{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_37245/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_37245","id":"gutenberg_37245","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/37245","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Children & Young Adult Reading","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Folklore -- England -- Cornwall (County)","Legends -- England -- Cornwall (County)"],"text":"</pre>\n\n\n\nProduced by Jeroen Hellingman and the Online Distributed\nProofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net/ for Project\nGutenberg (This file was produced from images generously\nmade available by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                            THE PISKEY-PURSE\n                  Legends and Tales of North Cornwall\n\n                                   By\n                            ENYS TREGARTHEN\n\n                             Illustrated by\n                           J. LEY PETHYBRIDGE\n\n\n\n                                 London\n                   Wells Gardner, Darton & Co., Ltd.\n                     3, Paternoster Buildings, E.C.\n                  And 44, Victoria Street, Westminster\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTION\n\n\nThe tales given in this small volume, with one exception, are from\nNorth Cornwall, where I have always lived.\n\nThe scene of 'The Piskey-Purse' is from Polzeath Bay (in maps called\nHayle Bay, which is not its local name), in St. Minver parish. This\ncharming spot was once much frequented by the Piskeys and other fairy\nfolk, and many a quaint story used to be told about them by the old\npeople of that place, which some of us still remember. The spot most\nfavoured by the Piskeys for dancing was Pentire Glaze cliffs, where,\nalas! half a dozen lodging-houses now stand. But the marks of fairy\nfeet are not, they say, all obliterated, and the rings where Piskeys\ndanced may yet be seen on the great headland of Pentire, and tiny\npaths called 'Piskey Walks' are still there on the edge of some of\nthe cliffs.\n\n'The Magic Pail' is a West Cornwall story, the scene of which is\nlaid on a moorland between Carn Kenidzhek (the Hooting Carn) and\nCarn Boswavas, and not a great distance from the once-celebrated Ding\nDong tin-mine.\n\nThe ancient town of Padstow provides the 'Witch in the Well'; lovely\nHarlyn Bay, in the parish of St. Merryn, is the scene of 'Borrowed Eyes\nand Ears'; and the 'Little White Hare' is from the Vale of Lanherne,\nat St. Mawgan in Pydar.\n\nReaders will gather from these tales that we have several kinds of\nfairies in Cornwall--the Good Little People, the Merry Little People,\nand the Bad Little People. To the latter belong the Spriggans, who are\nspiteful and lovers of money, and who have all the hidden treasures\nin their keeping. The Merry Little People are the Piskeys and the\nNightriders, and are the best known of all the Wee Folk. The Piskeys\nare always dancing, laughing, and 'carrying on.' Their special delight\nis in leading the traveller astray, and who is at their mercy till\nhe turns a garment inside out. The Nightriders take horses out of\nthe stable and ride them over the moors and downs when their owners\nare in bed.\n\nThere are many quaint accounts as to the origin of the Cornish\nfairies. According to one tradition they are the Druids, who, because\nthey opposed Christianity when it was first preached in Cornwall,\nwere made to dwindle in size till they became the Little People they\nnow are. The worst opposers of the Christian Faith dwindled to ants!\n\nAnother tradition says that the Wee Folk are the original inhabitants\nof Cornwall, who lived here long centuries before the Birth Star of\nthe Babe of Bethlehem was seen in the East. In North Cornwall they\nare still sometimes called the 'little Ancient People.'\n\nWhoever the Cornish fairies are, and whatever their origin, they\nare not without their interest from the folklore point of view, and\nwe hope that these stories about them will be pleasing, not only to\nCornish people themselves, but to those who come to visit 'the land\noutside England.'\n\nI am indebted to my kind publishers for their deep interest in these\nfolklore tales, and to Mr. J. Ley Pethybridge, a Cornishman, for so\nfaithfully depicting many of the scenes referred to.\n\n\n                                                         ENYS TREGARTHEN\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n        CHAPTER                              PAGE\n\n          I.   The Piskey-Purse                 1\n         II.   The Magic Pail                  59\n        III.   The Witch in the Well          111\n         IV.   Borrowed Eyes and Ears         168\n          V.   The Little White Hare          191\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nLIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS\n\n\n                                                                PAGE\n\n    'The ugly little creature sped away, followed by\n    three wee hares'                                    Frontispiece\n    Polzeath Bay                                                   1\n    'She opened wide her pinafore so that the tiny\n    Brown Man could take them out'                                 7\n    '\"That is the wishtest news I've heard\"'                      22\n    '\"See if they will fit you\"'                                  35\n    '\"Will you help me, dear little Mister Spriggan?\"'            37\n    'The Shoes began to take her over that dreadful bog'          43\n    'She saw standing out in the semi-darkness a great Tolmen'    47\n    A Cornish Tin-mine                                            59\n    'A tiny old woman with a small costan, or bramble-basket,\n    on her back'                                                  65\n    '\"However did 'ee manage to lift the cheeld on to\n    your lap?\"'                                                   73\n    'It hovered over the uplifted Pail'                           82\n    Carn Kenidzhek                                               110\n    '\"Fly up!\" cackled the old hag'                              121\n    'The little white dog seemed to bend his head in thought'    125\n    'The stone was on the hearthstone, burning away\n    like a faggot'                                               145\n    'Over the moor and across the downs they all went'           161\n    Tamarisk Lane                                                168\n    'She put her shrimping-net under the whirling\n    brightness and caught it'                                    173\n    'Bowed like a courtier'                                      180\n    'The small White Hare suffered him to stroke its fur'        195\n    'Took up the Magic Horn and put it to his mouth'             204\n    'He had not expected to see her half so beautiful'           205\n    'In the glow of the setting sun'                             207\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE PISKEY-PURSE\n\n\nUnder a hill, and facing Polzeath Bay, a wild, desolate but magnificent\nporth on the north coast of Cornwall, stood a small stone cottage,\nthatched with reed, and with tiny casement windows. It was enclosed\nby a low hedge, also built of stone, which many generations of\norange-coloured lichens, pennycakes and moss, had made pleasant to\nlook at and soft to sit on.\n\nThe cottage and hedge thus confronting the porth, with its beach of\ngrey-gold sand, commanded the great headland that flanked it on its\nnorth side, and leagues and leagues of shining water stretching away\nto where the sun went down. Three people lived in this cottage--a\nvery old woman called Carnsew, and her two great-grandchildren--Gerna\nand Gelert.\n\nThey were a lonely trio, for they were the only people living at the\nbay at that time.\n\nThe children had nobody but themselves to play with, and nothing much\nto do all day long save to pick limpets for their Great-Grannie's\nducks, and to help her a bit in the houseplace and in the garden,\nwhich grew very little except potatoes, cabbages, herbs, and\ngillyflowers. They never went to school, for there was no school for\nthem to go to, even if their great-grandmother could have afforded\nto send them, which she could not; but in spite of that, they were\nnot ignorant children, and although they did not know A from B, they\nknew a great deal about the Small People, or fairies, of which there\nwere many kinds in the Cornish land.\n\nThe Great-Grannie having lived ninety odd years in the world, was well\nup in everything relating to the Small People, or she thought she was,\nand it was she who told her great-grandchildren about them.\n\nGerna and Gelert cared most to hear about what they called their own\ndear Wee Folk--the merry little Piskeys--who, Great-Grannie said,\nlived in one of the googs or caverns down in their bay.\n\nPiskey Goog, as their particular cavern was called, was half-way\ndown the beach in Great Pentire itself, and just beyond Pentire Glaze\nHawn. On the top of the cliff were large Rings, where the merry Little\nPeople held their gammets, or games, and danced in the moonshine.\n\nThe children often sat on the hedge of their cottage to watch the\nPiskeys dancing, and, as the hedge was in view of Pentire Glaze cliffs,\nthey could hear the Piskeys laughing, which they did so heartily that\nsometimes Gerna and Gelert could not help laughing too. They could\nalso see their lights--Piskey-lights they called them--flashing on\nthe turf until they sometimes wondered if a hundred little dinky\n[1]-fires were burning there.\n\nOne June evening, when the moon was getting near her full and making\neverything beautiful, even the dark headland standing grimly out from\nthe soft sky, the Piskeys, as they thought, were again holding their\nrevels on the top of the cliff, and as they danced the Rings seemed\none blaze, and their laughter broke more frequently than ever on the\nquiet of the evening. There was no other sound to be heard save the\nfar-off growl of the sea, for the tide was down.\n\nGerna and her brother were on the hedge as usual, and as they watched\nthe dark moving figures and the flashing of the little fires they\nlonged that they, too, could join the dancers.\n\nWhen the fun seemed to be at its height, the Piskey-lights went\nsuddenly out, and a weird cry, like the cry of a sea-bird proclaiming\na storm, broke on the silence, which so startled the children that\nthey gripped each other's hands in trembling amazement. Then they saw\nin the moonshine hundreds and hundreds of tiny dark figures, all in a\nline, on the edge of the cliffs from Pentire Glaze Hawn to the cliff\nabove Piskey Goog, some of whom seemed to be bending over the cavern;\nand then they disappeared.\n\nThe day following, Great-Grannie sent Gelert up to St. Hinver\nChurchtown, a village three miles from Polzeath, on an errand, and\nGerna down to the bay to pick limpets. The little girl had picked half\na basketful when she saw a dozen or more Piskey-purses lying by the\nside of a rock-pool. Leaving her basket near a seaweed-covered rock,\nshe went to get them.\n\nHer Great-Grannie had told her and Gelert that these brown, skin-like\nthings so often found in this bay were used by the Piskeys to\nkeep their gold in, and if they were ever lucky enough to find\na Piskey-purse with their coins in it they would be rich as a\nSpriggan. [2]\n\nGerna and her brother never forgot this: not that the dear little\nmaid loved money, or wanted to be rich, for she certainly did not;\nbut her Great-Grannie did, and so did her brother; and so, for their\nsakes, whenever Gerna saw a Piskey-purse she stooped and picked it\nup to see if it contained any golden pieces. But the only gold she\nhad ever found in them were grains of sand!\n\nWhen the little girl had picked up all the brown bags she could see,\nto look into at her leisure, her soft blue eyes were attracted\nby a light-brown mottled thing half-hidden under a bunch of wet\nseaweed. Taking it up, she found it was a Piskey-purse, at least in\nshape, but it was of a much lighter colour, and all over it were tiny\ngolden rings, with a halo of silver round each, like rays shooting out\nfrom a sun. Its skin was not flat like all the other Piskey-purses she\nhad ever seen. It was quite plump, and rather soft, like a half-ripe\ngooseberry, and closed at both ends, which was also unusual.\n\nAs she was wondering if it were a Piskey-purse, a tiny voice,\nno bigger than a wren's, only far sweeter, came out of the purse,\nwhich so frightened the child that she nearly dropped it.\n\n'Hide me quickly in your pocket,' it said. 'They are coming out on\nthe bar to look for this purse, but please don't let them find it.'\n\nGerna was too terrified to do other than she was asked, and lifting\nthe skirt of her tinker-blue frock, she dropped the mottled purse\ninto the depths of an unbleached pocket tied under her frock.\n\nShe had scarcely done so when she saw a tiny kiskey [3] of a man come\nout of Piskey Goog, followed by a score of others much like himself.\n\nThey all had on three-cornered hats and knee-breeches, their tiny\nsticks of legs were encased in black stockings, and on their feet\nthey wore low-heeled buckled shoes.\n\nApparently they did not see Gerna, who was standing on the edge of\nthe pool with her pinafore half-full of brown Piskey-purses.\n\nTheir little faces, which were not pleasant to look at, for\nthey were brown and withered--much more withered and brown than\nthe Great-Grannie's--were bent on the sand. It was easy to tell,\nby the way they were turning over every bit of seaweed, that they\nwere searching for something.\n\nAs one of the wee Dark Men--it was the first who came out of the\ngoog--turned his face seaward, he caught sight of Gerna standing by\nthe pool.\n\nInstead of his disappearing into the cavern, as Great-Grannie told\nher the Small People would do when they saw anybody looking at them,\nhe took off his little three-cornered hat and came towards her,\nand Gerna, poor little maid, was too frightened to run away.\n\n'May I ask what you have got in your pinny' (pinafore), 'which you\nare holding so tight?' he asked, with what was meant to be a most\nfascinating smile, but which only terrified her the more.\n\n'Only Piskey-purses, please, little mister,' she gasped, 'which I\nwas a-going to look into when I've got time.'\n\n'What did you hope to find there, eh?'\n\n'Some of the dear little Piskeys' golden money,' answered the child.\n\n'Did you? You are a nice little girl' (she was a giantess compared\nwith him) 'to want the Small People's gold, and I hope one of the\npurses has some. May I look into them for you and see?'\n\n'Iss, if you like,' cried Gerna; and, sitting down on the sand, she\nopened wide her pinafore, so that the tiny Brown Man could take them\nout, which, however, he did not do.\n\n'The Small People never put anything of value into these common brown\nthings,' he said disdainfully, just glancing at the purses in her\nlap. 'The bags into which we put our golden money are much prettier,\nand are painted all over with golden rings, with dashes of white, like\nthis,' making tiny strokes with his finger on the sand. 'If you ever\nfind such a purse you will indeed be a lucky little maid--that is,\nif you take it into Piskey Goog and put it on a shelf of rock there,\nwhich is what I want you to do. We value these ring-marked purses\nmore than I can tell you,' he continued, as Gerna did not speak,\n'and are greatly troubled when we lose one of them; we have done so\nnow, and shall never be happy any more until we find it.'\n\n'My dear life!' ejaculated the child.\n\n'In return for your kindness, if you find the bag we have lost and\nbring it to Piskey Goog, we will give you another something like it,\nfull of gold, and you will be quite rich, and be able to buy anything\nyou want.'\n\n'My dear soul and body!' ejaculated Gerna again.\n\n'I mean what I say,' continued the man, looking up into the little\nmaid's open face with a glitter in his twinkling black eyes, which\nwere no bigger than a robin's eyes, and not nearly so soft. 'But I\nwarn you that if you do find this purse, you must not tell anybody\nof your great find, but bring it straight to Piskey Goog.'\n\nWhilst he was impressing this upon Gerna, who was getting over her\nfear of the little Brown Man, she remembered the mottled purse in\nher pocket, and was on the point of telling him, when a great voice\nroared out over the bay, and, on looking round, she saw a man called\nFarmer Vivian coming across the bar.\n\nThe great voice, or Farmer Vivian himself, she did not know which,\nso frightened the Brown Piskey Man that he took to his heels, and in\nless than a minute he and all the other Little Men had vanished into\ntheir cavern.\n\nGerna was on the point of following him thither, for she was almost\ncertain that the mottled purse she had found was the one they had\nlost, when a great wave broke over the rock where she was standing,\nand nearly knocked her down, and she had to run away from the cavern\nto escape another wave.\n\nAs she turned to go back to her limpet-picking, she found the limpet\nrocks were all covered with the incoming tide; her basket, poised\nhigh on a breaker and upside down, was fortunately thrown in on the\nsands at her feet.\n\n'Great-Grannie will be terribly put out,' she told herself as she went\nhome, 'and the poor little ducklings will have to go without supper.'\n\nThe ancient dame was even more vexed than Gerna thought she would be,\nand sent her at once to bed, and Gelert had to sit on the hedge alone\nto watch the Piskeys dancing; but they never appeared on the headland,\nfor all his watching.\n\nAs Gerna was undressing, the pocket under her frock began to twitch\nand shake as if it had St. Vitus's dance. As she hastened to untie\nit, the little voice she had heard in the mottled purse before the\nWee Men came out of the cavern spoke to her again.\n\n'Please take me out of your pocket; I want so much to talk to you.'\n\nThe child, though somewhat afraid, did so, and held the bag carefully\nin her hand.\n\n'I cannot tell you how thankful I feel that you did not take me to\nPiskey Goog, as that little Brown Man asked you to do.'\n\n'Did you hear what he said?' asked Gerna, greatly surprised.\n\n'Every word; and I was so afraid you would tell him you had found\nme. It would have been too dreadful if you had, especially after they\ndropped me by accident over the cliff, as they did, and haven't been\nable to find me since.'\n\n'However did you get into this purse?' asked the child.\n\n'Hager, the King of the Spriggans, put me in here and sealed me up,\nso that I should not get out,' said the little voice.\n\n'Whatever for?'\n\n'Because I wouldn't marry him, and because he was afraid somebody\nelse I loved was going to marry me.'\n\n'He can't be a very nice king,' said Gerna. 'I am glad I didn't take\nthe purse to the cavern, as you are inside. You know, don't you,\nthat the little brown kiskey of a man promised they would give me a\nbag full of gold if I took this purse to their place. Will they?'\n\n'It all depends,' answered the little voice. 'The Spriggans--all those\nlittle Dark Men you saw on the sands were Spriggans--are dreadful\nstorytellers, and they never keep their word unless they are obliged\nto. If they cannot get this purse without having to pay heavily for\nit, they will give you what they offered. Do you want to be rich,\ndear little maid?' it asked anxiously.\n\n'I don't one bit,' returned the child truthfully; 'but my Great-Grannie\nand my brother Gelert do. If they were to know that the little Brown\nMan had promised to give me a bag of gold if I take this one to Piskey\nGoog, Great-Grannie would make me take it. We are very poor--poor\nas a coot, she says.' As the small voice in the purse was silent:\n'If I don't take you to the goog, will you give me some of the dear\nLittle People's golden money?'\n\n'I have no gold to give,' said the voice very sadly. 'And if I had,\nI would not like to give it you, for it would not bring you real\nhappiness. But if you take me down to the cavern, as the Spriggan\nsuggested, you will break my heart. Hager, [4] who is even crueller\nthan his name, will never let me escape from him any more.'\n\n'But I wasn't going to take you to the goog,' said Gerna. 'I should\nlet you out first, of course.'\n\n'It is very kind of you to say so,' said the little voice, with a\ntremble in it. 'But you would not be able to open this purse, which,\nby the way, is not a purse at all, but a prison.'\n\n'I guess I could,' cried the child. 'My hands are ever so strong,\nand if they can get limpets off the rocks, they can open this tiny\nlittle thing, I'm sure. I'll open it now, this very minute.'\n\nHer strong young fingers began tugging at the end of the bag, but to\nher surprise she could not open it.\n\nAfter working for ten minutes or more, she gave up in despair.\n\n'I told you so,' said the tiny voice sadly. 'Much stronger fingers\nthan yours could not open this prison-bag, and no knife, however sharp,\ncould cut its skin.'\n\n'Why could it not?' asked the little maid.\n\n'Because a spell has been worked upon it,' the wee voice answered.\n\n'I don't know what you mean,' said Gerna.\n\n'When Hager put me here,' explained the voice, 'he was so afraid the\ndear Little People, and those who loved me, would discover where he had\nput me, and find out a way to release me, that he made it impossible\nby an evil spell that anybody--even himself--should be able to set me\nfree for ninety-nine years three hundred and sixty-five days, unless\na very poor little girl could be found who had no love of gold in\nher soul, nor any greed for riches, and who, out of the deep pity of\na kind little heart, would be willing to carry me for love's sake,\nin the dead of night, through a great bog haunted by hobgoblins,\nover a lonely moor to where a Tolmen [5] stands, and pass me three\ntimes through the Tolmen's hole before the sun rises, and then lay\nme on its top, so that the first ray of the rising sun might smite\nupon the bag. This will break the spell and set me free.'\n\n'What a terrible lot for a little maid to do!' cried Gerna. 'I don't\nbelieve one will ever be found to do all that, however kind she is.'\n\n'That is just what Hager believed,' said the voice sadly. 'And yet\nI was once hopeful that such a dear little child would be found,\nor rather would find this purse with its helpless prisoner inside,\nand take compassion on me. But as the long years dragged on, and no\nsuch little maiden came to my help, hope died within me, and I was in\nutter despair, until you discovered me half hidden under some seaweed,\npicked me up, and brought me hither. And now hope has begun to revive\nin my heart again.'\n\n'Have you been in this prison-purse a long time?' asked Gerna, who\ndimly felt that the poor little prisoner was appealing to her pity.\n\n'A very long time,' sighed the little voice--'one hundred years all\nbut a few days.'\n\n'My goodness gracious!' exclaimed the little Cornish maid in\ngreat amazement. 'How terrible old you must be--older even than my\nGreat-Grannie, who is ever so much past ninety.'\n\n'I suppose I am old, as you count age,' said the little voice, in\nwhich Gerna detected a laugh.\n\n'Have you really been in this bag ninety-nine years?' she asked,\nnot being able to get over her surprise.\n\n'Yes; and I am grieved to say the hour for my release has almost\ncome. Before the birth of the new moon, which is on Friday next,\nHager will take me out, if no child before that time carries me over\nthe bog and moor, and passes me through the Tolmen.'\n\n'Was it only 'cause you wouldn't marry that old Spriggan king you\ngot put into this prison?' asked Gerna.\n\n'Yes, that was the only reason,' answered the little voice. 'I happened\nto be beautiful, you see, and because of my beauty he stole me away\nfrom my own dear little True Love, who was just going to marry me. If\nit ends, as I fear it will, in his getting me into his power again,\nI and my True Love will break our hearts.'\n\n'But I shouldn't think anybody would want to marry you now, if you are\nso old as you say you are,' cried Gerna, with all a child's candour,\nthinking of her shrivelled, toothless old great-grandmother.\n\n'And yet Hager, in spite of my age, is waiting impatiently for the\nwaning of the moon to marry me,' said the little voice, with another\nsigh. 'I overheard him talking about it to some of his people, and\nwhat grand doings they would have then, and how they would send an\ninvitation to all the dear Little People--my own True Love included--to\ncome to the wedding.'\n\n'What a horrid person he must be!' cried Gerna indignantly. 'Why ever\ndidn't your little True Love come and take you away?'\n\n'He can't, because of the spells Hager worked upon this bag.'\n\n'Haven't you seen your little True Love all those long years?' asked\nthe child.\n\n'Not once. But I thought I heard his voice when the little Brown Man\nwas telling you to bring the ring-marked purse to Piskey Goog.'\n\n'There was nobody on the beach except those little Dark Men searching\nfor this purse and Farmer Vivian,' said Gerna. 'Farmer Vivian is a\ngreat big man, and lives up at Pentire Glaze Farm. He is very kind,\nand he do love all the Little People dearly.'\n\n'How do you know he does?' asked the little voice eagerly.\n\n'My Great-Grannie told me he did, and she do know. This little cottage\nof ours belongs to him, and he al'ays talks to her about the Wee Folk\nwhen she goes up to his house to pay the rent. There! Great-Gran\nis calling up the stairs to ask if I'm in bed. I shall have to put\n'ee back into my big pocket now. I hope you won't mind.'\n\n'Not one bit. The only thing I do mind is being given into Hager's\npower. You won't take me to Piskey Goog, whatever the little Brown\nMan offers you, will you, dear?'\n\n'Not unless Great-Grannie finds out I've got you an' makes me,'\nsaid the child, putting the purse very carefully into the unbleached\npocket. 'I hope she won't go looking into it when she comes up to bed.'\n\n'Can't you hide the pocket somewhere?' asked the little voice\nanxiously.\n\n'I can put it into the big chest here by the window,' said Gerna,\nlooking around the mean little chamber, which was very bare. 'A storm\nwashed it in on the bar last winter, and Great-Gran don't keep nothing\nin it but her best clothes.'\n\n'Then put me into the chest,' piped the little voice. 'And please\ncome and take me out to-morrow as soon as you can. It cheers me to\nhear the voice of a friend, and I believe you are a true friend,\nyou dear little maid!'\n\nThe child dropped the pocket into the great sea-chest very quickly,\nfor the ancient dame again called up the stairs to ask if she were\nin bed, and then came up to see if she were.\n\nGreat-Grannie did not get up until quite late the next day, and when\nshe did she sent Gerna to the beach to pick limpets for the ducks,\nand Gelert to weed the small potato plot at the back of the cottage,\na work he hated doing.\n\nWhen the little girl got to the bay the tide was only half-way down,\nand it was ever so long before she could get near the limpet rocks. But\nas soon as the tide let her she began her limpet-picking, and never\nlooked round once.\n\nHer basket was half full when she heard a sharp little voice behind\nher.\n\n'Have you found the purse I told you of?'\n\n'I haven't looked yet to-day,' said the child, without glancing\nround. 'I lost all my limpets yesterday through picking up\nPiskey-purses, an' my Great-Grannie was ever so cross. She sent me to\nbed without any supper; an' the poor little ducks had to go without\ntheir supper too.'\n\n'I am so sorry,' said the little Brown Man, climbing the rock to be\non a level with her face; 'but I would not let such a small matter\nas that prevent me from looking for that purse with its gold ring\nmarkings. Your Great-Grannie will never be vexed with you any more\nwhen you have found it, and receive another one full of the Small\nPeople's gold in exchange.'\n\n'How did you come to lose your purse?' asked the child, anxious to\nhear what he would say.\n\n'Unfortunately, I took it with me a night or two ago to the cliff\nabove our dwelling-place, where we have our games, and by a terrible\nmisfortune I dropped it over the cliff. I and my relations have been\nlooking for it ever since. I have come here to-day to renew the offer\nI made yesterday. You would like to be rich, wouldn't you?'\n\n'We are terrible poor!' said the child evasively--'the poorest people\nin St. Minver parish, Great-Grannie said.'\n\n'Are you really, you poor things?' said the little Brown Man\nkindly. 'Then, in that case I will double my reward if you find the\npurse. I will give you two purses full of the Small People's golden\nmoney instead of only one. It must, however, be brought to Piskey\nGoog before the next new moon, and as the present one is in her last\nquarter, there is not much time to lose, is there?'\n\n'No,' said the child, still going on with her limpet-picking.\n\n'Won't you go and look for it now?' asked the little Brown Man, with a\nhint of impatience in his voice. 'The tide will be on the flow again\nsoon, and your chance for to-day will be gone.'\n\n'I must fill my basket with limpets first,' said Gerna; 'Grannie\nraises ducks to sell to the gentry, and we can't afford for them to\nlose a meal, she says.'\n\n'You are like a limpet yourself; there is no moving you against your\nwill,' cried the little man, scowling, 'and----'\n\nWhat else he would have said there was no knowing, for Farmer Vivian\nappeared on the sands at that moment, and shouted across the gray-gold\nbar, and this caused the little Piskey Man to take to his heels and\nrun into his cavern.\n\nGerna did not stay on the beach after the wee Brown Man had\ndisappeared--she felt afraid somehow--and she went home with only half\na basketful of limpets. This so put out Great-Grannie that she vowed\nshe would send her down to the porth again to find more, if one of\nher precious ducklings hadn't taken it into its head to have a fit,\nwhich so bewildered her that she sent Gelert instead!\n\nWhat with the sick duckling to attend to, and other little chores the\nchild had to do for the ancient dame, she had not a minute to steal\nup to the little chamber.\n\nWhen at last she thought she was free, Gelert rushed into the cottage\nall excitement.\n\n'What do you think?' he cried, 'the dear little Piskey Men are out on\nthe sands looking for a Piskey-purse. They have lost one, they told\nme, and whoever finds it and takes it into Piskey Goog shall have a\npurse full of the Small People's golden money.'\n\n'You don't mean for to say so?' exclaimed the old woman. 'To think\nof it now! Go along, both of 'ee,' glancing at Gerna, 'an' search\nfor that purse until you do find it.'\n\n'I've searched and searched till I'm tired,' said the boy, 'an' I would\nhave gone on searching if the old sea wasn't tearing in like mad.'\n\n'Oh dear, what a pity!' cried the Great-Grannie. 'We must all go an'\nlook for that purse to-morrow. I wouldn't have us lose our chance\nof being rich for anything. Now,' turning to Gerna, 'make haste an'\nget our suppers, for the boy must be as hungry as a hedger after\nsuch work.'\n\nWhen the supper was ready, and as they were eating, Gelert remarked:\n\n'I forgot to tell you, Great-Grannie, that the little Brown Men told\nme it was noised about that Farmer Vivian is going to sell all his\nland--this little cottage too--and that we are to be turned out.'\n\n'That is the wishtest [6] news I've heard this longful time,' wailed\nthe old woman. 'There isn't another cottage down here, and all the\nlittle houses up to Trebetherick an' Churchtown is more rent than I\ncould ever pay.'\n\n'We shall be able to live in a great big house--the biggest house in\nthe parish--when we've found that purse and got the other with the\ngolden pennies, the little Piskey Man told me,' said the boy. 'The\nmoney will come just when we most want it--won't it, Great-Gran dear?'\n\n'It will,' chuckled the ancient dame; 'an' we must give ourselves no\nrest till we find that purse.'\n\n\n\n'I feared you had forgotten me,' said the sweet wee voice in the\nPiskey-bag an hour later, when Gerna had taken it out of the chest.