The Piskey Purse Part 3

'I wish I wasn't afraid of being out alone in the dark,' said the child, shuddering. 'I am a wisht coward when it is dark. So I'm afraid I shall never be brave enough to take 'ee to the Tolmen, though I want to, dreadful. But I'll never let the Spriggans have 'ee, dear,' she added, greatly distressed, as a groan terrible in its despair came out of the bag. 'Don't 'ee make so wisht a sound. It do make me sad to hear 'ee.'

'I can't help it,' said the wee voice, which was as full of tears as ever a voice could be. 'Not even love can keep me from the Spriggans after the moon is born. All power to resist them will be gone, and they can come into this cottage unseen by human eyes and take me away. They suspect where I am now, and are only afraid I have discovered a child who is not only no lover of money, but who is kind enough to take me to the Tolmen.'

'Whatever will 'ee do!' cried Gerna, tears welling to her eyes. 'I don't believe I shall be happy any more if I know those ghastly little Spriggans have 'ee.'

'I don't believe you would, you dear little maid.'

'I tell 'ee what,' cried the child, making a big resolve: 'I will take---- There! Great-Grannie is coming up the stairs. Good-night till to-morrow.'

The ancient dame was up with the sun the next day, and made Gerna and Gelert get up too, that no time might be lost in looking for the Piskey-purse. She would hardly give them time to eat their breakfast, so greedy was she to have the Small People's golden money.

As she was taking down her sunbonnet, she knocked over a heavy piece of wood, which fell on her big toe, and it hurt her so badly that, much to her vexation, she had to let the children go without her.

The tide was in when they got down to the bay, and so smooth and still was it that 'it couldn't wash up anything, even if it wanted to,'

said Gelert crossly.

He turned over all the seaweed at high-water mark, but saw nothing except sea-fleas.

When the tide was far enough down, Gerna went all over the beach with her brother; but as she had already found the lost purse, she picked up sh.e.l.ls instead.

'I don't b'lieve you want to find the Piskey-purse, Gerna Carnsew,'

growled Gelert, when he saw what she was doing. 'I don't b'lieve you want to have the Small People's golden pieces one little bit.'

'I didn't say I did,' cried Gerna, which made the boy so angry that he went off to the other side of the bar to look for the purse alone.

Gerna was stooping to pick up a sh.e.l.l, of which there were many on the sands to-day, when the little Brown Man came up to her, doffed his three-cornered hat, and grinned into her face.

'Have you found our lost purse yet?' he asked. 'The time for finding it is up the day after to-morrow.'

'Whatever do you mean, little mister?'

'What I say, and that your chance of being wealthy will be gone. Are you looking for the precious bag now?'

'My Great-Grannie sent me and Gelert down here to look for it,' said the child evasively. 'Gelert is over there looking,' again sending her glance across the bar, which was particularly beautiful to-day with reflected clouds.

'I know he is, and he seems much more anxious to find the purse than you are. Perhaps our offer, great as it was, is not sufficiently tempting. If it isn't'--looking keenly into the child's sweet face--'we will treble our reward. Three purses full of the Wee Folks' golden money will we give you if you bring us the bag. It will be more than enough to buy all the land in your parish, including your own dear little cottage, should it ever be sold.'

'Will it really?' cried Gerna, deeply impressed, and for the first time in her innocent young life the desire to be rich came into her unselfish little soul.

'Yes; and you will be a very great lady indeed,' said the small Dark Man, with an evil laugh, seeing he had gained a point--'greater even than Lady Sandys, who lives up at St. Minver Churchtown.'

He might have said many more things to entice the poor little maid's envy; but just then a great voice above their heads startled them, and, looking up, Gerna saw Farmer Vivian on the top of Tristram, a hill facing Pentire Glaze.

The Spriggan took to his heels at once, and there was a helter-skelter amongst all the Little Men, whom she had not seen on the sands until then, and one and all rushed into Piskey Goog, as if a regiment of soldiers were after them.

Gelert continued his search for the purse until the sea flowed in again, and Gerna sat on a rock picturing to herself what the Churchtown folk would say to her when she bought all the land in the parish, and became a person of even greater importance than Lady Sandys. As she was enjoying all this wealth in antic.i.p.ation, it suddenly rushed upon her at what price she would buy her riches--the happiness of a poor little helpless thing in a Spriggan's prison--and she felt so ashamed of herself that the desire for gold died within her, and such pity for her little friend came in its place that she was now quite determined to take the bag over the bog country to the moor where the Tolmen was, cost her what it might.

When the children came home, Great-Grannie was all eagerness to know if the purse were found, and when Gelert told her it was not, and that Gerna had been looking for sh.e.l.ls instead of the lost Piskey-purse, her anger knew no bounds, and she smacked the poor little maid, and once more sent her supperless to bed.

