noon
Eighty thousand half-crowns ! Be pleased to reflect upon these cellared piles of silver , and what they indicate of Cornish life in those days : and bear in mind that they were stacked in place a short ten years before Roger Stephen , a mile-and-a-half away , first let fly his bullets at the Sheriff , on the principle that an Englishman 's house is his castle , and in firm conviction -- shared by all the countryside and in the bottom of his heart by Sir John himself -- that this particular castle was Roger Stephen 's ; not perhaps by law , but assuredly by right . Four miles south of Steens , and a trifle over , lies the market town of Helston -LRB- or ` Helleston ' as men wrote it in 1734 , and ought to write it still -RRB- ; on the road to nowhere and somnolent then as now , but then as now waking up once a year , on the 8th of May , to celebrate the Feast of Flora and welcome back the summer . She is brought in at daybreak with green boughs and singing , and at noon the citizens dance through the streets in her honour , the Mayor himself leading off as the town band strikes up its immemorial quickstep , the staid burgesses following with their partners . At first they walk or amble two and two , like animals coming out of Noah 's ark ; then , at a change in the tune , each man swings round to the lady behind him , ` turns ' her , regains his partner , ` turns ' her too , and the walk is resumed . And so , alternately walking and twirling , the procession sways down the steep main street and in and out of the houses left open for it -- along the passage from front door to court or garden , out at the back door , in at the back door of the next open house , and through to the street again -- the beadles preceding with wreathed wands , the band with decorated drum , the couples ` turning ' duly at the break in the tune , though it catch them in the narrowest entrance or half-way down a flight of steps . On the 8th of May , 1734 , at the foot of Coinage-hall Street , hard by the Bowling Green , a pewterer 's shop stood open , like its neighbours , to admit the Flora .