\n\n'I hadn't forgotten you,' said the child a little sadly; 'but I\ncouldn't come before, 'cause----'\n\n'Because what?' asked the little voice anxiously. 'You have not come\nto give me into the power of the Spriggans, have you?'\n\n'Not now, but I am afraid I shall have to,' said Gerna.\n\nAnd she then told her how the little Brown Man had come to her again,\nand how he had doubled his offer if she brought the lost purse to\nthe goog. She also told her all the news Gelert had brought up from\nthe beach, and of Farmer Vivian selling his cottage.\n\n'There isn't a word of truth about his selling your cottage,' said the\nlittle voice indignantly. 'He is far too kind to turn an old woman and\ntwo little children like you out of your home. It is because he is good\nthat the Spriggans are afraid of him and speak of him so unkindly.'\n\n'But if it should be true,' persisted Gerna, 'will you give me a\npurseful of golden money if I don't take you to the goog?'\n\n'How quickly you forget, child! I told you but yesterday that I\nhad no gold to give you,' said the little voice. 'Surely you do not\nlove money more than you do kindness and pity? And you are going to\ncommit an unkind deed--for it will be an unkind deed if you sell me\nfor gold. Woe is me!'\n\n'But the purse belongs to the Spriggan King,' said Gerna, as if to\nexcuse herself. 'I shall be only giving him what belongs to him.'\n\n'That is quite true. But I do not belong to him; I belong to my\nMammie and Daddy and my own little True Love, whom I shall never,\nnever see again if you take me to Piskey Goog. And I shall be dead\nto them for ever and ever and ever!'\n\n'Then I won't let those nasty little Dark People have 'ee, whatever\nthey do offer,' cried the child. 'I only wish I could take 'ee over\nthat bog an' moor you told me of to the Tolmen.'\n\n'A wish is father to the deed,' said the little voice somewhat more\ncheerfully. 'If you really desire to do that act of pity,' it added,\nafter a pause, 'you have not much time to lose, for the moon is on\nthe wane, and there are only three clear days to the birth of the\nnew moon.'\n\n'I wish I wasn't afraid of being out alone in the dark,' said the\nchild, shuddering. 'I am a wisht coward when it is dark. So I'm\nafraid I shall never be brave enough to take 'ee to the Tolmen,\nthough I want to, dreadful. But I'll never let the Spriggans have\n'ee, dear,' she added, greatly distressed, as a groan terrible in its\ndespair came out of the bag. 'Don't 'ee make so wisht a sound. It do\nmake me sad to hear 'ee.'\n\n'I can't help it,' said the wee voice, which was as full of tears as\never a voice could be. 'Not even love can keep me from the Spriggans\nafter the moon is born. All power to resist them will be gone, and they\ncan come into this cottage unseen by human eyes and take me away. They\nsuspect where I am now, and are only afraid I have discovered a child\nwho is not only no lover of money, but who is kind enough to take me\nto the Tolmen.'\n\n'Whatever will 'ee do!' cried Gerna, tears welling to her eyes. 'I\ndon't believe I shall be happy any more if I know those ghastly little\nSpriggans have 'ee.'\n\n'I don't believe you would, you dear little maid.'\n\n'I tell 'ee what,' cried the child, making a big resolve: 'I will\ntake---- There! Great-Grannie is coming up the stairs. Good-night\ntill to-morrow.'\n\nThe ancient dame was up with the sun the next day, and made Gerna\nand Gelert get up too, that no time might be lost in looking for the\nPiskey-purse. She would hardly give them time to eat their breakfast,\nso greedy was she to have the Small People's golden money.\n\nAs she was taking down her sunbonnet, she knocked over a heavy piece\nof wood, which fell on her big toe, and it hurt her so badly that,\nmuch to her vexation, she had to let the children go without her.\n\nThe tide was in when they got down to the bay, and so smooth and still\nwas it that 'it couldn't wash up anything, even if it wanted to,'\nsaid Gelert crossly.\n\nHe turned over all the seaweed at high-water mark, but saw nothing\nexcept sea-fleas.\n\nWhen the tide was far enough down, Gerna went all over the beach with\nher brother; but as she had already found the lost purse, she picked\nup shells instead.\n\n'I don't b'lieve you want to find the Piskey-purse, Gerna Carnsew,'\ngrowled Gelert, when he saw what she was doing. 'I don't b'lieve you\nwant to have the Small People's golden pieces one little bit.'\n\n'I didn't say I did,' cried Gerna, which made the boy so angry that\nhe went off to the other side of the bar to look for the purse alone.\n\nGerna was stooping to pick up a shell, of which there were many on\nthe sands to-day, when the little Brown Man came up to her, doffed\nhis three-cornered hat, and grinned into her face.\n\n'Have you found our lost purse yet?' he asked. 'The time for finding\nit is up the day after to-morrow.'\n\n'Whatever do you mean, little mister?'\n\n'What I say, and that your chance of being wealthy will be gone. Are\nyou looking for the precious bag now?'\n\n'My Great-Grannie sent me and Gelert down here to look for it,' said\nthe child evasively. 'Gelert is over there looking,' again sending\nher glance across the bar, which was particularly beautiful to-day\nwith reflected clouds.\n\n'I know he is, and he seems much more anxious to find the purse\nthan you are. Perhaps our offer, great as it was, is not sufficiently\ntempting. If it isn't'--looking keenly into the child's sweet face--'we\nwill treble our reward. Three purses full of the Wee Folks' golden\nmoney will we give you if you bring us the bag. It will be more than\nenough to buy all the land in your parish, including your own dear\nlittle cottage, should it ever be sold.'\n\n'Will it really?' cried Gerna, deeply impressed, and for the first\ntime in her innocent young life the desire to be rich came into her\nunselfish little soul.\n\n'Yes; and you will be a very great lady indeed,' said the small Dark\nMan, with an evil laugh, seeing he had gained a point--'greater even\nthan Lady Sandys, who lives up at St. Minver Churchtown.'\n\nHe might have said many more things to entice the poor little maid's\nenvy; but just then a great voice above their heads startled them,\nand, looking up, Gerna saw Farmer Vivian on the top of Tristram,\na hill facing Pentire Glaze.\n\nThe Spriggan took to his heels at once, and there was a helter-skelter\namongst all the Little Men, whom she had not seen on the sands until\nthen, and one and all rushed into Piskey Goog, as if a regiment of\nsoldiers were after them.\n\nGelert continued his search for the purse until the sea flowed in\nagain, and Gerna sat on a rock picturing to herself what the Churchtown\nfolk would say to her when she bought all the land in the parish,\nand became a person of even greater importance than Lady Sandys. As\nshe was enjoying all this wealth in anticipation, it suddenly rushed\nupon her at what price she would buy her riches--the happiness of\na poor little helpless thing in a Spriggan's prison--and she felt\nso ashamed of herself that the desire for gold died within her, and\nsuch pity for her little friend came in its place that she was now\nquite determined to take the bag over the bog country to the moor\nwhere the Tolmen was, cost her what it might.\n\nWhen the children came home, Great-Grannie was all eagerness to know\nif the purse were found, and when Gelert told her it was not, and that\nGerna had been looking for shells instead of the lost Piskey-purse,\nher anger knew no bounds, and she smacked the poor little maid,\nand once more sent her supperless to bed.\n\n'I wish all the Spriggans' gold would be swallowed up in the sea,' said\npoor Gerna, as she went up to the little bed-chamber. 'Great-Grannie\nwas never vexed with me before that Dinky Man wanted to make me\nrich with his golden pieces. 'Tis better to be poor an' contented,\nI reckon, than to be rich and be miserable.'\n\nThe ancient dame, finding her toe getting worse, followed her small\ngreat-granddaughter upstairs, and as she did not go down again that\nnight, Gerna had no chance of speaking to the little prisoner. Nor\nhad she the next morning, for she was kept so busy, what with bathing\nGreat-Grannie's injured toe, and all the other odds and ends of things\nshe had to do before going down to the bay, that she had not a minute\nto herself until bedtime.\n\nThe old woman, in her desire for gold, no longer considered the\nvoracious appetites of her numerous ducks, and told the children\nthat, as the finding of that lost purse was of such great importance,\nthe limpet-picking must stand over until the purse was found.\n\nGelert was delighted to be relieved of an uncongenial task, and\nwent off to search for the purse with a light heart; but Gerna, not\nwanting to go to the beach at all, begged to stay at home, which made\nGreat-Grannie so cross that she said she was not to come back until\nshe had found it.\n\nEither the clock had gone wrong or the old woman's brain, for it was\nmuch later than she thought, and when the children got down to the bay\nthe sea was rushing up the sands at such a terrible speed that the time\nfor searching was very short. It had surrounded the rocks where the\nlimpets clung when they got there, and was almost up to Piskey Goog.\n\nGelert went to the other side of the bay at once, leaving Pentire side\nto Gerna. But as the little maid knew there was no other purse to find\nthan the one she had found, she began again to pick up shells. There\nwere very lovely shells on the sands to-day, all the colours of the\nrainbow--in fact, they looked as they lay in the eye of the sun as\nif they had fallen from the sky. As the child was stooping to pick\nthem up, out of the cavern came a troop of little Brown Men, with\nthe Wee Man who had always spoken to her at the head.\n\nHe made at once for the child.\n\n'Picking up shells again!' he cried, 'and all those purses of gold\nawaiting you there in the goog! Why, I am beginning to think you do\nnot want to be rich. Do you?'\n\n'I did issterday, [7] but I don't one little bit now,' said the child,\nturning her frank gaze full upon the little Dark Man's upturned face.\n\n'What!' he cried, looking as black as a thundercloud, 'you don't\nmean to tell me that you are going to miss the great chance of having\nthree purses full of the Wee Folks' golden money?'\n\n'Iss, I do,' said the little maid. 'I don't want even one piece of\nyour old golden money, little Mister Spriggan!'\n\nIf the cliff towering above them had tumbled down upon him the little\nDark Man could not have looked more crushed. Then he scowled all over\nhis face, shook his scrap of a fist at her, and yelled:\n\n'I know now that you found the purse we lost, and that the little\nvoice within it--it is nothing more than a voice, remember--has\nbewitched you as it has others, and that it does not want you to be\nrich, happy, and great as we do. You will be sorry all your days you\nhave lost your opportunity to be rich, and you will find you cannot\neven keep the thing which you have found.'\n\nThere was a heavy ground sea that day, and the waves were so huge\nthat Gerna had to go farther up the beach out of their reach, and\nwhen she turned to see what the Dinky Men were doing, she saw them\nall slinking into Piskey Goog like whipped dogs.\n\nGreat-Grannie was in no better temper than she had been the previous\nday at her great-grand-children's failure; and when she asked if Gerna\nhad been looking for the purse, and Gelert said 'No,' she was so vexed\nand cross, she not only thumped the child, but sent her upstairs to\nstay the rest of the day.\n\nThe poor little maid felt so miserable that she did not take out the\npurse and talk to the prisoner for ever so long; but when she did\nshe told her all she had said to the wee Dark Man.\n\n'Did you really say all that to his face--refuse his gold and call\nhim a Spriggan?' cried the little voice in amazement.\n\n'I did,' said Gerna; 'an' he did look terrible, sure 'nough.'\n\n'I don't wonder! I am sure now you are brave enough to take me through\nthe bog and over the moor to the Tolmen. Will you, dear little maid?'\n\n'I want to, if I can,' said the child. 'But I don't know the way to\nthe Tolmen. There is no Tolmen anywhere near here that I know of.'\n\n'There is one, though nobody seems to know of it, away towards the\nsunrising, near where a great Tor rises up against the sky,' said the\nlittle voice quite cheerfully. 'I do not know the way to it myself,\nbut there is a pair of Shoes which do, and they can take any person\non whose feet they are over the worst bog that ever was.'\n\n'What wonderful shoes!' cried Gerna. 'Where are they?'\n\n'Farmer Vivian has them,' said the little prisoner, with something\nin her voice Gerna did not understand. 'They were given him by one\nof the Small People. The next time you go down to the beach and see\nhim there, ask him for these shoes, and if they fit you I shall know\nfor certain that you are the little maid who can save me.'\n\n'Hush!' whispered Gerna. 'Great-Gran is clopping up the stairs, an'\nI must pop into bed afore she comes.'\n\n'Take me into bed with you,' whispered back the little voice, 'and\nhide me in the folds of your bed-gown.'\n\nWhen Gerna was sound asleep, the ancient dame began to look into\nevery corner of the little chamber, as if she, too, were searching for\nsomething. She turned out all the things, even the child's pockets,\ntook everything out of the great sea-chest, muttering to herself\nas she did so; and then she went to the bed where Gerna slept, and\nturned her over on her side, and felt under the clothes and the pillow.\n\n'I was wrong; she ent a-got the purse,' she said aloud to herself,\n'an' I thought she had. Aw, dear! I'm afraid we shall never have that\nbag an' the Small People's money.'\n\nAnd then she undressed and got into bed.\n\nBut the old woman could not sleep a wink that night, and only dozed\noff when Gerna awoke.\n\nThe child had only time to drop her little friend into the chest\nbefore Great-Grannie was wide awake again and getting up to dress.\n\nAt the flow of the tide the children were again hurried off to\nthe beach to search for the lost Piskey-purse, the old dame loudly\nlamenting that she was not able to go with them, owing to the hurt\nto her toe.\n\nThe tide was in, and whilst they waited for it to go down, Farmer\nVivian came across the bar, and Gelert, seeing him coming towards them,\nmade off.\n\n'How is it you haven't been picking limpets lately?' asked the farmer,\nwith a kindly smile, looking down at Gerna.\n\n'Great-Grannie ordered us to look for a Piskey-purse instead,' said\nthe little maid dolefully.\n\nThen she remembered what the little voice had asked her to do if she\nsaw Farmer Vivian.\n\n'Yes,' he said, in answer to her question, 'I have such a pair of\nShoes, and, odd to say, I have them in my pocket. What do you want\nthem for?'\n\n'To see if they will fit me, please, sir. May I have them now and\ntry them on?'\n\n'You may, certainly; but I am afraid they are far too small even for\nyour little feet.'\n\nHe dipped his hand into his coat-pocket, and, taking out a tiny pair\nof moss-coloured Shoes, he gave them to the child.\n\n'Why, they are dolly's shoes!' she cried; 'only big enough for the\nSmall People's feet. I am terribly disappointed.'\n\n'Are you? Well, never mind; just see if they will fit you.'\n\n'I will, just for fun,' laughed Gerna; and, putting one of them to\nher bare foot, to her unspeakable amazement it began to stretch,\nand in a minute it was on!\n\n'Well, I never!' cried Farmer Vivian, and his great voice was so full\nof delight that it roared out all over the bar, even louder than Giant\nTregeagle, whose roar of rage is still sometimes heard on St. Minver\nsandhills. 'The Shoe has stretching powers, it seems. Try to get on\nits fellow.'\n\nGerna quickly did so, and was as proud as a hen with a brood of chicks\nas she stared at her feet.\n\n'You will have to keep them now,' said the farmer, lowering his big\nvoice to such gentleness and sweetness that she would have thought it\nwas her own little friend at home in the sea-chest if she had not known\nit wasn't. 'A dear little lady gave them to me to keep until I should\nfind somebody they would fit, and I have waited a very long time for\nthat somebody. With the Shoes she gave me a Lantern, which she said\nmust be given with the Shoes;' and once more diving into his pocket,\nhe fished out the tiniest lantern Gerna had ever seen. 'Just big\nenough,' he said, 'to light home a benighted dumbledory' (bumblebee);\nand he went away laughing towards the cliffs.\n\nGerna kept on the Shoes till the tide was down to Piskey Goog, when\nshe took them off and put them into her underskirt pocket with the\ndinky Lantern.\n\nThe sands were strewn with Piskey-purses to-day instead of shells,\nand as it gave her something to do, she picked up as many as she could\nsee; and when the tide had gone down to Pentire Hawn, she went near\nthere and sat on a rock.\n\nSo occupied was she with looking into the purses, and asking herself\nwhether she ever could take the poor little imprisoned fairy across\nthe bog country that night--for she knew it would have to be to-night\nif she took her at all--that she forgot all about the tide, which by\nthis time had reached its lowest ebb, and was flowing in again.\n\nThe sea grew rough as it turned, and began to rush up the great beach\nand beat on the outer rocks with a terrible roar.\n\nWhen Gerna had glanced into the last of her purses she looked about\nher, and found to her consternation that the sea was a long way\nup the bar, and the rock on which she sat was almost surrounded by\nangry water.\n\nIt was now quite impossible for her to get to the sands, and the only\nplace not cut off by the sea was a tiny cove--a mere gash in the cliff\nmidway between the two hawns, Pentire and Pentire Glaze. As it was,\nit was her only place of safety--at least, for a time--and she went\nto it at once, and sat down, white and frightened, under the cliff\nthat towered darkly above her.\n\nAfter a few minutes she stood up and shouted with all her might for\nsomeone to come to her help, but her shouts were drowned in the loud\nthunder of the breakers. She shouted until she was hoarse--for she\ndid not want to be drowned, poor child, and she knew there was no way\nout of the cove except by the cliff, which it was quite impossible\nfor her to climb--and then she again sat down and wept bitterly.\n\nAs she was crying and sobbing, a strange noise above her made her\nlook up, and there in a tiny hole in the face of the cliff a few feet\nabove her head she saw the grinning face of a little Dark Man!\n\n'You are caught in a trap,' he said, with a cough, 'and you will\nsurely be drowned if we do not come to your help.'\n\n'Will you help me, dear little Mister Spriggan?' cried Gerna, hope\ndawning in her eyes.\n\n'Yes, if you will bring back to our goog, when the sea goes out,\nthat precious purse which we know you have found.'\n\n'I cannot do that, 'cause I promised I wouldn't, whatever happened,'\nsaid the child, greatly distressed.\n\n'Oh, then in that case we will leave you to the mercy of the sea! Of\ncourse, it will drown you, and a good thing too, for it will prevent\nyour doing what the voice asked you to do. We shall have the bag and\nit in our hands again to-morrow, whilst you will make a dainty dish\nfor the fishes' supper!' and the stone clicked and the ugly little\nface disappeared.\n\n'Hello! What are you doing down there, and the waves breaking all\naround you?' cried a voice far up the cliff, and, turning her tearful\ngaze upwards, Gerna saw kind Farmer Vivian--who looked almost as\nsmall as one of the Wee Folk from that great height--looking down upon\nher. 'A very good thing I gave you those dinky Shoes this morning. Put\nthem on quickly. There is not a moment to lose. In the cliff to your\nright you will find some steps cut out of the rock. They are very\nsmall indeed, but quite large enough for those little green Shoes to\nclimb up on.'\n\nGerna hastened to obey, and she saw on the face of the cliff a tiny\nwinding stairway. She put her feet on the first stair, and found\nherself going up and up without fear, and she was soon at the top of\nthe cliff, standing by Farmer Vivian's side.\n\n'There you are, as right as the Small People's change!' said he, with\na smile in his eyes, which were as blue as the sea itself, and oh! so\ngentle and kind. 'Don't take off your Shoes until you have passed all\nthe Piskey Rings, or Spriggan Traps, or whatever they are,' he said,\nas Gerna turned her face towards her cottage. 'Pentire is full of\nthem to-day--all made since last night, and all the colour of your\ndear little Shoes.'\n\n'You can't step anywhere without putting your feet on a Ring,' Gerna\nsaid to herself, as she hurried home over the great headland. On every\nRing she stepped she felt she must stop to dance like a Piskey. And\nshe was not sure, but she thought she saw little dark faces grinning\nhorribly at her from every Ring she passed over.\n\nGreat-Grannie was much upset when she heard what dangers her little\ngreat-granddaughter had been exposed to, for Gelert had come home\nwith the news a few minutes before that she was drowned, as he could\nnot see her anywhere!\n\nThe fright the old woman received showed her how wrong it was to\ncovet the Small People's money, and she gave Gerna a basinful of hot\nbread-and-milk, and told her she could go to bed if she liked.\n\nThe child was worn out with all she had gone through, and went upstairs\nquite early, as she wanted to rest before taking the little prisoner\nto the Tolmen that night.\n\nShe did not undress before she had taken the ring-marked purse out of\nthe chest once more, and told her wee friend of all that had happened\nand what she had gone through.\n\n'I don't believe I should ever have got up that great cliff but\nfor those dinky Shoes,' she added when she had told all; 'nor over\nPentire Glaze.'\n\n'I am certain you wouldn't,' said the wee voice. 'The Spriggans were\nall about the cliffs and headland, but they were powerless to hinder\nyour going with those Shoes on your feet. You won't be afraid to take\nme over the bog now, will you, dear little maid?'\n\n'No, that I shan't,' said Gerna; 'an' I'm a-going to do it\nto-night. But I must have a bit of sleep first. I hope I shall wake\nin time, an' that Great-Grannie won't miss me till I get back.'\n\n'She won't miss you,' assured the little voice. 'The excitement she\nhas suffered lately has exhausted her, and she will sleep until you\nare back in your own little bed again. Take me into bed with you,\nand put me close under your chin, and when the time is up for us to\nstart I will tickle until I wake you.'\n\nThe child was soon in a deep slumber, and it seemed to her she had\nonly just fallen asleep when she felt something tickling her neck.\n\n'Dress quickly!' cried the little voice close to her ear. 'But before\nyou do, let me impress on you once more that I can never repay you for\nyour kindness, and that all you do for me you must do out of the purest\npity and love, and for nothing else. So if you have any hankering after\nthe Little People's gold, your journey is sure to end in failure. For\nthe Spriggans, in spite of the Shoes and the Lantern Farmer Vivian\ngave you, will prevent your reaching the Tolmen, and will make you\ngive me back into their hands, and thrust upon you the golden pieces\nthey have so often offered you, but which will only bring you trouble.'\n\n'I don't want anything for taking you to the place where you are to be\nset free,' said Gerna simply. 'I am doing it 'cause I love you, an'\n'cause I am terribly sorry for you and your little True Love, an'\nI don't want that wicked Hager to make you marry him.'\n\n'Then let us make haste and go,' said the little voice, trembling with\ngladness. 'Put the Shoes on your feet before you leave the chamber,\nand the Lantern and me into the bosom of your frock.'\n\nThere was no moon, and Gerna had to dress in the dark. It was soon\ndone, and, with the moss-green Shoes on her feet, the ring-printed\nbag and the wee Lantern close to her heart, she went down the stairs\nand out into the night.\n\nThere was not a sound to be heard save a weird cry somewhere away\non Pentire, which the little voice coming up from the bosom of her\nfrock said was Hager howling because his subjects were telling him\nthat he must now give up all hope of ever taking to wife his poor\nlittle prisoner. 'You must not be afraid of whatever sounds you hear,'\ncontinued the little voice.\n\n'Are we going the right way?' asked Gerna. For the Shoes were taking\nthem up a rough, steep road behind their cottage.\n\n'Yes, quite right; the Shoes know the way--trust them for that! Don't\nworry about anything; only hold me as close as you can to your warm\nlittle heart. We shall have to warm each other when we come to the\nbog country. It is bitterly cold there.'\n\nOn and on Gerna went with her precious burden, through long lanes,\nup and down steep hills, over sandy commons and furze-brakes, and so\nfast that she could not have spoken even if she wanted to!\n\nAt last she drew near the bog lands, lying flat between two high Tors.\n\n'It's terribly cold here,' she said, when the Shoes stuck in the ground\nfor a minute, 'and ever so dark, except where there are little lights\nshining out of the dark like cats' eyes!' and she began to shiver\nwith cold and fear.\n\n'Don't be afraid, dear child,' said the sweet little voice, in which\nthere was no sadness now. 'The hobgoblins are out in the bog, and as\nthey are near relations of the Spriggans, they are hand in glove with\nthem. The Spriggans feared you would pass over this bog to-night,\nand have set their relations to watch. But they are not so clever\nas they thought themselves. They know you have the Shoes, but they\ndon't dream you possess that wee Lantern too.'\n\n'Is the Lantern any good?' asked Gerna in surprise. 'Farmer Vivian\nsaid it was only big enough to light home a benighted dumbledory.'\n\n'It was a joke about the dumbledory,' laughed the little voice. 'It\ncan do much more than that. It has the power of making you invisible,\nand its light will, if you hold it on the little finger, shine in on\nyour heart and keep it warm.'\n\n'What wonderful things there are nowadays!' exclaimed the child.\n\n'Aren't there?' cried the little voice, with another happy laugh. 'The\nLantern will not only give warmth if so held, and cloak you from\nthe hobgoblins and wicked Spriggans, but will also give you courage,\nwhich you will need crossing this bog country.'\n\nIt was well Gerna was told all this before the Shoes began to take her\nover that dreadful bog. The mists rose thick and cold as she advanced,\nand crept over her with such chilling power that she felt as cold as\na conkerbell, [8] she told herself. And the countless little lights,\nor eyes, or whatever they were, were horrid, and seemed to glaze [9]\nat her whichever way she looked. There were groans and sighs, too,\nwhich filled her with a nameless terror, and but for the cheerful\nlittle voice, which every now and again told her not to be afraid,\nand the white, clear shining of the tiny Lantern, she would have\nturned back.\n\nBy the time the bog was crossed, which she afterwards learned was by\na narrow causeway, just wide enough for two small feet to walk on,\nshe was chill to the very bone and terribly tired.\n\nIt was well on towards the sunrising by this time, and there was yet\nthat wild moor to cross before she reached the Tolmen, and she was\nafraid she would never be able to reach it in time.\n\nShe was growing more and more weary every minute, and the Shoes,\nalthough they could guide and take her over the most difficult places,\ndid not seem to be able to give her strength.\n\n'Do you think we shall get to the Tolmen before the sun gets up?' asked\nthe little voice anxiously.\n\n'I don't know,' Gerna answered in a low, weary voice. 'The moon is up,\nI think--all there is left of it, I mean--and I can see another light\nshining somewhere away in the east.'\n\n'It must be later than I thought,' said the wee voice, and the little\ncreature within the bag began to tremble with apprehension. 'Do make\nhaste, dear little maid! It would be quite too dreadful to be too\nlate after all you have done to free me from Hager's power.'\n\n'I am awfully tired,' was the child's answer. 'If I could only rest a\nfew minutes I could go faster afterwards. Shall I? I am ready to drop.'\n\n'You must not sit down until you have reached the Tolmen. I am\ncertain the Spriggans are following in our wake. They are throwing\ntheir Thunder-axes [10] over every moving thing they can see, and\nover every motionless thing they can touch, and if they should happen\nto knock against you and throw one over you, they have power to keep\nyou helpless to move until the sun has risen.'\n\n'Why didn't they do that when I was in danger of being drowned?' asked\nGerna.\n\n'The Thunder-axes are no good except just before the rising of the\nsun, or the Spriggans would not be following us to use them now. You\nwon't give up now, whatever it costs, will you, dear?'\n\n'Not if I can help it,' said the child wearily.\n\nShe kept going on until she reached higher ground, where she saw\nstanding out in the semi-darkness of the early morning a great Tolmen\non the brow of the moor, and over it hanging like a hunter's horn\nthe silver curve of the old moon.\n\nA cry of gladness broke from Gerna's lips as she saw it, which must\nhave made all the bad little fairies, if any were about, slink away\nin dismay, and the sight so cheered her that her weariness left her\nfor a time, and she sped on like a hare until she dropped down by\nthe big stone's side.\n\n'We have reached the Tolmen, have we not?' asked the little voice,\nall a-tremble with joy.\n\n'Yes,' panted the child; 'and the sun isn't up. I am awful glad--aren't\nyou?'\n\n'More glad than I dare say, dear little maid. But I am not out of\nprison yet. Is there any hint of the sunrise?'\n\n'There is a pinky light over one of the Tors,' answered Gerna.\n\n'Ah! then you must pass me through the Tolmen's hole at once. Three\ntimes, remember,' as Gerna put her hand in the bosom of her frock\nand drew out the tiny bag.\n\nThe brambles had grown up around the gray stone's hole, and almost\nblocked the way to it, and it was minutes before she could tear them\naside and get into the opening; but she did so at last, and passed\nthe prison-bag three times through the hole as she was bidden. As she\ndid so, the sky in the east grew brighter and brighter, and she knew\nfrom that sign that the sun was about to rise.\n\n'Now place the prison and me, its prisoner, on the top of the Tolmen,'\ncried the little voice--'longways to the east it must lie; and when\nyou have done that, stand by the Holed Stone very quietly, then wait\nand see what will happen.'\n\nGerna did as she was told, and stood on a high bank of fragrant thyme\nat the head of the hoary old granite stone, with its great hole,\nher face towards the sunrising.\n\nShe herself was very quiet, as was also the little prisoner, but all\nthe great wild moor was now full of music. The linnets were already\ntwittering in the bushes, and many larks were high in the sky,\nsinging to greet another dawn. As they sang, the east grew more and\nmore beautiful, and behind the great Tors the sky was a wonderful\nrose on a background of delicate gold.\n\nGerna thought the sun would never show himself, and she was too\ntired to appreciate all the wonder of the sunrise, though she was\nglad enough to hear the birds singing, for it made her feel she was\nnot so very far from home, after all.\n\nAt last the sun, red-gold and very large, wheeled up behind the\nshoulder of a Tor and flung out a great lance of flame across the\nmoorland, which smote the small ring-marked purse lying on the Tolmen.\n\nGerna, whose gaze was now riveted on the purse, saw its ends open\nlike a gasping fish, and then shrivel up, and in its black ashes sat\nthe most beautiful little creature it was possible to conceive. She\nwas so lovely and so dainty that the child could only stare at her\nopen-mouthed with wonder and amazement.