Part 6

'The people who came flocking to church when they heard that the crows were safe in the Crow Pound were almost as astonished as St. Neot to see such a big congregation of birds.

'The church was too far away from the pound for the crows to hear the little Saint preaching, but when the wind blew up from Churchtown they could hear the singing, and to show you they were not so bad as the farmers made out to the Holy Man, they croaked as loud as ever they could when Mass was sung, and were as silent as the grave during the time St. Neot was preaching.

'Every year, from sowing time till the corn was reaped and safe in the barn, the crows were impounded every Sunday from the early morning till evening whilst little St. Neot lived.'

'Is that all?' asked Jim, who listened to the crow's version of the old tale till it was finished.

'Yes,' answered the great black bird with a croak, and when he had said that he took to his wings and flew away as fast as he could fly over Goonzion Downs, the way he had come.

'That wisht-looking crow did not tell the old whiddle half bad,' said Jim to himself, as he watched the bird fly away. 'Shouldn't I like to have seen this old pound full of crows! It must have been terribly funny when St. Neot looked in upon them and cried, "My goodness! what a lot of crows!" It must have been as good as a Christmas play. There, father is coming. That sharp-eyed old crow must have seen him climbing the hill.'

THE PISKEYS' REVENGE

Once upon a time, so the old story begins, there were an old man and his wife called Granfer and Grannie Nankivell, who lived on a moor, and a small grand-daughter who lived with them.

Genefer was the name of this little girl. She was a small brown child. Brown as a Piskey, her grandfather said; but, brown as she was, she was exceedingly pretty. Her lips were as red as the reddest of berries, and the glow on her cheeks matched her lips.

Her grandfather was a turf-cutter, and most of his days had been spent cutting turf on the Cornish moors.

When this old man was between sixty and seventy he cleared out a whole bog, which happened to be a Piskey-bed.

The Piskeys never like their sleeping-places to be disturbed, and when they found out Granfer Nankivell had done it, they were very angry, and set up Piskey-lights to lead him astray when he came home. But they did it in vain as far as he was concerned. The old turf-cutter was very learned in Piskeys' wiles, and never ventured across the moors without wearing one of his garments inside out, and this made him Piskey-proof, which means that the Piskeys had no power to harm him or to lead him out of his way.

But the sly Little People knew a thing or two as well as Granfer Nankivell, and when they found out that their Piskey-lights failed, they set their sharp little wits to work to do him harm in some other way.

After much watching they discovered that the old turf-cutter had a weakness for sweet things, and that the greatest treat his wife could give him was sugar biscuits of her own making and a big plate of junket. They also found out that Grannie Nankivell, whenever she made these delicacies, put them overnight into her spence [21] for safety.

They made up their minds that they would punish the old turf-cutter for taking away their nice soft green Piskey-bed by doing him out of his junket and biscuits, and they told some distant relations of theirs, the Fairy Moormen, to keep an eye upon the spence-window, and whenever they saw Grannie Nankivell bring a bowl of junket and a dish of biscuits into her spence, they must come with all speed and tell them.

'We'll watch too,' they said; 'but in case we are away dancing or setting up Piskey-lights, you must watch for us,' which the Tiny Moormen were quite pleased to do.

But the moor fairies watched in vain for many a week, and just as they were beginning to fear that Grannie Nankivell was never going to make any more biscuits and junket for her husband, she set to and made some, and when they were made she took them into the spence, as she always did.

The spence opened out from the kitchen, and was quite a little room in itself, with a tiny window facing the moors. In front of the window was a stone bench, and near it a square oak table.

The Tiny Moormen were peeping in at the window when the old woman put the bowl of junket on the table and the dish of sugar biscuits on the bench, and the moment her back was turned they tore off to the Piskeys with the news.

'A big round basin full of lovely cool junket,' they cried, 'and a dish heaping full of round biscuits, yellow and white with eggs and sugar, with which they are made. I heard the old woman say that she had never made better, and all for Granfer Nankivell, 'cause 'tis his birthday to-morrow.'

