‘I have all sorts of things to shew you,’ said Lady Alice impatiently. ‘Just look into one of the huts, and then wonder how human beings could ever have made a home of such a place. See! It is just like a stone bee-hive—no windows. That was for warmth, I suppose. The little light they wanted came in at the door, no doubt. And up above there, where you see the hole between the stones, the smoke must have found its way out, after it had half-choked the lungs and blinded the eyes of those inside the hut. They wanted a good peat-fire though, to keep them alive when the great snows of winter fell; and they had it too, for just see how hard and black the earthen floor has become in the course of years. Now then for the mine where the Roman sword was found, and then for the Pixies’ Well.’ The Pixies’ Well proved to be a curious natural depression in the rocky soil, thimble-shaped, and about twenty feet in depth, carpeted with moss of the brightest green from the brink to where the water glimmered starlike from amid rank weeds beneath. ‘They say the fairies used to dance round this well on Midsummer night and dip stolen children in the water, that they might never long to go back to earth again, but live contentedly in Elfland. Our Devonshire people believe all sorts of things still, you must know, though they are getting ashamed of talking about them before strangers.—Are you tired, Miss Gray?’ Miss Gray was not tired, and her mercurial pupil thereupon proposed a visit to a new attraction. ‘The idea of it came into my head while we were looking down into the well,’ explained Lady Alice; ‘and though the Hunger Hole is not one of the sights of the Stannaries, still if you are not afraid of a longer walk, we might visit it and yet be at home in good time. It is a mile or more from here.’ ‘That is an odd name, the Hunger Hole,’ said Ethel. ‘I suppose there is some legend to account for so ominous a word?’ ‘There is indeed,’ said the Earl’s youngest daughter as, by Ethel’s side, she left the ring of ruinous huts and passed along a strong causeway that led towards the west; ‘and moreover, in this case there can be no doubt about its being true. A young Jacobite—it was just after the Northern rising in 1715—fled to a country-house near here, Morford Place, where his mother’s family lived, hoping to be sheltered and enabled to embark secretly for France. There had been treachery at work, however, for the fugitive’s intentions were revealed to the authorities; and on the morning of the very day when he arrived in mean disguise, constables and soldiers had searched the mansion from garret to cellar.