annot sever it, only the stronger demon of Money.'

Their way home lay over Ashy Down, a lofty chalk promontory, round
whose foot the river made a sudden bend. As they paced along over
the dreary hedgeless stubbles, they both started, as a ghostly 'Ha!
ha! ha!' rang through the air over their heads, and was answered by
a like cry, faint and distant, across the wolds.

'That's those stone-curlews--at least, so I hope,' said Tregarva.
'He'll be round again in a minute.'

And again, right between them and the clear, cold moon, 'Ha! ha!
ha!' resounded over their heads. They gazed up into the cloudless
star-bespangled sky, but there was no sign of living thing.

'It's an old sign to me,' quoth Tregarva; 'God grant that I may
remember it in this black day of mine.'

'How so!' asked Lancelot; 'I should not have fancied you a
superstitious man.'

'Names go for nothing, sir, and what my forefathers believed in I am
not going to be conceited enough to disbelieve in a hurry. But if
you heard my story you would think I had reason enough to remember
that devil's laugh up there.'

'Let me hear it then.'

'Well, sir, it may be a long story to you, but it was a short one to
me, for it was the making of me, out of hand, there and then,
blessed be God! But if you will have it--'

'And I will have it, friend Tregarva,' quoth Lancelot, lighting his
cigar.

'I was about sixteen years old, just after I came home from the
Brazils--'

'What! have you been in the Brazils?'

'Indeed and I have, sir, for three years; and one thing I learnt
there, at least, that's worth going for.'

'What's that?'

'What the Garden of Eden must have been like. But those Brazils,
under God, were the cause of my being here; for my father, who was a
mine-captain, lost all his money there, by no man's fault but his
own, and not his either, the world would say, and when we came back
to Cornwall he could not stand the bal work, nor I neither. Out of
that burning sun, sir, to come home here, and work in the levels, up
to our knees in warm water, with the thermometer at 85 degrees, and
then up a thousand feet of ladder to grass, reeking wet with heat,
and find the easterly sleet driving across those open furze-crofts--
he couldn't stand it, sir--few stand it long, even of those who stay
in Cornwall. We miners have a short lease of life; consumption and
strains break us down before we're fifty.'

'But how came you her