the Spanyers (Spaniards) never came back to their
galleons, which lay in the ooze by the marsh meadows until the very
birds forgot to fear them, and built in their rigging. By the Roles
d'Oleron--which were, in effect, the maritime laws of that period--
all wrecks or wreckage belonged to the Crown when neither an owner
nor an heir of a late owner could be found for it. But in those days
the king's law travelled lamely through Cornwall; so that when, in
1605, these galleons were put up to auction and sold by the Lord of
the Manor--who happened to be High Sheriff--nobody inquired very
closely where the money went. It is more to the point that the
timber of them was bought by one Master Blaise--never mind the
surname; he was an ancestor of Master Simon's, and a well-to-do
wool-comber of Ponteglos.

This Master Blaise already rented the ferry-rights by Flowing Source,
and certain rights of fishery above and below; and having a younger
son to provide for, he conceived the happy notion of this hostelry
beside the river. For ground-rent he agreed to carry each Michaelmas
to the Lord of the Manor one penny in a silk purse; and the lord's
bailiff, on bringing the receipt, was to take annually of Master
Blaise and his heirs one jack of ale of the October brewing and one
smoke-cured salmon of not less than fifteen pounds' weight.
These conditions having been duly signed, in the year 1606 Master
Blaise laid the foundations of his inn upon the timbers of one
galleon and set up the elm keelson of the other for his roof-tree.
Its stout ribs, curving outwards and downwards from this magnificent
balk, supported the carvel-built roof, so that the upper half of the
building appeared--and indeed was--a large inverted hull, decorated
with dormer windows, brick chimneys, and a round pigeon-house
surmounted by a gilded vane. The windows he took ready-made from the
Spaniard's bulging stern-works. And for signboard he hung out,
between two bulging poop-lanterns, a large bituminous painting on
panel, that had been found on board the larger galleon, and was
supposed to represent the features of her patron, Saint Nicholas
Prodaneli. But the site of the building had always been known as
Flowing Source, and by this name and no other Master Blaise's inn was
called for over two hundred years.

By this time its timber roof had clothed itself with moss upon the
north side, and on the west the whole framework inclined over the
river, as though