'Birthday or no birthday, Granfer Nankivell shan't taste one,' cried the little Piskeys. 'No fy, he shan't! He turned us out of our beds, and we'll do him out of his biscuits and junket, see if we won't!'

'That's right!' said the Fairy Moormen, who were hand and glove with the Piskeys, 'only please save some for us.'

They and the Piskeys hastened away to the turf-cutter's cottage, and when the turf-cutter and his wife had gone to bed, the Piskeys got into the spence and ate up the big bowl of junket, and passed out the biscuits to the Tiny Moormen.

When Grannie Nankivell went to her spence the next day she found the junket-bowl empty and every biscuit gone.

She said she could not imagine who had taken the things, but looked suspiciously at her little granddaughter Genefer.

'The cat must have got into the spence and done me out of my birthday treat,' said the old turf-cutter. 'You must shut the spence-window the next time you put a junket in there.'

'But the biscuits have gone as well as the junket,' said the old woman, still looking at little Genefer. 'Cats have no liking for sugar biscuits, that ever I heard tell of.'

The next time Grannie Nankivell took biscuits and a junket into her spence she shut the window and also the door; but when she got up the following morning and went to see if they were safe, lo and behold! the junket-bowl was again empty and the biscuits were gone.

''Tis a two-legged cat who has eaten up my beautiful biscuits and junket,' she said to her husband; and she turned and looked at little Genefer.

'I am not the two-legged cat who ate up all the nice things you made for Granfer,' cried the child, meeting the old woman's glance with her honest brown eyes.

'I never said you did,' said Grannie Nankivell; 'but 'tis queer the junket-bowl is empty and every biscuit gone from the dish.'

'I expect it was a dog which got into the spence and licked up the junket and ate the biscuits,' put in the old turf-cutter. 'I would lock and bar the spence-door, if I were you, the next time I put such nice things in there.'

'I will,' she said.

The next time Grannie Nankivell made biscuits and a junket she barred the window of the spence and locked the door, and the next morning, before Genefer dressed, she went to see if her junket and biscuits were all right; but the little round biscuits, which she had so carefully made and sugared, were every one gone, and the junket-bowl was quite empty, and as dry as a bone.

''Tis our little grandcheeld who has eaten it all!' cried Grannie Nankivell in great anger to the old turf-cutter. 'No cat or dog could get into a spence with door locked and window barred.'

'I don't believe it was Genefer,' said the old man stoutly.

'If it was not Genefer, who was it, pray? Biscuits and junkets don't eat up themselves, any more than dogs and cats can get through keyholes and barred windows.'

'That's true,' said Granfer Nankivell; 'all the same, I am certain sure that our dear little grandcheeld would not go and eat up the things.'

'Then who did?' asked the old woman with a snap.

'The little Piskeys, I shouldn't wonder,' he answered. 'My great-grannie told me they were little greedy-guts, and in her days they used to skim the cream off the milk, and eat all the cheese-cakes she used to make, unless she put some for them outside on the doorstep. Regular little thieves the Piskeys were in her days. P'raps they haven't learnt to be honest yet. There are plenty about now, and Little Moormen too, by the teheeing and tehoing I have heard lately, waiting, I dare say, to play some of their pranks on me.'

But Grannie Nankivell was still unconvinced, and still believed it was Genefer, and not the Piskeys, who ate her biscuits and junket.

One evening the old woman put another bowl of junket and a dish of biscuits in the spence, and was as careful as before to bar the window and lock the door; and in the middle of the night, when her husband was fast asleep and snoring, she got up and came downstairs to see if she could find out for certain who it was that ate up her good things. When she came down, whom should she see but her little grand-daughter Genefer standing by the spence-door in her little bedgown.

