North Cornwall Fairies and Legends Part 5

'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 ladys.h.i.+p 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 ladys.h.i.+p 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 ladys.h.i.+p be kind enough to tell me?'

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

'Good King Arthur!' e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed 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 pa.s.sage 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 gra.s.s. 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 gra.s.s 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 gra.s.s, 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