Joseph Henry Pearce (1856-? ) was the author of: Drolls from Shadowland (1893), Tales of the Masque (1894), Cornish Drolls (1998), Esther Pentreath, Inconsequent Lives and Jaco Treloar. The yoke of Poverty galled him exceedingly, and he hated his taskmistress with a most rancorous hatred. As he climbed up or down the dripping ladders, descending from sollar to sollar towards the level where he worked, he would set his teeth grimly that he might not curse aloud-an oath underground being an invitation to the Evil One-but in his heart the muffled curses were audible enough. And when he was at work in the dreary level, with the darkness lying on his shoulder like a hand, and the candles shining unsteadily through the gloom, like little evil winking eyes, he brooded so moodily over his bondage to Poverty, that he desired to break from it at any cost.