Part 5

When the day had gone, and night had come, Tamsin banked up the fire on the hearthstone, and then she and Phillida went to bed. The old woman knew that the Piskeys would not come in through the keyhole until they were in bed and asleep.

The child and the old grandmother slept in the same bed, the latter at the head and Phillida at the foot. The head of the bed was against the wall by the side of the hearthplace, and Tamsin as she lay was in deep shadow, and only her white nightcap could be seen; but Phillida's charming little face was towards the hearth, and the fireshine fell full upon it.

The child had a fair, smooth skin and clear-cut features, and her nose had a beautiful bridge! Her hair was thick and wavy, and of a deep red gold--only a little redder than the Piskey Circle--and her eyes, when they were open, were the soft sweet blue of the Cornish Tors when the skies were grey.

The red peat and furze fire, like a Master of Magic, made the interior of the poor little moorland cottage look quite beautiful. The rough walls that went up to the brown of the thatch, where they caught the fireshine, glowed like the Small People's lanterns; the old dresser, which stood by the wall facing the hearth, looked as if it were painted in fairy colours, and the china on it glittered like the boulder near the Piskey Circle; and even the grail-hutch, a unique piece of furniture often seen in Cornish cottages, was turned into a thing of beauty. It was painted orange colour, and its little knobs were black, to which the shine of the fire gave depths and tones and undertones.

By the side of the bed where Phillida slept was a fiddle-back chair, and on its seat lay her little blue weekaday frock, that added to the quaint and beautiful picture. Only a small part of the cottage was in shadow, and this intensified the brightness of the room where the firelight held sway.

The cottage was looking its brightest, and was as warm as a zam [14] oven, when a gay little laugh came through the keyhole, and a merry little face peeped into the room. In another minute a Dinky Man came out of the keyhole and sat on the wooden latch of the door and gazed curiously about him.

He was ever so dinky, but as cheerful-looking as a robin, in his bright red cloak and his quaint steeple hat; the face under the hat was almost as brown as an apple-pip, and only a shade or two lighter than his whiskers and beard, and his queer little eyes were full of laughter and fun.

'Are the little maid and her grannie asleep?' called a voice through the keyhole as the Dinky Man sat on the latch surveying the room.

'I think so,' he answered. 'They are still as mice when Madam Puss is close to their hole. You are safe to come in.'

'Then in we'll come,' cried the little voice; and in the twinkling of an eye a tiny little fellow dressed in green came through the keyhole and pushed off the Dinky Man sitting on the latch, who fell on his head on old Tamsin's lime-ash floor.

Scores of little whiskered Piskeys--some in steeple hats and red flowing cloaks, some in green coats and red caps--came through the keyhole, and when they had swung themselves down by the durn [15] of the door, they looked towards the bed.

'I'll get up on the bed and see if the little maid is really asleep,' said one of the Piskeys; and he climbed up to the top of the fiddle-back chair close to the bed and looked down on the child.

'Is she asleep?' asked the other little Piskeys eagerly.

'As sound asleep as a seven-sleeper,' [16] answered the Dinky Man, 'and so is Grannie Tredinnick,' sending his glance to the head of the bed. 'Get up on to the bed as soon as you like, to order the little maid's dreams--the sooner the better. We are powerless to do harm after twelve o'clock, being the night of the Birth.'

'But we have come to do good, not to do harm,' cried the Piskeys one and all, 'and we will begin at once.'

They scrambled up the legs and back of the old fiddle-back chair, and were on the bed in a quick-stick, and took their places near the sleeping child. Some sat all in a row on the edge of the patchwork quilt; some sat, or stood, on the pillow behind the child's bright little head; others were low down on the pillow; and one winking, blinking little Piskey perched himself on her arm and sat cross-legged like a tailor.

