Part 2

'There was nobody on the beach except those little Dark Men searching for this purse and Farmer Vivian,' said Gerna. 'Farmer Vivian is a great big man, and lives up at Pentire Glaze Farm. He is very kind, and he do love all the Little People dearly.'

'How do you know he does?' asked the little voice eagerly.

'My Great-Grannie told me he did, and she do know. This little cottage of ours belongs to him, and he al'ays talks to her about the Wee Folk when she goes up to his house to pay the rent. There! Great-Gran is calling up the stairs to ask if I'm in bed. I shall have to put 'ee back into my big pocket now. I hope you won't mind.'

'Not one bit. The only thing I do mind is being given into Hager's power. You won't take me to Piskey Goog, whatever the little Brown Man offers you, will you, dear?'

'Not unless Great-Grannie finds out I've got you an' makes me,' said the child, putting the purse very carefully into the unbleached pocket. 'I hope she won't go looking into it when she comes up to bed.'

'Can't you hide the pocket somewhere?' asked the little voice anxiously.

'I can put it into the big chest here by the window,' said Gerna, looking around the mean little chamber, which was very bare. 'A storm washed it in on the bar last winter, and Great-Gran don't keep nothing in it but her best clothes.'

'Then put me into the chest,' piped the little voice. 'And please come and take me out to-morrow as soon as you can. It cheers me to hear the voice of a friend, and I believe you are a true friend, you dear little maid!'

The child dropped the pocket into the great sea-chest very quickly, for the ancient dame again called up the stairs to ask if she were in bed, and then came up to see if she were.

Great-Grannie did not get up until quite late the next day, and when she did she sent Gerna to the beach to pick limpets for the ducks, and Gelert to weed the small potato plot at the back of the cottage, a work he hated doing.

When the little girl got to the bay the tide was only half-way down, and it was ever so long before she could get near the limpet rocks. But as soon as the tide let her she began her limpet-picking, and never looked round once.

Her basket was half full when she heard a sharp little voice behind her.

'Have you found the purse I told you of?'

'I haven't looked yet to-day,' said the child, without glancing round. 'I lost all my limpets yesterday through picking up Piskey-purses, an' my Great-Grannie was ever so cross. She sent me to bed without any supper; an' the poor little ducks had to go without their supper too.'

'I am so sorry,' said the little Brown Man, climbing the rock to be on a level with her face; 'but I would not let such a small matter as that prevent me from looking for that purse with its gold ring markings. Your Great-Grannie will never be vexed with you any more when you have found it, and receive another one full of the Small People's gold in exchange.'

'How did you come to lose your purse?' asked the child, anxious to hear what he would say.

'Unfortunately, I took it with me a night or two ago to the cliff above our dwelling-place, where we have our games, and by a terrible misfortune I dropped it over the cliff. I and my relations have been looking for it ever since. I have come here to-day to renew the offer I made yesterday. You would like to be rich, wouldn't you?'

'We are terrible poor!' said the child evasively--'the poorest people in St. Minver parish, Great-Grannie said.'

'Are you really, you poor things?' said the little Brown Man kindly. 'Then, in that case I will double my reward if you find the purse. I will give you two purses full of the Small People's golden money instead of only one. It must, however, be brought to Piskey Goog before the next new moon, and as the present one is in her last quarter, there is not much time to lose, is there?'

'No,' said the child, still going on with her limpet-picking.

'Won't you go and look for it now?' asked the little Brown Man, with a hint of impatience in his voice. 'The tide will be on the flow again soon, and your chance for to-day will be gone.'

'I must fill my basket with limpets first,' said Gerna; 'Grannie raises ducks to sell to the gentry, and we can't afford for them to lose a meal, she says.'

'You are like a limpet yourself; there is no moving you against your will,' cried the little man, scowling, 'and----'

What else he would have said there was no knowing, for Farmer Vivian appeared on the sands at that moment, and shouted across the gray-gold bar, and this caused the little Piskey Man to take to his heels and run into his cavern.

