“Visible Manes av Support, me childher—­merely Visible Manes av Support!” he called back.

’Twas a sunshiny day, and while St. Piran chuckled the sea twinkled all over with the jest.  As for the crowd on the cliff, it looked for five minutes as if the saint had petrified them harder than the millstone.  Then, as Tim Coolin told his wife, Mary Dogherty, that same evening, they dispersed promiscuously in groups of one each.

Meanwhile, the tides were bearing St. Piran and his millstone out into the Atlantic, and he whiffed for mackerel all the way.  And on the morrow a stiff breeze sprang up and blew him sou’-sou-west until he spied land; and so he stepped ashore on the Cornish coast.

In Cornwall he lived many years till he died:  and to this day there are three places named after him—­Perranaworthal, Perranuthno and Perranzabuloe.  But it was in the last named that he took most delight, because at Perranzabuloe (Perochia Sti.  Pirani in Sabulo) there was nothing but sand to distract him from the Study of Objects that Presented Themselves to his Notice:  for he had given up miracles.  So he sat on the sands and taught the Cornish people how to be idle.  Also he discovered tin for them; but that was an accident.

II.—­SAINT PIRAN AND THE VISITATION.

A full fifty years had St. Piran dwelt among the sandhills between Perranzabuloe and the sea before any big rush of saints began to pour into Cornwall:  for ’twas not till the old man had discovered tin for us that they sprang up thick as blackberries all over the county; so that in a way St. Piran had only himself to blame when his idle ways grew to be a scandal by comparison with the push and bustle of the newcomers.

Never a notion had he that, from Rome to Land’s End, all his holy brethren were holding up their hands over his case.  He sat in his cottage above the sands at Perranzabuloe and dozed to the hum of the breakers, in charity with all his parishioners, to whom his money was large as the salt wind; for his sleeping partnership in the tin-streaming business brought him a tidy income.  And the folk knew that if ever they wanted religion, they had only to knock and ask for it.

But one fine morning, an hour before noon, the whole parish sprang to its feet at the sound of a horn.  The blast was twice repeated, and came from the little cottage across the sands.

“’Tis the blessed saint’s cow-horn!” they told each other.  “Sure the dear man must be in the article of death!” And they hurried off to the cottage, man, woman, and child:  for ’twas thirty years at least since the horn had last been sounded.

They pushed open the door, and there sat St. Piran in his arm-chair, looking good for another twenty years, but considerably flustered.  His cheeks were red, and his fingers clutched the cow-horn nervously.

“Andrew Penhaligon,” said he to the first man that entered, “go you out and ring the church bell.”