\n\n'How can I ever thank you, dear little Gerna, for all you have done\nfor me!' said the radiant creature, looking up into the child's amazed\neyes. 'All the Wee Folks' treasures will not be deemed reward enough\nfor the child who preferred to be compassionate than to be made rich\nwith fairies' gold. I should not be sitting here free from that,'\npointing to the shrivelled-up blackness which was once a Spriggan's\nprison, 'but for you, dear. Are you not glad you are the means of\nsetting me free and bringing me unspeakable happiness?'\n\n'Iss,' said Gerna, hardly knowing what she was saying, her eyes still\ndrinking in the beauty of the little fairy. 'Aw!' she exclaimed,\n'you are a dear little lovely, sure 'nough--better than all the Small\nPeople's golden pieces. You don't look a bit old, nuther.'\n\n'You thought I should look as old as your Great-Grannie, didn't\nyou?' laughed the happy little creature. 'The Small People show their\nage by looking younger and fairer--at least, the royal fairies do.'\n\nShe got on her feet as she spoke, and gazed over the great moor, and\nas she gazed, her face, which had the delicate pink of a cowry-shell,\ngrew more beautiful, and a tender, happy light crept into her\nspeedwell-blue eyes.\n\n'There is a friend of yours crossing the moor,' she said in her sweet\nvoice, which was more than ever like the note of a bird, only sweeter\nand clearer.\n\n'Why, 'tis Farmer Vivian!' cried the child. 'However did he get\nhere? I do hope he won't want to have you,' glancing at her lovely\nlittle friend anxiously. 'I don't know what I shall do to hide 'ee\nif he should. I couldn't put beautiful little you in my underskirt\npocket or into the bosom of my frock.'\n\n'Why not?' asked the dainty little creature, smiling. 'I lay there\nclose to your heart all this night, and a warmer, truer little heart\nI shall never rest against. But you need not fear Farmer Vivian on\nmy account. He, of all persons, would not hurt any of the Good Small\nPeople for a king's crown, much less me.'\n\n'He is getting smaller!' exclaimed Gerna. 'Why, he is a teeny, tiny\nFarmer Vivian now! Ah, dear! how queer everything is! Everything is\nqueer an' funny since I picked up that purse with the rings 'pon it\nan' dear little you inside.'\n\n'Cannot you guess who he is?' asked the little fairy, her lovely wee\nface more tender than the June sky over them.\n\n'No,' returned the wondering child. 'Who is he?'\n\n'My own little True Love!' answered the fairy, her eyes a blue\nlight. 'We are meeting each other after a century of black years. He\nwas my True Love all the time in the form of big Farmer Vivian! For\nlove of poor little me he kept in the neighbourhood of Piskey Goog\nall that time.'\n\nIt was all so surprising that Gerna told herself she would never be\nsurprised any more whatever happened. And when the two Wee Lovers,\nseparated by cruel Fate for one hundred years, met and greeted\neach other in lover fashion, all over the great moor broke the\nsound of pealing bells, so tiny and so silvery and with such music\nin their tones the like of which Gerna had never in all her life\nheard before. And where the bells were rung from she never knew,\nfor there were no steeples or towers anywhere that she could see. As\nthe bells' music rang on, and all the little moorland birds sang more\nentrancingly than before, she saw hundreds and hundreds of the Small\nPeople, all more or less beautiful, come out from behind clumps of\nBog-myrtle, and banks of thyme, and beds of sweet-scented orchis,\n[11] all laughing and singing as they came towards the Tolmen, where\nthe dear Little Lady and her True Love were standing hand in hand,\nsmiling and bowing and looking as happy as ever they could look.\n\nThe little prisoner, who was now a prisoner no longer, seemed to be\na very great personage indeed, the child thought, judging by the way\nthe Wee Men took off their caps and bowed to her, and the little\nladies made their curtseys; and in truth she was a real Princess,\nthe eldest daughter of the King and Queen of the Good Little People,\nas Gerna was soon to learn.\n\nThere was great rejoicing when the Wee Folk heard how their Princess\nRoyal had been set free, and how much Gerna had done towards it. They\ncould not make enough of her, or do enough for her. They kissed\nher hands, as if she too were a Royal Princess, instead of being\nonly a poor little Cornish peasant girl! They brought her fairy\nmead--metheglin they called it--in cups so small yet so exquisite\n('like Cornish diamonds, only more lovely,' Gerna said), and gave\nher food to eat from dishes all iris-hued like the shells that she\nhad picked up on the sands in her own bay, only the Small People's\ndishes were much thinner and more transparent than any shells she\nhad ever seen.\n\nShe was never 'treated so handsome before,' she told herself--scores\nand scores of dear wee creatures to wait on her and to give her more\nwhen she wanted!\n\nWhen she could not eat 'a morsel more,' nor drink another cup of\nthe all-sweet mead, her own Little Lady and her True Love, who had\nbeen sitting close to her all this time on a bed of yellow trefoil,\nrose up and took her through a rock-door behind the Tolmen and down\ninto a most beautiful place--much more beautiful than she could ever\nhave pictured in her wildest dreams.\n\nIt was the country where the Good Little People lived, 'Farmer\nVivian' told her. She saw so much that she could take in nothing\nuntil they came to the King's Palace, which was the most beautiful\npalace in fairyland. Here she was taken into room after room--each\nmore beautiful than the last--until she came to a place called the\n'Room of the Chair,' which was full of soft voices, fragrant smells,\nand sweet music. This room was open to the blue dome of the sky,\nand away at the end of it, on a Chair, sat two Wee People with eyes\nthe colour of her dear Little Lady's. They were not different from\nthe other Small People surrounding the Chair, save that they had\n'things on their heads,' as Gerna expressed it (which, of course,\nwere crowns), that shone like the blue of the sea when the sun shines\non it, and that they looked even more gracious and more gentle and\nkind than did her own Little Dear.\n\nWhen the King and Queen of the Good Little People had lovingly\nwelcomed back their long-lost daughter, and complimented their child's\nbetrothed--who was also a very great personage in the Small People's\nKingdom--for his constancy and fidelity to their dear daughter,\nGerna, in her print sunbonnet and sun-faded tinker-blue frock, was\nintroduced to their gracious Majesties as the dear little Cornish\nmaid who preferred to be kind rather than be made rich with the Small\nPeople's gold.\n\nPages could be filled with what the King and Queen said to the child,\nwho never felt so uncomfortable in her life as when they thanked her\nand praised her for all she had done.\n\n'I haven't done nothing much--nothing worth a thank'ee, I mean,'\nshe kept saying.\n\n'Thou hast done more than thou wilt ever know,' said his tiny Majesty\nsolemnly, 'and we feel we can never repay thee. We could, of course,\nreward thee with more gold than the Spriggans offered, but we are glad\nto know thou would'st not value it if we gave it thee. But as we are\nanxious to show we are not ungrateful, we will give thee the greatest\nof all gifts--the eye to see all that is good and beautiful in human\nhearts, and the power to bring it out, which alone will make thee\ngreatly beloved. We will also teach thee to love the lowly grass as we\nourselves love it, and the humble herbs, and all the gentle flowers,\nwhich make all the common roadways, moors and downs, so fragrant\nand beautiful. We will reveal to thee all their charms, virtues,\nand healing properties, so that Gerna, the maid of Polzeath, may be a\nblessing to her parish. And, moreover, the Good Small People shall love\nthee as they have never loved a human being before--not only for the\nsake of our beloved child, the Princess Royal of all the Good Little\nPeople, but because thou art kind and good and could not be induced\nto do an unkind deed even for a purseful of the Spriggans gold.'\n\nGerna had but dim recollections of what followed afterwards: she only\nknew she was led in great state by 'Dinky Farmer Vivian' on the one\nside, and her Wee Lady on the other, down a long lane of bowing and\ncurtseying Little Grandees, until she came out into gardens ablaze with\nflowers. She was then taken through parks, where teeny, tiny deer and\ncows were grazing, on and on until they came to a tiny door in a cliff,\nwhen she felt the soft pressure of kisses on her face and heard the\nsweet wee voice she knew so well whispering in her ear, 'Good-bye, dear\nlittle maid, until we meet again--which shall be soon!' and the next\nmoment she found herself back in Great-Grannie's poor little chamber\nin her own small bed, and Great-Grannie herself telling her to get up\nand go down to the bay 'to once' to pick limpets for the ducklings,\nwhich were nearly quacking the house down for want of their breakfast.\n\nGerna wondered as she dressed if all that had taken place that night\nwas a dream, and she searched for the ring-marked Piskey-purse to be\nquite sure it wasn't. As it was nowhere to be found, nor the wee Shoes,\nnor the dinky Lantern, she came to the conclusion that it must be true.\n\nIn passing Piskey Goog on her way back from her limpet-picking,\nshe saw a wee Brown Man with a laugh all over his merry little face,\nwhich made it delightful to look at. He took off his cap as polite\nas could be, and spoke to the child with the greatest respect.\n\n'I am a real Piskey,' he said, introducing himself, 'and Farmer Vivian\ntold me it would interest you to know that the Spriggans who lived\nin this goog were taken prisoners soon after their captive was set\nfree, and that they were at once taken before the Gorsedd (the Little\nPeople's judgment-seat), and were tried and condemned to break iron\nwith wooden hammers in a dark cave until they repent, which I am afraid\nthey never will, for they are past all good feeling, poor things, and\nwill gradually grow smaller and smaller until they turn into emmets,\nas all evil-minded fairies in the Small People's country do.'\n\n'Aw dear! What a terrible punishment!' exclaimed Gerna.\n\n'I must go back into our cavern,' said the Piskey. 'It was always\nours until the Spriggans turned us out about a year ago. They can\nnever turn us out any more now, our King says, thanks to a little\nCornish maid, who would rather be good than be rich. We are ordered\nto play no pranks on the people of this parish for her sake, even if\nthey don't turn their coats or stockings inside out, nor to ride any\nhorses in the happy night-time, except the horses of those who have\nan inordinate love of money.'\n\nAnd the Little Man, who was a real Piskey, went off laughing and\ndisappeared into Piskey Goog.\n\n\n\nYears passed on. Great-Grannie died, and Gerna grew into womanhood. She\nwas the best-loved person in St. Minver parish, as the King of the\nGood Little People said she would be. Everybody loved her dearly;\nthey loved her because she saw the good that was in their hearts,\nand was not slow to tell them of it, and because of her good opinion\nof them, which although they did not always deserve, they tried their\nhardest to live up to. They came to her with their heart-wounds as\nwell as the wounds of their bodies, and she, who had the gift of\nhealing with the herbs and flowers of the earth, somehow knew how to\nsalve the sores of the heart too.\n\nGerna never grew rich, and never wanted to, and as she would not\ntake a penny piece or anything greater, she had always plenty of\npatients. People came to her from far as well as near, and brought,\nnot only themselves, but their poor suffering animals. If the truth\nbe told, she had a deeper compassion for the dumb beasts, who could\nnot tell out their sorrows, than she had for their masters, which\nis saying a great deal, and she always applied her most soothing and\nhealing ointments to their bodies.\n\nIt was said that Gerna often saw her Little Lady and her True Love,\nand that the dear Wee Folk flocked to see her when the moon was up;\nthat they were most kind to her, and even brought her herbs and\nflowers, wet with fairy dew, for her simples, and helped her to make\neye-salves and other healing things, which the poor people declared\n'made them such a power for good.'\n\nIt was also told that the merry little Piskey Men danced on the top\nof Pentire Glaze cliffs for her special amusement, and that when they\nknew she was watching them, their laughter rang out clear as bells\nacross the Polzeath beach of grey, gold sand.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE MAGIC PAIL\n\n\nOn a lonely moor lying between Carn Kenidzhek [12] and Bosvavas Carn\nlived one Tom Trebisken and Joan his wife. They had been married up\nin the teens of years, and had no child, which was a disappointment\nto them both, especially to Joan, who suffered from rheumatism,\nwhich had crippled her feet.\n\nTom had long given up all hope of having a child, but Joan still\nbelieved that one would come to them some day, and it cheered her\ndreary hours, as she sat helpless in her armchair, to think of the\nadvent of the little one, who would gladden their life. Every six days\nin seven she spent absolutely alone, for Tom worked as surface-man all\nthe year round at Ding Dong, a great tin-mine, or bal, at the other\nend of their moor, and had to leave for his work early in the morning,\nand did not return until late in the evening; so it was not surprising\nthat she wanted a child, and that she sometimes cried in her heart:\n'Aw that I had a little maid of my own to do things for me an' keep\nme company when my Tom is away all day at the bal!'\n\nThe part of the moor where the Trebiskens lived was three miles or\nmore from Ding Dong, and two miles from their nearest neighbour. It\nwas quite out of the beaten track, and a passer by their cottage was\nas rare as blackberries in December. They would not have lived there\nat all, but that the cottage was their own--or, rather, Joan's. It\nhad been left to her by will, with the condition that they should\nlive in it themselves.\n\nThe cottage was not an ordinary one; its walls were built of small\nblocks of mica and porphyry--much of the porphyry being of that lovely\ndeep-pink kind, with blotchings of black hornblende, all of which\na long century or more of weather had polished to the smoothness of\nglass. Joan said the weather had nothing whatever to do with it, and\nthat it was done by the dear Little People [13] who, she declared,\nlived in the carn near where the cottage stood. But whoever polished\nthe walls--weather or fairies--the house was a pleasure to look at,\nparticularly when the sun began to sink behind the moors and shone\nfull upon its walls; for then all the richness of the porphyry's\nrose, all the hornblende's soft blackness, and all the mica's\nbrilliancy, were brought out of the stone, and intensified until a\nless imaginative person than Joan Trebisken would have believed it\nwas built by enchantment. Even its commonplace roof of brown thatch,\nwhich overspread the small casement windows in shaggy raggedness,\ndid not take from the burning wonder of the walls. Perhaps it was\nbecause a company of stone-crop had found a dwelling-place there,\nand that on the ridge of the roof stood out in red distinctness half\na dozen Pysgy-pows [14]--curious little round-knobbed tiles placed\nthere by Joan's forebears for the Piskeys to dance on.\n\nJoan, poor soul, seldom saw the outside splendour of their cottage,\nas she was powerless to move from her chair without help, and when\nher Tom came home, his face was the only thing she wanted to see,\nshe said. Fortunately, however, her doors and windows opened on to\nthe moor, and she could therefore command from where she sat a long\nstretch of moorland, which, though wild, was none the less beautiful\nat every season of the year, but especially in the springtime, when\nthe yellow broom and golden gorse were in flower.\n\nIn spite of its loneliness, Joan loved the moor with all her Celtic\nnature, and spent most of her day looking out upon it until the days\nshortened and Nisdhu, the Black Month, which the Cornish of our time\ncall November, drew near.\n\nNobody dreaded that dark month, with its damp clinging cold, its\nfogs and mists, which often veiled the whole landscape, including\nthe great carns, more than Joan. She said she felt the chill of its\nbreath before it showed its nose over the head of Carn Kenidzhek, and\nwas careful to shut her door and hatch and her small casement-windows\nbefore October was half through. She was sorry to do this, and would\nnot have done so but for the pain in her bones, which was always\nworse when November was on its way; for she shut out, she said,\nthe music of the Small People's voices.\n\nTom told her it wasn't the voices of the Wee Folk she heard, but the\ntrickling of a little stream making its way down by the carn on its\nway across the moor. But she declared she knew better, and had ears\nto distinguish between the tinkle of water and the sweet voices of\nthe dear Little People, if he had not, and Tom, like a sensible man,\nlet her hold to her belief.\n\nJoan was a great believer in the fairies, and often declared they were\nvery friendly towards her--perhaps because her forebears had put the\npysgy-pows on the roof of their cottage for them to dance on. It was\nher regret that she had never seen any of the dear little creatures;\nbut she lived in hope of seeing them some day; perhaps when the\nmuch-cried-for little maid came she should see them then, she said.\n\nIt was now towards the end of October and exceedingly cold, and her\ndoor and window being shut, she felt very wisht; [15] and as the\ndays jogged on to dreary November she became terribly depressed,\nso much so that Tom dreaded to leave her sitting all alone by the\nchimney-corner with a face as long as a fiddle.\n\nHe was one of the kindest husbands in the world, and never went\nto his work without doing all that lay in his power to make her\ncomfortable while he was away. She was generally very appreciative\nand grateful for all he did for her; but to-day--the day on which\nsomething happened to alter the whole circumstances of her life--she\ngrumbled at everything he did, even when he piled dry peat and furze\nwithin her reach, filled the kettle and put it on the brandis, [16]\nand placed her dinner on a small table by her side. She would not\neven look at him, or say good-bye, when at last he had to go off to\nthe mine in the dark of the autumnal morning, which made her feel\nmore sad than ever when he was out of her sight.\n\nA fog of depression hung over her spirits all that long day, and the\nweather, as if to share her gloom, was foggy too. She could not see\na yard beyond her window most of the day; and when the mist did lift\nfor a little while, it took such fantastic forms she was glad when\nit again hung down like a curtain.\n\nWhen the hour for Tom's return at last drew near she grew more\ncheerful. She put on the last of the furze he had placed within\nreach of her hand, partly to boil the kettle and to light him down\nthe road leading to their cottage, but chiefly to make her kitchen\ncheery-looking to make up for his cold send-off.\n\nShe was on the watch now for his step, and her face grew brighter as\nshe listened. The kettle was crooning on the fire and everything was\nwarm in cheerful welcome as a step was heard on the hard road outside,\nand a hand fumbled at the door-latch.\n\nJoan, being all impatience to see her man, cried out:\n\n'What are 'ee so stupid about, an? Give the door a shove, soas! [17]\n'Tis sticked by the damp.'\n\nShe had scarcely said this when the door and its hatch opened gently,\nand in the doorway stood--not her husband, as she supposed, but the\nbent figure of a tiny old woman with a small costan, or bramble-basket,\non her back. Her slight form was enveloped in a cloak the colour of\nfar-away hills, and her face hidden in the depths of a large bonnet,\nsuch as the mine-maidens wear at their work in the mines.\n\nJoan was too amazed to see a stranger at her door to ask what she\nwanted, and before she could get over her surprise, the little\nold woman had come into the cottage, stepped noiselessly to the\nhearthplace, unslung the costan, and laid it at her feet, singing as\nshe did so a curious rhyme in a voice so wild and sweet, it reminded\nJoan, as she listened, which she did as one in a dream, of moor-birds'\nmusic and rippling streams, and the voices of the Small People  who\nlived among the carns. The rhyme was as follows:\n\n\n    'I bring thee and leave thee my little mudgeskerry! [18]\n                  My dinky, [19] my dear!\n                  Till the day of that year\n                When the spells shall be broken--\n                And this is the token--\n                  By Magic and Pail\n                  And the Skavarnak's [20] wail,\n    My ninnie, my dinnie, my little mudgeskerry!\n\n    'Then we to the carns will away, my pednpaley [21]\n                  My deary, my tweet!\n                  Where the Small People's feet\n                Tread out the Birth measure,\n                To give her a treasure\n                  From out of the blue,\n                  When she shall know too\n    'Tis better to give than to keep my pednpaley.'\n\n\nThe song and its music had hardly died away, when the tiny old\nwoman spread her hands over the bramble-basket, as if in blessing,\nand then stole out of the cottage as noiselessly and mysteriously as\nshe had come.\n\nJoan was all of a tremble quite five minutes after she had gone,\nand when she had somewhat recovered herself, her glance fell on the\ncostan. At first she was afraid what it contained; but her woman's\ncuriosity got the better of her fears, and, bending over the rough\nbasket, she turned over the bracken, laid in careful order on its top,\nand saw lying on a bed of dried moss and leaves something that brought\na cry of amazement, mingled with horror, to her lips.\n\nIt was a babe, but so tiny and so ugly that she shuddered as she\ngazed upon it. It was in a deep sleep, or seemed to be, and its skinny\nlittle face, crinkled all over like a poppy just out of its sheath,\nwas resting on its claw-like hand.\n\nIn all her dreams of a child coming to her home, Joan had never dreamt\nof anything so uncanny as this babe, and she told herself that the\nlittle creature in its costan cradle was sent to punish her for her\npersistent desire for a child.\n\nTom arrived just then, and soon knew all that his wife could tell\nof the mysterious coming and going of the little old woman in the\nbal-bonnet, and of her strange song; and, like Joan, when he looked\ninto the bramble-basket and saw the bit of ugliness within, he gave\nvoice to a cry of horror that anything so uncanny should be left on\ntheir hands. In fact, he was so angry that he wanted to take the\nbasket and all it held on to the moor, and let her who brought it\ncome and take it away, for have it in his house he would not--no,\nnot for all the crocks of gold the Little People were said to have\nin their keeping.\n\nThe night was bitterly cold, and by little moans and sighs coming\nfrom the direction of the Hooting Carn Joan could tell the wind was\nabout to rise, and would perhaps end in a great storm. And though she\nwas so much upset at having such an ugly little creature thrust on\nthem, she was too tender-hearted to wish it to be exposed even for an\nhour on their moor on such a night. Besides, the child was helpless,\nwhosoever child it was, and therefore demanded compassion, and she\nbegged her husband to allow it to stay in their house until to-morrow.\n\nTom could seldom refuse his crippled wife anything when her heart was\nset upon it, and, though much against his inclination, he yielded to\nher entreaties; but he was careful to add that he could only suffer\nit to stay until he was ready to start for the bal.\n\n'Whatever the weather then, fair or foul, out it shall go on the\nmoor!' he cried. 'It is a changeling,' he added, with a solemn shake\nof his head, 'and if we was to let it abide along o' we, we should\nhave nothing but bad luck all the rest of our days.'\n\nJoan, having got her way, did not care to contradict her husband;\nfor she told herself the song the little old woman had sung pointed to\nsomething quite different. Still, she would not keep the babe longer\nthan the morrow if he were against it.\n\nWhen bedtime came, Tom and Joan had quite a dispute as to where the\nstrange cradle and its stranger occupant should be put for the night,\nand as neither of them could decide, and Tom was against its being\ntaken up into the bed-chamber, Joan declared she would sit up with\nit all night, and nothing Tom could say should prevent her. So he\nwent off to his bed in a huff, muttering loudly that the cheeld,\n[22] or 'whatever it was,' had brought misery to them already.\n\nJoan kept to her resolve, and sat in her armchair with the\nbramble-basket at her feet until well on towards the dawn, when Tom\ncame down to see how she was faring, and found, to his surprise,\nshe was as fresh as a rose just gathered.\n\n'An' I ent sleepy nuther!' she cried in triumph. 'I ent felt so well\nsince I was took with the rheumatics, and me hands don't look so\ntwisted, do they?' holding them up. ''Tis my belief 'tis all owing\nto that little cheeld down there in the costan.'\n\nAs Tom could not gainsay this, he went off to do his morning's work,\nand to get Joan's breakfast. By the time he had done this the sun was\nrising, and the sky, away in the east, was a miracle of purple and\nrose. The night had been wild, but the storm having exhausted itself,\nthe dawn was all the more beautiful.\n\nThe babe was still asleep, and had not moved all night, Joan said, and\nTom fervently hoped it would not until it was safe out on the moor. But\nhe hoped in vain, for when the sun began to wheel up behind the hills\nin the east, and sent a beam of rosy light in at the casement window,\nthe little creature shuffled in the costan, and when Joan, willing\nto give it air, pushed back its covering of bracken, it opened its\neyes and smiled, and that smile transformed its whole face.\n\n'Why, Tom, my man,' she cried, 'the little dear isn't ugly one bit;\nan' the little eyes of it are as soft as moor-pools! Do 'ee come and\nhave a squint at it.'\n\nTom came, and when he had stared at the babe a minute or more, he\nsaid slowly, as if weighing his words:\n\n'You be right, Joan; but it do make the mystery all the more queer. A\ncheeld that can look as ugly as nettles one minute and as pretty as\nflowers the next ent for we to keep.'\n\n'Don't 'ee betray thy ignorance where babes is concerned!' cried Joan,\nfearful of what his words implied. 'Some do look terrible plain in\ntheir sleep--as this poor dear did--and some do look beautiful. 'Tis\nas Nature made 'em--bless their hearts!'\n\nThe babe now turned her eyes on Tom, and was gazing on him as if she\nwanted to look into his very soul, and then, as if she quite approved\nof what she saw there, gave him a fascinating smile, which won his\nheart at once.\n\n'You won't take the cheeld out on the moors to-day, Tom, will\n'ee?' asked Joan, who was quick to see the change in her man's face.\n\n'We will keep it till I come home from the bal, at any rate,' he said\ncautiously. And then the babe, as if to show its gratitude for the\nconcession, held up both its little arms to him to be taken out of\nits costan cradle, whereupon Tom was so delighted at being preferred\nbefore his wife that he could hardly conceal his pride.\n\n'That infant do knaw a thing or two, whatever it be,' said Joan to\nherself, with a chuckle. 'And 'tis a somebody, I can tell, by her\nlittle shift and things, which do look as if they was spun out of\nspiders' webs by the Small People, so fine an' silky they be!'\n\nThere was no question now about the little stranger staying; but,\nall the same, Tom went off to the mine with many misgivings, and he\nsaid to himself, as he walked quickly over the moor, that if Joan\nwere too helpless to do for herself, how was she going to tend a\nbabe? And that thought troubled him all the day.\n\nBut his fears were needless; for when he got home that evening\nand looked in at the door, he saw a sight which surprised him, yet\ngladdened his heart. Joan was sitting in her elbow-chair, with a face\nas bright as a moon in a cloudless sky, cuddling the strange babe,\nwho was babbling to the kind face looking down into it as it lay in\nher arms.\n\n'However did 'ee manage to lift the cheeld on to your lap, Joan?' he\nasked, when his wife saw him.\n\n'Aw! we managed somehow or tuther between us,' she answered, with a\nhappy laugh. 'It was as light as a feather, it was,' chirping to the\nbabe, 'an' I do think the Small People gave it a hoist on to Mammie\nTrebisken's lap! Eh, my handsome?' speaking to the babe. 'An' it\nhaven't a been a mite o' trouble nuther all this blessed day!' And\nthen, looking up at Tom with a look he never forgot: 'An' it have\na-lifted the latch of my loneliness, an' I am as happy as a queen!'\n\nTom was thankful to hear all this, and he thought it was no accident\nthat had brought such comfort to his poor lonely wife. He had still\ngreater cause for thankfulness as the days wore on; for as Joan now\nhad her thoughts taken from herself in having a babe--which, by the\nway, was a maiden babe--to think for and to attend to as far as she\nwas able, she grew better in health, and before winter was over could\ngo about the house-place 'and do all her little chores her own self,'\nshe proudly declared. She even swept and sanded her kitchen floor,\nand made figgy hoggans [23] for her husband's dinner, which she had\nnot been able to do since the early years of their marriage.\n\nThere were, however, a few things Joan could not do; but as they\nwere all done for her in some mysterious way, and much better than\nshe herself could have done, it was more a matter for rejoicing than\nregret. Whenever she put her washing out in the backlet [24] to wait\ntill Tom had time to do it, somebody took it away, and brought it back\nwashed and dried and ironed--all looking as white as May-blossom and\nsmelling as sweet as moor-flowers!\n\nShe was never certain who did this kindness for her, but in her heart\nshe believed it was either done by the little old woman who brought\nthe babe or the Small People.\n\nSeveral happy years passed away, and the little child--Ninnie-Dinnie,\nas they called her--so strangely brought to the moorland cottage and\nso strangely left, was now able to return some of her foster-parents'\nkindness. This she did by helping in small household duties.\n\nJoan, partly because it was right and partly because she feared the\nrheumatism might some day make her helpless again, had brought her\nup to be useful.\n\nThe child did not at all like work, and, but for Joan's insistence,\nwould have been a regular little do-nothing. Perhaps she would have\nspared the little maid from many a small household duty if the Pail\nhad allowed it!\n\nIn shaking up the moss and leaves in the bramble-basket the evening the\nmysterious little woman brought it to the cottage, Tom had found at\nthe feet of the babe a small dark Pail, which he said must have been\nshaped out of a block of black tin left by the Old Men, or ancient\nJews, who, ages before the art of turning black tin into white was\ndiscovered, worked the Cornish tin-mines. It was very crude, and had\nnothing remarkable about it save for its look of age and some curious\ncharacters cut under its rim, and which, of course, neither he nor\nhis wife could read.\n\nThey thought the Pail was put into the bramble-basket for the child\nto play with, and telling themselves they would give her a better\nplaything when she was old enough, they set it on the dresser.\n\nThey were soon to learn that the Pail was something more than a child's\ntoy, and had strange properties of making itself light or dark at will,\nthrusting its characters out of the metal in strong relief from its\nsurface and withdrawing them again!