Robin gazed at them till he began to feel cold, and then he went back across the market to his own house; and half an hour later, when his father and mother came home from the party, they found him fast asleep on one of the steps with his toes tucked up under him.
‘The funny little horses and little horsemen did hear the clock strike twelve, and galloped round the market and through the town same as you told me,’ said Robin in a sleepy voice, when his father picked him up and carried him into the house. ‘I saw them with my own eyes, and I ran after them up as far as Church Street. They galloped so funnily and so fast; I am glad I saw them.’
‘So am I,’ said his father, laughing, thinking his small son had dreamt it as he lay asleep on the step. ‘You are the first little chap who ever saw them come down from the roof and gallop, and I fancy you will be the last.’
Little Robin Curgenven may have been the first to see them gallop as his father said, but he may not be the last, for the quaint little horses and horsemen are still on the roof of the house, and it is told that they still gallop through Padstow streets, and round what once was the market, when they hear the church clock strike twelve!
How Jan Brewer was Piskey-laden
The moon was near her setting as a tall, broad-shouldered man called Jan Brewer was walking home to Constantine Bay to his cottage on the edge of a cliff.
He was singing an old song to himself as he went along, and he sang till he drew near the ruins of Constantine Church, standing on a sandy common near the bay. As he grew near the remains of this ancient church, which were clearly seen in the moonshine, he thought he heard someone laughing, but he was not quite sure, for the sea was roaring on the beach below the common, and the waves were making a loud noise as they dashed up the great headland of Trevose.
‘I was mistaken; ’twas nobody laughing,’ said Jan to himself, and he walked on again, singing as before; and he sang till he came near a gate, which opened into a field leading to his cottage, but when he got there he could not see the gate or the gateway.