'I will be the first to order the little maid's dream,' said one of the Piskeys sitting on the edge of the quilt, and scrambling up, he stepped on to Phillida's nose as light as the feathers which the old Sky Woman had flung down on the moors, and as he walked over the bridge he said:

'Dream, little maid--dream that you are wide awake, and that you and Grannie Tredinnick are sitting at a table covered with a cloth as white as Piskey-wool, [17] and that in the middle of the table is a lovely cake made

'"Of the finest of flour And fairy cow's cream-- As sweet as your dream-- And Small People's spice, And everything nice, Kneaded and mixed, And done in a trix In a little dream-bower,"

and on the top of the cake is a dinky bird with wings spread out all ready to fly.'

Phillida dreamt as she was ordered, and in her dream she saw the cake, and that it was a beautiful cake, and the little cake-bird was a sweet little bird!

'What a handsome cake!' she cried out aloud in her sleep; 'and the little cake-bird is a dear little bird, and it looks as if it can fly and sing:' and she laughed so heartily that the Piskeys laughed too, and one of the Dinky Men turned head over heels on the patchwork quilt out of sheer delight that the child was so pleased with her beautiful dream-cake and the little dream-bird.

'Dream that Grannie Tredinnick is as pleased with the cake and the cake-bird as you are,' said another little Piskey, stepping on to the bridge of Phillida's nose, 'and that she thinks it is even better than the cakes which were made for her when she was a croom of a cheeld, and the little cake-bird is more like a real bird than those that were on top of her Christmas cakes.'

The child dreamt as the Piskey ordered, and much beside that the Dinky Man never thought of ordering. In her dream she not only heard her grandmother say what a beautiful cake it was, and that the little cake-bird looked like a real bird, but that she said: 'We must cut and eat the cake, but spare the little cake-bird.' In her sleep she saw the old woman, dressed in her Sunday gown and cap, lean over the small oak table and cut her such a big slice of the cake that she cried out in amazed delight:

'What a great big piece you have given me, Grannie!' and her laugh was as happy and gay as a Piskey's laugh. 'But I must not eat all this myself; I must crumble some of it for the little moor-birds, and put a piece out on the doorstep for the Dinky Men. It isn't a dream-cake, Grannie, but a Christmas cake, and it has a little Christmas bird on top!'

The Piskeys looked at one another with a peculiar expression in their round little eyes when the child spoke of putting a bit of her Christmas cake on the step of the door for them, and one said, 'Dear little maid!' and another said 'Pretty child!' and one little fellow, with a beard reaching to his feet, cried, 'How kind of her to want us poor little Piskeys to have part in the Christmas joy!' One little Dinky Man whispered: 'Perhaps it is not true what the old whiddle [18] says, after all--that we are not good enough for heaven nor bad enough for hell. The child does not think so, evidently, or she would not be so anxious for us to share her little Christmas cake.'

The Piskey who sat cross-legged on Phillida's arm uncrossed his lean little legs, rose up and stepped on to her nose, and as he walked over its bridge he said ever so tenderly:

'Dream, sweet little Phillida--dream that you shared your cake with the dicky-birds, and put a piece of it on the doorstep for the Dinky Men, which they will treasure as long as there are any Dinky Men.'

The child dreamt as she was ordered, and when she had put a bit of the cake on the doorstep for the Piskeys, she saw in her dream a crowd of Dinky Men in quaint little green coats, and caps as red as bryony berries, and tiny fellows in red cloaks and green hats, come and take up the cake with solemn faces and bent heads, and carry it away over the moors towards the Piskey Circle. When they had gone, she stood on the doorstep looking out over the moors, white with the feathers the old Sky Woman had thrown down; then she lifted her sweet little face to the sky, and saw that it was free from clouds and full of stars, which, she thought, were chiming the wonderful news of the Nativity. She was so happy listening to the music of the Christmas stars that she forgot she had not tasted her cake till a little Piskey sprang on to her nose to turn her dream.

'Dream that you are come over to the table and eating your cake,' he said, slowly passing over the bridge of her nose.

'How can I dream that when I am out here on the doorstep listening to the ringing of the star-bells?' murmured the child in her sleep. 'I wonder if the Dinky Men like listening to the star-bells' music? They are ringing up there in the dark because the Babe was born and laid in the cratch.'

'We shall never get her to dream our dreams if we let her stay there on the doorstep,' cried the Piskeys, looking strangely at one another. 'We never had such trouble to make a cheeld dream our dreams before.'

