It was while I was sketching the cathedral from a point of vantage in the High Street, surrounded, meanwhile, by an intensely interested crowd of boys, that a stranger, apologising for the interruption, came up and asked me if I would mind going with him to his house, and giving an opinion as to the genuineness of a reputed Reynolds painting he had bought for some few shillings. The picture proved to be a sorry daub; but none the less for the adverse opinion, Mr. ---- proved very friendly, and, as he was driving to Redruth that evening, invited self and friend to accompany him at an appointed time. LXII. Punctually to appointment we set forth, and once past the incline by which the city is left, whizzed along the smooth highway in the rear of a sturdy cob. We cleared the suburbs, and presently came upon the great mining-field that stretches its seamed and blasted waste over mile upon mile of dingy hummocks and ruined engine-houses. Here and there green oases of private parks and pleasaunces alleviate the harshness of the towering piles of mining refuse that harbour no green thing. But for these the scene is an abomination of desolation. Chacewater, a commonplace, mile-long village, with a poetical name, set beside the highroad amidst the heaps of rubbish, is a place of no conceivable interest. Our acquaintance beguiled the way with local legends and scraps of entertaining information, and the sight of Chacewater moved him to tell us this story:-- “Now Truro,” said he, “Truro used to have a bootmaking industry, and in those times no love was lost between Truro folk and the miners of Chacewater, I can tell you. Now, it so happened that my father was driving home with a companion from Redruth one dark night, when, a short distance out of Chacewater, a crowd of miners rushed out from an old engine-house by the wayside and made for the trap, shouting, ‘Truro cobblers!’ My father had been mistaken, in all likelihood, for another party, but it seemed likely the error would not be found out until the occupants of the trap had been severely handled. My father, though, was a man of resource. He had bought, among other things, some brass candlesticks at Redruth that day, and he suddenly remembered them. Snatching up one in either hand, he dropped the reins, and presenting the candlesticks point-blank, shouted, ‘Hands off, or, by the Lord, I’ll shoot ’ee!’ “The miners left in a hurry.”