Conington translates the passage thus: "Now know I what love is; it is among savage rocks that he is produced by Tmarus or Rhodope or the Garamantes at earth's end; no child of lineage or blood like ours." Hawker's translation, it must be owned, is preferable as far as it goes.
[74] Evidences of thought and style make it almost certain that these ingenious "fragments" are Hawker's "own invention." See note on p. 104.
[75] It was a trick of Hawker's style to end a sentence with this or similar adverbs. Instances occur on pp. 17 and 172. Elsewhere he writes: "As the lightning leaps from the dark cloud suddenly." Little points like this suggest the real authorship of Daniel Gumb's diary.
[76] Numbers xxiv. 21, "And he (Balaam) looked on the Kenites, and took up his parable, and said, Strong is thy dwelling-place, and thou puttest thy nest in a rock."
On the brow of a lofty hill, crested with stag-horned trees, commanding a deep and woodland gorge wherein "the Crooks of Combe"[78] (the curves of a winding river) urge onward to the "Severn Sea," still survive the remains of famous old Stowe,--that historic abode of the loyal and glorious Sir Beville,[79] the Bayard of old Cornwall, "sans peur et sans reproche," in the thrilling Stuart wars. No mansion on the Tamar-side ever accumulated so rich and varied a store of association and event. Thither the sons of the Cornish gentry were accustomed to resort, to be nurtured and brought up with the children of Sir Beville Granville and Lady Grace; for the noble knight was literally the "glass wherein" the youth of those ancient times "did dress themselves." There their graver studies were relieved by manly pastime and athletic exercise. Like the children of the Persians, they were taught "to ride, to bend the bow, and to speak the truth." At hearth and hall every time-honoured usage and festive celebration was carefully and reverently preserved. Around the walls branched the massive antlers of the red deer of the moors, the trophies of many a bold achievement with horse and hound. At the buttery-hatch hung a tankard marked with the guests' and the travellers' peg, and a manchet, flanked with native cheese, stood ready on a trencher for any sudden visitant who might choose to lift the latch; for the Granville motto was, "An open door and a greeting hand." A troop of retainers, servants, grooms, and varlets of the yard, stood each in his place, and under orders to receive with a welcome the unknown stranger, as well as their master's kinsman and friend.