Page:A book of folk-lore (1913).djvu/15

12 and floated on the wild sea, sucking the toe of his right foot.

In a wild and upland district in East Cornwall is the ancient mansion of the Trevelyans. It comprises a quadrangle with granite mullioned windows, and is entered through a handsome gate-house. At the time of the Commonwealth, here lived a Squire Peter Trevelyan; he was born in 1613 and died in 1705—there is nothing like being precise. He was a staunch Royalist, and a band of Roundhead soldiers was sent to arrest him. They came to the gate-house and rapped. Squire Trevelyan put his head out of the window above—they show you the very window to this day—and bade the crop-eared rascals be off, or he would send his lance-men after them and forcibly dislodge them. As they did not stir, he took a couple of bee-hives he had in the chamber over the gate and flung them among the troopers. The bees swarmed out, fell on and speedily dispersed them.

Andernach, on the Rhine, was engaged in incessant feud with the town of Linz; and one night it was attacked by the citizens of the rival town. The watchmen were asleep, so also the townsfolk; but two bakers’ apprentices were engaged at the oven, when, hearing a sound outside the walls, they mounted to