\n\nTom declared it had in some mysterious way to do with the little\ncreature's welfare, and that it was a kind of conscience--a Small\nPeople's conscience, perhaps. But Joan said she believed it was\nsomething more than that, if there was any meaning in the words of\nthe song the dinky old woman in the bal-bonnet had sung.\n\nBut, whoever was right, there was no doubt that the Pail showed its\napproval or disapproval of whatever Ninnie-Dinnie did! If the little\nmaid was especially helpful and kind, the Pail became a lovely shade of\nsilver and gray, and its letters stood out in glittering distinctness;\nbut if she was lazy, or spoke rudely to her foster-parents, it grew\ndarker than hornblende, and its characters were hardly visible.\n\nThis strange property of the Pail made Joan feel quite creepy when\nshe first discovered its peculiarity, which she happened to do one\nday when Ninnie-Dinnie was very fractious and would do nothing she\nwas bidden. She got used to it in time, and was even glad it showed\nits pleasure, or otherwise, in the manner it did.\n\nShe often told her husband that, when the little maid was particularly\nkind to her when he was at the bal, the Pail would laugh all over\nits sides.\n\nNinnie-Dinnie was now in her eighth year, counting the year she was\nbrought to the cottage, and a dear, useful little maid she was; and\nno one to beat her anywhere for work, Tom declared, particularly when\nher size was considered.\n\nThe child was very small, so small that she could still sleep in the\nbasket cradle she came in--and did too, for the simple reason that\nshe was wakeful all night if she slept anywhere else.\n\nBoth Tom and Joan were sometimes troubled at her size. For she never\nseemed to grow bigger or fatter, whatever they gave her to eat,\nand they feared she would always be a little Go-by-the-ground. [25]\nJoan, however, consoled herself that perhaps she was an off relation\nof the dear Little People.\n\nAlthough Ninnie-Dinnie was exceedingly tiny, she was very sharp,\nand asked more questions in a day than they could answer in a\nyear. She wanted to know the why and wherefore of everything--what\nthe moor-flowers were made of, and who lived inside the great grey\ncarns, and what made Carn Kenidzhek hoot--was it the giant who lived\ninside it?--and much besides that neither Tom nor Joan could answer,\nbecause they did not know themselves.\n\nTom said she was wise beyond her years, and all owing to her being\nmoped in the cottage so much, and that she ought to be out of doors\nmore. Joan quite agreed with him, and suggested that he should take\nher with him sometimes over the moor, only stipulating that she was\nnot to go as far as the mine-works.\n\nTom considered this a splendid idea; and so, every now and then,\nwhen Ninnie-Dinnie was willing, she accompanied him part of the way,\nand as there was only one road leading back to the cottage, she easily\nfound her way home alone.\n\nOne day, when the child had reached the place where the miner generally\nsent her back, she begged to go with him all the way to the bal;\nand as he was rather weak where his womenfolk were concerned, he\nwillingly consented.\n\nWhen they reached Ding Dong, with its hundreds of busy workers,\nthe little maid grew very frightened, and fled back across the moor,\nin the direction of home, as fast as her legs could take her.\n\nThe miner, as he watched her running away, rather reproached himself\nfor bringing her so far; and he wondered, as he put the tin into the\nfurnace to be smelted, whether she got home all right.\n\n'So you did take our Ninnie-Dinnie to the bal?' was his wife's\ngreeting when he got home that evening. 'I've been terribly wisht\n[26] without her all day.'\n\n'You don't mean to say the little dear haven't come back?' cried\nTom. 'That is terrible news, sure 'nough! She didn't stop a minute\nat the bal, and tore off home like a skainer.' [27]\n\n'I've never clapt eyes on her since she went out with 'ee this\nmorning!' cried Joan, greatly distressed. 'I do hope nothing has\nhappened to her. Perhaps she has been an' gone an' tumbled down into\none of the Old Men's workings [28] out there on the moor.'\n\nTom went as white as a sheet at the bare thought of the possibility,\nand he started off at once to look for the child, leaving his poor\nwife more troubled than she had ever been since Ninnie-Dinnie came.\n\nHe was gone a little over an hour, when, to Joan's thankfulness,\nhe returned with the child.\n\nHe found her, he said, not far from the beaten track, sitting at the\nfoot of a carn waiting for him to come for her.\n\nShe told him she had lost her way, and that as she was sitting on the\ngriglans, [29] an ugly little man with long ears like a Skavarnak [30]\ncame up to her, and because she was afraid of him and would not go into\nhis little house under the carn, he was very angry. She did not know\nwhat would have happened to her if a little old woman in a sunbonnet\nhad not come along just then, and took her to the place where Tom\nfound her. She told her to sit where she was till Daddie Trebisken\ncame to fetch her, which he would be sure to do after sunset. In the\nmean-time she was to say her own name backwards seven times if the\nLong-Eared came near her again. She also told her that Ninnie-Dinnie,\nif she cared to believe it, was her real name spelt backwards with an\n'n' left out; and she said she must never go out on the lonely moors\nwithout taking the Pail, made out of old Cornish tin, with her.\n\nIt was ever so long before Joan got over her fright about\nNinnie-Dinnie, and for weeks she would not hear of her going out\non the moors. But, as time deadens all things, she got over her\nnervousness, and when April came, and the broom and the gorse were\nin flower, making the great brown moor yellow-gold, and scenting all\nthe air with peach-like fragrance, she was willing that the little\nmaid should go with her husband once more. And Tom willingly took her.\n\nAs they were going out of the door, something fell on the Pail\nstanding on the dresser, and the child, remembering the injunction\nof the little old woman about the Pail, turned back to get it.\n\n'What shall I bring 'ee home, Mammie Trebisken?' she asked, looking\nat her foster-mother; and Joan, hearing the lark singing faintly in\nthe distance, replied laughingly:\n\n'You shall bring me home a pailful of lark's music, my dear.'\n\n'You do knaw the little maid can't bring 'ee that,' cried Tom\nimpatiently. 'I should think she was all the music you wanted now.'\n\n'So she is, bless her!' said his wife. 'I was only joking.'\n\n'Nevertheless, I will bring you home this Pail full of lark's music,'\nsaid Ninnie-Dinnie, with great seriousness; and putting her tiny\nhand into Tom's big one, they started off, and Joan watched them out\nof sight.\n\nWhen the miner and the child got about half-way to the mine, scores of\nlarks were up in the blue air singing, and their little dark bodies\nwaving to and fro in the rapture of their song, till it seemed to\nthe miner as if their melody was trickling down all over him, and\nNinnie-Dinnie declared it was.\n\nAs they stood listening, one of the larks began to descend, singing\nas it came.\n\n'Now is the time if you want to catch the lark's music for Mammie\nTrebisken,' laughed Tom, watching the bird's descent. 'There it is,\njust over thy soft little head. Up with thy Pail, my dear!'\n\nAnd Ninnie-Dinnie, with her face as grave as the great boulders\nlying amongst the golden-blossomed furze and the feathery fronds of\nthe Osmunda, lifted the Pail above her head, and as she did so the\nstrange letters under its rim stood out and glowed like white fire.\n\n'Little lark, little lark, give me thy music!' she chanted in a voice\nas clear and sweet as linnets' fluting. 'Little lark, little lark,\ngive me thy song!' and the small bird twirled down towards her singing\nwilder and sweeter as it came, until it hovered over the uplifted Pail.\n\n'The dear little lark has given me its music and its song to make\nMammie Trebisken's heart glad,' said the child, as the lark dropped\non the thyme-scented turf at her feet.\n\n'Pretending, are 'ee, an?' laughed Tom.\n\n'No!' cried Ninnie-Dinnie. 'Listen!'\n\nAnd the miner, putting his ear close to the Pail, heard, to his\nunspeakable amazement, a lark singing quite distinctly, yet rather\nfaintly, as it were singing far away.\n\n'Jimmerychry! [31] Can it be believed?' he exclaimed. ''Tis magic,\nan' I don't half like it. An' I don't think the dear little bird do\nnuther,' looking down at the lark, who was trailing its wings on the\nground in that distressful way birds have when their wee nestlings\nare in danger. 'Give it back its own, that's a dear little maid.'\n\n'I can't,' said Ninnie-Dinnie. 'Mammie Trebisken can only do that;\nand I don't think she will want to, for the song in the Pail will\nmake all her heart sing.'\n\nShe covered the Pail with her pinafore as she spoke, and the little\nlark disappeared into a brake of flaming gorse.\n\nThere was no time to bandy words, Tom told himself, as he was late for\nhis work, and he left the child to go back to their cottage without\nany more protesting. But he did not feel very comfortable as he strode\non his way to the mine.\n\nIt was late in the morning when Ninnie-Dinnie got home, and Joan was\nbeginning to be troubled at her long absence when she came in.\n\n'Have 'ee brought the lark's music along with 'ee?' she asked, as\nthe child set the Pail on the red-painted dresser.\n\n'Yes,' said Ninnie-Dinnie; 'and at sundown you will hear it.'\n\nJoan, thinking it was all make-believe, laughed, and said she would\nkeep her ears open to listen.\n\nWhen the shadows of the great grey carns stretched over the heather\nand the sun sunk over the moor, the Pail began to move slightly on\nthe dresser, and a sound came out like grass moved gently by the wind,\nwhich at once drew Joan's attention to it. Then, to her amazement, it\nshook all over, and there poured forth from it such a gush of melody\nthat almost took her breath away. It was like lark's music, she said,\nwith a strain of sweeter, wilder music added to it, and which, somehow,\nreminded her of the flute-like voice of the little old woman in the\nbal-bonnet, who sang that rude rhyme when she brought them their\ndear little Ninnie-Dinnie. She sat in her elbow-chair entranced,\nand the queer child sat at her feet, apparently entranced too!\n\nThe melody, which at first came from the depths of the Pail, or the\nturfy ground, it was hard to say which, rose higher and higher, until\nit sounded like a bird singing its heart out in the soft azure of an\nevening sky.\n\nJoan never knew how long she listened to that fetterless song;\nshe only knew she awoke to the fact that the sky's little songster,\nthe Pail, or whatever it was, had stopped singing, that daylight was\nleaving the moor, and that a small dark shadow was slowly stealing\nacross her window.\n\n'Why, it is a little bird, surely,' she said, speaking to the tiny\nmaid at her feet. 'The light of our fire have attracted it from its\nsleeping-place--poor little thing!'\n\n'P'r'aps it is the little lark come for its music and its song,'\nsuggested Ninnie-Dinnie, fixing her gaze on the bird, which was now\nfluttering against the panes and uttering a tiny note of distress.\n\n'I never thought of that,' said Joan. 'I hope it haven't. I couldn't\ngive it back its song and its music for the world!'\n\nAs she was speaking, the Pail on the dresser was again agitated, and\nout of it rushed another entrancing melody, until all the cottage was\nfull of music, and Joan said it was raining down upon her head from\nthe oaken beams. But through the melody could be distinctly heard a\nlittle voice, which was the lark's voice:\n\n'Give me back my music! Give me back my song!'\n\n'My Aunt Betsy!' cried Joan. 'Whoever heard of a bird talking before?'\n\n'Are you going to give the little lark what it wants?' asked\nNinnie-Dinnie, watching the bird, which was still fluttering against\nthe bottle-green pane.\n\n'No!' said Joan decidedly. 'I don't think I ought. It do make my\nheart young an' happy again.'\n\n'I was hoping you would like to give back the lark its music and its\nsong,' said Ninnie-Dinnie.\n\n'Whatever for, cheeld-vean?' [32] Joan asked.\n\n'Because,' answered the child, 'I have been wondering what the lark's\nlittle mate will do if he hasn't his song to sing to her now she is\nsitting on her pretty eggs out on the grass.'\n\n'Why, make another song, of course, you foolish little\nknaw-nothing!' cried Joan, laying her pain-twisted fingers on the\nchild's elfin locks.\n\n'It has no music to make a song with; it gave it all to me to take\nhome to my dear Mammie Trebisken,' said the little maid.\n\nOnce more the lark's song came out of the Pail, and Joan said it was\nsweeter and wilder and freer than even the second time. As she listened\nintently she was carried to her courting days, when she and Tom took\ntheir Sunday walks through the growing corn and flaming poppies to\nhear the larks sing. Then as the songster came earthward again and\nits music died away into the silence of the years, or into the Pail,\nshe was too bewildered to say which, there appeared on the threshold\nof the door the little lark, which, as she looked at it, trailed its\nwings and piped: 'Give me back my music! Give me back my song!' and\nits sad cry went right down into her pitiful heart.\n\n'I was a selfish body to want to keep what didn't belong to me,'\nshe cried, and she told Ninnie-Dinnie to give it back what it wanted.\n\n'I can't give back: you only can do that,' said the little maid. 'I\ncan only bring you what you ask.'\n\nThe wee bird in the doorway again made itself heard: 'Give me back my\nmusic! Give me back my song!' and so distressful was its pleading that\nshe clutched the child's shoulder and went at once to the dresser,\nand, almost before she knew it, she was standing at the door with\nthe Pail in her hand.\n\n'Take your music and your song, you poor little dear,' she said in\nher tenderest voice to the bird; 'and go along home to your mate,\nand make her as happy as you have made my heart this day.'\n\nShe turned the Pail over on its side as she spoke, and the lark flew\ninto it; and in a minute or less it was out again and away into the\nsemi-darkness, singing its own ecstatic song as it went!\n\nTom came up the road as it flew off; and as she waited there by the\ndoor for him to help her back to her chair, the little old woman's\nrhyme came back to her, the last line of which floated through\nher brain:\n\n\n              'To give her a treasure\n                From out of the blue.\n                When she shall know too\n    'Tis better to give than to keep my pednpaley!'\n\n\nA year and four months went by, and Joan was quite helpless again--as\nhelpless as when the babe was brought to her--and but for that babe,\nnow to childhood grown, she did not know what she would have done. Her\nman was not so young as he was, and had a great deal more to do at the\nmine, and therefore less time to devote to woman's work. But thanks\nto Ninnie-Dinnie's careful training, his services in this respect\nwere not required. The little maid now did all the work of the small\ncottage, and the cooking too--even to making the hoggans for Tom's\ndinner. Besides which, she waited on her dear Mammie Trebisken hand\nand foot, and made the poor sufferer's life as happy as possible under\nthe circumstances. Tom wondered how she did it all, 'and such a dinky\nlittle soul too--not much bigger than a little pednpaley itself,'\nhe said.\n\nNinnie-Dinnie did not go out on the moor all this time, and nothing\nJoan could say would make her. But when July came, and the blackberry\nbrambles were in flower, and the great moors began to look beautifully\npurple with the bloom of the heather, she cast wistful glances out\nof the window, and one bright morning she asked Tom to take her with\nhim a little way.\n\nHer eye caught the darkening look of the Pail as she was putting on\nher sunbonnet, and she thought the look meant she must take it with\nher, and she did.\n\n'What shall I bring you home?' she asked, looking over her shoulder\nat Joan as she and Tom were going out of the door; and the invalid,\ncatching sight of a sunbeamed pool lying high on the heath, said,\nwith a laugh:\n\n'You shall bring me home a pailful of sunbeams from the pool I can\nsee from my chair.'\n\n'A pack of nonsense!' cried Tom. 'As well ask for the moon. I should\nhave thought that our Ninnie-Dinnie,' resting his huge hand on the\nchild's head, 'was all the sunbeam you wanted now.'\n\n'So she is, Tom, when you ent here,' cried the woman, smiling tenderly\nat both her dears.\n\n'All the same,' said Ninnie-Dinnie, 'I will bring you home a pailful\nof sunbeams if I can.'\n\nWhen she and Tom reached the pool, they stopped and looked in,\nor tried to, for they could not see its bottom for sunbeams, which\nrippled all over its surface in tiny waves of light.\n\n'Now is your chance to get that pailful of sunbeams thy foolish old\nMammie Trebisken axed 'ee to get,' said the miner.\n\n'It is,' said Ninnie-Dinnie in her grave old woman's manner; and,\nleaning over the pool, she held the Pail over the side and cried:\n'Little brown pool, give me thy sunbeams! Little brown pool, give\nme thy light!' and, to Tom's amazement (he ought not to have been\nastonished at anything by this time), he saw the light leave the pool\nand flow into the Pail!\n\nWhen the moor-pool had given all its sunbeams, and the water was a\ndarker brown than a sparrow's back, Ninnie-Dinnie stood up and looked\ninto her Pail, and Tom looked too, and saw nothing.\n\n'It is full of emptiness,' said he, laughing.\n\n'It is full of the dear little Pool's sunbeams to make Mammie\nTrebisken's eyes glad,' insisted the child; and covering the Pail\nvery carefully with her pinafore, she went down towards the cottage,\nand Tom watched her until she was hidden behind a great boulder of\ngranite, and then he too went on his way.\n\nNinnie-Dinnie did not get home till quite late in the afternoon, and\nwhen Joan asked her where she had been so long, she said a little\nSkavarnak would not let her come before, and that he stood in the\npath barring the way, till a dinky little woman in a bluish cloak\ncame over the moor, and then he sped away through a hole in a carn.\n\n'What a funny thing!' said Joan; 'hares generally keep out of folks'\nway. He must be different from other little hares.'\n\n'I am sure he must be,' she said, setting the Pail on the dresser.\n\n'Have 'ee brought the sunbeams?' asked Joan, turning her gaze to\nthe bucket.\n\n'Yes; and by-and-by, when the sun begins to set, you will be able to\nsee them.'\n\nJoan, thinking her Ninnie-Dinnie was pretending--for she saw when\nthe child came into the kitchen that the Pail contained nothing--only\nlaughed.\n\nWhen the great round sun dropped down to his setting, the crippled\nwoman, happening to turn her face to the dresser, saw a tongue of\nwhite flame rise out of the Pail, and on its tip burnt a ruby star!\n\nIt startled her almost out of her senses at first; but as it did\nnot grow bigger, but only increased in beauty, she gazed at it with\nwondering delight.\n\nAs the evening darkened over the moor, and the Hooting Carn was dim\nin the distance, the light in the Pail grew exceedingly beautiful,\nand took all manner of shapes and colours, and made the room where\nJoan sat as lovely as the dear Small People's Country, Ninnie-Dinnie\nsaid--how she knew, it did not occur to her foster-mother to inquire.\n\n''Tis magic!' cried the woman, looking round the room, 'an' I don't\nunderstand it one bit.'\n\n'P'r'aps,' said the child softly, 'it is the dear Little People's\nway of showing how grateful they feel for your kindness to your\nlittle Ninnie-Dinnie.'\n\n'I haven't been kinder than I ought,' began Joan; 'and--'tis raining,\nsurely,' she broke off, as a trickle of water fell on her ear. ''Tis\nqueer, too! There's no sign of wet weather in the sky.'\n\nThe child went to the window and looked out.\n\n'There is a tiny stream of water coming down the road,' she said. 'I\nbelieve 'tis the little brown Pool coming for its sunbeams.'\n\n'Don't be silly!' cried Joan.\n\n'It is,' said the little maid, looking out again, 'and it has made\nitself into a dark ring outside our door.'\n\nAs she was speaking, a rippling voice broke out:\n\n'Give me back my light! give me back my sunbeams!'\n\n'I won't,' said Joan irritably. 'Why should I, when it is making my\nlittle place look handsome? I haven't seen anything like it in all\nmy born days!'\n\n'I was hoping you would give back the poor little brown Pool its\nshine,' said Ninnie-Dinnie, with a pleading look in her eyes. 'The\nlittle flowers that live in the Pool will die without light, and the\ndear little Sundews will have no silver beads to tip their red spikes.'\n\n'Whatever did 'ee bring me home a pailful of sunbeams for, if you\nwant me to give it away again?' asked the woman still more irritably.\n\n'You asked me to bring you the brown Pool's sunbeams,' said the child\ngently. 'I did but do what you asked.'\n\nThe light in the Pail was redder and brighter than the red planet\nMars in his rising or the sun in his setting, and all in the room\nwas a lovely crimson glow, and Joan, as she gazed at the Pail again,\nheard the rippling voice outside her door: 'Give me my light! give me\nmy sunbeams!' and it continued rippling its demand until the woman's\nkind heart was troubled.\n\n'Poor little Pool!' she said to herself at last. 'I expect it is\nfeeling as wisht without its light as I was before my Ninnie-Dinnie\ncame in the costan. 'Tis wrong to want to keep what will brighten\nsomething else. I don't s'pose even a little moor-pool can be happy\nand bear flowers on its bosom without sunbeams and light,' and she\ntold the child to give back the Pool its own.\n\n'I can't,' said Ninnie-Dinnie. 'Only you can do that. Lean on me,'\noffering her tiny arm, 'and I'll help you to get the Pail to give\nthe dear little Pool its sunbeams.'\n\nJoan was greatly amused that a dinky little maid like her, scarcely\nbigger than a large doll, could support a great helpless body like\nherself to walk across the floor; and she laughed, and, as she laughed,\nthe Pool cried again in such a beseeching voice that she unwittingly\nput her hand on the child's shoulder, and immediately found herself\nat the door, with the Pail in her hand, before she knew!\n\n'I give 'ee back your brightness, dear little Pool,' she said,\n'and much obliged I am to 'ee for letting me have it here in\nmy little room. Now go along home to where you belong, amongst\nthe griglans.' [33] And the little Pool took its shine and left,\ntwisting and twirling its way back to its place, shining and rippling\nas it went.\n\n'The pool will shine all the more brightly to-morrow for having\ngiven you its sunbeams,' said the child, as she helped Joan back to\nher chair.\n\nA few days after Ninnie-Dinnie had brought the pailful of sunbeams, she\nagain asked to go with Tom over the moors, and Tom willingly took her.\n\n'What impossible thing is Mammie Trebisken going to ask you to bring\nback to-day?' said the miner in joke as the child went to the dresser\nfor the Pail.\n\n'The only thing I should like to have brought home to me to-day is\nthat nasty little Skavarnak which frightened my Ninnie-Dinnie,' said\nJoan. 'If she do catch un an' bring un home in the Pail, I won't be\nwilling to let him get out of it again in a hurry!'\n\n'Do you really want the Little Long-Eared?' asked the child, with a\ncurious look in her eyes.\n\n'Of course I do. I s'pose he won't be so easy to get into the Pail\nas the lark's music or the pool's sunbeams.'\n\n'Not nearly so easy,' responded Ninnie-Dinnie. 'And even if I can get\nhim into the Pail, you won't like to keep him, and you must until----'\n\nShe did not finish what she was going to say, as Tom was in a hurry\nto be off, and they left the invalid greatly wondering whatever the\nlittle maid could mean.\n\nThe sun was rising when Tom and his little foster-child reached a\npart of the great moor where a road turned towards Ding Dong, and\nwhere they saw a hare sitting on his haunches cleaning his whiskers.\n\n'There is Mister Long-Eared,' whispered Tom. 'Now is your chance\nto catch him, my dear;' but the hare had heard the whisper, and he\nvanished under the bracken.\n\n'He will be very difficult to get into the Pail,' sighed\nNinnie-Dinnie. 'But he will have to go into it, or the spell won't\nbe broken.'\n\n'What spell?' asked the miner.\n\n'What! have you forgotten the rhyme the dinky woman sang when she\nbrought me to Mammie Trevisken--\n\n\n                    'By magic and Pail,\n                    And the Skavarnak's wail'?\n\n\n'I had clean forgotten,' said Tom. 'But I don't s'pose it meant\nanything. P'r'aps the little body in the bal-bonnet didn't know what\nshe was singing.'\n\nThe miner went on his way to Ding Dong, and Ninnie-Dinnie seated\nherself on a bed of wild thyme close to where the hare had disappeared,\nand began calling very gently, but with great persistence:\n\n'Skavarnak! Skavarnak! come into the Magic\nPail! Long-Eared! Long-Eared! come into my Pail!'\n\nBut nothing stirred in the bracken.\n\nLong the child called--hours it seemed--until at last there was a\nmovement under the great fronds of bracken, and out came a woebegone\nlittle hare and went into the Pail!\n\n'You are caught by the magic of the Old Men's Pail at last,' said\nNinnie-Dinnie, with a strange look in her eye; and covering the Pail\nwith her pinafore, she set her face homeward.\n\n'Have 'ee got the hare?' was Joan's greeting, as the child appeared\nin the doorway.\n\n'I have,' she cried, with a ring of triumph in her voice.\n\n'Aw, you poor little thing!' exclaimed Joan, eyeing the hare, who\nwas gazing at her from over the Pail with a most dejected look in\nhis dark eyes.\n\n'Please don't pity him,' said Ninnie-Dinnie. 'He isn't really a hare:\nhe is a dreadful little hobgoblin who has been cruel to all the dear\nLittle People you love so much.'\n\n'Who told 'ee all that, cheeld?' asked Joan, looking at the little\nmaid.\n\n'P'r'aps the Wee Folk whispered it to me as I lay asleep in the\ncostan,' answered the child.\n\nWhen evening came, a most terrible wail came from the dresser, like\nthe cry of a hurt child or an animal caught in a gin, which found\nits way at once to Joan's feeling heart.\n\n'I can't a-bear to hear that cry,' she said to Ninnie-Dinnie. 'Do\nset the poor little creature free, that's a dear.'\n\n'I can't, Mammie Trebisken, and I don't think I want you to, either. It\nis good for him to be kept prisoner in the Magic Pail.'\n\nThe hare wailed on, and poor Joan had to put her fingers in her ears\nto shut out the sound.\n\nTom came home just then, and, seeing there was a nice fat hare in the\nPail, said he would soon stop his music, and that he would have him\nput into a hoggan for his dinner--a threat which so frightened the\npoor creature that there was no wail left in him for all that evening,\nand, leaning his head on the edge of the Pail, he looked exceedingly\nmiserable, as I am sure he was.\n\nThe hare was kept prisoner in the Pail all that night and all the\nnext day, and not even Joan gave him a look of pity, for even her\nheart was hardened against him.\n\nWhen evening came again, he once more lifted up his voice in a loud\nand prolonged howl, which was almost more than the tender-hearted\nwoman could bear, and she was about to ask Ninnie-Dinnie to give him\nhis liberty, when a soft scamper of tiny feet made her turn her gaze\nto the open door, and in a minute or less there appeared on the step\nthree small hares, who, when they saw her pitiful glance on them,\nbegan to cry:\n\n'Give us back our Daddy Skavarnak! Give us back our Daddy Long-Ears!'\n\n'Hearken to that,' cried Joan, turning to Ninnie-Dinnie, who was\npreparing Tom's supper. 'I wonder you, of all people, can bear to\nhear it. Do 'ee give the little Skavarnaks their poor daddy.'\n\n'You know I haven't the power,' said the little maid quietly, 'and\nI am afraid I shouldn't be very willing if I had.'\n\n'But you wanted me to give the lark his music and his song and the pool\nits beams,' remonstrated Joan, as Ninnie-Dinnie shook her head. 'Why\never don't 'ee want the hare to be given back to his children?'\n\n'I told you the Long-Eared had been very cruel to the dear Wee\nFolk. He was terribly cruel to one poor Little Skillywidden [34] in\nparticular, and its mammie, to save it from further cruelty, had to\nhide it somewhere until he was caught in the Magic Pail. You see,' as\nJoan lifted up her pain-twisted hands in amazement, 'when he was taken\nprisoner by the Pail and brought into a good woman's cottage he became\npowerless to do the dear Little People any more harm, and all the\nspells that he threw over them became weak as money-spiders' threads.'\n\n'What a wicked little creature he must have been!' cried Joan\nindignantly, shaking her head at the hare, who looked thoroughly\nashamed of himself, and lolled his head over the edge of the Pail. 'But\nwho told 'ee about the wicked Skavarnak an' his doings?' turning to\nthe child, and giving her a searching look.\n\nNinnie-Dinnie did not answer, but a peculiar look came into her eyes\nand a smile played about her lips.\n\n'I'm beginning to think our Ninnie-Dinnie is one of the Wee Folk her\nown self,' said Joan to herself, still gazing at the quaint little\nfigure, with its dark, unfathomable eyes, and its elfin locks framing\nthe gentle little face, 'an' that she is the Skillywidden its mammie\nhid for safety in a cottage. She is a dear little soul, whoever she is,\nan' I wouldn't part with her now--no, not for a bal full o' diamonds.'\n\nAs these thoughts travelled through her mind, the three little hares\non the doorstep wailed out their entreaty again: 'Give us back our\nDaddy Skavarnak! Give us back our Daddy Long-Ears!' and the hare in\nthe Magic Pail lifted his head and looked beseechingly at the child,\nwho, however, took no notice of him.\n\nThe three little hares continued to cry on, and although it worried\nJoan's kind heart to hear it, she steeled herself against them on\naccount of their daddy's cruelty, but into Ninnie-Dinnie's eyes there\nstole a wondrous pity.\n\n'Poor little things!' she whispered to herself; and then, looking up\nat her foster-mother, she said softly: 'You may let the Long-Eared\nfree if you like.'\n\n'But I don't like,' said Joan severely. 'Why should I, when he have\na-been so unkind to the dear Little People?'\n\n'I would like you to give him his liberty if he will promise to go\naway from our moor and never come back any more for five hundred\nyears,' continued the child, who apparently had not noticed the\ninterruption. 'If he does not keep his promise after he is set free,\nhe will run the terrible risk of again being taken prisoner in the\nMagic Pail and having Daddy Trebisken's threat carried out upon him.'\n\n'What threat?' asked Joan. 'Aw, I remember now--his being put into\na hoggan for my Tom's dinner. He is too bad for my good Tom to make\na meal of,' shaking her head at the hare in the Pail. 'He will have\nto be made into a pasty, as a warning to all evil-intending Long-Ears.'\n\nThe poor animal in the Pail could not have looked more wretched if\nhe was to be made into a pasty there and then, and he cried in his\nterror, and the three little hares on the doorstep lifted up their\nsmall voices in sympathy.\n\nThe latter's wails were more than Joan's tender heart could stand.\n\n'Poor little things!' she cried, looking first at the small Long-Ears\nand then at Ninnie-Dinnie. 'If he will promise to do what you want him,\nI'll set him free. 'Tis hard they should suffer for their wicked old\ndaddy's wrongdoing.'\n\n'It is,' responded the child in her gravest manner. 'And it is for\ntheir sakes more than his own that I am willing he should have his\nliberty. Ask him if he will consent to do all I told you.'\n\nJoan, looking at the prisoner, repeated what Ninnie-Dinnie had said,\nand asked him whether he would have his freedom under those conditions.\n\nThe Long-Eared muttered something--what, she did not know, but the\nlittle maid seemed to understand, and she told her foster-mother that\nthough the conditions were hard, he had promised to keep them if she\nwould set him free from the Magic Pail.