Gerna did not stay on the beach after the wee Brown Man had disappeared--she felt afraid somehow--and she went home with only half a basketful of limpets. This so put out Great-Grannie that she vowed she would send her down to the porth again to find more, if one of her precious ducklings hadn't taken it into its head to have a fit, which so bewildered her that she sent Gelert instead!

What with the sick duckling to attend to, and other little chores the child had to do for the ancient dame, she had not a minute to steal up to the little chamber.

When at last she thought she was free, Gelert rushed into the cottage all excitement.

'What do you think?' he cried, 'the dear little Piskey Men are out on the sands looking for a Piskey-purse. They have lost one, they told me, and whoever finds it and takes it into Piskey Goog shall have a purse full of the Small People's golden money.'

'You don't mean for to say so?' exclaimed the old woman. 'To think of it now! Go along, both of 'ee,' glancing at Gerna, 'an' search for that purse until you do find it.'

'I've searched and searched till I'm tired,' said the boy, 'an' I would have gone on searching if the old sea wasn't tearing in like mad.'

'Oh dear, what a pity!' cried the Great-Grannie. 'We must all go an' look for that purse to-morrow. I wouldn't have us lose our chance of being rich for anything. Now,' turning to Gerna, 'make haste an' get our suppers, for the boy must be as hungry as a hedger after such work.'

When the supper was ready, and as they were eating, Gelert remarked:

'I forgot to tell you, Great-Grannie, that the little Brown Men told me it was noised about that Farmer Vivian is going to sell all his land--this little cottage too--and that we are to be turned out.'

'That is the wishtest [6] news I've heard this longful time,' wailed the old woman. 'There isn't another cottage down here, and all the little houses up to Trebetherick an' Churchtown is more rent than I could ever pay.'

'We shall be able to live in a great big house--the biggest house in the parish--when we've found that purse and got the other with the golden pennies, the little Piskey Man told me,' said the boy. 'The money will come just when we most want it--won't it, Great-Gran dear?'

'It will,' chuckled the ancient dame; 'an' we must give ourselves no rest till we find that purse.'

'I feared you had forgotten me,' said the sweet wee voice in the Piskey-bag an hour later, when Gerna had taken it out of the chest.

'I hadn't forgotten you,' said the child a little sadly; 'but I couldn't come before, 'cause----'

'Because what?' asked the little voice anxiously. 'You have not come to give me into the power of the Spriggans, have you?'

'Not now, but I am afraid I shall have to,' said Gerna.

And she then told her how the little Brown Man had come to her again, and how he had doubled his offer if she brought the lost purse to the goog. She also told her all the news Gelert had brought up from the beach, and of Farmer Vivian selling his cottage.

'There isn't a word of truth about his selling your cottage,' said the little voice indignantly. 'He is far too kind to turn an old woman and two little children like you out of your home. It is because he is good that the Spriggans are afraid of him and speak of him so unkindly.'

'But if it should be true,' persisted Gerna, 'will you give me a purseful of golden money if I don't take you to the goog?'

'How quickly you forget, child! I told you but yesterday that I had no gold to give you,' said the little voice. 'Surely you do not love money more than you do kindness and pity? And you are going to commit an unkind deed--for it will be an unkind deed if you sell me for gold. Woe is me!'

'But the purse belongs to the Spriggan King,' said Gerna, as if to excuse herself. 'I shall be only giving him what belongs to him.'

'That is quite true. But I do not belong to him; I belong to my Mammie and Daddy and my own little True Love, whom I shall never, never see again if you take me to Piskey Goog. And I shall be dead to them for ever and ever and ever!'

'Then I won't let those nasty little Dark People have 'ee, whatever they do offer,' cried the child. 'I only wish I could take 'ee over that bog an' moor you told me of to the Tolmen.'

'A wish is father to the deed,' said the little voice somewhat more cheerfully. 'If you really desire to do that act of pity,' it added, after a pause, 'you have not much time to lose, for the moon is on the wane, and there are only three clear days to the birth of the new moon.'

'I wish I wasn't afraid of being out alone in the dark,' said the child, shuddering. 'I am a wisht coward when it is dark. So I'm afraid I shall never be brave enough to take 'ee to the Tolmen, though I want to, dreadful. But I'll never let the Spriggans have 'ee, dear,' she added, greatly distressed, as a groan terrible in its despair came out of the bag. 'Don't 'ee make so wisht a sound. It do make me sad to hear 'ee.'

