Part 2

When she had gone, the little Piskey turned his face towards the east, where the Tors rose up dark and shadowy against the moonlit sky. Then he looked back at the great keep, and turned his glance on the Castle Gardens, where, in the long ago, courtly knights and great ladies walked among the flowers that blossomed there under the shadow of the loopholed walls, and listened, as they walked, to the music of the Tintagel sea and the great waves that sometimes broke against the dark cliffs of the headland on which the grim old castle stood, where Good King Arthur was born.

The little Piskey was saying good-bye to that delightful spot, with its soft turf and the beautiful Piskey-ring on which he had danced times without number; for the poor, lonely little fellow did not know if he should ever come back again. Then he broke off a bit of a knapweed stem for a staff to help him on his journey to Rough Tor Marsh, [2] and before the moon had laid down a lane of silver fire on the rippling waters between Tintagel Head and Trevose, the little Piskey had set out on his travels in search of his laugh.

Piskeys always travel by night, and after many nights of wandering, the little Piskey who had lost his laugh came to the bog country, where he had last seen the little Lantern.

Very tired and footsore was that poor little Piskey after his long journey, for, having lost his laugh, he had no dance in his feet to help him along, and he felt so done up as he sat by the great bog, or Piskey-bed, as he called it, that he did not much care whether he found his laugh or not. But when he had rested awhile he felt better, and looked over the great marshy place with eager eyes, to see if the little Lantern Man was anywhere about. To his delight he was; for far away in the distance he saw the white gleam of his Lantern.

He kept his eyes upon the light, and by-and-by, when the Lantern came rocking over the bog in his direction, he stood up on the edge of the water ready to call. It disappeared ever so many times among the bog-myrtles and willows, but every time it reappeared it was closer. When it came near enough for him to see the little Lantern Man inside, he shouted:

'Little Man in the Lantern, please stop: I want to ask you something.' But whether the Lantern Man heard or not, he did not stop, and he and his Lantern flipped by the disappointed little Piskey as quickly as a widdy-mouse [3] on the wing, and was lost to sight in the reeds and rushes on the other side of the great marsh.

After a while the little Lantern Man came back to the place where the Piskey was still standing, and the light from the Lantern was brighter and softer than a hedge full of glow-worm lights shining all at once.

As the Lantern was passing the little Piskey, he called out louder than before, 'Little Man in the Lantern, please stop; I want to ask you something.' But the little Lantern Man did not stop, and he and his Lantern rushed by as quickly as before, and the poor little Piskey followed the rocking Lantern with his eyes over the great marsh.

Just as he was in despair of the wonderful little Lantern coming his way again, it came, and so fast did it come, and so afraid was he of its passing him without making himself heard, that he shouted with all his might, 'Please, little Lantern Man, stop; I want to ask you something.' And to his joy the little Lantern Man stopped. The door of the little Lantern opened wide, and a tiny, shining face looked out.

'Did anybody call?' asked the little Lantern Man in a voice so kind that the Piskey's little heart leaped for joy.

'Yes, I called,' said the little Piskey. 'I called twice before, but you did not stop.'

'I never heard you call till now,' said the little Lantern Man. 'Who are you, and what do you want?'

'I am an unfortunate little Piskey who has lost his laugh,' answered the Piskey, 'and I have tramped all the way from Tintagel Head to Rough Tor Marsh to ask if you have seen it.'

'Lost your laugh, you poor little chap!' ejaculated the little Lantern Man in the same kind voice. 'How came you to lose it?'

The little Piskey told him how he had lost his laugh, and what Granfer Piskey had said, and how the mole who called herself the Lady Want had told him to come to him.

'I would gladly help you to find your laugh if I knew where it was,' said the Lantern Man when the Piskey had told him all; 'but, unfortunately, I have never seen it.'

'Haven't you?' cried the poor little Piskey. 'I am disappointed. As you are always travelling about the country in your little Lantern, I felt sure you had seen my laugh.'

'I only travel in marshy ground,' said the little Lantern Man, still standing in the doorway of his tiny Lantern; 'and your laugh may not have passed along my way.'

