Part 3

'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 dinky 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 dinky 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 shining 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 moonshine 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 passed, the little Piskey stood out in the moonshine 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!'

'Has the order yet been given for this little Piskey vagrant to be taken up and treated in like manner?' asked another little Night-rider.

The poor little Piskey did not wait to hear the answer, but took to his heels and ran as fast as he could to the north, and the little Night-riders who were still standing on the colt watched him till he was out of sight, and Granfer Night-rider and all the other little Night-riders yelled after him to stop, but he did not stop.

The Piskey ran and ran, and he never stopped running till he came to Castle Gardens, whence he had started.

When he got there he was as exhausted as a colt ridden all night by naughty Night-riders, and he sank down all of a heap by the side of a mole-hill, where two tiny hands were again sticking up.

'Is your ladyship under the hill?' asked the little Piskey when he could speak.

'Yes,' answered the mole. 'Who are you?'

'The little Piskey who lost his laugh.'

'What! haven't you found it yet?'

'No,' he answered sadly, 'and I am dreadfully afraid I never shall. If I don't find it soon I shall be taken up for a Piskey vagrant, put in a bag, and hung upside down like a widdy-mouse in some cavern.'

'That will be a very tragic ending to a bright little Piskey,' said the mole. 'Tell me how you know that that will be your fate if you don't find your laugh.'

And the Piskey told her. In fact, the Lady Want was so interested about what Granfer Night-rider had said that she begged him to tell her all his adventures from the time he set out to Rough Tor Marsh in search of his laugh till his return to Castle Gardens, which he was quite glad to do.

'You ought to find your laugh after all your travels and what you have gone through,' said the Lady Want when he had related everything, 'and I hope you will.'

'Does your ladyship happen to know anybody else who may have seen my laugh?' asked the little Piskey wistfully.

'Only one.'

'And who may that one be?' queried the little Piskey. 'Will your ladyship be kind enough to tell me?'

'The Good King Arthur,' the mole answered in a low voice.

'Good King Arthur!' ejaculated the Piskey. 'Why, he is dead, and a dead King is no more good than a Piskey without his laugh.'

'King Arthur is not dead,' said the mole.

'Not dead!' echoed the little Piskey in great surprise.

'No; he was seen perched only last evening on his own seat, which is still called King Arthur's Seat, and which, as I dare say you know, overhangs the sea.'

'Arthur the King not dead!' whispered the little Piskey, as if he could not get over his amazement.

'A precious good thing for you he isn't,' snapped the mole.

'But how isn't he dead?' asked the little Piskey.

'Because he was changed by magic into a bird,' answered the mole; 'he haunts the Dundagel [8] cliffs and the ruins of his old castle in the form of a chough. He was wounded almost unto death in his last great battle, it is true,' she added, for the small man looked as if he wanted this strange happening fully explained, 'and the marks of the battle he fought and the hurts he received are yet upon him, as the legs and beak of the great black bird plainly show--as plainly as my own tiny hands that I was once a great lady. But he is still alive. If you should see a bird with a red beak and legs flying over King Arthur's Castle as day is beginning to break, you may be quite certain that he is King Arthur. If he has seen your laugh he will be sure to tell you. He is very kind and good, as all the world knows.'

'I am glad the Good King is not dead,' said the little Piskey. 'I'll try and keep awake till the dawn so that I can ask him about my laugh; but I am so tired.'

The little fellow did his best to keep awake, but he was too worn out with his run from St. Minver sand-hills to Tintagel Castle to sit and watch for the coming of the red-legged bird; and long before the sun wheeled up behind the Tors and shone upon the sea he was sound asleep under a great mallow growing by one of the grey old walls. When he awoke a day and a night had come and gone, and the birth of a new day was at hand.

When he crawled out from under the mallow, the first thing he saw on the Island facing him was the dark form of a great black chough. He was perched on the wall above the old arched doorway, gazing gravely in front of him.

The Piskey lost not a moment in getting across to the Island, which he did by the Piskey passage known only to the Piskeys; and when he had caught the bird's attention he said:

'I am a poor little Piskey who has lost his laugh, and I am come to ask the Good King Arthur if he has seen it.'

But the bird was too high up for him to make himself heard, and he had to wait patiently till it flew down. After waiting a short time it did, and perched on a stick stuck in the ground.