\n\n'Then let us do it at once,' cried Joan, for the appealing eyes of\nthose three little hares on the doorstep were more than she could\nendure.\n\nThe child came to her side, and offered her shoulder to enable the\ncrippled woman to do her kind deed, and almost before Joan knew it\nshe was at the door, with the Magic Pail gripped firmly in her hand,\nand found herself saying:\n\n'I command thee, in the name of my little Ninnie-Dinnie an' the\nMagic Pail, never to come on our moors till the five hundred years\nare up. Remember, if you do, or try to hurt any of the dear Little\nPeople, they will compel thee to come into this here Pail, an' hand\n'ee over to somebody who loves the Wee Folk as much as I do, an'\nwho will cut 'ee all to bits, an' put 'ee into a great lashing [35]\npasty for a miner's dinner.' [36]\n\nThe Skavarnak uttered a terrified howl, and Joan, looking down into\nthe Pail, saw, not a hare, but a dreadful little hobgoblin, with ears\nas long as his ugly little body.\n\nShe dropped the Pail in her fright, and the ugly little creature sped\naway into the darkness, followed by the three wee hares, or hobgoblins,\nas no doubt they were.\n\nNinnie-Dinnie looked very happy when they had gone, and the Pail\nevidently shared her joy, for it was nearly white, and its embossed\ncharacters looked almost as beautiful as the little Pool's sunbeams.\n\nThe child would not go out on the moor for a long time after the Daddy\nLong-Ears was set free. She said she must stop at home and look after\nher Mammie Trebisken. But when October came, and the purple heath-bells\nhad changed to tawny brown, and the bracken's green into orange and\nbronze, she began once more to give little wistful glances out over\nthe great stretch of moorland.\n\nOne day--the very day of the same month she was brought to the cottage\nin the bramble-basket ten years before--Tom, noticing the longing\nglances, begged her to go with him a little way, and Ninnie-Dinnie,\nafter asking the crippled woman if she could spare her, got ready\nto go.\n\n'I thought you wouldn't want to take the Pail along with you now the\nLong-Eared can't hurt 'ee any more,' said Joan, as the child went to\nthe dresser for the Pail.\n\n'And yet I must take it,' she replied. 'What shall I bring you home?'\n\n'Thyself, my beauty!' cried the woman. 'I'm safe, I reckon, in wanting\nto have only my Ninnie-Dinnie brought back to me. She is better than\nall the lark's music an' the Pool's shine, isn't she?' appealing to\nTom, who nodded his head. 'An' we don't want no Daddy Skavarnak here\nno more, do we?'\n\n'I should think not,' cried the miner.\n\n'Mammie Trebisken's request was a downright sensible one this time,\nwasn't it?' he remarked to the little maid as they walked away from\nthe cottage.\n\nNinnie-Dinnie did not answer, which somehow troubled him, and he\nlooked at her curiously.\n\nWhen the miner and the child had reached the place where she had\ncaught the hare, they stopped and looked about them.\n\nThe sun had risen, and was making everything beautiful on the moor--the\nlittle pools and all. It was a perfect morning for so late in the\nautumn. The dwarf furze, now in blossom, was burning like gorse in\nspringtime round the bases of the great grey carns; the bramble-vines\nwere more beautiful than jewels, as they trailed in all their richness\nof colour over the boulders, and the gossamers lay thick on the turf\nand brown heather, and shone softly, as only gossamer can. Everything\nwas very still, and there was not wind enough to stir even the blades\nof grass, nor was there anything on the wing save a seagull floating\nalong on the blue air, and a few gorgeous Red Admirals hovering over\ntheir beloved nettles.\n\nFor ever so long Tom and the quaint little maid stood still, taking\nin all the wild, yet soft, beauty of the moors, until the latter\nbroke the silence:\n\n'I must hasten on to the bal now, my dear. You can stay here or go\nback to Mammie Trebisken, jest as thee hast a mind to.'\n\n'Yes,' she said, with a start.\n\nHe glanced over his shoulder as he turned to go on his way, and,\nto his consternation, saw her put the Pail to her feet, and begin\nto speak in the same flute-like voice she had spoken to the Lark,\nthe Pool, and the Hare, and the words were spoken to herself!\n\n'Ninnie-Dinnie, give me thyself! Ninnie-Dinnie, give me thyself!' and\nthe next minute he saw the little figure disappear into the Pail,\nwhich started at a rapid speed down towards his cottage.\n\nHe was too upset to go on to Ding Ding after that, and trembling like\nan aspen leaf, he followed in the track of the Pail; but whether he\nwas Piskey-led, or what, he could not get home until dark, and when\nhe got there, he found his wife sitting alone.\n\nThree or four hours after Tom and Ninnie-Dinnie had left, Joan heard\na little noise outside the cottage, so she told her husband when\nshe related to him this strange story, and, looking up, saw, to her\nunspeakable amazement, the Pail a-walking down the road all by itself,\nas if it had legs, to the step of her door; and in another moment it\nhad crossed the threshold and come to the fireplace where she was\nsitting gazing with all the eyes in her head at it coming! When it\nreached her feet it stopped, and looking into it she saw a very tiny\nNinnie-Dinnie looking up at her with eyes full of love and pleading.\n\n'Please, Mammie Trebisken, give me back myself!' she piped. 'Please,\nMammie Trebisken, give me back myself!' and Joan took up the Pail in\nher crooked hands, and turning it over on its side, she cried:\n\n'Ninnie-Dinnie, I give thee back thyself; an' come out of the Pail at\nonce!' And Ninnie-Dinnie came out and stood before her, looking just\nas she had looked when she set out with Tom in the dawn. 'Whatever\ndid 'ee let the Pail get hold of 'ee for?' asked Joan, when the child\nset the Pail in its place.\n\n'Because you asked me to bring me back myself,' she said. 'And now\nI will sit at your feet and kiss your dear hands straight.'\n\nNinnie-Dinnie was very quiet the rest of the day, and when it drew\ntowards evening and Tom's return, she asked if she might bring the\ncostan to the hearthplace, as she felt so tired and sleepy.\n\nJoan said she might, but was afraid it was too heavy for a dinky\nlittle maid like her to carry.\n\nThe child said she would manage to bring it somehow, and she did;\nand when she had shaken up the moss and leaves in the costan she got\ninto it, lay down, and was soon in a deep slumber.\n\nJoan kept very quiet, so as not to disturb the poor little thing,\nand when she looked into the bramble-basket half an hour later, she\nsaw something lying there that made her rub her eyes to see if she\nwere dreaming.\n\nIn the place where Ninnie-Dinnie had lain down there was the most\nbeautiful little creature it was possible to conceive. 'Its face,' as\nJoan afterwards told her husband, 'was ever so much sweeter to look at\nthan a wild-rose, and its hair was softer and more silky than anything\nshe had ever seen, even the head of the tom-tit; and as for its mouth,\nit was far too tender and lovely even for her kissing. It had different\nclothes on, too, from what their little dear wore.' Joan said she could\nnot tell what they were, only they were all goldy, like furze blossom.\n\nBefore she could get over her surprise at this little tiny thing in\nthe bramble-basket, she heard a step outside, and thinking it was\nTom come back from the mine, she looked up, and there in the doorway\nstood the same little bent old woman, her face hidden in a bal-bonnet,\nwho had brought the child ten years before.\n\nBefore she could ask her what she wanted, the dinky woman had glided\nlike moor-mist over to the hearthplace, and was bending over the\nbasket and singing:\n\n\n    'Give me my Ninnie, my dear little mudgeskerry;\n              The time is now up\n              For sweet-mead and cup,\n          For the Small People's dance\n          And the Nightrider's prance,\n              The flute and the song,\n              The horn and the dong,\n    To welcome my dinnie, my little mudgeskerry!\n\n    'Give back my own dinky, my little pednpaley;\n               The music's begun,\n               The frolic and fun,\n           The big stars are alight,\n           The full moon shines bright,\n               The fairy lamps gleam,\n               The Wee Folk all sing,\n    \"Come away to the feast, dear little pednpaley.\"'\n\n\n'I can't give back my dear little Ninnie-Dinnie!' cried Joan, breaking\nin on the song, as it suddenly dawned upon her for what purpose the\nlittle old woman had come. 'Please don't ask me to do that. I have\ngiven back whatever else was asked of me gladly; but I can't--aw,\nI can't--part with that dear little thing down there in the costan.'\n\nThe strange little body took no notice of the interruption, but went\non singing; and as she sang, the beautiful little creature in the\nbramble-basket opened its eyes and looked up at Joan with tender\nentreaty in them. That they were Ninnie-Dinnie's own little eyes\nlooking up at her Joan did not for a moment doubt; and she could but\nsee they grew more wistful as the queer little woman sang on:\n\n\n    'Oh, seek not to hinder my own little Ninnie,\n              For Magic and Pail,\n              And the Long-Eared's wail,\n          The free song of the Lark,\n          And the light in the dark,\n              The dinky herself--\n              The wee little elf!--\n    Have broken the spell o'er the dear little Ninnie!'\n\n\nThe Ninnie-Dinnie in the bramble-basket gave the crippled woman\nanother look of entreaty as the voice of the singer died away. She\nunderstood that look so well, for she had appealed to her heart in\nthat very same way when she had asked her to give back the Lark his\nmusic, the Pool its beams, and it made her feel now, as she felt\nthen, that it was exceedingly selfish of her to want to keep what\nwas not really her own, however desirable. And when the child, or\nwhatever it was, met her gaze again she conquered her selfishness and\nresolved to give her back, whatever it cost her--'even,' she said,\n'if it breaks my heart-strings.' And as the odd little woman in the\nmine-maiden's bonnet paused for a moment as if awaiting her will,\nin all the impetuosity of her generous nature she cried out:\n\n'I give 'ee back your dinky, your little Mudgeskerry, your little\nPednpaley, and whatever else you do call the little dear that you\nbrought me ten years ago. I feel I've no mortal right to keep what\ndon't belong to me, though I thought she did by this time. Take her\nif you must, an' thank 'ee kindly for the loan of her all these years.'\n\nJoan's voice trembled as she uttered the last word, and the eyes of\nthe lovely little Ninnie-Dinnie spoke their sympathy as she kept her\ngaze on her, and the funny little woman who had the voice of youth and\nthe figure of old age showed hers in her voice, for she sang sweeter\nthan before. It was an unfettered song, as unfettered as a lark's in\nthe golden dawn:\n\n\n    'To the carns we will hasten, my little pednpaley.\n                  Then let us away\n                  That a birdie may\n              Fly down from th' Sky's Blue Nest\n              Above the shining West,\n                  To the heart that's true,\n                  To the heart that knew\n    'Twas better to give than to keep my pednpaley.'\n\n\nAs she was singing, Joan saw her glance over her shoulder at the Pail,\nwhich was all one shine on the dresser, and which, as she looked, left\nthe dresser and came towards the fireplace and hopped into the costan!\n\nAs the last words of the song died away into the silence of the\nfire-lighted room, the little old woman in the bal-bonnet lifted the\nbramble-basket on to her back and glided out of the cottage as she\nhad entered it; and the crippled woman, as she followed her with her\neyes, saw hundreds and hundreds of dear Little People coming down\nthe moor to meet her, singing and dancing as they came, and waving\nlittle white lights tipped with red stars, very much like the one\nthat had shone from the Pail. When they came to where she stood they\nformed a ring around the quaint bent little figure with the costan\non her back; and then she disappeared, and Joan saw in the centre of\nthe ring, as the Wee Folk twirled in their dance, two tiny Little\nPeople more beautiful than all the rest--one of which she was sure\nwas her Ninnie-Dinnie and the other the fairy who, in the form of a\nlittle old woman in a blue-grey cloak and a mine-maiden's bonnet, had\nbrought her to her cottage that never-to-be-forgotten autumn evening.\n\nJoan missed Ninnie-Dinnie dreadfully at first; but from the evening\nshe gave her back, the rheumatism left her, and she was as well and\nstrong as she was in the first years of her married life. And when\nautumn came round again, a dear little soft head of her own came to\nnestle close to her heart, and to make Tom and herself glad the rest\nof their days. But dear as this little Ninnie-Dinnie was, lovely as\nthey thought her, they did not love her one bit more than that other\nNinnie-Dinnie, the Skillywidden of the dear Little People, who were\nher friends for ever after.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE WITCH IN THE WELL\n\n\nOnce upon a time seven little maids of Padstow Town met together in\nBeck Lane to play a game called 'The Witch in the Well.' As they stood\nwaiting for the child who was to act the witch, an old woman dressed\nin a steeple-hat and chintz petticoat came down the lane towards them.\n\n'What are you doing here, my pretty maids?' she asked.\n\n'Waiting for our witch,' answered the children, wondering who this\nstrange-looking, oddly-dressed old woman could be. 'We are going to\nplay \"Witch in the Well.\"'\n\n'Are you?' said the queer old body. 'I used to play that nice game\nwhen I was young like you, and should love to play it once again\nbefore I die. The little maid who was to have been your witch tumbled\ndown on the cobble-stones in the market-place and hurt herself as she\nwas coming hither,' she added, as they stared at her in amazement,\n'and won't be able to play with you to-day. Will you let me be your\nwitch instead of your little friend?'\n\n'If you like, ma'am,' answered one of the children, after a hasty\nglance at her companions for consent.\n\n'Thank you,' cried the old woman. 'It will be the most exciting game\nyou ever played in all your life;' and, lifting her petticoats as\nif to display her high-heeled shoes and red stockings, she hobbled\nacross the road to a well under a Gothic arch.\n\nWhen the old crone had taken her seat inside the ancient well--and\nwhich was called the Witch's Well--Betty, the child who was to play the\nMother in the game, took the other six little maids to a tumble-down\ncottage opposite the well, and the game began.\n\nThe Little Mother told her children--who were called after the six\nworking days of the week--that she was going down to Padstow Town\nto sell her eggs, and that they must not leave the cottage, as the\nWitch o' the Well was about.\n\n'Mind the old witch doesn't come and carry you away,' the wee maids\nsaid one to another when the Little Mother had gone.\n\nAs they were saying this, the old woman in the chintz petticoat and\nsteeple-hat came to the door, and looked over the hatch.\n\n'May I come in and light my pipe?' she asked.\n\n'Iss, ma'am,' said Tuesday, unfastening the hatch; and when the old\ncrone had come in and lighted her pipe, she crooked her lean old arm\nround Monday and took her away.\n\n'Where is Monday?' asked the Little Mother when she had come back to\nher cottage, quick to see that one of her children was gone.\n\n'An old woman came to light her pipe and took her away,' said Tuesday.\n\n'It was the old Witch o' the Well,' cried the Little Mother. 'I'll\ngo and see what she has done with her.'\n\nAnd across the road to the well she went, and, stooping down and\nlooking in, she saw an old woman sitting in the back of the well\nsmoking a pipe.\n\n'Where is my little maid Monday?' she demanded sternly.\n\n'I gave her a piece of thunder-and-lightning [37] and sent her to\nChapel Stile to see if the waves were breaking on the Doombar,'\nanswered the witch, knocking the ashes out of her pipe.\n\n'I am off to Chapel Stile to look for Monday,' said the Little Mother,\nreturning to the cottage. 'Be sure you don't let the old witch come\nin whilst I am away.'\n\nBetty's back was no sooner turned than the same old woman came to\nthe door.\n\n'May I come in and light my pipe?' she asked.\n\n'Iss, if you please, ma'am,' said Tuesday, forgetting her mother's\ninjunction.\n\nThe old crone came in, lighted her pipe, and took away Tuesday!\n\n'Mind the old Witch o' the Well don't come and take you away like she\ndid Monday and Tuesday,' the children were saying to each other when\nBetty came back from her fruitless search for Monday.\n\n'What! has the bad old witch come and taken away Tuesday?' cried the\nLittle Mother. 'Dear! what ever shall I do now? I can't find Monday,\nand now my poor little Tuesday is gone!'\n\nShe rushed across the road to the well where the old witch was sitting,\nas before, calmly smoking her pipe.\n\n'What have you done with Tuesday?' she demanded.\n\n'I gave her a piece of saffron cake and sent her out to Lelizzick to\nask Farmer Chapman to sell me a bag of sheep's wool for spinning,'\nthe witch made answer.\n\n'I am going out to Lelizzick to look for Tuesday,' said the Little\nMother, rushing back to her children. 'Be sure you don't let the old\nwitch come in. If you do, she will take you all away, and then what\nshall I do without my dear little maids?'\n\nBetty was scarcely out of sight when a steeple-hat was seen at the\nwindow, and a pair of eerie eyes looked in.\n\nBefore the children could shut the door and its hatch, the old witch\nhad come into the cottage.\n\n'A puff of wind blew out my pipe,' she said. 'May I light it with a\ntwig from your fire?'\n\n'Iss,' answered Wednesday somewhat doubtfully. 'But Mother told us\nwe were not to let you come in, because, if we did, you would take\nus away as you did Monday and Tuesday.'\n\n'Did she?' cackled the witch, taking a bit of stick from the fire\nand thrusting it into her pipe. 'Well, I only want one of you now,'\nand looking round the room, her glance fell on Wednesday, and crooking\nher arm round her, she carried her off to the well.\n\n'I have been out to Lelizzick and can't find Tuesday,' cried the Little\nMother, coming into the cottage as the witch, with Wednesday under\nher arm, disappeared into the well. 'Oh! where is Wednesday?' looking\nround the room and seeing another of her children missing.\n\n'The old witch came in before we could shut the door, and took our\nlittle sister away,' said the children.\n\n'This is wisht news, sure 'nough,' wailed the Little Mother, and off\nshe rushed to the well, where the witch was sitting smoking.\n\n'What have you been and done with Wednesday?' she asked angrily.\n\n'I gave her a bit of figgy-pudding, and sent her to Place House to\nask if Squire Prideaux's housekeeper would kindly give an old body\na bottle of their good physic to cure her rheumatics.'\n\n'I'm going up to Place House to see if Wednesday is there,' said\nthe Little Mother, looking in at the window of the cottage. 'If the\nwitch should come to the door whilst I am away, don't let her come in,\nwhatever you do!'\n\nWhen she had gone to Place House, an old mansion standing above Padstow\nTown, the old witch left the well, and before the children saw her,\nshe had pushed open the door, and stood in the doorway, looking in.\n\n'May I come in and light my pipe?' she asked.\n\n'No,' answered Thursday.\n\nBut she came in, nevertheless, and having lighted her pipe, she caught\nup Thursday and took her across to the well.\n\n'What! has the witch been here again, and taken away\nThursday?' exclaimed the Little Mother when she came back from Place\nHouse without finding Wednesday, discovering that another of her\nchildren was gone.\n\n'Iss,' sighed Friday. 'She came over the doorsill before we saw her.'\n\n'This is too dreadful!' cried the poor Little Mother. 'I shall soon\nhave no little maids left to call my own!' and wringing her hands,\nshe went across the lane to the well.\n\n'What have you been and done with Thursday, you bad old witch?' she\ndemanded.\n\n'I gave her a piece of limpet-pie, and sent her to London Churchtown\nto buy me a steeple-hat and a broom,' the witch made answer, rudely\npuffing her pipe in Betty's face. 'If you go there in Marrowbone Stage,\n[38] you will perhaps find her.'\n\n'I am off to London Churchtown in Marrowbone Stage to look for\nThursday,' cried the Little Mother, returning to her cottage in great\nhaste and excitement. 'Keep the door and hatch locked and barred\ntill I come back, and then, if you are good children and do as I bid,\nI will bring you home each a gold ring.'\n\nWhen the Little Mother had driven away in Marrowbone Stage to London\nChurchtown in search of Thursday, Friday saw the witch leave the well\nand cross the road to their cottage.\n\n'Shut the door quickly and bar it,' she cried to Little Saturday.\n\nAnd Saturday had but slipped the bolt into its socket when the old\nhag was at the door, knocking loudly to be let in.\n\n'My pipe has gone out again,' she shrilled through the keyhole. 'May\nI come in and light it?'\n\n'No!' answered Friday. 'Mother said you would take us away as you\ndid poor Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, if we let you in.'\n\n'I must come in and light my pipe,' insisted the witch. 'And if\nyou don't open the door, I'll come through the keyhole;' and as the\nchildren would not open the door, through the keyhole she came!\n\nHaving lighted her pipe and unbolted the door, she caught up both\nchildren and carried them away, and when the tired Little Mother\nreturned from London Churchtown in a fruitless search for Thursday,\nshe found to her dismay not only Friday gone, but dear Little Saturday!\n\nShe hurried to the well in an agony of despair.\n\n'Where is Friday and Little Saturday?' she cried.\n\n'I gave them each a herby pasty, [39] and sent them to Windmill with\ngrist to grind for to-morrow's baking,' answered the witch, spreading\nher petticoats over the dark water of the well.\n\n'Tired as I am, I must go to Windmill to look for my dear children,'\nsaid the poor Little Mother, with a sigh. 'P'r'aps I shall meet them\ncoming back; and up the lane she went on her way out to Windmill.\n\nWhen she came back to the well the old witch had smoked her pipe,\nand was sound asleep and snoring.\n\n'I have been all the way out to Windmill, and I could not see Friday\nand Little Saturday anywhere,' cried the Little Mother, shaking the old\nhag roughly by the shoulder. 'Where are they, you wicked old witch?'\n\n'Friday and Little Saturday came back soon after you had gone to look\nfor them,' said the witch, opening her eyes and yawning.\n\n'Where are they?' demanded the Little Mother.\n\n'With Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday,' answered the witch,\nknocking the ashes out of her pipe.\n\n'And where is Monday and the others?'\n\n'Upstairs,' answered the witch.\n\n'Whose stairs?' asked Betty.\n\n'My stairs,' returned the witch.\n\n'Shall I go up your stairs and bring them?' asked the Little Mother\neagerly.\n\n'Your shoes are too dirty,' cried the witch.\n\n'I will take off my shoes,' said Betty.\n\n'Your stockings are too dirty,' protested the witch.\n\n'I will take off my stockings.'\n\n'Your feet are too dirty,' protested the old hag.\n\n'I will wash my feet,' said the Little Mother.\n\n'No water would wash them clean enough to climb up my stairs,' cried\nthe witch.\n\n'I'll cut off my feet,' persisted Betty, determined that no excuse\nshould stop her from getting to her children.\n\n'The blood would drop and stain my stairs,' said the witch.\n\n'I'll tie up my stumps,' cried the Little Mother.\n\n'The blood would come through,' howled the witch.\n\n'Then, what shall I do to get up your stairs?' said the Little Mother,\nwith a cry of despair.\n\n'Fly up!' cackled the old hag.\n\n'But I can't fly without wings,' wailed Betty.\n\n'Get wings,' cried the witch, with a sneer.\n\n'How can I?' asked the poor Little Mother helplessly.\n\n'I leave that to your clever wits to find out!' snapped the witch. 'And\nlet me tell you that until you can fly you will never see Monday and\nyour five other children again, nor get them out of my clutches!' And\nwith a 'Ha! ha!' and a 'He! he!' the witch pulled her petticoats\nround her and disappeared under the dark waters of the well.\n\n'My dear life!' ejaculated Betty, now really frightened. 'I believe\nthat old woman who played the game with us was a real witch, and wasn't\npretending at all, and has really and truly taken Monday, Tuesday,\nand all the others away.' And she sped away down to the quay where\nshe lived with her terrible news.\n\nThere was a great to-do when the children's friends learned what had\nhappened, and there was bitter woe and lamentation when, after days\nand days of searching, the poor little souls could not be found.\n\n\n\nA year went by, and all this time Betty, the child who had acted the\n'Mother' in the game, never forgot her six little friends. They were\nseldom out of her thoughts, and she longed for a pair of wings to\nfly up the witch's stairs; and the more she wanted wings, the more\nimpossible they seemed to get.\n\nOne evening in the beginning of June--the very same day, as it\nhappened, that she and her little companions had met together at the\nWitch's Well to play the game--she was passing the well, when a little\nwhite dog ran out of a garden close by, and came and licked her shoes.\n\nShe was fond of dogs, and, as she patted it, to her amazement it\nbegan to talk to her just like a human being, which almost scared\nher out of her wits.\n\n'Please don't be afraid of me,' he said, wagging his stump of a tail\nas Betty backed into the hedge. 'I am only a dog in shape. I was a\nlittle boy before the dreadful old Witch o' the Well turned me into\na dog, or what looks like a dog.'\n\n'Were you really a boy once? And do you know the Witch o' the\nWell?' asked Betty, trying to get over her fears in her interest in\nwhat he told her.\n\n'Alas, I do!' answered the dog. 'She is my mistress, and I have to\nfollow her about all day long, and am never free of her except at\nnight, when she is riding about on her broom. Then I have to haunt\ncertain lanes to make silly superstitious people believe I am a\nghost. The old Witch sent me to this lane a few days ago, and very\nglad I was, because I hoped to see you.'\n\n'Whatever for?' asked Betty, still very much afraid of this strange\ndog, with his human-like voice.\n\n'Because I know your little friends Monday and the others.'\n\n'Do you really?' cried the child. 'I am glad!--Where are they?'\n\n'In the witch's house, away on a dark moor, in her upstairs chamber,'\nanswered the little white dog, with a wag of his tail, 'and where they\nwill have to stay--so the witch says--until the little maid who played\n\"Mother\" in the game is able to fly upstairs after them.'\n\n'Then, I'm afraid they will have to stay there always,' said Betty,\nher eyes filling with tears. 'Can't you get up the witch's stairs\nand bring them down?'\n\n'The stairs are almost as steep as a tower,' answered the dog; 'and\neven if I could climb them, the door of the chamber where they are\nshut up is locked, and a spell worked upon the lock that nothing can\nopen save a pair of wings and music.'\n\n'What kind of music?' asked Betty.\n\n'I haven't the smallest idea,' answered the dog. 'I only know that\nit has to do with you.'\n\n'Are my dear little friends happy?' asked Betty, hardly noticing the\ndog's last remark.\n\n'They are most unhappy,' said the dog. 'They have nothing to cheer\nthem, poor little souls, save the forlorn hope that perhaps one day\ntheir dear Little Mother Betty will be able to fly and get them out\nof the witch's power.'\n\n'If I only knew how to fly, how quickly I would get up those\nstairs!' said Betty. 'There is nothing I can do, is there, to get a\npair of wings?' she asked wistfully. 'Nobody who can help me to get\nwings?' she added, as the little white dog seemed to bend his head\nin thought.\n\n'Nobody but the Wise Woman of Bogee Down,' he answered, after\nconsidering a few minutes.\n\n'I have heard of that strange old body,' said Betty. 'My mother often\ntold me about her. She is very clever and wise, she said, and used\nto make simples for sick folks. She is terribly old now--a hundred\nand twenty, I think she told me.'\n\n'That or more,' said the dog. 'But aged as she is, she is not too\naged to work a kindness for anybody that asks her, particularly if\nit be against the Witch o' the Well.'\n\n'Will she help me to get wings, do you think?' asked Betty eagerly.\n\n'If it is within her power, I am certain she will,' returned the little\nwhite dog. 'Why don't you go and see her, and tell her the old Witch\no' the Well has shut up six dear little maids, who were unfortunate\nenough to play the game with her a year ago, and that they cannot be\nset free until you, who acted the \"Mother\" in the game, can fly up\nto their rescue?'\n\n''Tis a long way to Bogee Down,' answered Betty, 'but I'll go there\nto-morrow, all the same, if I can.'\n\n'That is well,' cried the little white dog. 'You will not seek her\nhelp in vain, I am sure, especially if you tell her the witch's little\nwhite dog Pincher sent you. Now I must be off, for the old witch is\nup on her broom, and if she should happen to see us talking together,\nher horrid old cat would sclow [40] our eyes out. Good-bye, dear\nlittle Betty, and give thee favour in the sight of the Wise Woman';\nand with another wag of his tail he vanished.\n\nBetty hardly slept a wink that night, thinking of her six little\nfriends shut up in the witch's tower, and so ardently did she desire\nwings to fly up to their help that she got up and dressed before\nthe sun was risen. He was just rising over the golden towans on the\neast side of the river as she left her mother's house for Bogee Down,\na wild, picturesque, but lonely tableland about four miles from the\nancient town.\n\nIt was so early that nobody was up except herself, and the doors of\nthe Crown and Anchor were still closed as she walked over the quay,\ndown the slip, and across the beach to the south quay.\n\nThe child went out of the town the nearest way to the downs, up\nthrough a side road called the Drang, and up Sander's Hill.\n\nWhen she got up to Three Turnings, which commanded a view of the river\nand Padstow low in the hollow of the hills, she climbed a stile and\nlooked down to see if she could see the quay.\n\nThe river was now very beautiful with reflections of the dawn, and\nits pale-blue water was flushed with tenderest rose and gold. There\nwas a flush on the rounded hills, and a gleam of light on the distant\ntors--Rough Tor and Brown Willy. There was a ship in full sail coming\nup the harbour, followed by a company of white-breasted gulls, which\nalso caught the light.\n\nThe sun was high in the sky when Betty reached Bogee Down. Now she\nhad got there she did not know in what part of it the Wise Woman\nlived. As she sent her glance over the wild down, gorgeous with yellow\nbroom and other down flowers, she thought she saw blue smoke rising\nfrom a hedge a short distance up from Music Water, a delightful spot\nwhere Sweet-Gales, Butterfly Orchises, Bog-Asphodels grew, and where\na clear brown musical stream ran down between the fragrant flowers,\nwhich made the place that June morning very beautiful.\n\nThe child went up over the down where she had seen the smoke rising,\nand found a hut huddled under a high blackberry hedge.\n\nShe knocked at the door, which was half open, and a thin cracked\nvoice called out:\n\n'Come in and tell me what has brought thee to this lonely down.'\n\nBetty obeyed, but not without fear; and as she pushed the door open,\nshe saw sitting in front of a peat fire on the hearthstone the bent\nform of an old woman with her back to the door. She was quaintly\ndressed, after the manner of ancient dames of the sixteenth century,\nand on her head she wore a cap as white as sloe blossom.