zance, for the purpose of buying a pair of shoes. There was an old woman, Jenny Trayer, living in Pendeen Cove-who had the reputation of being a witch-or, as some people mildly put it, "who had strange dealings;" and with her Nancy desired, for sundry reasons, best known to herself, to keep on the closest of terms. So on this Saturday, Nancy first called on the old woman to inquire if she wished to have anything brought home from Penzance. Tom, the husband of Nancy's friend, did no work; but now and then he would go to sea for an hour or two and fish. It is true everybody gave Jenny just what she asked for her fish, out of pure fear. Sometimes they had a "venture" with the smugglers, who, in those days, carried on a roaring trade in Pendeen Cove. The old Squire was a justice; but he winked very hard, and didn't know anything about the smugglers. Indeed, some ill-natured people, and there are always such to be found in any nook or corner,-said Nancy often took her master home a choice bottle of Cogniac; even a case of "Hollands" now and then; and especially when there was to be a particularly "great run," there were some beautiful silk handkerchiefs to be seen at the Squire's. But this is beyond our story. When Nancy went into Jenny's cottage, Tom was there, and right busy was she in preparing some ointment and touching her husband's eyes with it: this Jenny tried to hide in the mouth of the oven at the side of the chimney. Tom got up and said he must be off, and left the two women together. After a few idle compliments, Jenny said that Nancy must have something to drink before she started for Penzance, and she went to the spence for the bottles. Nancy, ever curious, seized the moment, dipped her finger into the pot of green ointment, and, thinking it was good for the eyes, she just touched her right eye with it before Jenny returned. They then took a

horn or two together, and being thus spliced, Nancy started for Penzance.

Penzance market was in those days entirely in the street; even the old market-house had not yet an existence. Nancy walked about doing a little business and a great deal of gossiping, when amongst the standings in Market Jew Street, whom should Nancy see but Tom Trayer, picking off the standings, shoes, stockings, hanks of yarn, and pewter spoons, indeed some of all the sorts of things which were for sale. Nancy walked up to him, and taking him by the arm said, "Tom! ar'then't ashamed to be here carrying on such a game? However thee canst have the impudence, I can't think, to be picking the things from the standings and putting them in thy pocket in broad daylight, and the people all around thee." Tom looked very much surprised when Nancy spoke to him. At last he said, “Is that you, Nancy -which eye can you see me upon?" Nancy shut her left eye, this made no difference, she then shut her right eye, and, greatly to her surprise, she saw all the people but she no longer saw Tom. She opened her right eye and there was Tom as before. She winked, and winked, and was surprised you may be sure to find that she could not see Tom with either eye. "Now Nancy," said Tom, "right or left." "Well," said Nancy, "'tis strange; but there is something wrong with my left eye." *

"Oh, then, you see me with the right, do you."

Then Tom put his finger on her right eye, and from that moment she was blind on that side.

On her way home, Nancy was always going off the road on her blind side; but the hedges kept her from wandering far away. On the downs near Pendeen there were no hedges,

The tale, "Nursing a Fairy," (page 71,) where a similar incident oceurs, will be remembered.

so Nancy wandered into a furze brake,-night came on, she could not find her way out, and she was found in it the next morning fast asleep. The old Squire was out hunting in the early morning, according to his usual custom. In passing along the road leading to Carnyorth, he saw a woman's knitting work hanging on a bramble, and the yarn from the stocking leading away into the brake. He took the yarn in his hand and followed it until he came to the old woman, who had the ball in her pocket. When the Squire awakened the old woman, she told him the story which I have told you. Her master, however, said that he didn't believe she had been into Penzance at all, but that she had stayed in the Cove and got drunk: that when dark night came she had endeavoured to find her way home-lost her road fallen down and probed her eye out on a furze bush, and then gone off in drunken unconsciousness. Nancy told her master that he was no better than an unbelieving heathen, and to the day of her death she protested that Tom Trayer put her eye out. Jenny's ointment is said to have been made with a four-leaved clover, gathered at a certain time of the moon.

made men invisible.

This rendered Fairyland visible, and

Another version of this story, varying in a few details, was given me by a gentleman a native of St Levan. It is as follows:

Jo

HOW JOAN LOST THE SIGHT OF HER EYE.

OAN was housekeeper to Squire Lovell, and was celebrated for her beautiful knitting. One Saturday afternoon Joan wished to go to Penzance to buy a pair of shoes for herself, and some things for the Squire. So the weather being particularly fine, away she trudged.

