‘What!’ he cried, looking as black as a thundercloud, ‘you don’t mean to tell me that you are going to miss the great chance of having three purses full of the Wee Folks’ golden money?’
‘Iss, I do,’ said the little maid. ‘I don’t want even one piece of your old golden money, little Mister Spriggan!’
If the cliff towering above them had tumbled down upon him the little Dark Man could not have looked more crushed. Then he scowled all over his face, shook his scrap of a fist at her, and yelled:
‘I know now that you found the purse we lost, and that the little voice within it—it is nothing more than a voice, remember—has bewitched you as it has others, and that it does not want you to be rich, happy, and great as we do. You will be sorry all your days you have lost your opportunity to be rich, and you will find you cannot even keep the thing which you have found.’
There was a heavy ground sea that day, and the waves were so huge that Gerna had to go farther up the beach out of their reach, and when she turned to see what the Dinky Men were doing, she saw them all slinking into Piskey Goog like whipped dogs.
Great-Grannie was in no better temper than she had been the previous day at her great-grand-children’s failure; and when she asked if Gerna had been looking for the purse, and Gelert said ‘No,’ she was so vexed and cross, she not only thumped the child, but sent her upstairs to stay the rest of the day.
The poor little maid felt so miserable that she did not take out the purse and talk to the prisoner for ever so long; but when she did she told her all she had said to the wee Dark Man.
‘Did you really say all that to his face—refuse his gold and call him a Spriggan?’ cried the little voice in amazement.
‘I did,’ said Gerna; ‘an’ he did look terrible, sure ‘nough.’
‘I don’t wonder! I am sure now you are brave enough to take me through the bog and over the moor to the Tolmên. Will you, dear little maid?’