'Dream your poor old Grannie feels the cold from the open door,' said a Dinky Man, jumping on to Phillida's nose with all his weight, which caused her to jerk her head in her sleep, and made the Dinky Man lose his balance, and over he toppled on the heads of his tiny companions sitting at the bottom of the pillow near the child's soft white neck, much to the amusement of the other Piskeys and his own. They laughed so much, including the wee fellow who was heavy-heeled, that he could not order the dream, and a Piskey, when he could stop laughing for a minute, jumped up and stepped on to Phillida's nose, and as he passed over its bridge he said:

'Dream that you shut the door on the cold and the Sky Goose's feathers, and come back to the table.' And Phillida reluctantly dreamt as the Dinky Man ordered, and in her dream she saw herself sitting at the table facing her grandmother, who was munching a bit of the cake and smacking her withered old lips.

'This is a lovely cake, cheeld-vean. [19] We must eat every crumb of it, for we shall never have such another.'

Phillida was glad her Grannie liked the cake, and she began to eat the generous slice the old woman had given her, and as she ate it she thought it was so delicious that she must go on eating cake for ever and ever. 'I shan't want to eat grail-bread after this,' she said, laughing out loud in her sleep. 'I shall always eat cake made

'"Of fairy cow's cream And every good thing."'

She was enjoying her dream-cake so very very much in her sleep that the Dinky Men would have liked her to go on eating it; but the quick ticking of Tamsin's clock told them that time was flying, and they had not yet finished ordering her dreams.

'Dream, little Phillida--dream that you and Grannie Tredinnick have eaten all the cake, and there is nothing left but the little cake-bird,' said one of the Dinky Men passing over the bridge of her nose; 'and that Grannie says the little cake-bird is yours.'

Phillida dreamt all that, and in her dream her grandmother said, in her kind old voice: 'The little bird on the top of the cake belongs to the cheeld of the house, and Phillida is the only cheeld in my little house. Take the cake-bird, Phillida, my dear;' and Phillida took it and held it in her little warm hand.

As she was holding it thus a Piskey stepped lightly as a ladybird on to her nose, and as he passed over its bridge he said:

'Dream, Phillida, dream that your little cake-bird is alive and wants to fly and sing;' and the child dreamt that the little cake-bird was alive, and was fluttering in her little warm hand, and then it flew out of her hand up to the thatch, and began to sing a wonderful song.

'What is my little cake-bird singing?' asked Phillida in her sleep.

'It is singing it is a fairy-bird,' said a Dinky Man, passing over the bridge of her nose, 'and that it is going to sing with other little fairy-birds in the Dinky People's land.'

'I don't think my little cake-bird is singing it is a fairy-bird and going to sing in the Dinky People's country,' said the child in her sleep. 'Its song is much too happy and beautiful for that. What is it singing? Please tell me. I do want to know. Can't you tell me?' she asked as the Piskeys looked at one another. 'Ah! I know now what its song is about. My little cake-bird is singing a little song because it is a little Christmas bird, and was on top of a Christmas cake! Isn't it a lovely song? It has changed its tune now, and it is singing a golden song about the Babe who was born on Christmas Day in the morning. I am a little Christian cheeld and know! Listen, listen!' she cried, clasping her hands and lifting her sweet child-face to the thatch. 'Isn't it wonderful? It thinks it is a little golden bird, and one day will sing with the Great White Angel Birds Grannie told me about.'

'Somebody far greater than we little Piskeys is ordering Phillida's dreams,' said the Dinky Men one to another, 'which are much more beautiful than we can order.'

Just then old Tamsin's clock struck the midnight hour, and the Piskeys got off the bed, went across the room, climbed up the durn of the door and out through the keyhole on to the moors, and in a little while they were hastening over the snow-covered turf to the Piskey Circle, which was a big round door to the Dinky People's land under the moors.

THE IMPOUNDED CROWS

A small boy called Jim Nancarrow was sitting one day eating a pasty on top of the Crow Pound, a large enclosure built on a common by the far-famed St. Neot to impound the pilfering crows of the parish that bears his name.

