The Piskey Purse Part 6

'No,' returned the wondering child. 'Who is he?'

'My own little True Love!' answered the fairy, her eyes a blue light. 'We are meeting each other after a century of black years. He was my True Love all the time in the form of big Farmer Vivian! For love of poor little me he kept in the neighbourhood of Piskey Goog all that time.'

It was all so surprising that Gerna told herself she would never be surprised any more whatever happened. And when the two Wee Lovers, separated by cruel Fate for one hundred years, met and greeted each other in lover fashion, all over the great moor broke the sound of pealing bells, so tiny and so silvery and with such music in their tones the like of which Gerna had never in all her life heard before. And where the bells were rung from she never knew, for there were no steeples or towers anywhere that she could see. As the bells' music rang on, and all the little moorland birds sang more entrancingly than before, she saw hundreds and hundreds of the Small People, all more or less beautiful, come out from behind clumps of Bog-myrtle, and banks of thyme, and beds of sweet-scented orchis, [11] all laughing and singing as they came towards the Tolmen, where the dear Little Lady and her True Love were standing hand in hand, smiling and bowing and looking as happy as ever they could look.

The little prisoner, who was now a prisoner no longer, seemed to be a very great personage indeed, the child thought, judging by the way the Wee Men took off their caps and bowed to her, and the little ladies made their curtseys; and in truth she was a real Princess, the eldest daughter of the King and Queen of the Good Little People, as Gerna was soon to learn.

There was great rejoicing when the Wee Folk heard how their Princess Royal had been set free, and how much Gerna had done towards it. They could not make enough of her, or do enough for her. They kissed her hands, as if she too were a Royal Princess, instead of being only a poor little Cornish peasant girl! They brought her fairy mead--metheglin they called it--in cups so small yet so exquisite ('like Cornish diamonds, only more lovely,' Gerna said), and gave her food to eat from dishes all iris-hued like the sh.e.l.ls that she had picked up on the sands in her own bay, only the Small People's dishes were much thinner and more transparent than any sh.e.l.ls she had ever seen.

She was never 'treated so handsome before,' she told herself--scores and scores of dear wee creatures to wait on her and to give her more when she wanted!

When she could not eat 'a morsel more,' nor drink another cup of the all-sweet mead, her own Little Lady and her True Love, who had been sitting close to her all this time on a bed of yellow trefoil, rose up and took her through a rock-door behind the Tolmen and down into a most beautiful place--much more beautiful than she could ever have pictured in her wildest dreams.

It was the country where the Good Little People lived, 'Farmer Vivian' told her. She saw so much that she could take in nothing until they came to the King's Palace, which was the most beautiful palace in fairyland. Here she was taken into room after room--each more beautiful than the last--until she came to a place called the 'Room of the Chair,' which was full of soft voices, fragrant smells, and sweet music. This room was open to the blue dome of the sky, and away at the end of it, on a Chair, sat two Wee People with eyes the colour of her dear Little Lady's. They were not different from the other Small People surrounding the Chair, save that they had 'things on their heads,' as Gerna expressed it (which, of course, were crowns), that shone like the blue of the sea when the sun shines on it, and that they looked even more gracious and more gentle and kind than did her own Little Dear.

When the King and Queen of the Good Little People had lovingly welcomed back their long-lost daughter, and complimented their child's betrothed--who was also a very great personage in the Small People's Kingdom--for his constancy and fidelity to their dear daughter, Gerna, in her print sunbonnet and sun-faded tinker-blue frock, was introduced to their gracious Majesties as the dear little Cornish maid who preferred to be kind rather than be made rich with the Small People's gold.

Pages could be filled with what the King and Queen said to the child, who never felt so uncomfortable in her life as when they thanked her and praised her for all she had done.

'I haven't done nothing much--nothing worth a thank'ee, I mean,'

she kept saying.

'Thou hast done more than thou wilt ever know,' said his tiny Majesty solemnly, 'and we feel we can never repay thee. We could, of course, reward thee with more gold than the Spriggans offered, but we are glad to know thou would'st not value it if we gave it thee. But as we are anxious to show we are not ungrateful, we will give thee the greatest of all gifts--the eye to see all that is good and beautiful in human hearts, and the power to bring it out, which alone will make thee greatly beloved. We will also teach thee to love the lowly gra.s.s as we ourselves love it, and the humble herbs, and all the gentle flowers, which make all the common roadways, moors and downs, so fragrant and beautiful. We will reveal to thee all their charms, virtues, and healing properties, so that Gerna, the maid of Polzeath, may be a blessing to her parish. And, moreover, the Good Small People shall love thee as they have never loved a human being before--not only for the sake of our beloved child, the Princess Royal of all the Good Little People, but because thou art kind and good and could not be induced to do an unkind deed even for a purseful of the Spriggans gold.'