'I am fine and glad you have come, Grannie,' whispered the child, before the old woman could say anything. 'I believe it is the Piskeys who have eaten the junket and things you made for Granfer. I saw a dinky little fellow not much bigger than your thumb go in through the keyhole just now. They are having a fine time in there, anyhow,' as her grandmother looked at her oddly. 'If I were you, I would look through the keyhole and see what they are doing.'

And through the keyhole the old woman looked, and saw, to her amazement, scores and scores of green-coated little men, whiskered like a man, on the oak table, standing round the junket-bowl ladling out the rich, thick junket with their tiny little hands, and half a dozen other little chaps were up in the window-sill passing out her delicious sugar biscuits to the Tiny Moormen, who were even more whiskered and bearded than their distant relations, the Piskeys.

By their faces, they were all greatly enjoying themselves, and at the expense of Granfer Nankivell, the turf-cutter!

Grannie Nankivell was so astonished that she lost her mouth-speech, [22] but when she found it her old voice shrilled through the keyhole:

'Filling your little bellies with the junket and biskeys I made for my old man, be 'ee?' she cried. 'I'll wring the necks of every one of you--iss fy, I will!'

The old woman spoke too soon to carry out her threat, for she had no sooner spoken than the Piskeys vanished, the Tiny Moormen as well, and where they went she never knew.

But her husband told her the little rascals were still in the spence when she could not see them.

'They have the power to make themselves visible or invisible, whichever is most convenient to them,' he said.

'They have done you out of your biscuits and junket a good many times, anyhow,' cried the old woman.

'Iss,' said Granfer Nankivell, 'they have; and as I did away with the Piskey-beds, we are quits. I only hope they will be of the same mind, and won't come any more and eat up those nice things you make for me. I am quite longing for a plateful of junket and one of your sweet biscuits.'

Whether the Piskeys thought the old turf-cutter was sufficiently punished for clearing out their sleeping-places, or whether Grannie Nankivell's threat to wring their necks frightened them away, we cannot tell. At all events, they and the Tiny Moormen kept away from the cottage on the moor, and whenever the old woman made sugar biscuits and sweet junket, and put them in the spence, no two-legged cat, Moormen or Piskeys, ever ate up those specially-made dainties; and little Genefer's honesty was never again doubted.

THE OLD SKY WOMAN

When winter brought the cold north wind, and the snowflakes began to fall, the little North Cornwall children were always told that the Old Woman was up in the sky plucking her Goose.

The children were very interested in the Old Sky Woman and her great White Goose, and they said, as they lifted their soft little faces to the grey of the cloud and watched the feathers of the big Sky Goose come whirling down, that she was a wonderful woman and her Goose a very big Goose.

'I want to climb up to the sky to see the Old Woman plucking her Goose,' cried a tiny boy; and he asked his mother to show him the great Sky Stairs. But his mother could not, for she did not know where the Sky Stairs were; so the poor little boy could not go up to see the Old Sky Woman plucking the beautiful feathers out of her big White Goose.

'Where does the Old Woman keep her great White Goose?' asked another child, with eyes and hair as dark as a raven's wing, as he watched the snow-white feathers come dancing down.

'In the beautiful Sky Meadows behind the clouds,' his mother said.

'What is the Old Sky Woman going to do with her great big Goose when she has picked her bare?' queried a little maid with sweet, anxious eyes.

'Stuff it with onions and sage,' her Granfer said.

'What will she do then with her great big Goose?' the little maid asked.

'Hang it up on the great Sky Goose-jack and roast for her Christmas dinner,' her Granfer said.

'Poor old Goose!' cried the little maid.

'I don't believe the Old Sky Woman would be so unkind as to kill and pluck her great big Goose,' said a wise little maid with sunny hair and eyes as blue as the summer sea. 'Winter-time is the Sky Goose's moulting time, and the Old Sky Woman is sweeping out the Sky Goose's house with her great Sky Broom, and the White Goose's feathers are flying down to keep the dear little flowers nice and warm till the north wind has gone away from the Cornish Land.'

'Perhaps that is so, dear little maid,' her Granfer said.