'I can't help it,' said the wee voice, which was as full of tears as ever a voice could be. 'Not even love can keep me from the Spriggans after the moon is born. All power to resist them will be gone, and they can come into this cottage unseen by human eyes and take me away. They suspect where I am now, and are only afraid I have discovered a child who is not only no lover of money, but who is kind enough to take me to the Tolmen.'

'Whatever will 'ee do!' cried Gerna, tears welling to her eyes. 'I don't believe I shall be happy any more if I know those ghastly little Spriggans have 'ee.'

'I don't believe you would, you dear little maid.'

'I tell 'ee what,' cried the child, making a big resolve: 'I will take---- There! Great-Grannie is coming up the stairs. Good-night till to-morrow.'

The ancient dame was up with the sun the next day, and made Gerna and Gelert get up too, that no time might be lost in looking for the Piskey-purse. She would hardly give them time to eat their breakfast, so greedy was she to have the Small People's golden money.

As she was taking down her sunbonnet, she knocked over a heavy piece of wood, which fell on her big toe, and it hurt her so badly that, much to her vexation, she had to let the children go without her.

The tide was in when they got down to the bay, and so smooth and still was it that 'it couldn't wash up anything, even if it wanted to,' said Gelert crossly.

He turned over all the seaweed at high-water mark, but saw nothing except sea-fleas.

When the tide was far enough down, Gerna went all over the beach with her brother; but as she had already found the lost purse, she picked up shells instead.

'I don't b'lieve you want to find the Piskey-purse, Gerna Carnsew,' growled Gelert, when he saw what she was doing. 'I don't b'lieve you want to have the Small People's golden pieces one little bit.'

'I didn't say I did,' cried Gerna, which made the boy so angry that he went off to the other side of the bar to look for the purse alone.

Gerna was stooping to pick up a shell, of which there were many on the sands to-day, when the little Brown Man came up to her, doffed his three-cornered hat, and grinned into her face.

'Have you found our lost purse yet?' he asked. 'The time for finding it is up the day after to-morrow.'

'Whatever do you mean, little mister?'

'What I say, and that your chance of being wealthy will be gone. Are you looking for the precious bag now?'

'My Great-Grannie sent me and Gelert down here to look for it,' said the child evasively. 'Gelert is over there looking,' again sending her glance across the bar, which was particularly beautiful to-day with reflected clouds.

'I know he is, and he seems much more anxious to find the purse than you are. Perhaps our offer, great as it was, is not sufficiently tempting. If it isn't'--looking keenly into the child's sweet face--'we will treble our reward. Three purses full of the Wee Folks' golden money will we give you if you bring us the bag. It will be more than enough to buy all the land in your parish, including your own dear little cottage, should it ever be sold.'

'Will it really?' cried Gerna, deeply impressed, and for the first time in her innocent young life the desire to be rich came into her unselfish little soul.

'Yes; and you will be a very great lady indeed,' said the small Dark Man, with an evil laugh, seeing he had gained a point--'greater even than Lady Sandys, who lives up at St. Minver Churchtown.'

He might have said many more things to entice the poor little maid's envy; but just then a great voice above their heads startled them, and, looking up, Gerna saw Farmer Vivian on the top of Tristram, a hill facing Pentire Glaze.

The Spriggan took to his heels at once, and there was a helter-skelter amongst all the Little Men, whom she had not seen on the sands until then, and one and all rushed into Piskey Goog, as if a regiment of soldiers were after them.

Gelert continued his search for the purse until the sea flowed in again, and Gerna sat on a rock picturing to herself what the Churchtown folk would say to her when she bought all the land in the parish, and became a person of even greater importance than Lady Sandys. As she was enjoying all this wealth in anticipation, it suddenly rushed upon her at what price she would buy her riches--the happiness of a poor little helpless thing in a Spriggan's prison--and she felt so ashamed of herself that the desire for gold died within her, and such pity for her little friend came in its place that she was now quite determined to take the bag over the bog country to the moor where the Tolmen was, cost her what it might.

