‘If you be there, an’ can hear me,’ said Tamsin, ‘I want ’ee to be so good as to come through my keyhole on the evening of Christmas Eve an’ pass over the bridge of Phillida’s nose, an’ order her a little dream-cake with a little dream-bird on top. I shall be so obliged to ’ee if you will, for I am too poor to make the cheeld a real cake an’ a little cake-bird.’
When the old woman had said all this, such a burst of laughter broke on the winter air outside the cottage that Phillida rushed to the door and looked out.
She could not see the Dinky Men, but their laughter was more than enough to tell her that they were there, and Grannie said she was sure they had heard what she asked, and would do it gladly.
As they stood on their doorstep they heard the sound of tiny tripping feet going away from the cottage in the direction of the Piskey Circle; and as they followed the sound they noticed how bright the Circle was on the soft green turf.
‘I hear them laughing. Listen, Grannie!’
It was a perfect day—one of those very rare days we are privileged to have once or twice in December month—and the moors were full of charm. The many pools on it were full of light, the boulder near the Piskey Circle was diamond bright in the sunshine, and above it the furze was already breaking into golden blossom. The purple had ‘pulsed’ out of the heath and the pink from the ling, but each little sprig was a marvel of brown, and showed up the silver lichen that splashed the brown. The bracken was brilliant in warm tones of orange and gold, the brambles were every shade of crimson and red, and the haze on the moors was like the bloom of the hurts,[4] which still supplied food for the birds on the hills. In the direction of Roche, where the great Roche Rocks stand in lonely solitude, six hundred and eighty feet above the level of the sea, with the ruins of the little chapel dedicated to holy St. Michael on their summit, a lark went up singing into the blue, for larks, as most observers of nature know, are seldom out of song. The yellow-hammers were as bright as the brightly-coloured bracken, and sang their cheerful little lays from bramble and bush, and the streams rippled over the moors.
The Roche Rocks.
The old grandmother and her little grandmaid stood on the doorstep taking in the quiet beauty of the moors. They even went out on to the moor, and turned their gaze towards the Roche Rocks to see if they could see the little sky-bird. After listening ten minutes or longer to the lark and other birds, and to the Piskeys laughing, they returned to the cottage.