‘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 ladyship happen to know anybody else who may have seen my laugh?’ asked the little Piskey wistfully.
‘And who may that one be?’ queried the little Piskey. ‘Will your ladyship be kind enough to tell me?’
‘The Good King Arthur,’ the mole answered in a low voice.
‘Good King Arthur!’ ejaculated 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.