Quite a crowd of scarlet-coated little Night-riders had gathered near the Piskey by this time, and had listened to all that was said, and one little Night-rider asked if a Piskey had ever had the misfortune to lose his laugh before.
‘Yes, once in the long ago,’ answered the old Greybeard, fixing his eye on the little Piskey, who trembled beneath his gaze, ‘and what was worse still, he never found it again. And so very unhappy was that little fellow without his laugh, and so miserable did he make everybody with his bewailings, that at last the Piskey tribe to which he belonged sent out a command that whoever found him wandering about the country was to take him in charge as a Piskey vagrant, put him into a Piskey-bag, and hang him upside down like a widdy-mouse in the first cavern they came to. He was found, put into a Piskey-bag, and hung up in a cavern. There he is still, and there he will hang till there are no more Small People!’
‘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 ladyship 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?’