Jim was the son of a thatcher, and he was waiting to accompany his father to a distant hamlet to help him to thatch a cottage. He looked a nice little lad in his clean white smock and nankeen breeches and soft felt hat--much the worse for wear--shading his bright young face and clear blue eyes.

As he was waiting for his father and eating his pasty, which his mother had given him for his dinner, he saw a crow flying over Goonzion Downs, of which the Crow Pound common was a part.

As he watched it he thought of the pilfering crows which, according to the old tale, little St. Neot impounded there from morning till evening on Sundays, that his people might go to church undisturbed by fear of the great black thievish birds which ate up the corn sown in their fields. Jim had often heard this story from the old people of the parish, and whenever he saw a crow he wondered if it were a relation of the wicked crows their patron Saint had impounded.

The crow that the boy was watching was flying in the direction of the Crow Pound, and when it came near it alighted on the top of the wall quite close to the lad.

The crow was lean to look at, and scanty of feathers, and such a sorry-looking bird that Jim broke off a piece of his pasty and threw to him, which he ate as if he were starving.

'One would think you were one of the pilfering crows of St. Neot's time,' said Jim, tossing him another piece of his pasty; and to his surprise, the bird answered back:

'I am!'

'Are you?' cried Jim, staring hard at the crow. 'Well, you look ancient enough to be one of those birds, though I have always understood that our patron Saint lived ever so long ago, when Alfred the Great was a little chap like me. But p'r'aps crows tell lies as well as pilfer.'

'If I am not one of the identical crows St. Neot was unkind enough to put into this pound,' croaked the big black bird, eyeing Jim and his pasty with his bright little eye, 'I am a descendant of theirs in the direct line. I truly am,' as the lad stared as if he did not believe the assertion. 'Those poor impounded crows learnt the language of men during the long hours of their imprisonment, listening to all the little Saint and his people said about them outside this pound, and they passed on their dearly-bought knowledge to their children through long generations.'

'Then you are quite "high learnt," as the old Granfer men say,' cried Jim, gazing up at the bird in open-eyed amazement.

'I confess I am,' returned the crow with due modesty, 'especially in the old Cornish tongue, in which I can swear to any extent. I am not going to use bad language now,' as Jim took up a stone to throw at him. 'You would not understand it if I did. I am also "high learnt" in the needs of the body, and I shall be ever so grateful for a bit more of your pasty. It isn't nice to have an aching void inside one's little feather stumjacket.'

'I suppose it can't be,' said the lad, dropping the stone and breaking off a large piece of his pasty to toss to the bird.

He was a feeling-hearted little fellow, and the crow's quaint appeal touched him, and the sorry-looking bird, with his bedraggled tail, had most of his pasty.

'I have had a good meal for once in my life, and am full fed,' said the crow, when the last of the pasty was eaten; and he perched on a stone, starred with stonecrop, and fluffed out all the feathers he possessed, and looked with a comical expression at Jim.

'I am better fed than little St. Neot after his poor little meal of fish,' he continued, still eyeing the boy, 'and I am feeling so comfortable that I am inclined for a chat.'

'Are you?' cried Jim, who thought this great black crow was a wonderful crow, which he certainly was. 'I don't know what to yarn about.'

'I do, then,' answered the bird quickly. 'I suppose you have heard the old whiddle [20] how the little St. Neot put the poor crows into this pound.'

'Yes, I have heard about it from the Granfer men and Grannie women here at Churchtown,' said Jim, turning his face towards a little village close to the church which he could just see from where he was sitting. 'But they never made much of a story of it.'

'Didn't they? Then perhaps you would like to hear the crows' version of the old tale,' said the crow. 'It will tell you that their morals were not so black as the farmers in this parish made out to the Holy Man.'

'I don't mind, if you are quick about it,' said Jim. 'I am going to a farm with my father to help him do some thatching when he has finished his dinner.'

'I cannot be driven after such a heavy meal of pasty,' croaked the crow; 'and if I may not take my time, I won't tell it at all.'

