On the fourth day, the storm being spent, the sun came forth, the skies were swept clear of clouds and all the countryside lay robed in a sun-drenched, dazzling whiteness.
Sir Oliver called for his horse and rode forth alone through the crisp snow.

He turned homeward very early in the afternoon, but when a couple of miles from Helston he found that his horse had cast a shoe.

He dismounted, and bridle over arm tramped on through the sunlit vale between the heights of Pendennis and Arwenack, singing as he went.

He came thus to Smithick and the door of the forge.

About it stood a group of fishermen and rustics, for, in the absence of any inn just there, this forge was ever a point of congregation.