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I took the goods round by way of Penzance, meaning to deliver them on the return journey; but in Market-jew Street whom should I run up against but the widow herself, sporting it on the arm of a lawyer-fellow called Trudgian. 'Hullo, mistress! says I, 'I've a pack of goods belonging to you that I'm taking round to Porthleven. So she asked what they were, and I told her.
Oliver bade Tonkin good-afternoon, and, turning hastily away, followed his friend. The two proceeded arm in arm up Market-Jew Street, and turning down towards the shore, walked briskly along in the direction of the picturesque fishing village of Newlyn, which lies little more than a mile to the westward of Penzance.
And yet the name seems to mean nothing more romantic than a market-place; and in spite of its alternative Market-Jew, seized eagerly by those who are trying to prove that all Britons are Israelites, neither name must be taken to denote any connection with Jews or Jerusalem.
Primarily a place of business rather than of pleasure, one soon learns to admire and to respect it; there is nothing garish and little that is fashionable about it. Not many of its buildings are calculated to make an impression on the visitor, except the Market Hall that makes Market-Jew Street a rather striking thoroughfare, and the church of St. Mary, which has at least a charm of position.
Of course, it is also a coasting port and fishing port and a watering-place; but none of these things so wholly absorb it as do the weekly markets, when countryfolk from all the neighbouring villages throng Market-Jew Street with their conveyances, their parcels and packages, their cattle, their eager chatter.
So he told all he knew, and brought out the piece of cloth from the monk's robe, and with that the merchants were set at liberty, and the hostess and the monk were seized and hanged. Then they came all together out of Market-Jew, and they said to him: "Come as far as Coed Carrn y Wylfa, the Wood of the Heap of Stones of Watching, in the parish of Burman."
And when the robbers heard Ivan's shout they ran away, and the merchants went by the new road and Ivan by the old one till they met again at Market-Jew. "Oh, Ivan," said the merchants, "we are beholding to you; but for you we would have been lost men. Come lodge with us at our cost, and welcome." When they came to the place where they used to lodge, Ivan said, "I must see the host."
The oldest name was doubtless Marghas-iou, meaning "the markets" in an early form of Cornish; and in a later form of Cornish we have Marasion, which meant the same thing. But Camden says that the name Market-Jew arose from the town's having a market on Thursday, the day of Jove or Jupiter quod ibi mercatus die Jovis habeatur; an explanation that is probably quite fanciful.
Now it happened that the hostess had plotted with a certain monk in Market-Jew to murder the old man in his bed that night while the rest were asleep, and they agreed to lay it on the lodgers. So while Ivan was in bed next door, there was a hole in the pine-end of the house, and he saw a light through it. So he got up and looked, and heard the monk speaking.
It was necessity that gave birth to the resolve to travel to the end of the earth of English earth at all events in search of fortune, which swelled the bosom of yonder tall, well-favoured youth, who, seated uncomfortably on the top of that clumsy public conveyance, drives up Market-Jew Street in the ancient town of Penzance.
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