\n\nThe old dame did not look round as Betty entered, but when the child\nhad said all that Pincher the little white dog had told her to say,\nand had asked if she would kindly help her to get wings to fly up\nthe witch's stairs, she suddenly glanced at her over her shoulder,\nwith the brightest, keenest eyes the girl had ever seen, and which\nseemed to look into her pure young soul.\n\nEvidently Betty's earnest little face pleased her, for she smiled\nand said kindly:\n\n'Pincher was a wise dog to send you to me. But, let me tell you, you\nhave asked me to do an almost impossible thing. Yet, fortunately for\nthose poor shut-up little maids, it is not quite impossible; but it\nwill depend on yourself, whether your love and pity for your little\nfriends is strong enough to do all that is required of you.'\n\n'I'll do anything if I can only get wings to fly with, and see Monday,\nTuesday, and the others again,' broke in Betty, with all a child's\neagerness.\n\n'Alas! the will that is strong and eager to do is often weakened by\nthe flesh that is frail,' said the Wise Woman, with a shake of her\nhead; 'but the question now is, Are you willing to live with me,\nan old woman, in this out-of-the-way place, for a year and a day,\nif 'tis required, and do all I bid you willingly, without asking a\nsingle question?'\n\n'A year and a day is a long time to be away from home,' said Betty\nhonestly. 'Still, I am willing to stay with you all that time and do\nyour bidding if my mother will let me.'\n\n'That is well!' cried the Wise Woman. 'Now go back to Padstow Town and\nget your mother's consent, and return to me to-morrow about this time.'\n\nBetty's mother was very glad to let her little girl go and live with\nthe Wise Woman, for she was very poor, and had twelve children.\n\nThe next day, when Betty was returning to Bogee Down, which she did by\nthe same road as before, with her clothes done up in a bundle under\nher arm, who should she see, leaning over a gate, at a place called\nUncle Kit's Corner, but the old Witch o' the Well, smoking her pipe!\n\n'Whither away, my little dear?' cried the witch, as the child drew\nnear the gate.\n\n'To get a pair of wings to fly up your stairs to see Monday and the\nothers,' answered Betty promptly.\n\n'Ha! ha! That's too funny!' cried the witch. 'As well try to cut\na piece from the blue of yon sky to make yourself a gown as to get\nwings to fly up my stairs.' And she laughed and laughed until she\nnearly choked herself.\n\n'The witch may crow like an evil bird now,' cried the Wise Woman when\nBetty told her what the witch had said; 'but I shall hope to live to\nhear her screech like a whitnick [41] before that time has passed.'\n\nWhen the little maid had undone her bundle, and put away her small\nbelongings, the old woman told her to go to the settle, which stood\nby the fireplace, and take out from its seat a little bag of feathers,\nand separate one from the other and lay them on the table.\n\n'That will be an easy thing to do,' said Betty to herself; and\nlifting the seat, she found a dinky bag stuffed full of feathers,\nrainbow-coloured, but so matted together that they were nothing but\na soft ball.\n\n'P'r'aps this is to make me a pair of wings,' said Betty; and seating\nherself on the settle, she set to work with a will.\n\nBut the feathers were not easily disentangled, as she soon found,\nand when evening came she had only succeeded in disentangling one\ntiny feather from the matted mass.\n\nThe Wise Woman neither looked nor spoke to her until the sun sank\ndown behind the downs, when she told her to return the bag to its\nplace in the settle, and then get her supper and her own and go to bed.\n\n'I have only got one little feather to put on the table,' said poor\nlittle Betty, when she had put the bag back into its place.\n\n'You have done better than I feared,' said the Wise Woman quietly. 'It\nis something to have untangled even one feather from its companions. It\nis a sign that it is quite possible that you may be able to fly.'\n\nWhen they had had their supper, which consisted of black bread and\ngoat's milk, Betty lay down in a bed made of dried grass and bracken,\nin the corner of the room, and slept the sleep of well-doing.\n\n'It will take me a whole year to untangle all these feathers,' said\nthe little maid to herself the next day, when she again sat down to\nher task, which she did when she had got her own and the Wise Woman's\nbreakfast, and had swept and sanded the hut. ''Tis dreary work, sure\n'nough!'\n\n'Pity, love, and patience will do wonders,' said the Wise Woman,\nwho seemed to have the gift of thought-reading, and what she said\ncomforted the child not a little.\n\nEvery day for six long months Betty sat in the settle most of the\nday separating feather from feather, and it was not until the end\nof that time that the last feather was laid upon the table, and so\nbright and beautiful did they look that she said they looked as if\nthey had been dipped in a rainbow.\n\nThe Wise Woman did not tell her what they were for, but she was sure\nthey were to make her a pair of wings. 'And how beautiful they will\nbe when they are made--brighter than a sunset!' she whispered to\nherself as she lay down to sleep that night.\n\nWhen Betty awoke the following morning, she looked at the table to\nsee if the feathers were safe, and saw, to her dismay, the Wise Woman\nsweep them into the skirt of her gown and take them to the door and\nshake them out on the down.\n\n'Aw, my beautiful feathers!' ejaculated the child, springing up in\nher bed, when as she did so the ancient dame broke into a chant,\nand all she could make out of it was that now the spell was broken\nthey must go with all speed to the Queen of the Little People and\nget her permission to help in the undoing of another spell.\n\nWhen the chant had ceased, Betty, still more amazed, saw a great cloud,\nthat looked more like winged flowers than feathers, float away over\nthe downs towards the sea.\n\n'I don't believe they were feathers at all!' cried Betty to\nherself. 'And, aw dear! how am I to get my wings now?'\n\nShe longed to ask the Wise Woman to tell her why she had flung the\nfeathers away, but remembering what the old body had said, that she\nwas to ask no questions, whatever she saw or heard, she kept back\nthe words on her lips.\n\nShe was very cast down when her work of many days was gone--she knew\nnot whither.\n\nWhen she had had her breakfast and had done all her little chores, the\nWise Woman bade her search in the seat of the settle for a black stone,\nwhich, she told her, she must rub till it was the colour of life.\n\nAfter much searching, she found the stone of curious shape wrapped\nin soft leather, which her old friend said she could use to rub the\nstone with.\n\nBetty again set to work with a will, but rub as hard as she could,\nno rubbing seemed to affect the blackness of the stone, and at the end\nof a week it seemed blacker than ever. She was much troubled at this,\nand the Wise Woman, who read her thoughts, told her not to despair,\nas its blacker blackness was a sign that all would be well, and that\nshe was in a fair way of getting wings to fly up the witch's stairs.\n\n'How?' was on Betty's lips, but a warning look from the Wise Woman's\nwonderful bright eyes made the question die unspoken.\n\nFor many a week longer the girl rubbed the sable stone--patiently\nand quietly most of the time, but there were days when she felt like\nthrowing the stone out of the window and running away home to her\nmother. But pity for her poor little friends shut up in the witch's\nchamber made her persevere with her task.\n\nOne day, when she was almost worn out with rubbing, she saw a faint\nglow come into the stone, which, as she rubbed harder and quicker\nthan ever, grew brighter and brighter, until it lay in her hand as\nred as a poppy.\n\n'The stone is all afire!' she cried, taking it to the Wise Woman.\n\n'It is the colour of life at last,' said the ancient dame, gazing at\nit with her wonderful bright eyes; 'and another spell loosened to the\nwitch's undoing,' she muttered, half to herself. And noticing that\nBetty was listening with all her ears, she told the child to look\nin the settle for a box, and when she had found it to put it on the\ntable and lay the stone within it.\n\nThere was only one box in the settle, which, though small, was most\nexquisitely carved all over with wings--wing interlacing wing--and\nas Betty set it on the table and put the stone into it, she thought\nshe had never seen such a lovely box.\n\nThe next morning, when she awoke, she saw the Wise Woman at the door\nof the hut with the stone in her hand, and she heard her chanting:\n'Go the way thy sisters went--the way of the west wind, and ask the\nKing of the Wee Folk to give thee permission to help in the undoing\nof an evil wrought by the Witch o' the Well;' and Betty, staring with\nall her eyes, saw the ancient dame fling the stone out on to the down,\nalong which it rolled at a rapid rate, burning as it went with a rosy\nsplendour. It went the way the feathers had gone.\n\nBetty dressed quickly, and busied herself about the hut, to keep\nherself from asking if the stone was really a stone, for she did not\nbelieve it was, and she ached to know.\n\nWhen they had had breakfast, and the hut was cleaned with fresh\nscouring-sand, the Wise Woman asked her, if she had the chance of\nbeing made into a bird, what little bird would she like to be.\n\n'A thrush,' said Betty. 'I should love to be a little thrush, because\nit sings so sweetly in the dawn.'\n\n'It is a good choice,' cried the Wise Woman--'the best you could have\nmade. Now go down to Trevillador Wood, and every thrush you see in it,\nask him to give you a feather for Love's sake.'\n\n'I do not know where Trevillador Wood is,' said the child, 'nor the\nway thither.'\n\n'It is in a valley in Little Petherick,' returned the Wise Woman. 'It\nis not a great way from here, and easy to find if you follow a\nlittle brown stream from Crackrattle, that runs down through the\nvalley to the wood. Crackrattle is away there, on Trevibban Down,'\npointing to the opposite down, which was only separated from Bogee\nby a narrow road. 'By going up across Trevibban you will soon get to\nCrackrattle. Now go, my dear, and go quickly.' And Betty went.\n\nThe child was ever so thankful to be out of doors again, after having\nbeen cooped up in the hut for so many months, particularly as it\nwas the birds' singing-time. Birds were singing everywhere on the\ndowns, and their music gushed from furze-brake, from thorn-bush and\nalder; and when she came to Music Water she heard linnets fluting,\nand sweet wild notes came from budding willows by the side of the\nrippling stream. Larks were also singing--lark answering lark with\nsuch wonderful melody in the blue upper air that she told herself\nshe had never heard such lovely sounds before.\n\nThe downs, in spite of all the bird-music, were not so beautiful nor\nso full of colour as when she came to stay with the Wise Woman. They\nwere now as brown as Piskey-purses, she said, and only lightened here\nand there by granite boulders, where they caught the rays of the sun,\nby yellow gorse, and splashes of silver lichen.\n\nIt did not take the girl very long to cross Music Water's full stream\nto reach the road that parted the two downs; but it took her some time\nto get to Crackrattle, as the way up to it was thick with brambles\nand furze.\n\nWhen she drew near that part of the down which commanded a grand view\nof the country and sea as far up as Tintagel, she turned her gaze\ntowards Padstow Town, and saw the river twisting in and out of the\nhills on its way out to the open sea. She also saw the two great\nheadlands, Stepper Point and Pentire, that guarded the entrance\nto Padstow harbour in that far-away sixteenth century, as they do\nto-day, and her glimpse of them and the blue river seemed to bring\nher home quite close to her; and when she reached Crackrattle stream,\nshe followed it down the long, deep valley with a happy heart.\n\nWhen she came to a wood, which she was sure in her mind was Trevillador\nWood, she heard the thrushes singing and filling the place with\nmusic. Every cock thrush was doing his very best to out-sing his\nbrother thrush. It was mating-time, and each little songster in\nspeckled grey was trying to win a little mate by his song.\n\nThe first thrush that Betty saw--and he was a master singer and\nmade the wood ring--was on the uppermost branch of a horse-chestnut\njust beginning to bud, and when he had finished his entrancing song,\nshe lifted up her voice and said:\n\n'Dear little grey thrush, please give me one of your feathers, for\nLove's sake.'\n\nShe wondered as she begged if the bird would understand her language;\nbut he did quite well, and, what she thought was still more wonderful,\nshe understood his!\n\n'I will give you a feather gladly,' he piped in his own delicious\nthrush way. 'It is the beautiful spring-time, and the thrushes'\ncourting-time; and because you beg a feather for Love's sake, I will\npluck one that lies over my heart.' And the dear little bird did\nso, and flung it down into Betty's outstretched hands; and when she\nhad caught it, he burst out into exquisite melody, and he was still\nsinging, as she went down the wood lovely with budding trees.\n\nFrom every thrush she saw she asked a feather for Love's sake, and\nshe was not refused once, and by the time she had gone the length\nof the wood her apron was full of thrushes' feathers, plucked from\nbreast and wing, tail and back!\n\n'Were the song-thrushes willing to give their feathers?' asked the\nWise Woman when Betty got back to the hut.\n\n'Ever so willing!' cried the little maid, opening her apron to show\nwhat a lot she had got.\n\n'It is more than enough,' she said. 'Put them into the box where the\nstone lay.'\n\nThe following morning when the child awoke there was a mournful sound\ncoming up from the sea, which they could command from the door of\nthe hut, and the Wise Woman said it was a sign that a great storm was\nbeing brewed by the Master of the Winds, and that before the day was\nover he would send the great North-Easter across the land.\n\n'I am sorry,' she said, 'as it will hinder our work, and perhaps I\nshall die of the cold before we can help you to fly.'\n\nBetty wanted terribly to ask the Wise Woman who beside herself would\nhelp her to get wings, but she dared not ask a single question,\nand felt it was very hard she could not.\n\nBefore the day had closed in, the bitter north wind, which was\naccompanied by snow, had come. It broke over the downs in great fury,\nand made the poor old woman shiver over her fire with the misery of\nit. The next day and the next it blew, and the more it blew, and the\nfaster it snowed, the more the ancient dame shivered and shook; and\nall day long she kept Betty busy piling up dry furze on the hearth,\ntill there was none left to put.\n\nWhen she realized that all her winter store of peat and firewood was\nburnt, she moaned, and said she was sure she should die of the cold.\n\n'And if I die,' she added sadly, 'the witch, like the north wind,\nwill have it all her own way, and you will never be able to fly up\nher terrible stairs.'\n\nThis distressed the poor little maid very much; for she had become\nquite fond of the Wise Woman, and wanted her to live for her own sake\nas well as for Monday's, Tuesday's, and the others'.\n\nWhen the fuel was all burnt, and the Wise Woman too cold even to\nshiver, Betty said that when it stopped snowing she would go out on\nthe downs and look for something to burn; and when it stopped she went.\n\nThe downs were many feet deep under the snow, and there was not a\nfurze-brake nor a hillock to be seen anywhere; and the down opposite\nwas as smooth as a sheet spread out on grass to dry.\n\nAs Betty was searching for wood, and could not find even a stick, a\nhare came speeding over the snow from Crackrattle. She watched it till\nit crossed over to Bogee, and saw, to her surprise, that it was making\nstraight for her. When it drew near it stopped, with eyes that made\nher think of the witch's eyes, and as it gazed, the hare disappeared,\nand in its place stood the old witch herself, steeple-hat and all!\n\nBetty was dreadfully frightened, and before she could rush back to\nthe hut, the witch had come quite close to her, and asked her what\nshe was doing out there in the cold.\n\n'Looking for firewood for the poor old Wise Woman's fire,' answered\nBetty. 'And I can't see any,' she added sadly.\n\n'Of course you can't,' laughed the witch. 'Sticks under three feet\nof snow are as difficult to find as a furze-needle in a wainload of\nhay. It will comfort you to know that you won't find even a stick,\nand that before the north wind has turned his back on the downs,\nthe Wise Woman will have died of the cold, and you will cry your\neyes out for wings to fly up my stairs!' And cackling and jeering,\nshe disappeared, and Betty saw a gray hare running away over the snow\ndown to Music Water, now as silent as the downs themselves.\n\nThe little maid was returning to the hut with an icicle of despair\nat her heart, when a white dog ran across her path, and looking down,\nshe saw it was Pincher, the witch's dog.\n\n'Don't let what my bad old mistress said distress you,' he cried,\nlicking Betty's cold little hand. 'She does not want you to look\nfor sticks, and came here on purpose to prevent you. She is quite as\nanxious that the Wise Woman should die as you and I are for her to\nlive. She is as clever as she is vile, and she knows that a woman\nover a hundred could not possibly live long in awful weather like\nthis unless she has a good fire to keep her warm.'\n\n'But why does she want the Wise Woman to die?' asked the little maid.\n\n'Because she fears the wisdom of her long years can help you to fly\nup her stairs. And this fear brought her to Bogee Down to-day. She\nmade me come with her, which is fortunate; for poking about whilst\nshe was talking to you, I discovered a great faggot of wood dry as\na bone, and under it a pile of peat.'\n\n'Where?' Betty asked eagerly.\n\n'Close to the hut under a hedge,' answered the dog. 'And if you will\nallow me I'll come and help you to get it out. The witch is so happy\nin her belief that she has discouraged you from looking for sticks\nthat she won't miss me yet.'\n\nAnd he led the way to the side of the hut, where, under a tangle of\nbrambles, Betty saw a huge bundle of sticks, dry and brown.\n\nThey set to work with a will--she with her eager young hands, he with\nhis strong white teeth--and soon got it out from under the hedge and\ninto the hut, where, to their distress, they found the Wise Woman\nlying face down on the hearthstone, apparently lifeless.\n\nBetty, girl-like, began to sob, believing the poor old woman was dead,\nwhich made Pincher quite angry, and he told her with a growl to put\noff her weeping till a more convenient time, and see if she could\nnot kindle a fire with the sticks they had brought, whilst he tried\nto lick life back into her poor old body.\n\nIt was just the stimulus the child wanted. She mopped away her tears,\nand piled wood on the fire and set it alight; and Pincher, the dog,\nlicked the poor old woman's face and hands with his warm, moist tongue.\n\nTheir efforts were not in vain, and they soon had the joy of seeing\nher open her eyes and stretch out her hands to the blaze.\n\n'Thank you for all your kindness, dear Pincher,' said Betty, when\nthe dog said he must go. 'If I can ever do you a kindness in return,\njust ask me and I'll do it if I can.'\n\n'Remember me when you can fly up the witch's stairs,' said the dog,\nwith an appealing look in his eyes that Betty never forgot.\n\n'Then you really believe I shall be able to fly up those stairs some\nday?' she asked.\n\n'I am almost certain you will, and so is the witch. You cannot\nlive with people for generations without being able to read their\nfaces. The witch's face is an open book to me now, and it tells me\nthat she is not only afraid you will fly, but that it will happen\nsoon. So fearful is she of this that a few days ago she actually wove\nanother spell on the door leading up to the tower where the little\nmaids who played the game are kept.'\n\n'Do you ever get mouth-speech with the poor little dears?' asked\nBetty wistfully.\n\n'Never. But I sometimes see them at the barred window of their\nchamber. It isn't often they have time even for that, for the old\nwitch keeps them spinning all day long. Farewell, dear! I must go. If\nthe faggot of sticks is all burnt and the turf before the cold goes,\ndon't go out again in search of more firewood. There is danger\nabroad. If the Wise Woman is in danger of sinking under the cold,\njust lay your warm heart against her heart, and all will be well.'\n\nThe dreadful weather still continued, and when the faggot was all\nburnt, the dame again began to shiver and shake with cold, and said she\nshould die this time, as there was no warmth left to keep life in her.\n\nBetty was once more greatly distressed on her old friend's account,\nand declared she would go out on the downs to look for firewood in\nspite of what might happen to herself; but as she was going, the Wise\nWoman again tumbled, face down, on the fireless hearth.\n\nAs the girl picked her up (she was not the weight of a witch) and laid\nher on the settle, she remembered what the dog had advised her to do\nif the cold overcame the old woman again, and, lying down beside her,\nshe pressed her warm young body against her aged body, and soon she had\nthe joy of knowing that life was creeping back to the feeble old frame.\n\nWhen the Wise Woman opened her eyes and saw the child's face close\nto hers, and felt her kind young arms about her, she said, with a\ntremble in her voice:\n\n'Thou art a dear little maid. Thou hast rekindled the feeble flame\nof my life, proving to me that Good is greater than Evil, and Love\nstronger than Hate. I shall not die now before thou hast gotten thy\nwings. Get up, open the door, and call across the snow three times,\n\"Little Prince Fire, come away from the Small People's Country and\nkeep the Wise Woman warm till the cold goes!\"'\n\nBetty made haste to obey, and when she had opened the hut-door wide\nshe called three times, as she was told, and then waited to see what\nwould happen.\n\nIn a minute or less there appeared on the edge of the down a bright-red\nglow like a poppy in the eye of the sun. After burning there a minute\nor so it came like a flash over the snow towards the hut. As it came\nclose, she saw it was the very same stone that she had rubbed for so\nmany, many weeks.\n\nIt flashed like a ruby into the hut, and as it did so she thought\nshe saw, through the soft rosy haze that seemed to envelope it,\na tiny laughing face.\n\nWhen she turned to see where the stone had gone, behold it was on the\nhearthstone, burning away like a tiny faggot, and the Wise Woman was\nsitting beside it with her withered old hands held out to the blaze!\n\nIt was so remarkable and queer that Betty could not at first believe\nthe evidence of her own eyes, and rubbed them to make sure she was\nnot dreaming. But it was no dream, for the miserable little hut, which\na few minutes before was cold as Greenland, was now as warm as a zam\n[42] oven, and there was a soft glow all over it.\n\nShe sat down on the settle to enjoy the comfort of this wonderful fire,\nand she felt so warm and lovely after the terrible cold that it made\nher drowsy, and in a little while she was in a sound sleep. She never\nknew how long she slept, she only knew that when she awoke the wind\nand the snow had all gone, and the down birds were chanting a morning\nsong outside the window. The stone was also gone, and the Wise Woman\nnowhere to be seen.\n\nAs she was wondering what had become of the latter, the old woman\ncame into the hut with her apron full of green furze, and seeing the\nchild wide awake, she cried:\n\n'Get up, sleepy-head! The cold has left the downs this longful time,\nand the thrushes in Trevillador Wood have built their nests and are\nbeginning to lay. Haste to the wood and get a bottleful of bird-music.'\n\n'Where is the bottle?' asked Betty, getting up and looking about her.\n\n'You will find one in the settle made of the Small People's crystal,\ninto which you must ask every thrush you hear singing to his mate to\ndrop a note to make a song with. Ask him to give it you for Gratitude's\nsake. When the bottle is full to its neck make your way back to the\nhut, and the first living thing you see after you have left the wood\nask it to return with you to the Wise Woman. Ask it also to come for\nGratitude's sake.'\n\nAfter the child had eaten some food and had found the bottle, which\nwas ever so tiny, and clear and bright as diamonds, she started for\nTrevillador Wood.\n\nThe cold had indeed all gone, as the Wise Woman had said, and the\ndowns were all the better for the great storm that had swept over\nthem. The snow had kept the earth warm, and had been a soft warm\nblanket to all the downflowers, and now the furze blossom was all\nmanner of lovely shades of gold, and the soft spring air full of its\nfragrance. Music Water was all alight with marsh-marigolds, and the\ncatkins of the grey-green willows were dusted with gold.\n\nThe snow had also been kind to the trees in Trevillador Wood (the\nThrushes' Wood, Betty called it), and had wrapped all the baby buds\nand tender leaves in dainty white furs, and when the little maid\nentered the wood she saw, to her surprise, that most of the trees\nwere dreams of beauty, with glistering leaves, and some of them were\nalmost as brightly coloured as that strange stone, Little Prince Fire,\nas the Wise Woman had called it.\n\nSo delighted was she with all she saw that she forgot what she had\nbeen sent there for, until a thrush near startled the wood with a\nburst of melody. He was singing to his mate, for, drawing nearer,\nshe saw, low down in a bush, a little hen thrush on her nest.\n\n'Please, little grey-bird, [43] will you drop a note of your song\ninto this bottle for Gratitude's sake?' she asked, holding up the\nbottle to the singing thrush.\n\n'Gladly,' piped he, 'especially as you ask it for Gratitude's sake. We\nhave just received our first great blessing, which I may tell you is\na tiny blue egg.'\n\n'Give the child two notes,' piped a happy little voice from the\nnest. 'My heart is brimming over with joy for the warm wee thing\nunder me.'\n\n'Thank you for your kindness,' said Betty. 'But, if you please, little\nthrushes, the Wise Woman who lives on Bogee Down above Music Water,\nwho sent me to this wood, said I must only ask for one note from each\nthrush I heard singing.'\n\n'That is right,' chirped the little cock thrush. 'Always obey those\nolder and wiser than yourself.'\n\n'Ask the child what she wants thrushes' notes for,' chirped the voice\nfrom the nest. 'She didn't say, did she?'\n\n'I forgot to tell you that,' struck in Betty. 'It is to make a\nsong with.'\n\n'I thought so,' piped the little cock thrush, and flying down, he\nput one of his most delicious notes into the tiny bottle, and in\nanother second he was up on his bush again, singing deeper and more\nentrancingly than before, gratitude being the keynote and the chief\nutterance of his song.\n\nBetty went down the wood with that music in her soul, and begged\nevery thrush she heard singing to give her a note of his song.\n\nWhether every bird's heart was also full of gladness for the freckled\nblue eggs in its dear little nest we cannot say, but they all gave\nwillingly of their best, and before the child had gone through\nTrevillador Wood, the bottle of Small People's crystal was full to\nthe neck with thrush-music.\n\nComing back, she saw two red squirrels sitting on their haunches at\nthe foot of an oak-tree, eating nuts.\n\nSaid one squirrel to the other squirrel:\n\n'There is a dear little maid from Padstow Town here in the wood\ncollecting music from the thrushes. It is the same child who, unknown\nto herself, undid a cruel spell which the Witch o' the Well cast over\nPrince Fire, a near relative of the King of the Little People. She\nturned him into a black stone, and a stone he had to be till somebody\ncould rub it the colour of flame.'\n\n'You don't mean to say so?' cried the other squirrel. 'This is news.'\n\n'I thought it would be,' said the squirrel that spoke, arching his\nhandsome tail with importance. 'Perhaps it will also be news to you\nto hear that this same little maid has actually untangled the dear\nLittle Lady Soft Winds from that great Skein of Entanglement into\nwhich the wicked old witch tangled them, and from which nobody,\nnot even the Wee Folk themselves, was able to free them.'\n\n'However did she manage to do it?' asked the second squirrel.\n\n'Only the Wise Woman of Bogee Down could answer that question. But the\nthrushes believe, and so do I, that love and pity for six little maids\nwhom the witch has shut up somewhere gave patience to her fingers to do\nwhat the Wise Woman bade her do; and because her heart was full of love\nfor these poor little maids, whom she hoped by her obedience to get out\nof the witch's power, she unwittingly set free the other poor little\nprisoners--the Lady Soft Winds and Prince Fire, the King's cousin.'\n\n'And has she got her own little friends out of the power of the witch\nafter all her love and patience?' asked the squirrel.\n\n'Alas! not yet; but we all hope she will soon. The Small People are\nher friends now, especially those she set free. And it is told that\nthey are going to turn her into a flying creature of some sort. Some\nsay a bird, but nobody knows for certain. We are all on the alert\nto see what will happen. They say the Lady Soft Winds whispered to\nthe daffodowndillies last evening that Prince Fire had already begun\nto make a pair of wings for her to fly up the witch's stairs. But it\nmay be only talk. And yet--there! the dear little maid is coming. Not\nanother word, remember. She understands our language, and bird language\ntoo. The Wise Woman, it is said, put something on her tongue when she\nwas asleep one day, when Little Prince Fire came from the Wee Folk's\ncountry to keep the Wise Woman's hut warm;' and then, catching sight\nof Betty's eyes bent upon him, he rushed up the trunk of the oak,\nfollowed by his companion.\n\n'Well, those little funny things have told news, sure 'nough,'\nlaughed the child to herself when the pretty little squirrels had\nvanished, 'and have told me all I ached to know without asking a\nsingle question. To think that the little feathers were the dear\nLittle People; and that queer black stone was one too, and that they\nare going to help me fly up to Monday and the rest!'\n\nAnd she danced with delight as she thought of it, and the wonder was\nshe did not dance the thrushes' notes out of the bottle.\n\nWhen she was out of the wood, and walking up to Crackrattle, she\nremembered what the Wise Woman had told her, that the first thing she\nsaw with wings she must ask it to return with her to the hut; but the\nonly winged creature that she noticed as she went up the valley was a\nlarge butterfly--or what she thought was a butterfly--on a great stone.\n\n'The Wise Woman cannot want a butterfly to go back with me to her\nhouse,' said Betty to herself. 'But perhaps I had better ask it to\ncome;' and speaking gently, so as not to frighten away the lovely\nthing on the stone, she said: 'Little butterfly, please will you,\nfor Gratitude's sake, come with me to the Wise Woman's hut?' and to\nher amazement the tiny creature answered back:\n\n'Gladly will I go with you. But, excuse me, I am not a butterfly. I\nam one of the Lady Soft Winds whom you freed from the tangle into\nwhich the old witch threw us.'\n\nIt began to rise on its azure wings as it spoke, and as it rose Betty\nsaw it was indeed a fairy. It had the dearest little face she had ever\nseen, and as for its eyes, they were bluer than its own wings, and\nits soft, round cheeks were a more delicate pink than the cross-leaved\nheath that flowered on the downs early in the summer.\n\nIt flew on beside her, and Betty was so taken up with watching it\nthat she did not notice when she got up to Crackrattle that a dozen\nother fairy-like creatures were flying over the downs towards her,\nuntil they were quite close.