‘I am afraid I can’t. It is my duty to stop with your brothers to see that they don’t grow silly and lose their laugh. Besides, it is not quite the thing for an old Whitebeard like me to go travelling about the country with a youngster like you, in search of a laugh.’
‘Will you go with me to look for my laugh?’ asked the little Piskey, fixing his gaze on the Tiny Fiddler.
‘I would go with you gladly, if I were not Fiddler Piskey,’ he answered, touching his fiddle lightly with his bow. ‘But if I were to go gallivanting up and down the country in search of your laugh, there would be nobody to play the dancing tune when our brothers dance in the moonshine.’
King Arthur’s Castle, looking North.
‘Won’t one of you go with me and help me to find my laugh?’ begged the miserable little fellow, glancing from one Piskey to another as they crowded round him.
‘We would if we hadn’t so much dancing to do,’ they said. ‘We have to dance in every Piskey-ring from Tintagel Head to Crackington Hawn up St. Gennys, before the moon grows as small as a wren’s claw.’
‘Must I go by myself to search for my laugh?’ said the poor little Piskey in a heart-breaking voice.
‘Yes, you must go by yourself to look for your laugh,’ answered all the little Piskeys. ‘You should not have been so foolish as to lose it;’ and the selfish little Brown Men—Granfer Piskey, Fiddler Piskey, and all the other Piskeys—turned their backs on their unfortunate little brother, and ran away across the gardens and over the cliffs towards Bossiney, half-way between which was another big Piskey-ring; and by-and-by the poor little Piskey who had lost his laugh heard in the distance, as he sat all alone in the great grassy place, their merry laughter and the music of Fiddler Piskey’s tiny fiddle.
He was a very sad little Piskey as he listened to the merriment of his little brother Piskeys, and the moon, sailing along the dark velvety blue of the midnight sky above the ruins of King Arthur’s Castle and Gardens, never looked down on such a woebegone little Piskey before. He had always been happy and gay till now, and having no laugh was such a strange experience that it was no wonder he felt as miserable and wisht[1] as he did.