The Bookworm made notes of many other things which would do for the curious in such matters, and remarked as singular that, in all the book, there was no reference to saints or invocations to saints, which, he said, was very strange in the land of saints. Guy confessed that the matter was beyond him, and said he did not care if he never heard the word "saint" again. Saint this, and saint that, and saint the other—there was too much of it in one small county, to his taste.
[Chapter XIX]
Mrs. Andrawartha took kindly to the Bookworm; he was the lame duck of the party, and so she took a motherly interest in him, and got him to talk about himself and his sleepless, restless nights, until he came into this land wherein Nature was at rest, beautifying herself after passionate upheavals. And then she told him fairy stories about piskies with half-shy credulity, and sorrow in her face and voice that the old order had changed and given place to new. In her young days a pedlar with a big dog used to travel from farmhouse to farmhouse, and always got hospitality in exchange for news. At night all the household crowded around the pedlar to hear him fiddle and sing, and tell stories of the piskies, and of men who listened to the songs of mermaids, and disappeared from family and life. This pedlar—"Uncle" Anthony he was called—was a poet, and his piskies were real, as real as sunshine and shadow and the music of the birds. He knew them by name and talked to them, and met them by moonlight on the moors, and what "Uncle" Anthony said was gospel truth.