Joan dearly loved a bit of gossip, and always sought for company. She knew Betty Trenance was always ready for a jaunt: to be sure, everybody

said Betty was a witch; but, says Joan, "Witch or no witch, she shall go ; bad company is better than none."

Away went Joan to Lemorna, where Betty lived. Arrived at Betty's cottage, she peeped through the latch-hole, (the finger-hole,) and saw Betty rubbing some green ointment on the children's eyes. She watched till Betty Trenance had finished, and noticed that she put the salve on the inner end of the chimney stool, and covered it over with a rag.

Joan went in, and Betty was delighted sure enough, to see her, and sent the children out of the way. But Betty couldn't walk to Penzance, she was suffering pain and she had been taking milk and suet, and brandy and rue, and she must have some more. So away went Betty to the other

room for the bottle.

Joan seized the moment, and taking a very small bit of the ointment on her finger, she touched her right eye with it. Betty came with the bottle, and Joan had a drink; when she looked round she was surprised to see the house swarming with small people. They were playing all sorts of pranks on the key-beams and rafters. Some were swinging on cobwebs, some were riding the mice, and others were chasing them into and out of the holes in the thatch. Joan was surprised at the sight, and thought she must have a four-leaved clover about her.

However, without stopping to take much drink, she started alone for Penzance. She had wasted, as it was, so much time, that it was nearly dark when she reached the market.

After having made her purchases, and as she was about to leave the market, who should Joan spy but Betty's husband, Tom Trenance. There he was, stealing about in the shadows, picking from the standings, shoes and stockings from one, hanks of yarn from another, pewter spoons from a third, and so on. He stuffed these things into capacious pockets, and yet no one appeared to notice Tom.

Joan went forth to him.

"Aren't ye ashamed to be here in the dark carrying on such a game?" "Is that you, Dame Joan," says Tom; "which eye can you see me upon?"

After winking, Joan said she could see Tom plain enough with her right eye.

She had no sooner said the word than Tom Trenance pointed his finger to her eye, and she lost the sight of it from that hour.

"The work of the world" had Joan to find her way out of Penzance. She couldn't keep the road, she was always tumbling into the ditch on her blind side. When near the Fougou, poor Joan, who was so weary that she could scarcely drag one leg after the other, prayed that she might find a quiet old horse on which she might ride home.

Her desire was instantly granted. There, by the roadside, stood an old bony white horse, spanned with its halter.

Joan untied the halter from the legs and placed it on the head of the horse; she got on the hedge, and seated herself on the horse's back.

There she was mounted, "Gee wup, gee wup; k'up, k'up, k'up." The horse would not budge. Busy were Joan's heels rattling against the ribs of the poor horse, and thwack, thwack went a thorn stick over his tail, and by and by the old blind brute began to walk. Joan beat, and kicked, and k'uped, and coaxed, the horse went but little faster until it got to the top of the hill.

Then away, away, like the wind it went through Toldava Lanes, and it swelled out until the horse became as high as the tower. Over hedges and ditches, across all the corners that came into the road, on went the horse. Joan held on by the mane with both hands, and shouted, "Woa! woa! woey!" until she could shout no longer.

At length they came to Toldava Moor; the "ugly brute" took right away down towards the fowling pool, when Joan fearing he might plunge in and drown her, let go her hold.

The wind was blowing so strong, and the pair were going so fast against it, that Joan was lifted off, over the hind quarters of the horse, and by luck she fell soft on the rushes at the very edge of the fowling pool.

When she looked up, Joan saw whatever she had been riding going down the "bottom" in a blaze of fire, and the devil riding after, with lots of men, horses, and hounds, all without heads. All the marketing was lost; and in getting through the bogs, Joan had her shoes dragged from her feet. At last she got to Trove Bottoms, and seeing the Bougé (sheep-house,) she clambered over the hedge as she best could; got into it, and laying herself down amongst the sheep she soon fell fast asleep, thoroughly wearied out.

She would have slept for a week, I believe, if she had not been disturbed. But, according to custom on Sunday morning, the Squire and his boys came out to the Downs to span the sheep, and there, greatly to their sur prise, they found her.

They got the miserable woman home between them. The Squire charged her with having got drunk, and said her eye had been scratched out by a furze bush; but Joan never wandered from her story, and to the day of her death she told it to all young women, warning them never to meddle with "Fairy Salve."

IN

THE OLD WOMAN WHO TURNED HER SHIFT.

N a lone house-situated not far from the hill on which now stands Knill's Steeple, as it is called,-which was then known as Chyanwheal, or the House on the Mine, lived a lone woman, the widow of a miner, said to have