The Piskey ran over, and, clasping his hands, he repeated what he had just said.

'How came you to know I was King Arthur?' asked the chough, ignoring the little fellow's question.

'The mole who says she is the Lady Want told me,' he answered.

'Ah, I know her--the grand lady who considered the ground on which she walked was not good enough for her dainty feet, and has now, as a punishment, to walk under the ground--a lesson to all children of pride.'

'But please, Good King Arthur, answer my question about my laugh,' pleaded the little Piskey, in an agony of impatience. 'If I don't find it soon something dreadful will happen to me.'

'Have patience,' said the chough kindly. 'Nothing is ever won by impatience. I have seen something very funny lately running about over the grass. It is like nothing I have ever seen before except in a Piskey's face when he laughs. It is like a laugh gone mad, and it is enough to kill a man with laughing only to watch its antics. It made me laugh till I ached when I first noticed it. It does not make a sound, but its grimaces are worth flying a hundred miles only to see.'

'It must have been my laugh you saw,' cried the Piskey--'my dear little lost laugh that I have travelled so far to find. Where is it now, Good King Arthur?'

'It was here not long since,' answered the bird, who did not deny that he was Arthur the King. 'Why, there it is quite close to you,' pointing with his long-pointed beak to the most comical-looking thing you ever saw, on the grass a foot from where the Piskey was standing. 'It was a laugh gone mad,' as the chough said.

The Piskey looked behind him, and when he saw the little bit of laughing, grinning absurdity on the grass, he jumped for joy and shrieked: 'It is my own little laugh that I lost!'

Holding out both his arms, he cried, 'Oh, dear little laugh, come back to me! Oh, dear little laugh, come back to me!' And the droll little thing, which was a grin with a laugh and a laugh with a grin, came over to the Piskey, and began to climb up his legs, grinning and doubling itself up with laughter as it climbed, till it reached his chin, when it narrowed itself into a tiny grin and vanished into the Piskey.

The next moment the Piskey was shouting at the top of his voice, 'I have got my laugh! I have got my laugh!' and he ran off laughing and dancing to the edge of the cliff and disappeared into the Piskey-hole, and in a few minutes more he was on Castle Gardens in the great Piskey-ring, laughing and dancing and dancing and laughing.

His laugh was so loud and so free that his brother Piskeys heard him from afar, and came running over the cliffs from Bossiney to see what ever had happened.

Little Fiddler Piskey was the first to reach the Gardens, and the first glance at the little whirling figure told him that his little brother had found his laugh; and putting his fiddle in position, he began fiddling away as hard as he could.

As he fiddled, the other Piskeys, including Granfer Piskey, reached the ring, and the next minute they were all dancing and laughing as they had never laughed and danced before; but the one who laughed the heartiest was the little Piskey who had lost and found his laugh.

They danced for a good hour, the little fiddler in their midst fiddling his fiddle, all the while keeping time with his head and foot, heedless that the daylight was driving the darkness away to the country to which it belongs; and King Arthur the Bird flew up on the wall and watched, and the mole who called herself the Lady Want let her dainty hands be seen on the mole-hill, till the fiddling, dancing, and laughing were finished, and the Piskeys went off to the Piskey-beds to sleep.

THE LEGEND OF THE PADSTOW DOOMBAR

In a far-away time Tristram Bird of Padstow bought a gun at a little shop in the quaint old market which in those days opened to the quay, the winding river, and the St. Minver sand-hills. When he had bought his gun he began forthwith to shoot birds and other poor little creatures.

After a while he grew more ambitious, and told the fair young maids of Padstow that he wanted to shoot a seal or something more worthy of his gun; and so one bright morning he made his way down to Hawker's Cove, near the mouth of the harbour.

When Tristram got there he looked about him to see what he could shoot, and the first thing he saw was a young maid sitting all alone on a rock, combing her hair with a sea-green comb.

He was so overcome at such an unexpected sight that he quite forgot what had brought him to the cove, and could do nothing but stare.

The rock on which the maiden sat was covered with seaweed, and surrounded by a big pool, called in that distant time the Mermaid's Glass.

She was apparently unconscious that a good-looking young man was gazing at her with his bold dark eyes, and as she combed her long and beautiful hair she leaned over the pool and looked at herself in the Mermaid's Glass, and the face reflected in it was startling in its beauty and charm.

