North Cornwall Fairies and Legends Part 4

'It is the noise of water breaking on Padstow Doombar,' he said, as the little Piskey looked frightened.

'I thought it was Giant Tregeagle howling,' gasped the little Piskey.

'He hasn't tried to lift his sand-ropes yet, and he won't begin his howl of rage till he finds how brittle they are,' said the Little Bargeman.' And a very good thing for you,' he added; 'for he will be far too angry to tell you whether he has seen your laugh when the ropes of sand break in his great hand. There! we are close now to the great outer sea,' he cried, as the thunder of waves broke more loudly on their ears, and they saw the light of many stars through a narrow opening; and the next minute the little Barge came out into Trebetherick Bay.

'You only have to go up across the hillocks,' said the little old Bargeman, helping the little Piskey out of the barge, 'and if you follow your nose you will soon get to where the Giant is busy making sand-ropes.'

'Thank you for bringing me,' said the little Piskey; but he never knew whether he was heard or not, for the Tiny Bargeman and his ancient Barge vanished as he spoke.

The Piskey made haste to follow his nose, and he scrambled up a sand-bank, and hastened as fast as his feet could take him over the sandy common, till he came to the place where Giant Tregeagle was sitting making sand-ropes to bind his trusses of sand which lay all around him. He was sitting by a hillock, his great head showing just above it, when the Piskey came near.

The little Piskey climbed nearly to the top of the hillock, and when he got close to the Giant's ear he shouted:

'I am the little Piskey who told you he had lost his laugh. Please stop making sand-ropes for a minute and tell me if you have seen it.'

But the big Giant took no notice of the tiny voice, and went on making his ropes of sand.

The little Piskey then got into his ear and poked his red-capped head into the hollow of it, and again shouted:

'I am the little Piskey who told you he had lost his laugh, and----'

'Ah! the d.i.n.ky little fellow who tried to help me to find my soul,'

interrupted the great Giant, in a voice almost as loud as the waves breaking on the Padstow Doombar.

'Yes,' answered the Piskey, 'and a d.i.n.ky Little Bargeman brought me from Dozmare Pool to Trebetherick that you might answer my question.'

'I know who you mean--Merlin, the little old Master of Magic,' cried the Giant in evident astonishment, pausing in his work of making a rope of sand to stare at the little Piskey. 'Fancy his bringing a tiny brown fellow like you from Dozmare Pool to Trebetherick Bay in his Magic Barge! Pigs will fly and sing after this!'

'He saw me helping you to dip the pool dry, and said that one kind deed deserved another,' said the Piskey as meek as a harvest-mouse. 'So he brought me all the way down to St. Minver to know if you had seen my laugh. Have you seen it, Mister Giant?'

'No, I have not seen it,' answered the Giant. 'Nothing so cheerful as a Piskey's laugh would come near such a mountain of misery as I am; and if by an evil chance it did come, it would flee far from my dark shadow.'

'Do you know anyone else who has seen my laugh?' asked the little Piskey piteously.

'Not one; unless your cousins, the Night-riders, have,' answered the Giant, looking at the sand-ropes he had just finished, lying at his feet. 'I must now begin to bind my trusses of sand.'

He stooped to lift them as he spoke, and as he tried to take them up they fell to pieces in his hand. As they crumbled away his face was awful to see, and he began to howl and roar, and his cries of rage rang out over the sand-hills and over Trebetherick Bay, and were heard above the noise of waves breaking on the Padstow Doombar.

Those roars of rage and anger so frightened the people living in the villages in the neighbourhood of the common that they shook in their beds, and as for the little Piskey, he was so terrified by what he had heard and seen that he tumbled over the hillock up which he had climbed to get into the Giant's ear.

When he had picked himself up, Giant Tregeagle was flying away like an evil bird towards the south.

The dawn broke soon after the Giant had gone, and as Piskeys always hide by day, he hid himself under a clump of tamarisk, and stayed there till the dark and the stars came again. When he came out he remembered what the Giant had said--that perhaps his cousins, the Night-riders, had seen his laugh. The moon being several days older than when the kind little Lantern Man had taken him to Dozmare Pool, it was now s.h.i.+ning brightly over the common, and he knew if the Night-riders were in the neighbourhood of the sand-hills they would soon be riding over the common.