'As you like,' cried Jim with fine indifference; but the bird was anxious to tell the whiddle, and he began:

'We crows always considered it within our right to take what we could,' said the crow, 'and pilfering, as the farmers hereabouts were pleased to call it, was the only way the crows had of picking up a living, and they watched their opportunity to take what they needed to satisfy their hunger when the farmers were not about. But back in those far-away days when St. Neot dwelt here to try and make people good, times were dreadfully bad, especially for crows. The people were all tillers of the land in those days, and lived by the sweat of their brow, as crows did by pilfering. There was no other way open to them, and the farmers had their eyes on the land and on us poor hungry birds from dawn to dark, except on the Rest Day; and the only chance the crows had of filling their stomachs was on Sunday, when the people went to church.

'The starving crows looked forward to Sunday as only poor starving birds with empty crops could, and the moment one of the elder crows gave the signal, which he did in the crow way, they all flew off to the corn-sown fields, and had a regular feast. My word! and didn't they feed! They picked out with their sharp beaks every grain of corn they could find.

'When the farmers found out the hungry crows had eaten up all the corn they had sown, there was the Black Man to pay, and the poor crows were anathematized from one end of the parish to the other.

'The farmers resowed their fields, but they took good care to watch and see that the crows did not rob them of their toil; and they were always about the corn-sown land, Sundays as well as week-days, and the crows had to go supperless to bed, and little St. Neot had to preach to bare walls.

'The Saint was greatly distressed at his people's neglect of their religious duties, and he told them how wicked it was to stay away from church. The people said they were sorry, but declared it was the fault of the pilfering crows.

'"The pilfering crows!" cried the Holy Man. "What have the crows to do with your stopping away from the House of God?"

'"Everything," answered the farmers; and they told little St. Neot that whenever they sowed bread-corn in their fields the wicked crows came and ate it all up, and that if he could not prevent them from doing this wickedness, they must keep away from church and watch their fields. "We and our children must have bread to eat," they added, which was true enough--true for crows as well as men.

'The Holy Man was very much grieved to hear the cause of their not coming to church, and he said he would devise some means to prevent the crows from robbing the fields whilst they were attending to their worship.

'St. Neot was as good as his word, and it was noised about in the parish that he was building a great square enclosure of moorstone and mould about half a mile from the church; and when it was finished, he told his wondering people it was a pound for crows, which he meant to impound on Sundays from dawn till dusk, so that the farmers might come to church and worship without having their minds disturbed by fear of those black little robbers eating their corn.

'There was a fearful to-do among the poor hungry crows when they learned what St. Neot had done; and although they knew they were within their right to steal when they were hungry--and they were always hungry, poor things!--they were sorry they ate up the corn the farmers had sown, and every crow looked forward to the coming Rest Day with fear and trembling.

'Well, Sunday came, as Sundays will,' continued the crow, 'and before the sun had risen little St. Neot made known his will to the crows that they were to come to be impounded, and such power had the Saint over beast and bird that the crows had no choice save to obey, and long before St. Neot's bell rang out to call his people to worship in the little church which he had built for them by the aid of his two-deer team and one-hare team, all the crows in the parish came as they were bidden to be impounded in the Crow Pound.

'And, my gracious! what a lot of them came! There were crows of all sorts and conditions, all ages and sizes! There were great-great-great Granfer and Grannie Crows! there were great-great Granfer and Grannie Crows! great Granfer and Grannie Crows by the score! Grannie Crows by the hundred! Mammie and Daddy Crows by the thousand! and as for the children, and great-great-grand-children, they could hardly be counted! Even poor little Baby Crows, just able to fly, were there!

'The Crow Pound was chock-full of crows, and all the place was as black as St. Neot's gown. And as for the noise they made, it was enough to turn the Holy Man's brain; but it didn't.

'The little Saint did not expect to see so many crows, it was certain, though he expected a goodly number, by the big enclosure he had made; and the old tale says that, when he saw so many birds, he exclaimed with uplifted hands, "My goodness! what a lot of crows!" and he looked round at this great assemblage--all in respectable black--in open-eyed amazement.