s great house at Heligan, knocking around with the small
people among casks of wine and barrels of beer galore. To do him
justice, he never pretended he didn't make use of the occasion. In
fact, he fuddled himself so that when the little gentleman called out
'_Ho! and away!_ for the next randivoo' (whatever that might ha' been),
he missed to take up the catchword, bein' asleep belike. So there the
piskies left him asleep, with his head in a waste saucer and his mouth
under the drip of a spigot; and there the butler found him the next
morning, knocking his shins among the butts and barrels in the
darkness, and calling out to know what the dickens had taken Tregarden
Down and the rocks o't, that they grew so pesky close together. The
butler haled him upstairs to the Squire, and the Squire heard his
story, and not only said he didn't believe a word o't, but (bein' a
magistrate) packed him off to Bodmin Jail for burglary. I don't blame
the man altogether," said Jan, reflectively; "for, come to think of it,
my father's account of himself lay a bit off the ordinary run, and
belike he wasn't in any condition to put it clearly.

"At any rate, to jail he went, and from jail he was delivered up to the
Judges at Assize, and the Judges sentenced my poor father to death,
which was the punishment for burglary in those times, and, for all I
know, it may be the same on the mainland to this day.

"The morning came when he was to be put out of the world; and, as I
needn't tell you, it gathered a great crowd together, to have a look at
the last of a man that had so little sense of wickedness as to take
liberties with a gentleman's wine and spirits. There my poor father
stood under the gallows-tree with none to befriend 'en, when all of a
sudden he heard a shouting up the street, and down along it, through
the crowd, came a strange little lady, holding up her hand and a paper
in it. The folk opened way respectful-like, seein' by the better-most
air of her that she belonged to one of the gentry, and along she came
to the scaffold. 'Good mornin', ma'am, and what can I do for you?' says
the Sheriff, steppin' forward, with a lift of his hat. He held out a
hand for the paper; but the little lady turns to my father, and pipes
out in a little voice, very clear and sweet, '_Ho! and away for the
Islands!_' Glad enough was my father to hear the sound of it. '_Ho! and
away for the Islands!_' he answers, pat; and in two twinks he and the
little lady