As he was gazing about with wistful eyes a young colt came galloping along with scores of little Night-riders astride his back, and as many more hanging on to his mane and tail.

The Night-riders, who were little people no bigger than Piskeys, and quite as mischievous, had taken the colt from a farmer's stable close to the common, and were enjoying their stolen ride as only Night-riders could.

As they and the colt drew near, the little Piskey stood out in the moons.h.i.+ne and shouted:

'Night-riders, Night-riders, please stop! I want to ask you something.'

But the little Night-riders were enjoying their gallop too much to listen or stop, and they flew by like the wind.

The colt was fresh, and galloped like mad, and soon went round the common and back again; and as he was galloping by, the Piskey once more shouted to the little Night-riders to stop, but they took no heed, and once more flew by like the wind.

Ever so many times the colt galloped round the sandy common, leaping over the hillocks in his mad gallop, and each time he pa.s.sed, the little Piskey stood out in the moons.h.i.+ne and called out, but the Night-riders took not the slightest notice, nor pulled up the colt to see what he wanted.

At last, when the Piskey had given up all hope of the Night-riders stopping, the colt, who was quite worn out with galloping so hard round and round the broken common, put his foot into a rabbit-hole and came down with a crash, with his many little riders on top of him.

One little Night-rider, who happened to be astride the colt's left ear, was pitched off at the Piskey's feet.

He looked as bright as a robin in his little red riding-coat, brown leggings, and his bright green cap with a wren's feather stuck in its front.

When he had picked himself up, he thrust his tiny brown hands into his breeches pocket, stared hard at the little Piskey, and cried:

'What wisht little beggar are you?'

'I am a poor little chap who has lost his laugh,' answered the Piskey. 'I shouted every time you galloped the colt past here to ask if you had seen it, but you never stopped.'

'Of course we did not stop galloping because a Piskey called,' said the little Night-rider. 'How came you to be such a gawk as to lose your laugh?'

'I have no idea,' the Piskey returned. 'I only know it went away all of a sudden, and I have been searching for it ever since. Have you seen my little lost laugh?'

'No; but Granfer Night-rider may have,' answered the little Night-rider. 'He has wonderful eyes for seeing things that are lost.'

'Is Granfer Night-rider here?' asked the Piskey, sending his glance in the direction of the colt, which was almost smothered with Night-riders, some standing on his side as he lay, others still in the stirrups they had made in his tail and mane.

'He was on top of the colt's tail a minute ago,' answered the little Night-rider, following the Piskey's glance. 'There he is,' pointing to a tiny old fellow with a bushy grey beard coming towards them, carrying a tamarisk switch in his hand, with which he lashed the air as he came. He wore a red riding-coat, green breeches, red cap and feather like the other little Night-riders.

'What woebegone little rascal are you?' asked the old Greybeard, staring hard at the Piskey.

'A Piskey who has lost his laugh,' answered the little Night-rider for him, 'and he had the impertinence to want us to stop galloping to tell him if we had seen it.'

'You were very foolish to lose your laugh,' said Granfer Night-rider, standing in front of the unhappy little Piskey. 'How did you manage to lose it?'

And the poor little fellow, without lifting his eyes from the sandy ground, told him.

'You are in Queer Lane, my son,' said Granfer Night-rider, when he had told him how he had lost his laugh, 'and I would not give a grain of corn for you.'

'Wouldn't you?' wailed the poor little Piskey.

'No, I wouldn't, nor half a grain either.'

Quite a crowd of scarlet-coated little Night-riders had gathered near the Piskey by this time, and had listened to all that was said, and one little Night-rider asked if a Piskey had ever had the misfortune to lose his laugh before.

'Yes, once in the long ago,' answered the old Greybeard, fixing his eye on the little Piskey, who trembled beneath his gaze, 'and what was worse still, he never found it again. And so very unhappy was that little fellow without his laugh, and so miserable did he make everybody with his bewailings, that at last the Piskey tribe to which he belonged sent out a command that whoever found him wandering about the country was to take him in charge as a Piskey vagrant, put him into a Piskey-bag, and hang him upside down like a widdy-mouse in the first cavern they came to. He was found, put into a Piskey-bag, and hung up in a cavern. There he is still, and there he will hang till there are no more Small People!'