'Do you happen to know anybody else who has seen my laugh?' asked the little Piskey anxiously.

'Nobody except Giant Tregeagle, of whom I dare say you have heard--that unhappy fellow who for some terrible wrong-doing has to dip Dozmare [4] Pool dry with a limpet-shell.'

'Yes, I have heard about that great Giant from Granfer Piskey,' answered the little Piskey. 'He was a wicked seigneur who once had a fine house at Dozmare Pool and a great park on Bodmin Moors, and he is often flying about the country with the Wicked One at his heels.'

'The very same,' cried the little Lantern Man. 'He travels from east to west, and from west to south, and back again. He will be sure to have seen your laugh.'

'I am afraid my laugh is too small for a great big giant to have noticed, even if it passed him,' said the little Piskey.

'He isn't so big but what he can see a laugh,' said the little Lantern Man. 'You had better go and ask him.'

'I don't know where he is,' said the little Piskey, who was in a most dejected frame of mind.

'He is at Dozmare Pool--or was not long since, doing his best to dip the big pool dry.'

'I am rather tired after tramping here from Tintagel,' said the little fellow, 'and I don't feel like going all the way to Dozmare Pool. I have no spring in my legs since my laugh left me,' he added, as the little Lantern Man smiled rather sadly. 'I never knew what it was to be tired and wisht before I lost my laugh.'

'I don't suppose you did, you poor little chap!' cried the little Lantern Man, 'and you must do all you can to find your laugh. I am going to Dozmare Pool, or the Magic Lake, as it was called in the long ago; and if you don't mind travelling in my Lantern, I'll give you a lift as far as that.'

'Will you?' exclaimed the little Piskey, his tiny brown face brightening as the Lantern Man smiled. 'You are very kind, and I will go with you gladly.'

'That's right!' cried the little Lantern Man; and he held out his hand, which shone like his face, and helped the little brown Piskey into his Lantern.

When the Piskey was safe inside the Lantern, he thought it was the very brightest place he was ever in--'even brighter than a fairy's palace,' he said.

'There is no seat in my Lantern except the floor,' said the little Lantern Man, as the Piskey looked about him. 'The floor is not uncomfortable, if you care to sit down. I always sleep on it when my night work of giving light to the poor things that live in the marshes is done.'

'I would rather stand, thank you.' returned the Piskey. 'I can look out of your windows better.'

'Do as you like, only it is my duty to tell you that you would be safer on the floor. My Lantern and I travel so fast that the creatures that fly by night often knock up against us and turn us upside down.'

The little Lantern Man shut the door of his Lantern as he was speaking, and in another minute they were rushing over Rough Tor Marsh at a fearful speed, and the little Piskey had to hold on to the frame of one of the tiny windows to keep himself on his feet. By Rough Tor's granite-piled heights the bright little Lantern went. On by Bronwilli (Brown Willy) it sped, and by many a solitary hill, almost as wild and untamed as old Rough Tor itself. Over lonely moors, bogs, rivers, and streams, it flew, and rocked and whirled as it went. As it sped on it bumped against all manner of strange creatures, and once a night-hawk [5] turned the little Lantern upside down, and the Piskey found himself standing on his head with his tiny lean legs sticking up in the air; and he looked so funny that the little Lantern Man laughed till the tears ran down his shining face, and if the Piskey had had his laugh he would have laughed too!

On and on the Lantern rushed, zigzagging up and down, down and up, and as it went strange moths and queer things that go about only by night fluttered their wings against its bright windows and door. Once a widdy-mouse, with a face like a cat, looked in, and then vanished into the darkness; and once a short-eared owl gripped the Lantern in his talons, but it sped on all the same.

About an hour after midnight the Lantern reached Dozmare Pool, which lies on the top of a great lonely moor surrounded by desolate hills. The moon was only a few days old, and had set long before the sun had gone down; but it was by no means dark by the big pool, for there was starshine from innumerable stars, and also the light that fell from the wonderful little Lantern.

The little Lantern Man stopped his Lantern on a boulder by the pool, where was stretched a huge dark form, almost as big as a headland. It was Giant Tregeagle, lying face down on the margin of the pool, dipping water with a limpet-shell which had a hole in it.