REEFY, REEFY RUM

A small girl called Nancy Parnell came down from Wadebridge to Padstow one St. Martin's summer to stay with her Grannie.

The Grannie was old and weak in her legs, and could not take her granddaughter out to see the sights of the little old-world town, with its narrow streets and ancient houses, so the child had to go by herself.

When she had seen all there was to be seen in the town, she went up to look at the church, of which she had heard from her mother, who was a Padstow woman, and the quaint little figures on the buttresses of the south wall.

It was between the lights when she got there, but she could see the carved figures quite distinctly, which were a lion with its mouth wide open, a unicorn with a crown encircling its neck, and a young knight, standing between them, holding a shield; and when she had taken them all in she repeated a funny old rhyme which her mother told her she used to say when she was a little maid and lived at Padstow. The rhyme was as follows:

'Reefy, reefy rum, Without teeth or tongue; If you'll have me, Now I am a-come.'

The rhyme--a taunt and an invitation in one--was very rude, and so was the little girl who repeated it; but the lion, the unicorn, and the little knight did not take any notice of her, and looked straight before them as they had done ever since they were carved on the wall. But Nancy was somewhat afraid of the effect of the rhyme on those quaint little figures, especially on the open-mouthed lion, who had no sign of teeth or tongue; and she ran round the great square-turreted tower, and took refuge under the pentice roof of the gateway, and sat on the bench to see if they would leave their stations on the wall and come after her; but they did not.

The little stone knight and the two animals had a strange fascination for the little Wadebridger, and the next evening again found her in the beautiful churchyard gazing up at them with her bright child-eyes, and as she gazed she repeated the same rude rhyme:

'Reefy, reefy rum, Without teeth or tongue; If you'll have me, Now I am a-come.'

But they took not the smallest notice of her, nor of her rhyme, and the young knight did not lift as much as an eyelash; but the child, now the rhyme was said, was even more apprehensive than ever of the effect it might have, and ran round the tower and again took refuge in the old gateway, and waited to see if they would come down from the wall and try to catch her; but they never came.

The last evening of her stay at Padstow, Nancy went once more to the churchyard to have another look at the figures, and to taunt them with having no teeth or tongue.

It was not quite so late as the first two evenings she had come thither, and the robins were singing their evensong in the churchyard trees.

As she stood staring up at the figures, a shaft of light from the sun setting between the trees fell across their faces, and the eyes of the little knight seemed to look down in sad reproach at the rude little maid as she again repeated the rhyme which was even ruder than she knew.

Her voice was shrill and loud, and was heard above the robins' cheerful song.

She had hardly finished the rhyme when she saw the lion move from his place on the wall, followed by the unicorn and the young knight, and come sliding down. She did not wait to see them reach the bottom, for she took to her heels and ran for her life; but she could hear the figures carved in stone coming after her as she flew round the tower, and her heart was beating faster than the church clock when she reached the gateway.

The gate, fortunately for her, was open wide, and she caught hold of it, and banged it behind her as the lion with his gaping mouth came up to it.

She looked over her shoulder as she turned to run down the street, and she saw the three figures all in a row--the young knight in the middle holding his shield--gazing at her through the round wooden bars of the gate. The lion looked savage, and but for the brave little knight with his pure young face, who seemed to have a restraining power upon both animals, he might have broken the bars and come through the gate and made small bones of the child who had invited them three times to come down and have her!

The little Wadebridger ran back to her Grannie, and told her about the rhyme she had said to the little stone figures on the wall of Padstow Church, and how they had come down and run after her to the gate. Her good old Grannie said it would have served her right if they had broken the gate and got her. 'A lesson to you, my dear,' she cried, 'never to be rude to man or beast, especially to figures carved on church walls.'

The three little stone figures stood all in a row on the gate step till the child was out of sight, and finding she did not return, they went back to their places on the buttresses of the grey old church, and there they are still; and, as far as we know, they have never left them since Nancy Parnell, the little Wadebridger, repeated 'Reefy, reefy rum' three times, and that was when our great-great-grandmothers were children.

