Cornish Saints & Sinners

by J. Henry Harris

"For sartin sure they do. You can't make butter if the piskies turn the cream against the sun, and every dairymaid will tell 'ee so. If the piskie up to Barton farm has a spite against a new maid, he'll spoil her baking of bread, so that the bread will come out of the oven full of 'piskie-spits,' and he'll play her tricks until she is turned out of the house. When I was a boy, the piskies used to have fine fun with the maidens up to Barton on winter nights when all the work was done. They used to blaw out the candles and kiss the maids, and the maids would screech and find fault with the boys, and 'scat their chacks' for being too free in the dark. The piskies were full of fun, and would whisper in a maid's ear when she was sleeping, and tickle her nose to wake her when she had bad dreams. When the maids were courting they'd lead 'em a pretty dance, and drive 'em to quarrel with their sweethearts, and then help 'em to make it up again."

But the old man did not think they were as plentiful as they used to be, for the simple reason that people had learnt to do without them. What would be the good of the piskies in the harvest-field now, when everything was done by machinery; or in dairies, where butter was made in churns; or in flour-mills, where corn was broken between rollers so hard that a diamond could only scratch them? The old man found it as hard to swallow the Bookworm's description of roller mills as we found it to swallow his stories, and his were much more inviting. The ancient miller rambled on and on, telling us of tricks played upon his very own grandfather, who, returning from market with more brandy toddy under his belt than his weak head could carry, dared to cross a piskie ring on the moor without first turning his pockets inside out by way of homage. The poor man was pinched black and blue, was bound with bonds innumerable, no thicker than spiders' webs, and then, to tantalize him, his eyes were "struck" with magic unguent, and he was able to see the feasting and rioting going on all around him, without being able to enjoy the situation—all of which he did most steadfastly believe.

"Blow the piskies!" said Guy, rejoining us without warning. "Blow the piskies! Did you ever catch one, Master Miller?"

A look of horror passed over the withered old face, which made it look uncanny. Catch a piskie, indeed! Had he been asked whether he'd ever robbed a church, he might have taken it less seriously.

"Never mind," said Guy, airily, seeing that he'd been guilty of something—"never mind; if you never have, you still may. Specimens getting scarcer, suppose, and a bit expensive; only, you just pin one on to a card and send it to me registered, for safety, and I'll come down handsomely."

The old man never recovered power of speech while we were with him, and he shook hands with the Bookworm and me automatically. We left him with eyes wide open, staring before him. I don't think he quite understood Guy's humour. The idea of catching a piskie and pinning it to a card, like small boys do cockchafers, came too suddenly upon him. Then to register a piskie and send it through the post-office—deporting an ancient divinity under a postage stamp—set up ideas which wanted thinking out.

I told Guy I feared the shock would be too much for the old man; but he only laughed, and said—

"Blow the piskie, and look at my beauty!"

He had managed to catch a trout too small for anything, and he patted himself on the back, and talked about it until he really believed he had done something deserving the world's gratitude.

"After all," said the Bookworm, when tired of listening to Guy and "fly" this or "fly" the other—"after all, there's no great difference between Guy and the miller. Guy's little trout has become a fairy already, and to-morrow will be even more wonderful than the miller's piskies. The mind's receptivity must——"