Suddenly a flash of vivid golden light broke before her, the trees parted, and she stood on the Raven Rock, a precipice that shoots high above the Tamar and commands a wide prospect over Cornwall—Hingston Hill, where Athelstan fought and beat the Cornish in the last stand the Britons made, and Kitt Hill, a dome of moorclad mountain. As she stepped forth on the rock to enjoy the light and view and air, there rushed out of the oak and dogwood bushes a weird boy, who capered and danced, brandished a fiddle, clapped it under his chin, and still dancing, played Là ci darem fast, faster, till his little arms went faster than Eve could see.
The girl stood still, petrified with terror. Here was the Pixy of the Raven Rock Jasper had spoken of. The malicious boy saw and revelled in her fear, and gambolled round her, grimacing and still fiddling till his tune led up to and finished in a shriek.
‘There, there,’ said he, at length, lowering the violin and bow; ‘how I have scared you, Eve!’
Eve trembled in every limb, and was too alarmed to speak. The scenery, the rock, the boy, swam in a blue haze before her eyes.
‘There, Eve, don’t be frightened. You led me on with your singing. I followed in your flowery traces. Don’t you know me?’
Eve shook her head. She could not speak.
‘You have seen me. You saw me that night when I came riding over your downs at the back of Martin, when poor Jasper fell—you remember me. I smashed your rattletrap gig. What a piece of good luck it was that Jasper’s horse went down and not ours. I might have broken my fiddle. I’d rather break a leg, especially that of another person.’
Eve had not thought of the boy since that eventful night. Indeed, she had seen little of him then.
‘I remember,’ she said, ‘there was a boy.’