Silhouettes of tiny men on horseback on the top of the roof.

At the bottom of the same old town there is a house which has two tiny little men on horseback on the top of its roof. They have stood there for hundreds of years, and they never leave their places save when they hear the great church clock strike the hour of midnight, when, it is said, they leave the red tiles, and gallop round the market-place and through the streets of the little town.

These gallant little horsemen have seen the house on which they stand almost rebuilt—changed from an old-world building with quaint windows and doors [142]into quite a modern one—and they have the sorrow of knowing that the only things left that are ancient are the walls, the red tile-ridge, their little horses, and themselves.

Long generations of Padstow children have seen these quaint little men on horseback, and many a question have they asked concerning them; but the only thing they ever learnt was that whenever they hear the church clock strike twelve in the middle of the night they come down from the roof, gallop round the market, and through the streets, as we have just said. But as children are generally in bed at that late hour, none were ever fortunate enough to see them do this wonderful feat, except little Robin Curgenven, the son of a toymaker, and it happened in this way:

One evening when Robin was about nine years old his father and mother went to a party; and as it was a party only for grown-up people, they left him at home asleep in bed.

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. [143]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 horse............