driven right around Cape Wrath--came trailing up the estuary and took
ground just above Ponteglos. Their crews landed and marched inland,
and never returned. Some say the Cornishmen cut them off and slew
them. For my part, I think it more likely that these foreigners
found hospitality, and very wisely determined to settle in the
country. Certain it is, you will find in the upland farms over
Cuckoo Valley a race of folks with olive complexions, black curling
hair and beards, and Southern names--Santo, Hugo, Jago, Bennett,
Jose. . . .

At all events, the Spanyers (Spaniards) never came back to their
galleons, which lay in the ooze by the marsh meadows until the very
birds forgot to fear them, and built in their rigging. By the Roles
d'Oleron--which were, in effect, the maritime laws of that period--
all wrecks or wreckage belonged to the Crown when neither an owner
nor an heir of a late owner could be found for it. But in those days
the king's law travelled lamely through Cornwall; so that when, in
1605, these galleons were put up to auction and sold by the Lord of
the Manor--who happened to be High Sheriff--nobody inquired very
closely where the money went. It is more to the point that the
timber of them was bought by one Master Blaise--never mind the
surname; he was an ancestor of Master Simon's, and a well-to-do
wool-comber of Ponteglos.

This Master Blaise already rented the ferry-rights by Flowing Source,
and certain rights of fishery above and below; and having a younger
son to provide for, he conceived the happy notion of this hostelry
beside the river. For ground-rent he agreed to carry each Michaelmas
to the Lord of the Manor one penny in a silk purse; and the lord's
bailiff, on bringing the receipt, was to take annually of Master