cut his arm and let the blood run;
but the life-stream flowed and flowed, and his strength ebbed away,
and the hole did not fill. At last, when the sea had become red with
his blood, he died. The saint had deceived him; the small hole in the
rock led down into a cavern, and the cavern led to the sea; not even
the ocean could have filled it." Chapel Porth is named as the scene of
this incident. The village of St. Agnes lies at the eastward foot of
the Beacon, and Trevaunance, on the coast, is its port. It is a
neighbourhood where natural beauties contend with the ugliness of
industrialism, and usually emerge triumphant. There is a story told of
St. Agnes in connection with Wesley, which proves how rapidly
folk-lore may spring up; it is even more remarkable, because more
modern, than the manner in which Devonians have associated mythology
with the name of Francis Drake. It is said that "when Wesley visited
this part of Cornwall preaching, he was refused shelter elsewhere than
in an ancient mansion that was unoccupied because haunted by ghosts.
Wesley went to the house, and sat up reading by candle-light. At
midnight he heard a noise in the hall, and on issuing from his room,
saw that a banquet was spread, and that richly apparelled ladies and
gentlemen were about the board. Then one cavalier, with dark, piercing
eyes and a pointed black beard, wearing a red feather in his cap,
said, 'We invite you to eat and to drink with us,' and pointed to an
empty chair. Wesley at once took the place indicated, but before he
put in his mouth a bite of food or drank a drop, said, 'It is my
custom to ask a blessing; stand all.' Then the spectres rose. Wesley
began his accustomed grace, 'The Name of God, high over all'--when
suddenly the room darkened, and all the apparitions vanished." There
is yet another memory at St. Agnes. The painter Opie (said to have
been born Hoppie) was born at Harmony Cottage in the year 1761, his
father being a carpenter. At ten years of age he began to teach others
in the village school; and at twelve he opened an evening school for
poor children. Having already developed an extraordinary taste for
drawing, it is related that he once purposely irritated his father in
order to catch the expression of anger for a picture. He soon began to
practise in a humble way as a portrait-painter, and was advised by Dr.
Wolcot ("Peter Pindar") to raise his price to half a guinea a head;
from which we may guess that his prev