THE LITTLE HORSES AND HORSEMEN OF PADSTOW

At the bottom of the same old town there is a house which has two tiny little men on horseback on the top of its roof. They have stood there for hundreds of years, and they never leave their places save when they hear the great church clock strike the hour of midnight, when, it is said, they leave the red tiles, and gallop round the market-place and through the streets of the little town.

These gallant little horsemen have seen the house on which they stand almost rebuilt--changed from an old-world building with quaint windows and doors into quite a modern one--and they have the sorrow of knowing that the only things left that are ancient are the walls, the red tile-ridge, their little horses, and themselves.

Long generations of Padstow children have seen these quaint little men on horseback, and many a question have they asked concerning them; but the only thing they ever learnt was that whenever they hear the church clock strike twelve in the middle of the night they come down from the roof, gallop round the market, and through the streets, as we have just said. But as children are generally in bed at that late hour, none were ever fortunate enough to see them do this wonderful feat, except little Robin Curgenven, the son of a toymaker, and it happened in this way:

One evening when Robin was about nine years old his father and mother went to a party; and as it was a party only for grown-up people, they left him at home asleep in bed.

Robin slept sound as a ringer till just before twelve, when he awoke, and finding he was alone in the house, he crept out of bed, opened the front door, which was under the roof, and went out and stood on the top of an external stone stairway which led down to the market-place.

The house where he lived was as quaint and old as the one on which the little men rode so gallantly, and it faced it. As he stood at the head of the steps the church clock began to strike the hour of midnight. It had only struck four or five when he remembered what he had heard about those wonderful little horsemen and their steeds, and he looked across the market to see if what he had been told about them was really true.

He could see the house quite plainly, and the little horses and horsemen, for it was a clear night and full moon.

The moment the clock had done striking Robin saw to his great delight the two little men on their two little horses leave the housetop and leap into the street, and go galloping round and round the market-place as his parents assured him they did when they heard the clock strike twelve.

The little horses galloped so funnily, and the tiny riders sat so bolt upright on their quaint little steeds, that Robin laughed to see them, and said they looked exactly like the wooden toy horses and horsemen in his father's shop. And as they went galloping, galloping that queer little gallop, he clapped his hands and cheered like a Cornishman.

The tiny little horsemen took no notice of the excited boy on the top of the stairs, and the moment they had finished their gallop round the old market they came through the narrow opening at the foot of the stairs, and galloped away up the street as fast as they could.

So excited was little Robin Curgenven when he saw the tiny horsemen gallop away that he flew down the steps and tore after them, quite forgetting that his feet were bare, and that he had nothing on save his little white nightshirt.

He ran very fast; but fast as he ran, he could not overtake those swift little horses, and by the time he got to the bottom of Middle Street they were nearly at the top.

When they reached the head of that street the tiny horsemen pulled up their horses for a minute outside an ancient-looking house with a porch-room set on wooden pillars, and then they turned up Workhouse Hill and disappeared.

Robin ran faster than before, and the tails of his little nightshirt flew out behind him on the wind as he ran; and he never stopped running till he was half-way up Church Street, when he saw the little horses and their riders galloping down towards him.

They had been to the head of the town, and were returning; and he got on the footpath and stood near an arched passage, and waited for them to pass.

He did not have to wait long, and so fast did they come you would have thought they were galloping for a wager. They seemed to be enjoying their gallop through the streets of the sleeping old town amazingly; and Robin, as he fixed his bright young eyes upon them, saw, or thought he saw, a broad grin on their queer little faces as they galloped by.

The barefooted little lad, in his little night-garment, ran beside the quaint little horses and the little horsemen for a short distance, but they galloped much faster than he could run, and soon outdistanced him; and, run as hard as ever he could, he could not overtake them, but he heard the ringing of the tiny horses' hoofs on the hard road as they went galloping down through the town.