\n\n'We are the Lady Soft Wind's sisters,' they said, 'and out of deep\ngratitude to you we have come to go with you to the Wise Woman's hut.'\n\n'Have you really, you little dears?' was all Betty could find words\nto say. 'Come along, then.'\n\nAnd they came, and were a rhythm of colour as they flew beside her,\nor, as the child expressed it, 'a little flying garland of flowers.'\n\nThus accompanied, Betty came to the hut, where, in the doorway,\nstood the Wise Woman, leaning on her stick, evidently awaiting her\nand her companions' arrival.\n\n'We have come,' said one of the little creatures.\n\n'I felt certain you would,' said the Wise Woman, making a curtsey,\n'and a thousand welcomes. If the child has brought the thrushes'\nnotes everything is ready.'\n\n'She has brought them,' put in another tiny voice, 'and they are\nimpatient to sing.'\n\n'Then please follow me,' said the Wise Woman, going into the hut;\nand in flew all the lovely little creatures, with gentle fanning of\nwings, which made a soft breeze as they came.\n\n'Prince Fire is already at work,' said the Wise Woman, pointing to\nthe box, and Betty, who had followed the Little Lady Soft Winds, saw,\nsitting in the box amongst the thrushes' feathers, a small person\ndressed in red, busy making wings! He was Little Prince Fire, and a\nvery great person in the Small People's World.\n\n'My dear life! aw, my dear life! What shall I see next?' cried the\nlittle Padstow maid to herself; and what more she would have said is\nnot known, for at that moment the Wise Woman took the tiny crystal\nbottle out of her hand and put it into the box beside the dinky\nperson within.\n\n'The Lady Soft Winds have arrived, your Royal Highness,' she said,\n'and Betty, the little Padstow maid, is also here.'\n\n'Good!' piped the tiny man. 'Bid them sing the Making Song.'\n\n'We require no bidding, Prince Fire,' said a little Lady Soft Wind,\nwith gentle dignity, as she and the others alighted on the table. 'Out\nof gratitude and love we have come from afar to sing this song, knowing\nwell, unless we sang it, you would never complete the wings. We,\nas well as you, can never repay the little maid of Padstow Town for\nreleasing us from the witch's spell.'\n\nThe voice had hardly died away when all the radiant fairies began\nto wave their wings, at first slowly, and then rapidly, in a kind of\nrhythm, and sang very softly as they waved them.\n\nBetty watched them with all her eyes, and whether it was the movement\nof their wings or the curious song they sang, with its hush-a-by\nkind of tune, she felt ever so drowsy, just as she had felt when\nLittle Prince Fire blazed away like a faggot on the hearthstone,\nand sitting down on the settle, she fell asleep with the two first\nverses of the song in her ears:\n\n\n                    'We Wee Folk together\n                    With music and feather\n                    The gift of the birds--\n                    The little grey-birds--\n                    Do make her a thrush\n                    All sweetness and gush.\n                              Lallaby! Gallady!\n\n                    'And the Little Prince Fire\n                    Her sweet song will inspire,\n                    That she may fly high\n                    Where little maids sigh,\n                    And undo the spell\n                    Of the Witch o' the Well.\n                               Lallaby! Gallady!'\n\n\nThe next thing she heard was the Wise Woman telling her to rise up\nand move her wings, and Betty, nothing loth, lifted herself from the\nsettle and found she was all air and lightness, like the Little Lady\nSoft Winds themselves, and could fly about the hut with the greatest\nease; the feeling of flying was altogether delightful!\n\nThe Lady Soft Winds watched her flight with the deepest interest, and\nPrince Fire, who was sitting on the edge of the carved box, watched\ntoo; that he approved of her flying powers it was plain to see,\nfor his bright eyes never left her wings.\n\n'What am I now?' asked Betty at last, perching on a beam, and looking\ndown sideways bird fashion on the Wise Woman.\n\n'You are a little grey thrush,' said the Wise Woman, her withered\nface a big smile.\n\n'And now, little grey thrush, away to the east, where the witch's\nhouse looms out dark and strong against the gold of the morning sky,'\nsaid the Lady Soft Winds, 'and fly up her terrible stairs and set\nyour six little children free, as you did us.'\n\n'Yes; away to Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday,' cried Little Prince\nFire.\n\n'And Thursday, Friday, and Little Saturday,' struck in the Wise Woman.\n\n'Away, away, little grey thrush!' cried they all, singing as they\ncried. 'The sun is rising behind the Tors, and the time is come for\nour little thrush to fly and sing. Then, away, away!'\n\nTheir little thrush wanted no further urging, and with one full,\nclear, melodious note, which filled all the small fairies with delight,\nit flew out of the hut, followed by the gentle winnowing of the Lady\nSoft Winds' wings.\n\nSo glad was Betty, the little grey thrush, at being on her way to\nsee those dear little maids that she flew faster than ever thrush\nflew before, and the sun was not yet over the Tors when she reached\na grim old house standing all alone on a brown and desolate moor,\nwith its back to the golden sunrise.\n\nInstinct told the little grey thrush that it was the witch's house,\nand alighting on a blasted tree, close to its spell-bound door, she\nbegan to sing with all her might; and so joyous and so triumphant\nwas her song that it seemed to bring gladness and hope even to that\ndesolate spot.\n\nAs Betty, in her bird form, sang on, the old witch came round the\ncorner of her house, dragging her unwilling feet as she came. When\nshe lifted her bad old eyes and saw a grey thrush high on the tree,\nsinging with all its cheerful heart, she turned green, and hearing\nthe door of the tower leading up the stairs--where Monday and all the\nother little maids were shut up--groaning as if in pain, she sank in\na heap on the ground, and began to groan and moan too.\n\nThe bird sang on, and its whole body was one shake with its music,\nand the more thrilling was its song, the more the witch moaned and\ngroaned. Then, when its last triumphant note rang out, the great door\nopened, as if pushed back by some magic power, and revealed a flight\nof very steep stairs. The witch gave a piercing howl when she saw the\ndoor open wide, for she knew that the small grey thrush's music had\nbroken her spells, and that she was completely in the power of that\nlittle singing bird.\n\nWhen the door of the tower was as wide open as it could go, the thrush\ngave three flaps of its wings, and then it flew out of the tree, and\nin through the doorway of the tower, up and up the witch's stairs. And\nat the top of the stairs was a small room, where six little maids\nsat spinning.\n\nThey were so busy, and the hum of the wheels was so loud, that none\nof them noticed the entrance of the grey-bird until it broke into a\nsong from the window-sill.\n\n'Why, it is a dear little thrush!' cried Friday, who was the first\nto notice it. 'How ever did it get up here? It must be the bird we\nheard singing so beautifully outside just now;' and all the children\nstopped their spinning-wheels to look at it.\n\n'Did it really fly up the witch's stairs?' asked Thursday, resting\nher sad, soft eyes on the thrush, whose heart was beating so against\nits speckled breast at the sight of those dear little maids that it\ncouldn't tell them at first who it was.\n\n'It did,' answered Monday, 'and its flying up here makes me think of\nour Little Mother Betty, who played the game with us. Will she ever\nbe able to fly up the witch's stairs, I wonder?'\n\n'I am afraid not,' said one of the other children, with a sigh. 'I\nhave given up all hope of her ever doing that now.'\n\n'You are wrong, my dears,' cried the thrush, finding its voice at\nlast. 'I am Mother Betty, turned into a dinky bird for your sakes,\nand have flown up the witch's stairs!'\n\nAnd it flapped its wings, jerked its tail, and behaved altogether in\na most extraordinary manner, for the children's faces of amazement and\nhope nearly sent it mad with joy. And then, as if it must relieve its\nfeelings still more, it burst into a most enchanting song, which was\nanswered outside the tower by a series of joyful barks from Pincher,\nthe witch's dog.\n\n'It must be Little Mother Betty,' said Monday, leaving her\nspinning-wheel. 'I can hear her own voice in the song.'\n\nThen all the other little maids left their wheels to gaze at the bird.\n\n'Are you really Betty who played the \"Witch in the Well\" with us that\nterrible day?' they asked.\n\n'Indeed I am,' sang the thrush. 'I have come to take you away from\nhere. Now follow me down the stairs and out of the house.'\n\n'The stairs are so steep,' began Saturday, with frightened eyes.\n\n'Don't be afraid, dear little Saturday,' sang the bird. 'It will be\nas easy as thinking. Come along, all of you.'\n\nThe six little maids followed the bird out of the room and down those\nwall-like stairs, and in a minute or less were outside the witch's\nhouse, where they found the old hag in the act of mounting her broom.\n\nThey were met at the door by Pincher the dog, who welcomed them with\njoyful barks and wagging of tail; and then, finding his mistress had\nfled, he looked up at the little grey thrush, who was wheeling round\nand round the children's heads out of sheer gladness, and begged her\nto give chase to the witch. 'For,' said he, 'if she goes out of your\nsight before you have commanded her to do something, you are in danger\nof having to retain your thrush-shape.'\n\n'I am glad you told me,' said the thrush, and it was about to fly after\nthe witch, when it recalled to mind what the dog had said the day he\nhelped to drag the faggot of wood into the hut: 'Remember me when you\nhave flown up the witch's stairs.' 'I have been up the witch's stairs\nand down again,' it said, alighting on the ground beside him. 'Is\nthere anything I can do for you, Pincher? I am here to do it if I can.'\n\n'I long to be set free from the power of the witch,' said the little\ndog, fixing his gentle eyes on the bird, 'and to be restored to my\nown shape. If you bid the witch do this, though it will be vinegar\nand gall to her, she is bound to obey you by the merit of your wings\nand your song. I long exceedingly to be myself again.'\n\n'You shall,' sang the little grey thrush.\n\nAnd then, telling the children to mount Footman's Horse [44] and\nfollow hard after her and the witch, it flapped its wings again,\nand flew after the old hag on her broom, and Pincher the dog and the\nsix little maids sped after them.\n\nOver the moor and across the downs they all went like the wind, the\nwitch keeping well in advance. Uphill and downhill and through the\nlanes they flew, and never once did they stop till they came to Place\nHill, where the great stone gateway of Place House stood greyly out\nfrom a background of beech-trees and oaks. Here the six little maids\nstopped to get breath, but the old hag, though ready to drop from\nher broom with fatigue, paused not a second, and went on down the\nhill with little Thrush Betty, and Pincher the dog close behind her.\n\n'The witch is out of sight!' cried Monday, as the old hag and the\nlittle grey-bird disappeared round a corner.\n\n'So she is!' said Friday.\n\nAnd they all whipped up their tired little steeds, and away they\nsped down the steep hill in pursuit of the witch; but they did not\novertake her until she got to the well, when they stood watching to\nsee what would happen.\n\nThe old hag slid off her broom, and, looking cunningly about her,\nas if in search of the thrush, which was on top of the wall above the\nwell, she made a quick step to the well, and put her foot on its ledge.\n\n'Sing, sing, dear Thrush Betty!' cried the small white dog in great\ndistress, or the witch will disappear into the well before you can\ncommand her to do what you said.'\n\nAnd Betty, the little grey-bird, flew into a tree, and began to sing\nwith all its might once more. And as it sang, the old hag crept back\nfrom the well, and stood in the middle of the road, with a terrible\nlook on her face.\n\nNow, being a witch, and one of the worst of her kind, she could not\nendure anything so pure and sweet as the small bird's song; every note\nit sang was an agony to listen to, and, knowing in her wicked soul\nthat its music had crushed all her evil power, she begged permission\nin a humble voice to be allowed to go into the well.\n\n'You may go,' sang little Thrush Betty; 'with one condition, which\nis that you turn Pincher back into a boy!'\n\n'Please ask me something less hard!' pleaded the witch, cringing before\nthe little bird. 'Pincher will be mine no longer if I do that, and I\ncannot do without my faithful little dog. Where I go, he must also go.'\n\n'That he shall not!' sang the thrush. 'I command you, by the merit\nof my wings and the power of my song, to remove your spell from this\npoor little boy!'\n\n'To lose my little white dog is worse than having the Lady Soft Winds\nand Prince Fire set free from my spells!' muttered the witch. 'Worse\neven than losing the six little maids who played the game with me\nand did all my spinning.'\n\n'Give him back his own self this very minute,' sang the little grey\nthrush, 'or else----'\n\nIf a threat was implied in the sentence, the witch understood it, for,\nwith a howl of rage, she made a pass with her broom over the dog. As\nshe did so, the dog vanished, and in its place stood a young boy,\ndark and very handsome, dressed in clothes of a bygone age!\n\nThe six little maids stared at him in open-mouthed astonishment, and\nas they stared as only little maids can, the witch made for the well.\n\n'Please sing once more, little Thrush Betty,' cried the boy in a voice\nit knew so well. 'This last song will quite end the power of the bad\nold witch, and keep her down in the bottom of the Witch's Well until\nshe repents of all she has done.'\n\n'That will be never!' snarled the witch; and with a horrible cry,\nwhich even the victorious song of the little grey thrush could not\ndrown, she splashed into the well. And when Monday, Tuesday, and the\nother little maids could get that cry out of their ears, the well\nand its quaint old arch were no longer to be seen, and near where\nit had stood was dear little Betty, their friend, who had played the\n'Mother' in the game, looking very little altered, only a few inches\ntaller, and standing beside her, holding her hand, was the boy, who,\nin his dog-shape, had done so much for them all.\n\n'Now let us go home to our mothers,' cried Friday.\n\n'I have no mother to go to,' said the boy sadly, as he hesitated to\ngo with the happy children. 'Mine died long ago, and I have no home.'\n\n'Our mothers shall be your mother,' cried the little maids, 'and you\nwill never lack anything if you come with us.'\n\nSo they all came down through Padstow Town, the boy in their midst.\n\nNobody noticed them till they reached Middle Street, a straight cobbled\nstreet with quaint houses on either side, when a 'Granfer man' [45]\nspied them, and shouted the news that the long-lost children had come\nback, and the whole street rushed out to welcome them.\n\nThursday lived at the bottom of this street, and Betty thought she\nought to see her safely home; but the child's mother had already\nheard of their arrival, and came out to meet them and to clasp her\nown little maid to her heart.\n\nMonday's home was in a narrow street called Lanedwell, and when she\nwas safe within her parents' house and arms, the other five little\nmaids and the handsome boy, accompanied by a great crowd, went on\ntheir way to the market, where Saturday lived.\n\nAs they came out of Lanedwell Street, a house across the market stood\nfull in view. It was one of the quaintest of buildings, of Tudor\ndate, with an outside flight of stone stairs leading up to its side\nentrance under the eaves. Little Saturday's eyes glistened when she\ncaught sight of this house, for it was her own dear home. Her father\nhappened to be at the top of the stairs looking over the wooden rail\nas the children drew near, and he nearly fell over into the street\nbelow when he saw his own long-lost little maid.\n\nThrough a narrow passage, called the Blind Entry, the children and\ncrowd of people poured, and they only got through when Saturday's\nfather was down the steps and over to the Entry to greet them.\n\n'There is the \"George and the Dragon\"!' cried Thursday, pointing to\nan inn at the bottom of a street as they crossed the market.\n\n'Iss,' said Betty, with a smile; 'and St. George is still slaying\nthe Dragon!' gazing up at the sign hanging above the door.\n\n'Perhaps the Dragon is even more difficult to conquer than the Witch\no' the Well,' put in the boy, eyeing with great interest the inn's\nsign, on which was painted in glowing colours England's patron saint,\nwith uplifted sword to slay the Dragon.\n\n'Ever so much more, I reckon,' responded Betty.\n\nAnother small street brought them to the quay, where the other four\nlittle maids' homes were, as well as Betty's, and to their exceeding\njoy they saw their fathers and mothers and all their relations and\nfriends coming to meet them. And what a meeting it was, and what a\nwelcome they had!\n\nNever since the day when the two ships, which the people of this\nancient town sent fully equipped to help in the siege of Calais\nin Edward III.'s reign, came safely back was there such rejoicing,\nso the old 'granfer men' said.\n\nEvery vessel in the harbour hoisted its flag in honour of the\nchildren's return and the overcoming of that wicked old witch.\n\nThe boy, when Betty told how she had got her wings that enabled her to\nfly up the witch's stairs, was made much of by the people of Padstow\nTown, and the friends of those seven little maids almost fought who\nshould have him for their own.\n\nHow it was settled there is no need to tell, save only that he lived\non Padstow quay, and that he and Betty were always friends and loved\neach other dearly; and when they grew up they married, and were as\nhappy as the summer is long.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nBORROWED EYES AND EARS\n\n\nIn a lane where red-stemmed tamarisks grew lived another Wise\nWoman. She was a nice old body, as many of her kind were, and, like\nthem, was well acquainted with the healing properties of herbs and\nblossoms--revealed to them, it was said, by the fairies. But this Wise\nWoman was not at all liked; nobody seemed to know why, except that\nshe could do many wonderful things her neighbours could not, and was,\nmoreover, very ugly. People were even afraid of her, and never went\nnear her cottage unless they wanted to buy her herb physic, ointments,\nand that sort of thing. But there was one who was not afraid of her\nat all, and that was a dear little girl called Bessie Jane Rosewarne,\nthe only child of a farmer who lived near Tamarisk Lane.\n\nThis little maid had a kind heart, especially for those who were\nlonely or sad; and when she knew how lonely the poor old Wise Woman\nwas, she often went to see her, and took her little presents in the\nshape of fruit and flowers.\n\nAnnis, as the old woman was called, soon got to be very fond of the\nkind-hearted child; and to show how she appreciated her kindness she\nused to tell her stories about the Small People and the dear little\nbrown, winking Piskeys, whom she seemed to know very intimately.\n\nBessie Jane was always interested in the Wee Folk, particularly\nthe cliff ones and the sea-fairies, and expressed a great desire to\nsee them.\n\nEarly one afternoon the child brought her old friend a basket of red\ncurrants and a cup of cream; and when she had set her gifts on the\ntable, the Wise Woman went to her dresser and took from it a very\nsmall shrimping-net, or what looked like a shrimping-net.\n\n'It is a present I have made for you, dear little maid,' she said.\n\n'What is it for?' asked the child, when she had thanked Old Annis\nfor her gift. 'It looks like a shrimping-net, only its meshes are\nso fine--as fine as gossamer--that I am afraid it will not bear even\nthe weight of a baby-shrimp!'\n\n'It is stronger than it looks,' said the Wise Woman, with a curious\nlook in her sloe-black eyes. 'Its meshes are made out of Piskey-wool,\nwhich the Small People spun on their own little spinning-wheels,\nand which they gave me to mesh into a net. Its hoop and handle I cut\nfrom an ash-tree, where the Wee Folk gather to hold their gammets\n[46] in the moonshine.'\n\n'Did you really?' cried little Bessie Jane. 'How very interesting! I\nshall go down to Harlyn Bay at once and catch shrimps in the great\npool under the shadow of the cliffs there.'\n\n'It will catch something nicer than shrimps, I hope,' said Old Annis,\nfollowing the child to the door. 'Whatever you catch in it, my dear,\ndon't let it get out of the net until it promises to lend you its\neyes and its ears for a night and a day.'\n\n'I don't think I want anyone's eyes and ears but my own,' laughed the\nlittle maid as she went down Tamarisk Lane, which led to Harlyn Bay,\nswinging the shrimping-net as if it were a common net, and not spun\nfrom Piskey-wool by the Small People and made by a Wise Woman.\n\nThe bay, with its great beach of golden sand, its many\nhillocks--silvery-blue in places with sea-holly, and green with\nclumps of feathery tamarisk--lay open before her as she came out\nof the lane. There were many gulls on the wing to-day, white as\nthe waves that broke gently over the rocks and against the sides of\nthe cliffs. She looked about her, as was her wont, when she reached\nthe beach, but there was nobody on the bar save an old man with his\ndonkey, its panniers full of sand, coming up the beach on the way\nback to Higher Harlyn, where he lived.\n\nBessie Jane made straight for the pool of which she had spoken. It was\na very deep pool, full of sea-anemones, shrimps, and lovely seaweed,\nand in the centre of the pool was a rock, in the shape of an arch,\ncovered with mussels.\n\nAs the child was about to dip her net into the pool, she saw a streak\nof silver dancing up and down in the clear water.\n\nShe watched it for a minute, and then she thought she would try and\ncatch it, and leaning over the pool, she put her shrimping-net under\nthe whirling brightness and caught it. Looking into the net to see if\nit were a fish, to her great delight she saw it was like one of the\ntiny sea-fairies Old Annis had told her about. It was a most beautiful\nlittle creature; its eyes were the colour of the Cornish sea at its\nbluest, and its hair, which was a pale shade of gold, was sprinkled\nall over with sunbeams. It had no clothes on save a little green shift!\n\n'Oh, you dear little darling!' cried Bessie Jane, after gazing at the\nlovely atom sitting in her shrimping-net. 'I came down here to this bay\nto catch shrimps, and I do believe I've caught a sea-fairy instead!'\n\n'You have,' piped the little creature in the most silvery of voices;\n'and woe is me that I am the first of the sea-fairies to be caught\nin a net!'\n\n'I hope you don't mind very much,' said Bessie Jane, looking\nuncomfortable. 'I have never seen a fairy before of any sort, and\nI have been longing to see a little sea-fairy like you. The Wise\nWoman who lives in Tamarisk Lane, near our farm, told me about the\nsea-fairies. It was she who made me the net, which she meshed her\nown self out of Piskey-wool spun by the dear Little People.'\n\n'That explains my being caught in a net!' cried the little creature,\nwith a sigh of relief. 'I do not mind so much now--that is, if\nyou will put me back into the pool. You will do me that kindness,\nwon't you? I and my little companions were playing Buck and Hide Away\nhere in the bay when the tide was in, and as I was hiding under the\nrock in the pool where you netted me, the tide went out and left me\nbehind. You see that great bar of sand'--pointing at it with her tiny\npink finger, which was even a more delicate pink than the beautiful\ntamarisk blossom that makes Tamarisk Lane and all the other lanes\nnear Harlyn Bay so pretty in the summer and autumn months--'it is a\nterrible thing to us little sea-fairies,' as Bessie Jane nodded. 'We\nhave not the power to get over sand-bars. My companions are in a wisht\n[47] way about me, knowing all the dangers that beset us when we are\ncut off from the sea.'\n\n'You must not be afraid of me,' Bessie Jane hastened to assure her,\nthinking the little sea-fairy's words were meant for her. 'I wouldn't\nhurt a hair of your bright little head. And if I can't do what you\nask me, it is because I love you so much, and want to take you home\nto our farm. We live in such a dear old house! I would be ever so\nkind to you, and you should be my own dear little sister. It would\nbe lovely to have you to play with!'\n\n'I am sure you are very kind,' said the sea-fairy in a voice that\ntrembled. 'But, dear little maid, I couldn't be happy anywhere away\nfrom my relations and friends, and I couldn't live out of the sea\nvery long, and if you were to take me to your house and keep me there\nI should fade away and vanish with fretting.'\n\n'Would you really?' cried Bessie Jane. 'Then I won't take you to my\nhome. If you like, I'll carry you down the sand and put you back into\nthe sea.'\n\n'Oh, will you, dear little girl?' cried the tiny creature joyfully,\nher eyes growing as bright as her hair. 'I will be always grateful\nto you if you will. My little brothers and sisters and crowds of my\nfriends are in the sea close to the shore watching me.'\n\n'I can't see them,' said Bessie Jane, turning her gaze seaward. 'I\ncan only see sun-sparks on the edges of the waves.'\n\n'They are sea-fairies,' said the wee creature. 'You can't see their\nforms, of course, and you would not have seen me if I had not been\ncaught in a net made out of Piskey-wool spun by the Small People\nand meshed by a Wise Woman. Will you please take me down to the sea\nnow? It seems ages since the tide cut me off from my dear ones.'\n\n'I will this very minute, if you will lend me your eyes and your\nears for a night and a day,' answered Bessie Jane, remembering Old\nAnnis's injunction.\n\n'I will do what you ask gladly,' said the little sea-fairy, 'for I\nam very grateful for your kindness in offering to take me back to\nmy friends. When you have put me into the sea a wave will bring to\nyour feet a little red ball, which will contain my ears and my eyes,\nand which you must take to the Wise Woman, who will keep them until\nsunrise to-morrow.'\n\nBessie Jane carried the little sea-fairy very carefully down the sandy\nbeach in the shrimping-net, and when she had put her into the sea,\nthe water all around her broke into white fire, and a soft, sweet\nsound, like the coos of young pigeons, filled the air; and then,\nas the brightness enclosed the tiny creature, she disappeared--ears,\neyes, and all!\n\n'Oh, the sea-fairy has forgotten her promise,' cried Bessie Jane,\ngazing dolefully at the spot where she had sunk.\n\nAs she was speaking, a wavelet broke at her feet, and looking down,\nshe saw a round ball of airy lightness and brightness lying on the\nsand. It was red as pools when the sun sets, and the child picked it\nup and looked at it, and through its almost transparent skin she saw\na shadow of ears and a glimmer of something blue; and she took it to\nthe Wise Woman, as the fairy had bidden her.\n\nOld Annis smiled when the little girl told her what she had caught\nin the shrimping-net.\n\n'It was what I had expected,' she said. 'Now, dear little maid, you\nmust get up with the larks to-morrow and come here, and you shall\nthen see what you will see.'\n\nBessie Jane got out of bed the minute she awoke the next day, which\nwas just as the little skybirds were beginning to sing; and when she\nwas dressed she hurried off to Tamarisk Lane.\n\nEarly though it was, the Wise Woman was also up, and when she saw\nher little friend coming, she went and opened her door.\n\nThe first thing the child saw as she came into the cottage were two\ntiny ears--smaller even than a harvest-mouse's ears--on the table, and\nnear them two round eyeballs, with a sapphire spark in each of them.\n\nAs her glance rested on the wee eyes and ears, Old Annis called her to\nher side, and taking up the ears, she dropped them into the child's\nears; then she took up the eyes, and putting some Wee Folk's glue\non their back, she put them into Bessie Jane's pretty brown ones,\nand told her to look round her cottage.\n\nThe child did so, and saw to her amazement that it was full of Small\nPeople, including little Brown Piskey-men. They were all amusing\nthemselves in various ways: some were running about the sanded floor;\nsome were looking into the depths of a Toby jug full of milk; and\nsome tickling Old Annis's large grey cat. The Piskeys were astride\nher fiddle-backed chairs and her settle, and winked at the sweet\nlittle maid whenever she turned her gaze their way, and they winked\nso funnily she could not have helped laughing to save her life. As\nshe was looking at them, the Wise Woman told her if she wished to\nsee the sea-fairies in Harlyn Bay she must go at once.\n\nShe did not at all want to go, for the Small People were most\nfascinating, she told the old woman, particularly the little brown\nwinking Piskeys; but she went all the same.\n\nAs she walked down the lane to the bay, she looked through the\ntamarisk hedge into the common, and saw that somehow or other it looked\ndifferent. There was a soft green light hanging over it, and where the\nsand was only the day before there was a multitude of most beautiful\nflowers of every colour and shade, the like of which she had never seen\nbefore. Amongst the flowers cows were feeding. The cows were ever so\nsmall, not bigger than rats. There were teeny tiny goats there, too,\nand dear little men in queer hats and coats looking after them. The\ncows and goats belonged to the Wee Folk, she supposed. It was all so\ndelightfully different and odd, and she couldn't think how she had\nnever noticed all this on the common before, till she remembered she\nwas seeing through a sea-fairy's eyes.\n\nAs she climbed the cliffs overlooking the bay a sound of sweetest\nmusic stole upon her borrowed ears, and glancing to where the sound\ncame, she saw that the edge of the low cliff was crowded with Small\nPeople, who were singing away like a choir of song-birds. Some of them\nwere sitting on Piskey-stools, [48] some on the edge of the cliff,\nothers were standing. In the background were a score or more of\ntiny musicians, with reeds, flutes, and other instruments of music\nin their hands. These last were quaintly dressed in poppy-coloured\ncoats and speedwell-blue breeches, and on their dear little heads\nwere blue three-cornered hats turned up with the same rich colour as\ntheir coats. The whole company of Wee Folk were delightful to look at\nas they were to listen to; and as for the tiny ladies of the party,\nthey were, Bessie Jane told herself, little nosegays of wild-flowers,\nand if they had not been trilling and piping as she came upon them,\nshe would have mistaken them for cliff-blossoms, so bright they\nlooked in their lovely gowns of trefoil-gold and reds, thrift-pink,\nsquill-blue, and all those exquisite colours that make the Cornish\ncliffs so beautiful in the late spring and early summer-time.\n\nThe Small People saw the child, and seemed quite pleased to see her,\nfor they smiled most graciously, and one of the little musicians took\noff his three-cornered hat and bowed like a courtier, and said he\nhoped she did not mind their singing, as it was their custom to sing\na little impromptu song to their cousins--the sea-fairies--every\nbeautiful morning in May, that being, he told her, the month of\nflowers and music.\n\nBessie Jane did not mind in the least. Indeed, she was delighted to\nthink she had come in time to hear one of their little songs, only\nshe was far too shy to say so.