or poor John's feelings,
they popped him into Bodmin Jail almost as quickly as the piskies and he
had popped into the cellar. And worse still, before much time had
elapsed, they tried him, convicted him, and sentenced him to be hanged.

Poor John! Here was a dreadful state of affairs, and all brought on an
innocent man by those wicked piskies! There was no escape either, or hope
of reprieve, for people were not so tender-hearted in those days as in
these, and a man was not only sentenced to death for a trifle, but no one
ever took any trouble to get him off.

Well, the fatal day came, and John was brought to the gallows, where a
large crowd was gathered to see the execution; and there stood John, with
the clergyman imploring him to confess, and free his mind of a load of
falsehood; and the hangman waiting with the noose in his hand, waiting to
slip it over poor John's head, when suddenly a beautiful little lady,
dressed in white and silver, appeared in the midst of the crowd gathered
at the gallows-foot.

No one saw her come, no one knew how she got there; but without a word
from her, not knowing, indeed, why they did so, every man, woman, and
child stood back and left a clear pathway for her right up to the
scaffold.

There she paused, and stood, with her eyes fixed on the prisoner, who,
however, did not see her, for he was too frightened to notice anything
that was going on around him--until, "Ho and away for France!" rang out a
sweet voice, which John recognized in a moment. With the sound of it his
poor dazed senses returned, and the spirit to seize the chance of escape
offered him.

"Ho and away for France!" he yelled. There was no danger of his not being
able to shout this time! And then, before anyone there could collect his
senses, the officers of justice saw their prisoner whisked away from out
of their very grasp, and John was in France long before the executioner
and the chaplain, the jailers and the crowd, had ceased gaping stupidly at
each other.

THE TRUE STORY OF ANNE AND THE FAIRIES.

More than two hundred years ago there lived in the parish of St. Teath,
a poor labouring man called Jefferies, and this man had one daughter,
called Anne. Anne was a sweetly pretty girl, and a very intelligent one,
too; but she was a terrible hoyden. She shocked all the old ladies in the
village, and all the prim people, dreadfully, and instead of being
ashamed, she seemed to glory in it.

Everyone w