Robin slept sound as a ringer till just before twelve, when he awoke, and finding he was alone in the house, he crept out of bed, opened the front door, which was under the roof, and went out and stood on the top of an external stone stairway which led down to the market-place. The house where he lived was as quaint and old as the one on which the little men rode so gallantly, and it faced it. As he stood at the head of the steps the church clock began to strike the hour of midnight. It had only struck four or five when he remembered what he had heard about those wonderful little horsemen and their steeds, and he looked across the market to see if what he had been told about them was really true. He could see the house quite plainly, and the little horses and horsemen, for it was a clear night and full moon. The moment the clock had done striking Robin saw to his great delight the two little men on their two little horses leave the housetop and leap into the street, and go galloping round and round the market-place as his parents assured him they did when they heard the clock strike twelve. The little horses galloped so funnily, and the tiny riders sat so bolt upright on their quaint little steeds, that Robin laughed to see them, and said they looked exactly like the wooden toy horses and horsemen in his father's shop. And as they went galloping, galloping that queer little gallop, he clapped his hands and cheered like a Cornishman. The tiny little horsemen took no notice of the excited boy on the top of the stairs, and the moment they had finished their gallop round the old market they came through the narrow opening at the foot of the stairs, and galloped away up the street as fast as they could. So excited was little Robin Curgenven when he saw the tiny horsemen gallop away that he flew down the steps and tore after them, quite forgetting that his feet were bare, and that he had nothing on save his little white nightshirt. He ran very fast; but fast as he ran, he could not overtake those swift little horses, and by the time he got to the bottom of Middle Street they were nearly at the top. When they reached the head of that street the tiny horsemen pulled up their horses for a minute outside an ancient-looking house with a porch-room set on wooden pillars, and then they turned up Workhouse Hill and disappeared. Robin ran faster than before, and the tails of his little nightshirt flew out behind him on the wind as he ran; and he never stopped running till he was half-way up Church Street, when he saw the little horses and their riders galloping down towards him. They had been to the head of the town, and were returning; and he got on the footpath and stood near an arched passage, and waited for them to pass.