'I wish all the Spriggans' gold would be swallowed up in the sea,' said poor Gerna, as she went up to the little bed-chamber. 'Great-Grannie was never vexed with me before that d.i.n.ky Man wanted to make me rich with his golden pieces. 'Tis better to be poor an' contented, I reckon, than to be rich and be miserable.'

The ancient dame, finding her toe getting worse, followed her small great-granddaughter upstairs, and as she did not go down again that night, Gerna had no chance of speaking to the little prisoner. Nor had she the next morning, for she was kept so busy, what with bathing Great-Grannie's injured toe, and all the other odds and ends of things she had to do before going down to the bay, that she had not a minute to herself until bedtime.

The old woman, in her desire for gold, no longer considered the voracious appet.i.tes of her numerous ducks, and told the children that, as the finding of that lost purse was of such great importance, the limpet-picking must stand over until the purse was found.

Gelert was delighted to be relieved of an uncongenial task, and went off to search for the purse with a light heart; but Gerna, not wanting to go to the beach at all, begged to stay at home, which made Great-Grannie so cross that she said she was not to come back until she had found it.

Either the clock had gone wrong or the old woman's brain, for it was much later than she thought, and when the children got down to the bay the sea was rus.h.i.+ng up the sands at such a terrible speed that the time for searching was very short. It had surrounded the rocks where the limpets clung when they got there, and was almost up to Piskey Goog.

Gelert went to the other side of the bay at once, leaving Pentire side to Gerna. But as the little maid knew there was no other purse to find than the one she had found, she began again to pick up sh.e.l.ls. There were very lovely sh.e.l.ls on the sands to-day, all the colours of the rainbow--in fact, they looked as they lay in the eye of the sun as if they had fallen from the sky. As the child was stooping to pick them up, out of the cavern came a troop of little Brown Men, with the Wee Man who had always spoken to her at the head.

He made at once for the child.

'Picking up sh.e.l.ls again!' he cried, 'and all those purses of gold awaiting you there in the goog! Why, I am beginning to think you do not want to be rich. Do you?'

'I did issterday, [7] but I don't one little bit now,' said the child, turning her frank gaze full upon the little Dark Man's upturned face.

'What!' he cried, looking as black as a thundercloud, 'you don't mean to tell me that you are going to miss the great chance of having three purses full of the Wee Folks' golden money?'

'Iss, I do,' said the little maid. 'I don't want even one piece of your old golden money, little Mister Spriggan!'

If the cliff towering above them had tumbled down upon him the little Dark Man could not have looked more crushed. Then he scowled all over his face, shook his sc.r.a.p of a fist at her, and yelled:

'I know now that you found the purse we lost, and that the little voice within it--it is nothing more than a voice, remember--has bewitched you as it has others, and that it does not want you to be rich, happy, and great as we do. You will be sorry all your days you have lost your opportunity to be rich, and you will find you cannot even keep the thing which you have found.'

There was a heavy ground sea that day, and the waves were so huge that Gerna had to go farther up the beach out of their reach, and when she turned to see what the d.i.n.ky Men were doing, she saw them all slinking into Piskey Goog like whipped dogs.

Great-Grannie was in no better temper than she had been the previous day at her great-grand-children's failure; and when she asked if Gerna had been looking for the purse, and Gelert said 'No,' she was so vexed and cross, she not only thumped the child, but sent her upstairs to stay the rest of the day.

The poor little maid felt so miserable that she did not take out the purse and talk to the prisoner for ever so long; but when she did she told her all she had said to the wee Dark Man.

'Did you really say all that to his face--refuse his gold and call him a Spriggan?' cried the little voice in amazement.

'I did,' said Gerna; 'an' he did look terrible, sure 'nough.'

'I don't wonder! I am sure now you are brave enough to take me through the bog and over the moor to the Tolmen. Will you, dear little maid?'

'I want to, if I can,' said the child. 'But I don't know the way to the Tolmen. There is no Tolmen anywhere near here that I know of.'

'There is one, though n.o.body seems to know of it, away towards the sunrising, near where a great Tor rises up against the sky,' said the little voice quite cheerfully. 'I do not know the way to it myself, but there is a pair of Shoes which do, and they can take any person on whose feet they are over the worst bog that ever was.'

'What wonderful shoes!' cried Gerna. 'Where are they?'

'Farmer Vivian has them,' said the little prisoner, with something in her voice Gerna did not understand. 'They were given him by one of the Small People. The next time you go down to the beach and see him there, ask him for these shoes, and if they fit you I shall know for certain that you are the little maid who can save me.'

'Hus.h.!.+' whispered Gerna. 'Great-Gran is clopping up the stairs, an'

I must pop into bed afore she comes.'