When the children came home, Great-Grannie was all eagerness to know if the purse were found, and when Gelert told her it was not, and that Gerna had been looking for shells instead of the lost Piskey-purse, her anger knew no bounds, and she smacked the poor little maid, and once more sent her supperless to bed.

'I wish all the Spriggans' gold would be swallowed up in the sea,' said poor Gerna, as she went up to the little bed-chamber. 'Great-Grannie was never vexed with me before that Dinky Man wanted to make me rich with his golden pieces. 'Tis better to be poor an' contented, I reckon, than to be rich and be miserable.'

The ancient dame, finding her toe getting worse, followed her small great-granddaughter upstairs, and as she did not go down again that night, Gerna had no chance of speaking to the little prisoner. Nor had she the next morning, for she was kept so busy, what with bathing Great-Grannie's injured toe, and all the other odds and ends of things she had to do before going down to the bay, that she had not a minute to herself until bedtime.

The old woman, in her desire for gold, no longer considered the voracious appetites of her numerous ducks, and told the children that, as the finding of that lost purse was of such great importance, the limpet-picking must stand over until the purse was found.

Gelert was delighted to be relieved of an uncongenial task, and went off to search for the purse with a light heart; but Gerna, not wanting to go to the beach at all, begged to stay at home, which made Great-Grannie so cross that she said she was not to come back until she had found it.

Either the clock had gone wrong or the old woman's brain, for it was much later than she thought, and when the children got down to the bay the sea was rushing up the sands at such a terrible speed that the time for searching was very short. It had surrounded the rocks where the limpets clung when they got there, and was almost up to Piskey Goog.

Gelert went to the other side of the bay at once, leaving Pentire side to Gerna. But as the little maid knew there was no other purse to find than the one she had found, she began again to pick up shells. There were very lovely shells on the sands to-day, all the colours of the rainbow--in fact, they looked as they lay in the eye of the sun as if they had fallen from the sky. As the child was stooping to pick them up, out of the cavern came a troop of little Brown Men, with the Wee Man who had always spoken to her at the head.

He made at once for the child.

'Picking up shells again!' he cried, 'and all those purses of gold awaiting you there in the goog! Why, I am beginning to think you do not want to be rich. Do you?'

'I did issterday, [7] but I don't one little bit now,' said the child, turning her frank gaze full upon the little Dark Man's upturned face.

'What!' he cried, looking as black as a thundercloud, 'you don't mean to tell me that you are going to miss the great chance of having three purses full of the Wee Folks' golden money?'

'Iss, I do,' said the little maid. 'I don't want even one piece of your old golden money, little Mister Spriggan!'

If the cliff towering above them had tumbled down upon him the little Dark Man could not have looked more crushed. Then he scowled all over his face, shook his scrap of a fist at her, and yelled:

'I know now that you found the purse we lost, and that the little voice within it--it is nothing more than a voice, remember--has bewitched you as it has others, and that it does not want you to be rich, happy, and great as we do. You will be sorry all your days you have lost your opportunity to be rich, and you will find you cannot even keep the thing which you have found.'

There was a heavy ground sea that day, and the waves were so huge that Gerna had to go farther up the beach out of their reach, and when she turned to see what the Dinky Men were doing, she saw them all slinking into Piskey Goog like whipped dogs.

Great-Grannie was in no better temper than she had been the previous day at her great-grand-children's failure; and when she asked if Gerna had been looking for the purse, and Gelert said 'No,' she was so vexed and cross, she not only thumped the child, but sent her upstairs to stay the rest of the day.

The poor little maid felt so miserable that she did not take out the purse and talk to the prisoner for ever so long; but when she did she told her all she had said to the wee Dark Man.

'Did you really say all that to his face--refuse his gold and call him a Spriggan?' cried the little voice in amazement.

'I did,' said Gerna; 'an' he did look terrible, sure 'nough.'

'I don't wonder! I am sure now you are brave enough to take me through the bog and over the moor to the Tolmen. Will you, dear little maid?'

'I want to, if I can,' said the child. 'But I don't know the way to the Tolmen. There is no Tolmen anywhere near here that I know of.'