Gerna had but dim recollections of what followed afterwards: she only knew she was led in great state by 'd.i.n.ky Farmer Vivian' on the one side, and her Wee Lady on the other, down a long lane of bowing and curtseying Little Grandees, until she came out into gardens ablaze with flowers. She was then taken through parks, where teeny, tiny deer and cows were grazing, on and on until they came to a tiny door in a cliff, when she felt the soft pressure of kisses on her face and heard the sweet wee voice she knew so well whispering in her ear, 'Good-bye, dear little maid, until we meet again--which shall be soon!' and the next moment she found herself back in Great-Grannie's poor little chamber in her own small bed, and Great-Grannie herself telling her to get up and go down to the bay 'to once' to pick limpets for the ducklings, which were nearly quacking the house down for want of their breakfast.

Gerna wondered as she dressed if all that had taken place that night was a dream, and she searched for the ring-marked Piskey-purse to be quite sure it wasn't. As it was nowhere to be found, nor the wee Shoes, nor the d.i.n.ky Lantern, she came to the conclusion that it must be true.

In pa.s.sing Piskey Goog on her way back from her limpet-picking, she saw a wee Brown Man with a laugh all over his merry little face, which made it delightful to look at. He took off his cap as polite as could be, and spoke to the child with the greatest respect.

'I am a real Piskey,' he said, introducing himself, 'and Farmer Vivian told me it would interest you to know that the Spriggans who lived in this goog were taken prisoners soon after their captive was set free, and that they were at once taken before the Gorsedd (the Little People's judgment-seat), and were tried and condemned to break iron with wooden hammers in a dark cave until they repent, which I am afraid they never will, for they are past all good feeling, poor things, and will gradually grow smaller and smaller until they turn into emmets, as all evil-minded fairies in the Small People's country do.'

'Aw dear! What a terrible punishment!' exclaimed Gerna.

'I must go back into our cavern,' said the Piskey. 'It was always ours until the Spriggans turned us out about a year ago. They can never turn us out any more now, our King says, thanks to a little Cornish maid, who would rather be good than be rich. We are ordered to play no pranks on the people of this parish for her sake, even if they don't turn their coats or stockings inside out, nor to ride any horses in the happy night-time, except the horses of those who have an inordinate love of money.'

And the Little Man, who was a real Piskey, went off laughing and disappeared into Piskey Goog.

Years pa.s.sed on. Great-Grannie died, and Gerna grew into womanhood. She was the best-loved person in St. Minver parish, as the King of the Good Little People said she would be. Everybody loved her dearly; they loved her because she saw the good that was in their hearts, and was not slow to tell them of it, and because of her good opinion of them, which although they did not always deserve, they tried their hardest to live up to. They came to her with their heart-wounds as well as the wounds of their bodies, and she, who had the gift of healing with the herbs and flowers of the earth, somehow knew how to salve the sores of the heart too.

Gerna never grew rich, and never wanted to, and as she would not take a penny piece or anything greater, she had always plenty of patients. People came to her from far as well as near, and brought, not only themselves, but their poor suffering animals. If the truth be told, she had a deeper compa.s.sion for the dumb beasts, who could not tell out their sorrows, than she had for their masters, which is saying a great deal, and she always applied her most soothing and healing ointments to their bodies.

It was said that Gerna often saw her Little Lady and her True Love, and that the dear Wee Folk flocked to see her when the moon was up; that they were most kind to her, and even brought her herbs and flowers, wet with fairy dew, for her simples, and helped her to make eye-salves and other healing things, which the poor people declared 'made them such a power for good.'

It was also told that the merry little Piskey Men danced on the top of Pentire Glaze cliffs for her special amus.e.m.e.nt, and that when they knew she was watching them, their laughter rang out clear as bells across the Polzeath beach of grey, gold sand.

THE MAGIC PAIL

On a lonely moor lying between Carn Kenidzhek [12] and Bosvavas Carn lived one Tom Trebisken and Joan his wife. They had been married up in the teens of years, and had no child, which was a disappointment to them both, especially to Joan, who suffered from rheumatism, which had crippled her feet.

Tom had long given up all hope of having a child, but Joan still believed that one would come to them some day, and it cheered her dreary hours, as she sat helpless in her armchair, to think of the advent of the little one, who would gladden their life. Every six days in seven she spent absolutely alone, for Tom worked as surface-man all the year round at Ding Dong, a great tin-mine, or bal, at the other end of their moor, and had to leave for his work early in the morning, and did not return until late in the evening; so it was not surprising that she wanted a child, and that she sometimes cried in her heart: 'Aw that I had a little maid of my own to do things for me an' keep me company when my Tom is away all day at the bal!'

The part of the moor where the Trebiskens lived was three miles or more from Ding Dong, and two miles from their nearest neighbour. It was quite out of the beaten track, and a pa.s.ser by their cottage was as rare as blackberries in December. They would not have lived there at all, but that the cottage was their own--or, rather, Joan's. It had been left to her by will, with the condition that they should live in it themselves.

