A small girl called Nancy Parnell came down from Wadebridge to Padstow one St. Martin’s summer to stay with her Grannie.

The Grannie was old and weak in her legs, and could not take her granddaughter out to see the sights of the little old-world town, with its narrow streets and ancient houses, so the child had to go by herself.

When she had seen all there was to be seen in the town, she went up to look at the church, of which she had heard from her mother, who was a Padstow woman, and the quaint little figures on the buttresses of the south wall.

It was between the lights when she got there, but she could see the carved figures quite distinctly, which were a lion with its mouth wide open, a unicorn with a crown encircling its neck, and a young knight, standing between them, holding a shield; and when she had taken them all in she repeated a funny old rhyme which her mother told her she used to say when she was a little maid and lived at Padstow. The rhyme was as follows:

‘Reefy, reefy rum,

Without teeth or tongue;

If you’ll have me,

Now I am a-come.’

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The rhyme—a taunt and an invitation in one—was very rude, and so was the little girl who repeated it; but the lion, the unicorn, and the little knight did not take any notice of her, and looked straight before them as they had done ever since they were carved on the wall. But Nancy was somewhat afraid of the effect of the rhyme on those quaint little figures, especially on the open-mouthed lion, who had no sign of teeth or tongue; and she ran round the great square-turreted tower, and took refuge under the pentice roof of the gateway, and sat on the bench to see if they would leave their stations on the wall and come after her; but they did not.

The little stone knight and the two animals had a strange fascination for the little Wadebridger, and the next evening again found her in the beautiful churchyard gazing up at them with her bright child-eyes, and as she gazed she repeated the same rude rhyme:

‘Reefy, reefy rum,

Without teeth or tongue;

If you’ll have me,

Now I am a-come.’

But they took not the smallest notice of her, nor of her rhyme, and the young knight did not lift as much as an eyelash; but the child, now the rhyme was said, was even more apprehensive than ever of the effect it might have, and ran round the tower and again took refuge in the old gateway, and waited to [137]see if they would come down from the wall and try to catch her; but they never came.
She took to her heels and ran for her life.

She took to her heels and ran f............