wits, seemingly! Why, Joan," he said, "whatever have you been
spending the night out here for? We've been scouring the country for you,
for hours!"

"Oh, Master!" she cried, almost in tears as she dropped trembling at his
feet, "for the sake of all the years I've served 'ee from your cradle up,
do 'ee let me die in peace, and bury me decent!" and then, her tongue once
set going, she poured out all the long tale of the dreadful things that
had happened to her since she set out for Penzance Market.

How long she would have talked no one knows, but the Squire sent for his
men, and between them they carried her home, and warmed and fed and
comforted her, for she was black and blue, wet to the skin, and half
frozen. However, with all their care she soon recovered, and when she was
dry, and warm, and rested she poured out all her adventures and disasters.

To her astonishment, though, and anger and pain, they refused to believe a
word of it. They did not pity her a bit; they even laughed at her.
Indeed, they tried to make her believe that the enchanted steed was only
the miller's old white horse, that the demon huntsman and his hounds were
no more nor less than her own son John riding across the moor with the
dogs, in search of her, that her lost eye must have been scratched out by
a 'fuz'-bush; and so they went on pooh-poohing the whole of her story,--
which was very nearly the most aggravating thing of all she had had to
bear.

One thing, though, Joan had not told them, and that was about her stealing
the Fairy Ointment, or they would have known that she had been pisky-led
that night, by order of the Fairies, as a punishment, and would one and
all have agreed that she richly deserved it.

[1] A 'talfat' is a raised floor at one end of a cottage, on which a bed
is placed. Sometimes it is divided off by a wooden partition, but more
often there is only a bar, to prevent the sleeper falling out of bed.

THE EXCITING ADVENTURE OF JOHN STURTRIDGE.

One of the greatest feast-days in Cornwall, and the most looked forward
to, is St. Picrons' Day, which falls just before Christmas. It is the
special day of the tinners and streamers, their greatest holiday in the
year, and on it they have a great merry-making. Picrons was the
discoverer of tin in Cornwall, so they say, so, of course, it is the
bounden duty of those who earn their living by it, to keep up his day with
rejoicings.

It is not of St. Picrons, though