The little Lantern Man opened the door of his Lantern, and telling the little Piskey that now was his chance to ask the Giant about his laugh, he helped him out.

'Shout into his ear till he hears you,' he whispered, hanging out of his door, 'and don't despair if he does not hear you just at first.'

The Piskey stepped up quite close to the great Giant, and he looked so tiny beside him that the little Lantern Man laughed, and said he was like a God's little cow [6] by the side of a plough-horse. 'Why,' he said, 'his ear alone would make a dozen little chaps like you and me. Now I must be off and give light to the poor things that want light. Good luck to you, my friend, in finding your laugh;' and the little Lantern Man closed the door of his Lantern, which sped away over the big pool, shedding light as it went.

The Piskey watched the Lantern till it was hidden among the reeds and rushes, and then he turned his face to the Giant's ear, and when he had climbed up into it, he shouted:

'Giant Tregeagle, Giant Tregeagle, I am a poor little Piskey who has lost his laugh. Please stop dipping water for a minute, and tell me if you have seen it.'

But the Giant took no notice of the little Piskey, and went on dipping out water with a limpet-shell that had a hole in it.

Again and again the tiny brown Piskey shouted into the Giant's ear, but the big Giant took no more notice of his little piping voice than if a fly had buzzed close to his ear, and went on dipping.

Once more the Piskey shouted with all the voice he had, thrusting his red-capped head into the hollow of the Giant's ear as he shouted:

'Giant Tregeagle, Giant Tregeagle, I am a poor little Piskey who has lost his laugh. Please stop dipping water for a minute, and tell me if you have seen it.'

This time the Giant heard, and without pausing for a moment his hopeless task of emptying the pool dry, he said:

'What tiny squeak did I hear?'

The Piskey was too frightened to answer, for Giant Tregeagle's voice was almost as loud as the roar of breakers breaking in the cavern under King Arthur's Castle, and the tiny fellow crouched down in the curl of the Giant's ear.

'What tiny squeak did I hear?' again asked the Giant; and the little Piskey, taking his courage in both his hands, answered back as loud as he could:

'It was a little Piskey who spoke to you--a little Piskey who has had the great misfortune to lose his laugh.'

'A little Piskey has lost his laugh, has he?' roared Giant Tregeagle. 'Why, that's nothing compared to a Giant who has lost his soul!'

'Have you lost your soul?' cried the little Piskey, who, having got the Giant's ear, could now make his tiny voice distinctly heard.

'Yes, I have lost my soul,' moaned the great fellow, and his moan shivered over the surface of Dozmare Pool, and made all the sallows that grew beside it shiver and shake as if a blasting wind had passed over them; and the reeds and rushes growing in the water sighed so sadly that the little Piskey felt ever so wisht, and sighed too.

'How did you come to lose your soul, Mister Giant?' asked the little Piskey after a while.

'That's a question,' answered the Giant, beginning again his hopeless task of emptying the pool.

'Have you never looked for your soul?' queried the tiny fellow who, having lost his laugh, felt very sorry for the unhappy Giant who had lost so precious a thing as his soul.

'It was no good to look for my soul when I gave it away in exchange for wealth,' cried the Giant; 'I can never get it back again unless I empty this big pool of every drop of water that is in it.'

'And can't you do that, and you a giant?' asked the little Piskey in surprise.

'I am afraid I can't with a limpet-shell that has a hole in it; and I am not allowed to use any other.'

'Will you let me help you to empty the pool?' asked the tiny Piskey. 'I am only a little bit of a chap compared with you, I know--a God's little cow by the side of a plough-horse, the Man in the Lantern said,' as the Giant laughed sardonically; 'and my dinky hand is nothing for size, but it hasn't a hole in it.'

'You can help me if you like,' said the Giant with another sardonic laugh. 'It will be perhaps another case of a mouse freeing the lion!'

'Who knows?' cried the Piskey, who took the Giant's remark quite seriously; and climbing out of the huge ear, he slid down over the boulder to the pool, and making a dipper of his tiny hand, began to dip out water as fast as he could, and never stopped dipping once till a movement behind him made him pause, and, looking up, he saw the great big Giant on his feet towering above him like a tor, with an awful look of rage on his face.

