When first the word crept about that she was a witch I cannot certainly say. But in time it did; and, what is more--though I will swear that no word of Gil Perez' confession ever passed my lips--the common folk soon held it for a certainty that the cargo saved from the _Saint Andrew_ had been saved by her magic only; that the plate and rich stuffs seen by my own eyes were but cheating _simulacra_, and had turned into rubbish at midnight, scarce an hour before the assault on the Portuguese. I have wondered since if 'twas this rumour and some belief in it which held Messrs. Saint Aubyn and Godolphin from offering any further attack on us. You might say that it was open to them, so believing, to have denounced her publicly. But in our country Holy Church had little hold--scarce more than the King's law itself in such matters; and within my memory it has always come easier to us to fear witch-craft than to denounce it. Also (and it concerns my tale) the three years which followed the stranding of the _Saint Andrew_ were remarkable for a great number of wrecks upon our coast. In that short time we of our parish and the men of St. Hilary upon our north were between us favoured with no fewer than fourteen; the most of them vessels of good burden. Of any hand in bringing them ashore I know our gentry to have been innocent. Still, there were pickings; and finding that my Master held aloof from all share in such and (as far as could be) held his servants aloof, our neighbours, though not accepting this for quittance, forbore to press the affair of the _Saint Andrew_ further than by spreading injurious tales and whispers. The marvel was that we of Pengersick (who reaped nothing of this harvest) fell none the less under suspicion of decoying the vessels ashore. More than once in my dealings with the fishermen and tradesmen of Market Jew, I happened on hints of this; but nothing which could be taken hold of until one day a certain Peter Chynoweth of that town, coming drunk to Pengersick with a basket of fish, blurted out the tale. Said he, after I had beaten him down to a reasonable price, "Twould be easy enough, one would think, to spare an honest man a groat of the fortune Pengersick makes on these dark nights." "Thou lying thief!" said I. "What new slander is this?" "Come, come," says he, looking roguish; "that won't do for me that have seen the false light on Cuddan Point more times than I can count; and so has every fisherman in the bay." Well, I kicked him through the gate for it, and flung his basket after him; but the tale could not be so dismissed. "It may be," thought I, "some one of Pengersick has engaged upon this wickedness on his own account"; and for my Master's credit I resolved to keep watch.