'There is one, though nobody seems to know of it, away towards the sunrising, near where a great Tor rises up against the sky,' said the little voice quite cheerfully. 'I do not know the way to it myself, but there is a pair of Shoes which do, and they can take any person on whose feet they are over the worst bog that ever was.'

'What wonderful shoes!' cried Gerna. 'Where are they?'

'Farmer Vivian has them,' said the little prisoner, with something in her voice Gerna did not understand. 'They were given him by one of the Small People. The next time you go down to the beach and see him there, ask him for these shoes, and if they fit you I shall know for certain that you are the little maid who can save me.'

'Hush!' whispered Gerna. 'Great-Gran is clopping up the stairs, an' I must pop into bed afore she comes.'

'Take me into bed with you,' whispered back the little voice, 'and hide me in the folds of your bed-gown.'

When Gerna was sound asleep, the ancient dame began to look into every corner of the little chamber, as if she, too, were searching for something. She turned out all the things, even the child's pockets, took everything out of the great sea-chest, muttering to herself as she did so; and then she went to the bed where Gerna slept, and turned her over on her side, and felt under the clothes and the pillow.

'I was wrong; she ent a-got the purse,' she said aloud to herself, 'an' I thought she had. Aw, dear! I'm afraid we shall never have that bag an' the Small People's money.'

And then she undressed and got into bed.

But the old woman could not sleep a wink that night, and only dozed off when Gerna awoke.

The child had only time to drop her little friend into the chest before Great-Grannie was wide awake again and getting up to dress.

At the flow of the tide the children were again hurried off to the beach to search for the lost Piskey-purse, the old dame loudly lamenting that she was not able to go with them, owing to the hurt to her toe.

The tide was in, and whilst they waited for it to go down, Farmer Vivian came across the bar, and Gelert, seeing him coming towards them, made off.

'How is it you haven't been picking limpets lately?' asked the farmer, with a kindly smile, looking down at Gerna.

'Great-Grannie ordered us to look for a Piskey-purse instead,' said the little maid dolefully.

Then she remembered what the little voice had asked her to do if she saw Farmer Vivian.

'Yes,' he said, in answer to her question, 'I have such a pair of Shoes, and, odd to say, I have them in my pocket. What do you want them for?'

'To see if they will fit me, please, sir. May I have them now and try them on?'

'You may, certainly; but I am afraid they are far too small even for your little feet.'

He dipped his hand into his coat-pocket, and, taking out a tiny pair of moss-coloured Shoes, he gave them to the child.

'Why, they are dolly's shoes!' she cried; 'only big enough for the Small People's feet. I am terribly disappointed.'

'Are you? Well, never mind; just see if they will fit you.'

'I will, just for fun,' laughed Gerna; and, putting one of them to her bare foot, to her unspeakable amazement it began to stretch, and in a minute it was on!

'Well, I never!' cried Farmer Vivian, and his great voice was so full of delight that it roared out all over the bar, even louder than Giant Tregeagle, whose roar of rage is still sometimes heard on St. Minver sandhills. 'The Shoe has stretching powers, it seems. Try to get on its fellow.'

Gerna quickly did so, and was as proud as a hen with a brood of chicks as she stared at her feet.

'You will have to keep them now,' said the farmer, lowering his big voice to such gentleness and sweetness that she would have thought it was her own little friend at home in the sea-chest if she had not known it wasn't. 'A dear little lady gave them to me to keep until I should find somebody they would fit, and I have waited a very long time for that somebody. With the Shoes she gave me a Lantern, which she said must be given with the Shoes;' and once more diving into his pocket, he fished out the tiniest lantern Gerna had ever seen. 'Just big enough,' he said, 'to light home a benighted dumbledory' (bumblebee); and he went away laughing towards the cliffs.

Gerna kept on the Shoes till the tide was down to Piskey Goog, when she took them off and put them into her underskirt pocket with the dinky Lantern.

The sands were strewn with Piskey-purses to-day instead of shells, and as it gave her something to do, she picked up as many as she could see; and when the tide had gone down to Pentire Hawn, she went near there and sat on a rock.