‘Haven’t you?’ cried the poor little Piskey. ‘I am disappointed. As you are always travelling about the country in your little Lantern, I felt sure you had seen my laugh.’
‘I only travel in marshy ground,’ said the little Lantern Man, still standing in the doorway of his tiny Lantern; ‘and your laugh may not have passed along my way.’
‘Do you happen to know anybody else who has seen my laugh?’ asked the little Piskey anxiously.
‘Nobody except Giant Tregeagle, of whom I dare say you have heard—that unhappy fellow who for some terrible wrong-doing has to dip Dozmare[4] Pool dry with a limpet-shell.’
‘Yes, I have heard about that great Giant from Granfer Piskey,’ answered the little Piskey. ‘He was a wicked seigneur who once had a fine house at Dozmare Pool and a great park on Bodmin Moors, and he is often flying about the country with the Wicked One at his heels.’
‘The very same,’ cried the little Lantern Man. ‘He travels from east to west, and from west to south, and back again. He will be sure to have seen your laugh.’
‘I am afraid my laugh is too small for a great big giant to have noticed, even if it passed him,’ said the little Piskey.
‘He isn’t so big but what he can see a laugh,’ said the little Lantern Man. ‘You had better go and ask him.’
‘I don’t know where he is,’ said the little Piskey, who was in a most dejected frame of mind.
‘He is at Dozmare Pool—or was not long since, doing his best to dip the big pool dry.’