengersick Castle is a ruin which, when habitable, was occupied by a man and his wife whose early regard had changed to hatred. Their children were grown up and married, and they had nothing to do but brood upon their mutual dislike, until one day it occurred to both that the world would be a brighter and better place if the other were out of it. No sooner said than done. That day at dinner the good man poured his wife a glass of a rare vintage, and after she had drunken told her with satisfaction that he would now see the last of her--as the wine had been poisoned.
"The wine? Ah, yes, and the soup, too," quoth she, "and as you drank first, my love, the pleasure of seeing the last of you will be mine."
Helston, the little bright town built crossways on the side of a hill, is near the spring of the Kelford River and at the head of the Loe Pool. It had an exciting time in 1548, when the Cornish feeling against the new doctrine of the sacrament found vent in the murder, which took place inside the church, of Wm. Bray, the royal commissioner. In pursuance of his duty he was pulling down images and possibly treating what was sacred in the eyes of the people with only scant reverence. Be that as it may, Wm. Kiltor, a priest of St. Keverne, attacked and slew him, to the secret--not too secret either--joy of the people and the scandal of authority.