In the
winter they reaped the harvest of the sea, or explored the bowels of the
earth; in the summer they transformed themselves into "guides," and set
up curiosity-shops of shells and minerals; while, to supply
accommodation to the increasing throng of Visitors, John Trevethick, who
had always a keen eye for profit, had leased the village beer-house, and
enlarged it to the dimensions of a respectable inn. Even now, however,
the house exhibited a curious ignorance or disregard of the tastes of
those for whose use it was built--the windows of all its sitting-rooms
opened upon the straggling street, while the glorious prospect of cliff
and ocean which it commanded behind was totally ignored. Thus Richard
Yorke found himself located in an apartment which, though otherwise
tolerably comfortable, might as well have been in Bloomsbury for the
view which it afforded. The walls were ornamented by colored pictures of
the Royal Exchange and of the Thames Tunnel, London; and upon the
mantel-piece was an equestrian figure (in china) of Field-marshal the
Duke of Wellington as he appears upon the arch of Constitution Hill. The
only attempt at "local coloring" was found in the book-case--composed of
two boards and a cat's cradle--in which three odd volumes of the "Tales
of the Castle" had been placed, no doubt with reference to the grand old
ruin whose tottering walls beckoned "the quality" to Gethin.
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