The old woman spoke too soon to carry out her threat, for she had no sooner spoken than the Piskeys vanished, the Tiny Moormen as well, and where they went she never knew.
But her husband told her the little rascals were still in the spence when she could not see them.
‘They have the power to make themselves visible or invisible, whichever is most convenient to them,’ he said.
‘They have done you out of your biscuits and junket a good many times, anyhow,’ cried the old woman.
‘Iss,’ said Granfer Nankivell, ‘they have; and as I did away with the Piskey-beds, we are quits. I only hope they will be of the same mind, and won’t come any more and eat up those nice things you make for me. I am quite longing for a plateful of junket and one of your sweet biscuits.’
Whether the Piskeys thought the old turf-cutter was sufficiently punished for clearing out their sleeping-places, or whether Grannie Nankivell’s threat to wring their necks frightened them away, we cannot tell. At all events, they and the Tiny Moormen kept away from the cottage on the moor, and whenever the old woman made sugar biscuits and sweet junket, and put them in the spence, no two-legged cat, Moormen or Piskeys, ever ate up those specially-made dainties; and little Genefer’s honesty was never again doubted.
[1] A small storeroom for victuals.
[2] Power of utterance.