The cottage was not an ordinary one; its walls were built of small blocks of mica and porphyry--much of the porphyry being of that lovely deep-pink kind, with blotchings of black hornblende, all of which a long century or more of weather had polished to the smoothness of gla.s.s. Joan said the weather had nothing whatever to do with it, and that it was done by the dear Little People [13] who, she declared, lived in the carn near where the cottage stood. But whoever polished the walls--weather or fairies--the house was a pleasure to look at, particularly when the sun began to sink behind the moors and shone full upon its walls; for then all the richness of the porphyry's rose, all the hornblende's soft blackness, and all the mica's brilliancy, were brought out of the stone, and intensified until a less imaginative person than Joan Trebisken would have believed it was built by enchantment. Even its commonplace roof of brown thatch, which overspread the small cas.e.m.e.nt windows in s.h.a.ggy raggedness, did not take from the burning wonder of the walls. Perhaps it was because a company of stone-crop had found a dwelling-place there, and that on the ridge of the roof stood out in red distinctness half a dozen Pysgy-pows [14]--curious little round-k.n.o.bbed tiles placed there by Joan's forebears for the Piskeys to dance on.

Joan, poor soul, seldom saw the outside splendour of their cottage, as she was powerless to move from her chair without help, and when her Tom came home, his face was the only thing she wanted to see, she said. Fortunately, however, her doors and windows opened on to the moor, and she could therefore command from where she sat a long stretch of moorland, which, though wild, was none the less beautiful at every season of the year, but especially in the springtime, when the yellow broom and golden gorse were in flower.

In spite of its loneliness, Joan loved the moor with all her Celtic nature, and spent most of her day looking out upon it until the days shortened and Nisdhu, the Black Month, which the Cornish of our time call November, drew near.

n.o.body dreaded that dark month, with its damp clinging cold, its fogs and mists, which often veiled the whole landscape, including the great carns, more than Joan. She said she felt the chill of its breath before it showed its nose over the head of Carn Kenidzhek, and was careful to shut her door and hatch and her small cas.e.m.e.nt-windows before October was half through. She was sorry to do this, and would not have done so but for the pain in her bones, which was always worse when November was on its way; for she shut out, she said, the music of the Small People's voices.

Tom told her it wasn't the voices of the Wee Folk she heard, but the trickling of a little stream making its way down by the carn on its way across the moor. But she declared she knew better, and had ears to distinguish between the tinkle of water and the sweet voices of the dear Little People, if he had not, and Tom, like a sensible man, let her hold to her belief.

Joan was a great believer in the fairies, and often declared they were very friendly towards her--perhaps because her forebears had put the pysgy-pows on the roof of their cottage for them to dance on. It was her regret that she had never seen any of the dear little creatures; but she lived in hope of seeing them some day; perhaps when the much-cried-for little maid came she should see them then, she said.

It was now towards the end of October and exceedingly cold, and her door and window being shut, she felt very wisht; [15] and as the days jogged on to dreary November she became terribly depressed, so much so that Tom dreaded to leave her sitting all alone by the chimney-corner with a face as long as a fiddle.

He was one of the kindest husbands in the world, and never went to his work without doing all that lay in his power to make her comfortable while he was away. She was generally very appreciative and grateful for all he did for her; but to-day--the day on which something happened to alter the whole circ.u.mstances of her life--she grumbled at everything he did, even when he piled dry peat and furze within her reach, filled the kettle and put it on the brandis, [16]

and placed her dinner on a small table by her side. She would not even look at him, or say good-bye, when at last he had to go off to the mine in the dark of the autumnal morning, which made her feel more sad than ever when he was out of her sight.

A fog of depression hung over her spirits all that long day, and the weather, as if to share her gloom, was foggy too. She could not see a yard beyond her window most of the day; and when the mist did lift for a little while, it took such fantastic forms she was glad when it again hung down like a curtain.

When the hour for Tom's return at last drew near she grew more cheerful. She put on the last of the furze he had placed within reach of her hand, partly to boil the kettle and to light him down the road leading to their cottage, but chiefly to make her kitchen cheery-looking to make up for his cold send-off.

She was on the watch now for his step, and her face grew brighter as she listened. The kettle was crooning on the fire and everything was warm in cheerful welcome as a step was heard on the hard road outside, and a hand fumbled at the door-latch.

Joan, being all impatience to see her man, cried out:

'What are 'ee so stupid about, an? Give the door a shove, soas! [17]

'Tis sticked by the damp.'

She had scarcely said this when the door and its hatch opened gently, and in the doorway stood--not her husband, as she supposed, but the bent figure of a tiny old woman with a small costan, or bramble-basket, on her back. Her slight form was enveloped in a cloak the colour of far-away hills, and her face hidden in the depths of a large bonnet, such as the mine-maidens wear at their work in the mines.

Joan was too amazed to see a stranger at her door to ask what she wanted, and before she could get over her surprise, the little old woman had come into the cottage, stepped noiselessly to the hearthplace, unslung the costan, and laid it at her feet, singing as she did so a curious rhyme in a voice so wild and sweet, it reminded Joan, as she listened, which she did as one in a dream, of moor-birds'

music and rippling streams, and the voices of the Small People who lived among the carns. The rhyme was as follows:

'I bring thee and leave thee my little mudgeskerry! [18]