Tristram Bird was very tall--six feet three in his stockings--and being such a tall young man, he could see over the maiden's head into the pool, and the face in its setting of golden hair reflected in its clear depths entirely bewitched him, and so did her graceful form, which was partly veiled in a golden raiment of her own beautiful hair.

As he stood gazing at the bewitching face looking up from the Mermaid's Glass, its owner suddenly glanced over her shoulder, and saw Tristram staring at her.

'Good-morning to you, fair maid,' he said, still keeping his bold dark eyes fixed upon her, telling himself as he gazed that her face was even more bewitching than was its reflection.

'Good-morning, sir,' said she.

'Doing your toilet out in the open,' he said.

'Yes,' quoth she, wondering who the handsome youth could be and how he came to be there.

'Your hair is worth combing,' he said.

'Is it?' said she.

'It is, my dear,' he said. ''Tis the colour of oats waiting for the sickle.'

'Is it?' quoth she.

'Yes; and no prettier face ever looked into the Mermaid's Glass.'

'How do you know?' asked she.

'My heart told me so,' he said, coming a step or two nearer the pool, 'and so did my eyes when I saw its reflection looking up from the water. It bewitched me, sweet.'

'Did it?' laughed she, with a tilt of her round young chin.

'Yes,' he said, with an answering laugh, drawing another step nearer the pool.

'It does not take a man of your breed long to fall in love,' said the beautiful maid, with a toss of her golden head and a curl of her sweet red lips.

'Who told you that?' asked the love-sick young man, going red as a poppy.

'Faces carry tales as well as little birds,' quoth she.

'If my face is a tale-bearer, it will tell you that I love you more than heart can say and tongue can tell,' he said, drawing yet nearer the pool.

'Will it?' said she, combing her golden hair with her sea-green comb.

'Indeed it will, and must,' he said; 'for I love you with all my soul, and I want you to give me a lock of your golden hair to wear over my heart.'

'I do not give locks of my hair to landlubbers!' cried she, with another toss of her proud young head and a scornful curl of her bright red lips.

'A landlubber forsooth!' he said, with an angry flash in his bold black eyes. 'Who are you to speak so scornfully of a man of the land? One would think you were a maid of the sea.'

'I am,' quoth she, twining the tress of her hair she had combed round her shell-pink arm.

'No seamaid is half as beautiful as you,' said Tristram Bird, incredulous of what the maid said. 'But, maid of the sea or maid of the land, I love you, sweet, and I want to have you to wife.'

'Want must be your master, sir,' said she, with an angry flash in her sea-blue eyes.

'Love is my master, sweet maid,' he said. 'You are my love, and you have mastered me.'

'Have I?' said she, with a little toss of her golden head.

'Yes,' he said; 'and now that I have told you you are my love, and I want you to marry me, you will give me a lock of your golden hair, won't you, sweet?'

'I cannot,' said she.

'Give me one little golden wire of your hair, if you won't give me a lock,' he pleaded, coming close to the edge of the pool. 'I will make a golden ring of it,' he said, 'and wear it in the eye of the world.'

'Will you?' said she.

'I will, my dear,' he said.

'But I will not give you a hair of my head even to make a ring with,' said she.

'Then give me one for a leading-string,' he said. 'If you will, my charmer, you shall take the end of it and lead me whithersoever you will.'

'Even to the whipping-post?' said she.

'Even to the whipping-post,' he said. 'So you will be my fair bride, won't 'ee, sweet? If you will consent to love me, I'll make you as happy as the day is long.'

'Will you?' cried she, with a warning look in her sea-blue eyes and a strange little laugh.

'Yes,' he said, thinking her answer meant consent. 'And I've got a dear little house at Higher St. Saviour's, overlooking the river and Padstow Town low in the valley.'

'Have you?' said she.

'I have,' he said. 'And the little house is full of handsome things--a chestful of linen which my own mother wove for me on her loom against the time I should be wed to a pretty maid like you, an oaken dresser with every shelf full of cloam, [9] and a cosy settle where we can sit hand in hand talking of our love. You will marry me soon, won't you, sweet? The little house, and all that's in it, is waiting for my charmer.'