“Not many yeres sithence, a Gentleman, dwelling not farre off, was perswaded, by some information, or imagination, that treasure lay hidden vnder this stone: wherefore, in a faire Moone-shine night, thither with certaine good fellowes hee hyeth to dig it vp: a working they fall, their labour shortneth, their hope increaseth, a pot of Gold is the least of their expectation. But see the chance. In midst of their toyling, the skie gathereth clouds, the Moone-light is ouer-cast with darkenesse, doune fals a mightie showre, vp riseth a blustering tempest, the thunder cracketh, the lightning flasheth: in conclusion, our money-seekers washed, instead of loden; or loden with water, in steade of yellow earth, and more afraid then hurt, are forced to abandon their enterprise, and seeke shelter of the next house they could get into. Whether this proceedeth from a naturall accident, or a working of the diuell, I will not,” says our historian, “vndertake to define. It may bee, God giueth him such power ouer those, who begin a matter, vpon covetousnesse to game by extra-ordinarie meanes, and prosecute it with a wrong, in entring and breaking another mans land, without his leaue, and direct the end thereof, to the princes defrauding, whose prerogatiue challengeth these casualties.” In a wild moorland district like this, the devil, you will see, was likely to have the credit of anything that might happen. Even to-day, the countryside round about Par and Saint Austell is hardly less rugged and lonely than it was in the seventeenth century. Still, we are much more materialistic nowadays, and such happenings as that just quoted could scarcely fail of classification under the head of “natural accidents.” [Illustration: A CORNISH MOOR.] But the great mining-field of Saint Austell (“Storsel,” in the local pronunciation), which begins here, almost deserted to-day, its engine-houses wrecked, its great heaps of mine refuse bare and gaunt, has taken on an air of desolation more favourable to uncanny beings than ever. It is not because the tin and copper have “petered out” that this once busy stretch of country now wears the air of some long-deserted mushroom-field of mining industry, sprung up suddenly, and untimely withered, like the Californian goldfields of pioneer times. No, the metals are still there, but at such depths and held in such iron grip of hard-hearted granite, that it would not pay to win the ore with the machinery available at this time. Meanwhile, the Cornish miners have mostly emigrated. To-day, if you would see the Cornishman in full work on his congenial and hereditary employments of tin and copper mining, you should go either to the Straits Settlements or to Australia, whence comes the greater part of those metals in these times. There, in some Wooloomooloo, or other place of name infinitely repetitive, you shall, who seek, find him; but in Cornwall his kind tends to decrease continually.