ought on a fit
of sneezing, which of course interrupted the music, and put the
clarionet in a passion. A stout old misshapen gnome, or some such
creature, with an enormous head, served for the big drum. Four fairies
held him down, and a fifth belaboured his head with a drumstick. It
sounded wonderfully hollow, and convinced the old man that it was
destitute of brains, and not subject to headache.

"All the time that the old man gazed at them, troops of fairies
continued to arrive, some on the backs of bats, from which they slipped
as they whirred past; others descending, apparently, on moonbeams. The
old man even fancied that he saw one attempting to descend by a
starbeam, which, being apparently too weak to support his weight, broke,
and let him down with a crash into the midst of a party who were very
busy round a refreshment stall, where a liberal supply of mountain dew
was being served out; but the old man never felt quite sure upon this
point, for, at sight of the mountain dew, he felt so thirsty that he
determined to taste it. Fixing his eyes on the stall, he suddenly threw
his hat into the midst of the party, and made a dash at it; but, to his
intense disappointment, the vision was instantly dispelled, and nothing
was to be seen on the spot but a few snails creeping over the wet grass,
and gossamer threads bespangled with dewdrops."

"A very pretty little vision," exclaimed Oliver, "and not the first that
has been prematurely dispelled by too ardent a pursuit of strong drink!
And now, Charlie, as you appear to be in the vein, and we have still
some distance to go, will you tell me something about the giants, and
how it came to pass that they were so fond of roaming about Cornwall?"

"Their fondness for it, Oliver, must be ascribed to the same cause as
your own--just because it is a lovable place," said Tregarthen;
"moreover, being a thinly-peopled county, they were probably not much
disturbed in their enjoyment of it. To recount their surprising deeds
would require a longer space of time than is just now at our disposal,
but you have only to look round, in passing through the country, to
understand what a mighty race of men they were. There are `giants'
quoits,' as you know, without end, some of which have the marks of the
fingers and thumbs with which they grasped them. Their strength may be
estimated by the fact that one of these quoits is no less than forty
feet long and twenty wide, and weighs some