'I can never, never, empty Dozmare Pool with a limpet-shell that has a hole in it,' howled the Giant--'no, not if I dip till the Day of Doom;' and he flung the shell into the big pool. As he flung it a great blast of rage broke from him and lashed the dark water of the big pool in fury. He howled and howled, and his howls were heard in every part of the lonely waste surrounding the pool, and went roaring round and round the far-stretching moors, and were echoed by the desolate hills. By-and-by the Giant turned his back on the pool and strode away in the direction of the sea, howling and roaring as he went.

The little Piskey was so terrified by the Giant's roaring that he crept into a water-rat's hole, and never ventured out for a night and a day.

The second night after the Giant had gone he came out of the hole to see if he had returned, but he had not. He was disappointed in spite of the fright he had received, for the Giant had never told him whether he had seen his laugh, and he did not know where to go in search of it, or whom to ask if it had been seen.

As he thought about this, he became very miserable--almost as miserable as the unhappy Giant who had sold his soul, and he wished with all his heart that the kind little Man in the Lantern would come his way again. As he was wishing this he looked over the big pool, which was very dark and unlit by single star, when something very soft and bright smote the black water on the opposite side of the pool.

Thinking it was the dear little Man in his Lantern come in answer to his wish, he fixed his gaze upon the brightness, and in a minute or two a little Barge shot out from the reeds and came swiftly towards him, and he saw (for the Piskeys can see in the dark like a cat) that the Barge was being rowed across the big pool by a little old man. The soft light that smote the water came from the prow of the little craft and lit up the face of the Bargeman, which was half turned towards the Piskey, and was very seared and brown.

When the Barge came near the spot where the Piskey was standing, the Tiny Bargeman said:

'Who are you, looking as if you had the world on your back? and what are you doing here this time of night, when all good folk ought to be in bed?'

'I am a poor unfortunate Piskey who has lost his laugh,' answered the tiny little Piskey, and his voice was very sad.

'It is a dreadful thing to lose your laugh,' said the little old Bargeman.

'It is,' responded the little Piskey. 'The little Man in the Lantern thought so too, and he brought me all the way from Rough Tor Marsh to Dozmare Pool in his Lantern to ask Giant Tregeagle if he had seen it.'

'And didn't you ask Giant Tregeagle that important question after the little Lantern Man had brought you so far?' asked the little Bargeman.

'I did, but he was so troubled about something he had lost--his soul it was--that he forgot to say whether he had seen my laugh.'

'That is a pity, for the Giant is now on St. Minver sand-hills making trusses of sand and sand-ropes to bind them with, and when the sand-ropes break in his hand--which they are sure to do when he tries to lift them--he will fly away to Loe Bar [7] to work at another impossible task.'

'How do you know that?' asked the little Piskey.

The Tiny Bargeman looked at the green-coated, red-capped little Piskey with a strange expression in his dark eyes for a second or two, and then he said:

'I have lived so long in the world that I know most things. People who knew me in a far-away time called me Merlin the Magician, and said I had all the secrets of the world in the back of my head.'

'Then you will be able to tell me where my laugh has gone to?' struck in the little Piskey eagerly.

'I was speaking more of the past than of the present,' said the Tiny Bargeman. 'Since the time of which I spoke, I have lived here by this lake, now called Dozmare Pool. I lived sealed up in a stone, into which the Lady of the Lake shut me till a hundred years or so ago.'

'How very unkind of the Lady to put you into a stone!' said the little Piskey indignantly. 'Whatever did she do it for?'

'Thereby hangs a tale which is not good for a small Piskey like you to hear,' returned the Tiny Bargeman, with another strange look in his dark, mysterious little eyes. 'When Nimue, the Lady of the Lake, shut me up in the stone--like a toad in a hole she said--she thought she had done for me, and that I should soon die. But Merlin, the man who worked magic, was not so easily got rid of.'

'And didn't you die?' asked the Piskey innocently.