\n\nShe sat on the cliff where she could see the Wee Folk and Harlyn Bay\nat the same time. The sea was coming in, and was already under the\ncliff where she was sitting; as she looked down into the water she\nsaw it was full of lovely little creatures, who were gazing up at her\nwith all the eyes in their heads. They were sea-fairies, she could\ntell, by their resemblance to the dear little thing she had caught\nin her shrimping-net. They all wore little green shifts or shirts,\nthrough which their tiny pink bodies glowed like a rose, and all had\nsun-beamed hair and deep-blue eyes. Some of the sea-fairies were riding\non the backs of the waves and tossing tiny spray-balls when she first\nsaw them; others were darting in and out the sea-ripples as quick as\nsun-flashes, and playing over the inner bay in waves of light. A short\ndistance out were a hundred or more little female sea-fairies dancing,\nand as they danced and held each other's hands they looked like tiny\ngarlands of sunbeams. They were dancing to a sweet tune of their own,\nor perhaps to the music of the sea, which was full of lovely sounds\nto-day, and colour too--that wonderful ethereal blue which is only\nseen in a summer's dawn.\n\nWhilst Bessie Jane was watching the sea-fairies, and wondering if the\nlittle friend she had put back into the sea were amongst them, and\nif she could see her without eyes, the Wee Folk on the cliff suddenly\nbroke into music and song. The song was so wild and free and the music\nso sweet that the sea-fairies far out in the bay came close under the\ncliff and listened with the utmost joy, their tiny faces shining with\npleasure, and their small bodies swaying in time to the rhythm of the\nsong. As for the child, she thought it was the loveliest music she\nhad ever heard. The song, which was accompanied by lutes, flutes,\nand reeds, and by the tapping of tiny feet and clapping of hands,\nwas as follows:\n\n\n                'Sing, sing, sea-fairies, sing!\n                    For the dark has fled\n                    At the dawn's soft tread;\n                    And the moon grows cold\n                    In the sun's warm gold.\n                Sing, sing, sea-fairies, sing!\n\n                'Sing, sing, sea-fairies, sing!\n                    For the sky's dear bird\n                    O'er the waves is heard;\n                    And the linnet's flute\n                    Like a fairy's lute.\n                Sing, sing, sea-fairies, sing!\n\n                'Sing, sing, sea-fairies, sing!\n                    For sandpipers play\n                    By the pools to-day;\n                    And kittiwakes laugh\n                    As the light they quaff.\n                Sing, sing, sea-fairies, sing!\n\n                'Sing, sing, sea-fairies, sing!\n                    For gulls are afloat\n                    Like a silver boat;\n                    And the curlews call\n                    As their weird cries fall.\n                Sing, sing, sea-fairies, sing!\n\n                'Sing, sing, sea-fairies, sing!\n                    For the waves clap hands\n                    On the yellow sands;\n                    And the sea-sprites dance\n                    Where the sunbeams glance.\n                Sing, sing, sea-fairies, sing!\n\n                'Sing, sing, sea-fairies, sing!\n                    For each little sprite\n                    Is a rhythm of light;\n                    And sweet are their lips\n                    Like honey-bee's sips!\n                Sing, sing, sea-fairies, sing!\n\n                'Sing, sing, sea-fairies, sing!\n                    For day has begun,\n                    And high is the sun;\n                    Now hasten away\n                    To your dears and play!\n                Sing, sing, sea-fairies, sing!'\n\n\nBessie Jane held her breath until the music died away in the silver\ncadence of the morning sea, and the song was still in her ears, so that\nshe was hardly conscious it was finished until she noticed the Small\nPeople had risen from the Piskey-stools and were leaving the cliff.\n\n'You aren't going, are you, dear Little People?' she cried, forgetting\nher shyness in her dismay at their going so soon.\n\n'Yes,' answered one of them. 'I hope you liked our song.'\n\n'I did a terrible lot,' responded Bessie Jane, flushing to the roots\nof her pretty brown hair; 'your singing was lovely, and I should like\nto hear you sing every morning of my life! It was sweeter even than\nthe thrush's song at sunset, I think.'\n\nThe Wee Folk were delighted at the child's praise; the small musicians\nbeamed upon her, and the tiny ladies made her a deep curtsey, and\nthen they all disappeared into the cliff.\n\nShe waited ever so long, hoping they would appear again and sing\nanother song, but as they did not, she went down the cliff-path to\nthe beach. At the ending of the song, all the sea-fairies had gone\nout into the bay to join the merry dancers, who were dancing away\nlike a Bobby Griglan, [49] she told herself as she sent her glance\nover the sunlit waters to where they were. When she stood close to\nthe waves all these little whirligigs came dancing shorewards, until\nthey stopped only a few feet away and gazed at her curiously.\n\nWhen they found their tongues, which they quickly did, to her great\ndelight they began talking to her. They thanked her for being so kind\nto their little companion in giving her back to them the day before,\nand said how glad they were she had repaid the little girl's kindness\nin lending Bessie Jane her eyes and ears for a night and a day,\nas they heard she had so much wanted to see the sea-fairies.\n\n'Yes, I did,' replied Bessie Jane, 'and I am awfully grateful to that\npretty little dear for the loan of her ears and eyes, but I am afraid\nit was very selfish of me to get her to lend them.'\n\n'She was very glad to lend them for the time you asked,' the\nsea-fairies reassured her--'not only because you did her all that\nkindness, but because you have been so very good to the poor old\nWise Woman, who loves all the Little People, sea-fairies and all,'\nthey said.\n\nIt was a great surprise to Bessie Jane that the fairies should know\nabout her kindness to poor Old Annis; and as she did not like being\npraised, she turned the conversation, and asked the dear little\nsea-sprites to tell her all about themselves, and what they did all\nday long, where they lived, and a hundred and one other questions\nwhich the sweet-voiced, sun-beamed little creatures seemed only too\npleased to answer.\n\nAmongst other interesting things, they told the child about their\nwork. They said their chief happiness was to do good, and that their\nspecial work was to seek out all wounded things and take them down to\nthe bottom of the sea, where they had a Place of Healing, and where\nthey tended with gentle care all the poor, hurt creatures they found,\nuntil they were all healed and happy again. Another mission of theirs\nwas to sing requiems over the poor drowned human beings, and to plant\nsea-lilies and other sea-flowers on their graves.\n\nThey were always busy, they told her, and when there was no special\nwork for them to do they busied themselves with games, singing and\ndancing, and flashing in and out of the sea to make it beautiful with\nlight. Their special time for merry-making and dancing was at sunset\nand sunrise, particularly sunset, for then the great sun went down\ninto the sea to shine upon their lovely gardens, parks, and meadows\nunder the sea where they lived, and where dear little fishes sang\ninstead of birds!\n\nIt would fill pages to tell all those little sea-fairies told Bessie\nJane, and which they told in such entrancing way that time flew. The\ntide came in and went out, and was again coming in, and the entranced\nchild did not even notice it, or that the big white sun was wheeling\ndown towards his setting.\n\nA great lane of crimson fire stretched away on the blue-grey water\nfrom the outer bay to the horizon, and just as the sea-fairies had\nfinished telling her all the wonders of their life and doings she\nsaw coming towards her down this lane of rich light a tiny carriage\nin the shape of a scallop-shell, drawn by four little horses, two\nabreast, and white as sea-spray. As the tiny steeds sped onward and\ndrew near, Bessie Jane saw leaning back in the carriage a sea-fairy\nwith a bandage of red seaweed across her eyes and ears.\n\nWhen the horses stopped, all the sea-fairies formed themselves in\na circle round the carriage, and looked intently at the child on\nthe shore.\n\nAs Bessie Jane noted all this, telling herself what handsome horses\nthey were and what an elegant little carriage, and how beautiful it\nlooked on the sun's pathway, a silvery voice, like the twitter of a\nbaby lark low in its nest amongst the heather, piped from the carriage:\n\n'Please give me back my eyes and my ears.'\n\n'What eyes and ears?' asked the child, bewildered, for she had quite\nforgotten that she had got the sea-fairy's eyes and ears.\n\n'Why, my own dear little eyes and ears that I lent you for a night\nand a day,' piped the sweet voice again.\n\n'Must I give them back?' asked Bessie Jane.\n\n'Indeed you must,' said the fairy. 'I have missed them oh so much! No\nbeautiful vision have I seen, no lovely sounds have I heard, since\nI lent them to you yesterday afternoon. I waited until the sun had\nput on his flame-coloured robe before coming for them.'\n\n'How can I give you back your eyes and your ears?' asked the child\nhelplessly. 'The Wise Woman put them in, and she isn't here to take\nthem out.'\n\n'Say, \"Little Blue Eyes, go back to your homes,\" and, \"Little Pink\nEars, return to your places,\" and they will do as you tell them,'\nanswered the little fairy.\n\nBessie Jane, though very reluctant to give back what had given her\nso much pleasure, knew she would be dreadfully selfish if she did\nnot do as she was told, and after gazing full five minutes on the\nwonderful sight--the circle of sea-fairies, the wee white horses,\nand scallop-shaped carriage, the like of which she might never see\nagain--and letting her last gaze rest on her first friend waiting so\npatiently for the return of her eyes and ears, her clear young voice\nrang out:\n\n'Dear Little Blue Eyes, go back to your homes; dear Little Pink Ears,\ngo back to your holes.'\n\nAs she spoke a blue spark leapt out of her eyes, followed by a\nwhizzing of something pink, and when she opened her eyes again, the\nradiant circle of sea-fairies round the mother-of-pearl carriage,\nthe dazzling white steeds with flowing manes and tails, were all gone,\nand she only saw the usual sights of eventide on the beach: the gulls\nflying over the hillocks and across the sands to their sleeping-places\nin the cliffs; a man driving the cows up the bay to be milked;\nthe stems of the tamarisk on the hedges, scarlet in the sun-glow;\nand the vast luminous sky over it all. Beautiful as everything was,\nit was not nearly so beautiful, Bessie Jane thought, as were those\nlittle sea-fairies and horses on the pathway of crimson fire!\n\nShe stood close to the edge of the water till the line of light was\ngone, and then she turned away from the sea and went up the beach\ntowards Tamarisk Lane, to tell Old Annis what she had heard and seen.\n\nAs she was going up, she met the same old man and his donkeys she\nhad seen the day before. He was coming down for his last pannier\nof sand. He stopped and spoke to her, and asked why she was looking\nso happy.\n\n'I have seen the Small People,' answered the child, 'and the dear\nlittle fairies that live in the sea.'\n\n'You don't mean to say so?' cried the old man. 'You are a lucky little\nmaid to have seen all they little dears!' as Bessie Jane nodded. ''Tis\nnot often folks do see 'em nowadays; but they did backalong, my mother\ntold me. What was 'em like, Miss Bessie Jane?'\n\n'I cannot stop to tell you now,' said the child. 'It is rather late,\nand I want to go and see the Wise Woman in Tamarisk Lane. You are\nlate getting sand, arn't you?'\n\n'Iss fy, I be. 'Tis for your father--Maister Rosewarne--and I must\nmake haste and get it. My donkey do want his supper, and so do I.'\n\nOld Annis was at her cottage gate watching for her little friend's\nreturn, and when the child came up she listened with the greatest\ninterest to all she had to tell her, and said how pleased she was\nthat she had seen and heard so much.\n\n'It is a reward,' she added, 'for being so kind to a poor lonely\nold woman.'\n\nBessie Jane never saw any more of the Little People, and never went\nshrimping again with the shrimping-net made by a Wise Woman out of\nPiskey-wool spun by the Small People, for the simple reason she lost\nthe net the day after she saw the dear Wee Folk and the sea-fairies\nwith her borrowed eyes. How she lost it, or where, she did not know,\nand the Wise Woman, wise as she was, could not tell her. But she\nwas ever afterwards grateful for having seen them, especially the\nsea-fairies, and she showed her gratitude by being kinder than ever\nto her poor, lonely old friend.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE LITTLE WHITE HARE\n\n\nWhen our great-great-grandmothers were young, a small lad called\nWilliam John Pendarvey went on a visit to his Great-Aunt Ann, a very\nsilent, austere old maid, who lived by herself in the Vale beautiful\nof Lanherne.\n\nGreat-Aunt Ann being old and very quiet, was the last person in the\nworld that a tender-hearted, sensitive little chap as William John\nwas should have gone to stay with.\n\nThe house where she lived was rather small and very gloomy, and had\nnothing nice about it, but it possessed a large and beautiful orchard,\nprotected from the rough and cutting winds by the escarpment of the\ndowns that rose above it and the valley.\n\nBut delightful as this orchard was, nobody except Great-Aunt Ann--and\nshe not often--ever went into it, because it was known to be haunted\nby something, in the shape of a little White Hare which had been\nseen there from time unknown, wandering like a shadow over the grass,\nand in and out amongst the trees, or sitting motionless at the foot\nof a blasted apple-tree.\n\nWho or what this apparition was nobody could tell, but not a man,\nwoman or child in the Vale, except Great-Aunt Ann, would have gone\ninto that orchard for all they were worth.\n\nLittle William John might never have known there was an orchard\nbelonging to the gloomy old house if he had not wandered into a bedroom\nat the back of the house overlooking the entrance to the orchard and\npeeped out of the window.\n\nHe asked to be allowed to go and play there, as it looked so bright\nand sunny in its open spaces, but Great-Aunt Ann said: 'Not to-day.'\n\nIt was always 'Not to-day' whenever he asked to go into that orchard,\nand probably he would never have gone into it at all if the old maid\nhad not occasion one day to go to St. Columb, a small market town\nthree miles from where she lived.\n\nShe could not take the boy with her, she said, and so she left him\nat home to take care of the house.\n\nLooking after a house was not in little William John's line, and\nGreat-Aunt Ann had not been gone more than an hour before he found\nhimself at the small wicket-gate opening into the orchard, where to\nhis joy he saw a great multitude of golden-headed daffadillies rising\nout of the lowly grass, and a light that was softer than silver moving\nmysteriously in and out amongst the trees.\n\nThe temptation to go into that sun-lighted, fascinating spot was\nirresistible, and finding the gate unlocked, little William John\nopened it and went in.\n\nIt was the spring of the year, and the spring was late, and there were\nas yet no carmine buds on the apple trees, but their upper branches\nwere misty with the silvery green of budding leaves. And the pear trees\nwere in virgin whiteness, and so were the plum and cherry trees, which\nmade a shining background to all the yellow lilies in blossom there.\n\n'It makes me feel happy only to be here,' whispered little William\nJohn to himself; 'and oh! the daffies are making golden dawns under\nthe trees!'\n\nHe wandered about to his heart's content, staying his young feet now\nand then to listen to a blackbird's liquid pipe, and to touch with\nreverent hand a daffadilly's drooping head, or to watch with puzzled\neyes that thing of brightness moving on in front of him amongst the\ntrees and blossoms.\n\nHe lost sight of this wandering light when he had gone the length\nof the orchard; but he saw it again as he turned across to its top,\nand when he got close he saw, to his astonishment, it was a little\nHare of silvery whiteness.\n\nIt was sitting on its haunches under the blasted tree, and did not\nmove away as the boy drew near.\n\nA thrill of gladness filled William John's kind young heart at so\nfair and strange a vision, and his delight was even greater when the\nsmall White Hare suffered him to stroke its fur.\n\n'Oh, you dear little soft thing!' he cried. 'I am so glad you are not\nafraid of me; I love all animals, and would not hurt any of them for\nworlds, nor a hair of your beautiful white coat.'\n\n'I knew you would not,' answered the little White Hare. 'I was sure\nyour heart was gentle and good the moment I saw you.'\n\n'What! Can you talk?' asked little William John in amazement. 'I never\nknew animals could speak like human beings before. I am so glad you\ncan. It is so nice to have someone to talk to. Nobody hardly ever\nspeaks to me here, and I have felt so lonely.'\n\n'Poor boy!' said the little White Hare; 'I can sympathize with you,\nfor I know what it is to be lonely and have nobody to speak to. You\nare the first human being who has spoken to me since a wicked Witch\nturned me into the shape of a hare.'\n\n'What! Are you not really a hare?' asked little William John, more\nand more amazed.\n\n'No,' answered the little creature sadly; 'I am a maiden in the shape\nof a hare, and I have had to bear the hare-shape ever since the Witch\nworked a spell upon me, which was back in the days of the \"giants.\"'\n\n'What a shame!' cried the boy. 'Whatever made her turn you into\na hare?'\n\n'She had a spite against me because I would not be wicked like\nherself.'\n\n'How dreadful of her!' cried little William John indignantly. 'Will\nyou never be able to get back your real shape, you poor little thing?'\n\n'I am afraid not,' said the little White Hare sadly, 'unless somebody\nwho is really sorry for me, and is not afraid of me, can find the\nMagic Horn--by the blast of which Jack the Giant-Killer overthrew\nthe Giant Galligantus and Hocus-Pocus the Conjurer--and blow over me\nthree strong, clear blasts.'\n\n'Where is the Magic Horn?' asked little William John.\n\n'I do not know the exact spot, but it is buried somewhere in the\nruins of an old castle called the Castle of Porthmeor, which is on\na cliff above Porthmeor Cove.'\n\n'Why, that old castle is mine, or will be, I am told, when I am of\nage!' cried little William John. 'It is not a great way from where I\nlive, and often I go there to play. I wish I wasn't only a little boy,\nand could look for the Magic Horn,' he added, after a moment's silence.\n\n'Age is no barrier to your seeking it,' said the little White\nHare. 'All that is needed to loosen the wicked old Witch's spell is\nwhat I have now told you.'\n\n'Then I will look for the Magic Horn directly I get home,' cried\nlittle William John, 'and if I can find it I'll come back and blow\nit over you, if you think I can.'\n\n'I am sure you can,' answered the little White Hare. 'You must go\nnow, for your Great-Aunt is coming into the valley. It is not wrong\nto come into this orchard, since she has not forbidden you; but she\nknows it is haunted by a little White Hare, and is afraid if you see\nit it will work you harm. So you must be patient with her.'\n\nThe Hare vanished as it spoke, and little William John found himself\nalone with the yellow-headed daffadillies, and the trees and dear\nlittle birds, and he soon went back to the house.\n\n'Have you been out anywhere?' asked Great-Aunt Ann, when she had come\nin and taken off her bonnet.\n\n'Yes, into the orchard,' said the boy truthfully. 'It is a lovely\nplace, full of song-birds and flowers.'\n\n'Was that all you saw there?' she asked anxiously.\n\n'No,' answered little William John again, lifting his clear child-eyes\nto the stern old maid's. 'I saw trees with snow on them, and a dear\nlittle Hare with fur as white as milk.'\n\nThe old lady shook all over like a wind-tossed leaf when he said that,\nbut she did not scold him or say he ought not to have gone into her\norchard, but the next day she sent him home.\n\nAt the end of three years William John came again to stay with his\nGreat-Aunt Ann--not that she wanted him, but because his guardian\nthought the balmy air of the lovely Vale would do him good.\n\nThe spring was very early this year, and when William John arrived the\ndaffadillies had gone, and the pear and cherry trees had scattered\nall their snow-white blossoms on the grass; but the apple flowers\nwere out in rosy splendour on the gnarled old trees, and where the\ndaffadillies had made 'golden dawns' there were blue-grey periwinkles\ntrying to lift themselves to the heavenly blue shining down upon them.\n\nWilliam John was anxious to go out into the orchard directly he came,\nbut Great-Aunt Ann said the grass was too wet.\n\nThe grass was always 'too wet,' according to the old maid, and the\nboy was afraid she would not allow him to go into the orchard at all.\n\nWhen he had been there two weeks and a day, Great-Aunt Ann had again\noccasion to go to St. Columb town, and as there was only room in the\ngig for the driver and herself, she was obliged to leave him at home.\n\nThe moment the gig was out of sight William John made his way to the\norchard, where he found the grass as green and beautiful as spring\ngrass could be, and his little friend the Hare sitting under the\nblasted tree, whiter and smaller than ever.\n\n'I began to fear you would never come into this orchard again,'\nsaid the White Hare plaintively.\n\n'I began to fear so myself,' responded William John, stroking very\ngently the little White Hare. 'This is my first opportunity of\ncoming here.'\n\n'Have you found the Magic Horn?' the small creature asked anxiously.\n\n'Not yet, and I have never stopped looking for it since I was last\nhere. I have searched all over the old castle, and every stone has\nbeen lifted on the place, and the ground dug up both outside the\nruins and inside, and I am afraid the Magic Horn was not hidden away\nin that old castle, as you said.'\n\n'It was hidden there, and is there now,' insisted the little White\nHare, 'and I do hope you aren't going to give up looking for it.'\n\n'I won't, for your sake, you dear little soft thing!' cried the boy,\nand again he stroked her gently and tenderly; 'and as you are sure\nit is there somewhere, I'll search until I find it.'\n\n'Have you looked in the cave under the castle?' asked the little\nWhite Hare.\n\n'No,' returned William John; 'the entrance to it is not known, and\neven if it were, the passage leading down to the cave is so foul with\nbad air, my guardian said, that it would be death to anybody who went\nthrough it.'\n\n'If you are not afraid to go down into the cave, I can give you a\nplant that will purify all the foul air you pass through.'\n\n'I will not be afraid for your sake, dear little White Hare,' said\nthe boy.\n\nThe Hare vanished, and in a little while became visible again, and\nin her mouth she held a strange-looking weed, the like of which he\nhad never seen before.\n\n'It is called the little All-Pure,' said the White Hare, as William\nJohn took it in his hand. 'Keep it close to your heart until you have\ndiscovered the passage to the cave, and when it is foul hold it in\nyour hand until its brightness shines on the Magic Horn.'\n\nAgain she disappeared, and the boy, after waiting some time to see\nif she would appear again, went back to the house, where he found\nhis Great-Aunt Ann limping in at the front-door.\n\nThe old lady had hurt her leg in getting out of the gig, and when he\ntold her he had been in the orchard, she made her slight accident an\nexcuse to send him back to his home, which she did that same day.\n\nWilliam John did not have the chance of paying another visit to his\nGreat-Aunt Ann until he was a youth of nineteen, and he would not\nhave come then if he had waited to be invited.\n\nThe old maid was now terribly old and feeble, and had to keep a\nservant. Unhappily for William John, the servant was quite as crabbed\nand silent as her mistress, and even more opposed to his going into\nthe old orchard. She even locked the orchard-gate and kept the key\nin her pocket.\n\nBut William John, being now no longer a child, but a handsome youth\nwith a strong will of his own, was determined to get into the orchard\nwith or without permission, for he had found the Magic Horn.\n\nHe watched his opportunity, and one day when the servant was out\nhe went to the wicket gate and sprang over it, and quickly made his\nway to the blasted tree, where he found, as he had expected to find,\nthe little White Hare sitting on her haunches under it.\n\nShe was very white and ever so small--so small, in fact, that she\ndid not look much bigger than a baby hare.\n\n'You have come at last,' she said, as the tall handsome lad knelt on\nthe grass and caressed her. 'Have you found the Magic Horn?'\n\n'I have found it,' he answered gladly.\n\n'When did you find it?'\n\n'Only yesterday,' returned the youth. 'Every day since I last saw\nyou I have searched for the entrance to the cave, and at last,\nwhen I was in despair of ever finding it, I came upon it under my\nbedroom window. I discovered it quite by accident, as I was planting\nmaiden-blush rose-trees. I never knew till then that our house was\nbuilt on the old castle grounds. The passage opened on to steps,\nwhich led down and down till they ended at the door of the cave.'\n\n'Were you not afraid?' asked the little White Hare very softly.\n\n'I was a little bit,' confessed the youth, 'for I did not know where\nit would lead me. But love and pity for poor little you made me go\non. And I had the little All-Pure to cheer me; for it not only made\nthe foul air through which I passed pure and sweet, but gave out a\nsoft clear light. I found the Magic Horn on a slab of stone in the\ncorner of the cave. I took it up quickly and returned the way I came,\nand started the earliest moment to pay a visit to my Great-Aunt Ann.'\n\n'Have you brought the Magic Horn with you?' asked the little White\nHare, with deep anxiety in her voice.\n\n'Yes,' he said, with shining eyes, 'and here it is;' and he laid a\nblack thing in the shape of a horn on the grass beside her.\n\n'It is the Magic Horn!' cried the little White Hare joyfully. 'Will\nyou blow over me three strong, clear blasts, dear William John? If\nyou are as pure-hearted as you are kind-hearted, as I am sure you are,\nthe last blast will break the Witch's spell, and give me back my own\nshape. The Horn should be blown at sunset.'\n\n'It is sundown now,' said William John, looking westward, where\nbetween the trees he could see a splendour of rose and gold painted\non the lower sky.\n\n'Then blow it now!' cried the little White Hare; and stiffening\nherself on her form, she crossed her paws on her breast and waited.\n\nWilliam John took up the Magic Horn in his strong young hands and put\nit to his mouth, and in a minute or less there sounded out through\nthe orchard, all gay with apple-blossom and melody of birds, and\nover the Vale of Lanherne, a great blast, so rich in sound that the\nthrushes stopped their singing, and the people in St. Mawgan village\ncame rushing to their doors to know whatever it was. It was quickly\nfollowed by two more blasts, richer and louder than the first. When\nthe last blast had died away, William John, looking down at the foot\nof the blasted tree, saw in the place of the little White Hare the\nmost beautiful maiden he had ever seen.\n\nThe Magic Horn fell from his hand at so lovely a sight, and he\nblushed red as the buds clinging in rosy infancy to the apple-trees,\nand stammered something out that he had not expected to see her half\nso beautiful.\n\n'I am myself now, thanks to you,' laughed the maiden; and William John\nthought it was the sweetest laugh he had ever heard in all his life. 'I\ncan never be sufficiently grateful for all you have done for me.'\n\n'Mine is the gratitude for having been allowed to find the Magic Horn\nand loosen you from the wicked spell,' said the lad, still stammering\nand blushing.\n\n'You are very good to say so,' said the lovely maid, blushing in her\nturn as she felt the gaze of the handsome youth upon her. 'Now the\nevil spell has been undone I must go my way.'\n\n'What way?' asked William John eagerly, drinking in the beauty of\nher face.\n\n'To a country beyond the sun-setting, where all who love me are,'\nshe said gently.\n\n'If you go, I must also go,' said William John in a masterful way,\nstill keeping his eyes on her face. 'I learnt to love you in your\nhare-shape, dear, but I love you a thousand times more now I see you\nas you are. I could not live without you now.'\n\n'If you love me as you say you do, and cannot live without me, you\nmay come,' said the lovely maid, lifting her shy eyes to his. 'You\nhave the right to come with me by the good you have wrought. It is\na fair land whither I am going, where there are always buds and\nblossoms on the trees, where the happy birds are always in song,\nand where the Foot of Evil dare not enter. It is time I was away. The\nsun is setting, and his path of glory is narrowing on the sea. Come,\nif you will. I love you, too, dear.'\n\nAnd giving him her little hand, which he gladly took, they went both\nof them together out of the old orchard in the glow of the setting\nsun; and as they climbed a slope above the place of blossoming trees,\nan old man crossing the downs wondered who that handsome youth and\nlovely maid were making their way with locked hands and steadfast\nfaces towards the sunset. But he never knew.\n\n\nFrom that day onwards the little White Hare was never again seen in\nthe old beautiful orchard, and nobody ever knew what had become of\nWilliam John.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nNOTES\n\n\n[1] Tiny.\n\n[2] Spriggan, a low kind of fairy.\n\n[3] Brown, withered like a twig.\n\n[4] Hager is Celtic-Cornish for cruel, foul, ugly, etc.\n\n[5] A Tolmen, or Holed Stone, is one of the antiquities of Cornwall,\nand many superstitions have been connected with it, such as passing\nweakly children through its hole, in the belief they will get stronger.\n\n[6] Saddest.\n\n[7] Yesterday.\n\n[8] Icicle.\n\n[9] To stare hard.\n\n[10] A stone or metal instrument found in tin-mines, and in barrows\nof the ancient Celts.\n\n[11] Gymnadenia conopaea.\n\n[12] Pronounced Kenidjack.\n\n[13] Fairies.\n\n[14] Ridge-tiles with knobs, which people in West Cornwall put on\ntheir houses for the Piskeys to dance on.\n\n[15] Sad.\n\n[16] An iron stool.\n\n[17] A coaxing expression, such as 'Do ee dear.'\n\n[18] Mudgeskerry, or skerrymudge, anything grotesque in human shape,\nsuch as a doll.\n\n[19] Dinky, very small.\n\n[20] Skavarnak, long-eared; also a hare.\n\n[21] Pednpaley, a blue-tit; also anything very soft and beautiful,\nsuch as velvet. Literally, a soft-head. The 'd' in this word is silent.\n\n[22] Child.\n\n[23] Miners' pasties.\n\n[24] Back-kitchen.\n\n[25] A very short person.\n\n[26] Lonely.\n\n[27] One who runs very fast.\n\n[28] Disused mines.\n\n[29] Heath.\n\n[30] A hare.\n\n[31] A note of exclamation.\n\n[32] Little child.\n\n[33] Heath.\n\n[34] A fairy's baby.\n\n[35] Very large.\n\n[36] Once upon a time the Cornish believed that his Dark Majesty\nwas afraid to come into the Cornish land for fear of being put into\na pasty.\n\n[37] Bread and cream sprinkled with treacle.\n\n[38] Legs.\n\n[39] A pasty made of herbs.\n\n[40] Scratch.\n\n[41] Weasel.\n\n[42] A hot oven that has been left to cool a little.\n\n[43] The song-thrush is called the grey-bird in Cornwall.\n\n[44] Their legs.\n\n[45] A very old man.\n\n[46] Games.\n\n[47] Sad.\n\n[48] Mushrooms.\n\n[49] A fairy.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<pre id=\"pg-footer\">","title":"The Piskey-Purse: Legends and Tales of North Cornwall","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":46991}