on general grounds, but officially as Vicar of Helleston; since he had reason to believe that a certain day in the opening year of the new century would bring a term to the Millennium; that the Millennium had begun in Helleston close on a thousand years ago; and that (as he calculated, on the 8th of May next approaching) Satan might reasonably be expected to regain his liberty (see Revelation xx.). For evidence he adduced a local tradition that in his parish the Archangel Michael (whose Mount stands at no great distance) had met and defeated the Prince of Darkness, had cast him into a pit, and had sealed the pit with a great stone; which stone might be seen by any visitor on application to the landlord of the "Angel" Inn and payment of a trifling fee. Moreover, the stone was black as your hat (unless you were a free-thinking Radical and wore a white one; in which case it was blacker). He pointed out that the name of Helleston—i.q., Hell's Stone—corroborated this tradition. He went on to say that annually, on the 8th of May, from time immemorial his parishioners had met in the streets and engaged in a public dance which either commemorated mankind's deliverance from the Spirit of Evil, or had no meaning at all.

The Vicar of Troy, warming to this new contention, riposted in masterly style. He answered Helleston's claim to a monopoly, or even a predominant interest, in the Devil by pelting his opponent with Devil's Quoits, Devil's Punch-bowls, Walking-sticks, Frying-pans, Pudding-dishes, Ploughshares; Devil's Strides, Jumps, Footprints, Fingerprints; Devil's Hedges, Ditches, Ridges, Furrows; Devil's Cairns, Cromlechs, Wells, Monoliths, Caves, Castles, Cliffs, Chasms; Devil's Heaths, Moors, Downs, Commons, Copses, Furzes, Marshes, Bogs, Streams, Sands, Quicksands, Estuaries; Devil's High-roads, By-roads, Lanes, Footpaths, Stiles, Gates, Smithies, Cross-roads; from every corner of the Duchy. He matched Helleston's May-dance with at least a score of similar May-day observances in different towns and villages of Cornwall. He quoted the Padstow Hobby-horse, the Towednack Cuckoo-feast, the Madron Dipping Day, the Troy May-dragon, and proved that the custom of ushering in the summer with song and dance and some symbolical rite of purgation was well-nigh universal throughout Cornwall. He followed the custom overseas, to Brittany, Hungary, the Black Forest, Moldavia, Lithuania, Poland, Finland, the Caucasus.… He wound up by sardonically congratulating the worthy folk of Helleston: if the events of the past thousand years satisfied their notion of a Millennium, they were easily pleased.

And then—

Well, the next thing to happen was that the Vicar of Helleston published a pamphlet of 76 pages 8vo, entitled Considerations Proper to the New Century, with some Reflections on the Millennium. Note, pray, the artfulness of the title, and, having noted it, let us pass on. Our Vicar did not trouble to reply, being off by this time on a scent of his own.

The dispute had served its purpose. On the morning of March 25th, 1804, he knocked at the Major's door, and, pushing past Scipio, rushed into the breakfast-parlour unannounced.

"My dear Vicar! What has happened? Surely the French—" The Major bounced up from his chair, napkin in hand.

"The Millennium, Major! I have it, I tell you!"

Miss Marty sat down the tea-pot with a trembling hand. She was always timid of infectious disease.

"O—oh!" The Major's tone expressed his relief. "I thought for the moment—and you not shaved this morning—"

"The fellow had hold of the stick all the while. I'll do him that credit. He had hold of the stick, but at the wrong end. I've been working it out, and 'tis plain (excuse me) as the nose on your face. The moment you see 'Napoleon' with the numbers under him—"

"Eh? Then it is the French!" Again the Major bounced up from his chair.

"The French? Yes, of course—but, excuse me—"

"What numbers?" The Major's voice shook, though he bravely tried to control it.

"Six hundred—"

"Good Lord! Where?"

"—And sixty and six. In Revelation thirteen, eighteen—I thought you knew!" went on the Vicar reproachfully, as his friend dropped back upon his chair, and, resting an elbow on the table, shaded his eyes and their emotion. "As I can now prove to you in ten minutes, the Corsican's name spells accurately the Number of the Beast. But that's only the beginning. Power, you remember, was given to the Beast to continue forty and two months. Add forty and two months to the first day of the century, which I have shown to be January 1st, 1801, and you come to May 1st, 1804: that is to say, next May-day. You perceive the significance of the date?"

"Not entirely," confessed the Major, still a trifle pale. "Why, my dear sir, all these rites and customs over which the Vicar of Helleston and I have been disputing—these May-day observances, in themselves apparently so puerile but so obviously symbolical to one who looks below the surface—turn out to be not retrospective, not reminiscent, not commemorative at all, but anticipatory. On every 1st of May our small urchins form a dragon or devil out of old pots and saucepans, and flog it through the streets. Ex ore infantum— on the 1st of May next (mark my words) we shall see Satan laid hold upon and bound for a thousand years."

"Good Lord!" exclaimed the Major once again.

"In the middle of spring-cleaning, too!" quavered Miss Marty.

"You'll find it as clear as daylight," the Vicar assured them, pulling out a pocket Testament and tapping the open page.

"Will it," the Major began timorously, "will it make an appreciable difference?"

"To what?"

"To—to our daily life—our routine? Call it humdrum, if you will—"

"My good friend, the Millennium!"

"I know, I know. Still, at my age a man has formed habits. Of course"—the Major pulled himself together—"if it's a question of Satan's being bound for a thousand years, on general grounds one can only approve. Yes, decidedly, on principle one welcomes it. Nevertheless, coming so suddenly—"

The Vicar tapped his Testament again. "It has been here all the time."

"Yes, yes," the Major sighed impatiently. "Still, it's upsetting, you'll admit."

"The end of the world!" Miss Marty gripped her apron, as if to cast it over her head.

"The Millennium, Miss Marty, is not the end of the world."

"Oh, isn't it?"

"It merely means that Satan will be bound for a thousand years to come."

"If that's all"—Miss Marty walked to the bell-rope—"there's no harm in ringing for Scipio to bring in the omelet."

"I beg your pardon?" The Vicar, not for the first time, found it difficult to follow Miss Marty's train of thought.

"Scipio never repeats what he hears at table: I'll say that for him. And I believe in feeding people up."

The Vicar turned to Major Hymen, who had pushed back his chair and was staring at the tablecloth from under a puckered brow.

"I fear this has come upon you somewhat suddenly: but my first thought, as soon as I had convinced myself—"

"Thank you, Vicar. I appreciate that, of course."

"And, after all—when you come to think of it—an event of this magnitude, happening in your mayoralty—"

"Will they knight him, do you think?" asked Miss Marty.

While the Vicar considered his answer, on top of this interruption came another—Scipio entering with the omelet. Now the entrance of the Major's omelet was a daily ritual. It came on a silver dish, heated by a small silver spirit-lamp, on a tray covered by a spotless linen cloth. Scipio, its cook and compounder, bore it with professional pride, supporting the dish on one palm bent backwards, and held accurately level with his shoulder; whence, by a curious and quite indescribable turn of the wrist (Scipio was double-jointed), during which for one fearful tenth of a second they seemed to hang upside down, he would bring tray, lamp,