'You must have lost your wits, as well as your laugh, to ask such a stupid question,' said the Tiny Bargeman. 'I did not die, or I should not be sitting in this Barge now. But I grew down to the tiny old fellow you now see me through working my way out of that dreadful stone. My magical powers have also dwindled, I fear; for they are as nothing to what they once were. Therefore I am no longer Merlin the Magician, but only Merlin the Bargeman of Dozmare Pool.'

'And can't you tell me where my laugh is?' asked the little Piskey wistfully. 'I am a miserable, poor thing without my laugh.'

'I'm sure you are,' said the Tiny Bargeman, 'and I'll do what I can to help you to find it. I wasn't shut up in a stone all those centuries for nothing, as, perhaps, you have not lost your laugh for nothing. I'll tell you at once that your laugh has never been near this desolate spot, but it is possible that Giant Tregeagle may have seen it on his wild flight down to St. Minver sand-hills, or maybe he has seen it on the golden dunes. I advise you to go there and ask him.'

'How can I get to the sand-hills?' asked the poor little Piskey. 'It would take me such a long time to get there with no dance in my feet; and there is no little Lantern Man here to give me a lift in his Lantern.'

'You need not trouble your head how you are to get to the sand-hills. I'll take you near there in my Barge.'

'In your Barge?' echoed the little Piskey, looking over his shoulder to the long stretch of country between him and the sea, and then at the great pool set like a cup on the top of the moors, with no visible outlet.

'You are wondering how I can take you to the great outer sea,' said the Tiny Bargeman. 'For your satisfaction I will tell you that there is an underground waterway that leads down to Trebetherick Bay, close to St. Minver sand-hills. I will take you there in my Barge.'

'Why are you so kind?' asked the little Piskey, looking gratefully at the little old Bargeman. 'My brothers were not nearly so kind.'

'I saw you helping the wicked Giant to dip this great mere dry, and I thought so kind a deed deserved another,' answered the Little Bargeman lightly; 'and I told myself as I watched you that I would do you a kindness, if you needed a kindness. Will you let me take you to Trebetherick Bay?'

'Gladly,' answered the little Piskey.

'Get into my Barge, then,' cried the little old Bargeman; and the Piskey scrambled in and sat in the stern of the Barge facing the Bargeman.

'I like rowing about this pool,' remarked the Tiny Bargeman, as he put his little craft about and began to row from the shore. 'It has so many memories. It was here by this mere that the Lady of the Lake (not the one who shut me up in a stone) forged the wonderful Excalibur, the two-handled sword with the jewelled hilt, which she gave to Arthur the King, who, you know, afterwards ruled all the land. It was here that Sir Bedivere--one of the Knights of the far-famed Round Table--flung the sword by order of the wounded King, and was caught by the Lake Lady's uplifted arm. It was here---- But you are not listening,' he cried, breaking off his sentence as he noticed that the little Piskey was not paying any attention to what he was saying.

'I'm afraid I wasn't,' he said, very much ashamed. 'I am very dull and stupid since I lost my laugh.'

'You can't be more stupid than I was when I was shut up in the stone,' said the tiny old Bargeman; 'and I can well excuse your stupidity.'

He said nothing more, for just then the Barge reached the shore from which it had put off, and, without getting out, he reached over and touched a big stone with an oar. He had no sooner touched the stone than it sprang back, and revealed a dark, deep tunnel, into which the little Barge shot like a thing alive.

'This underground waterway was known to the fair ladies who lived by the pool, and who took away the wounded King in their little ship to the Vale of Avilion,' remarked the Bargeman when the stone shut up itself behind them.

'Did they?' asked the little Piskey, trying to look interested.

'Yes,' he answered; 'and they also knew of another waterway, which will never be revealed to anybody except by the Good King,' he added half to himself, looking straight before him into the darkness of the narrow passage as he steered.

The tiny Barge, which was a very ancient-looking little craft, with a gilded dragon forming its prow, sped on. But for its size, it might well have been the same little ship to which Merlin, the little old Bargeman, had just referred. The waterway was very long and deep, and the water ran so swiftly that the Barge did not now require to be rowed. It was also very dark, and the only light that shone was the light from the little boat.

The little old Bargeman did not speak again till a roaring fell on their ears.

'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.