"Pee now got nearer, and saw that the rider had neither hat nor wig on; nor was there a hair to be seen on his bare head, and, putting out her hand to touch the horse, she felt nothing but a bush of furze. She rubbed her eyes, and saw at once, to her great surprise, that what a moment before appeared (and she would have sworn it was) a gentleman on horseback, was nothing else but a tall cross that stands on a high bank, by the road-side, about half a mile from Santust lane's end. The old woman thought she was miles farther on, and must be so bewitched that she couldn't believe her senses.
"Fearing that Tom Trayer was still dogging her steps, she went on for dear life, and, not staying to look for the stepping stones in the stream below Cardew Mill, she splashed through with the water above her knees.
"On she went and, seeing a light on her right hand side, she thought it shone through the window of a dwelling, where she might rest awhile and dry herself, so she made for it, straight across the moors, but went on for miles, it seemed to her, without coming to it. Then the light went out and left her floundering in the bogs; yet, getting out and steering for the place from which it vanished, she at last found herself amidst the furze-ricks and pigs'-crows in Boslow. Not seeing any light in the only dwelling of this lonely place, An' Pee opened the door of an out-house and entered it, hoping she might take a few hours' rest.
"In the crow that the old dame entered she was glad to find a good quantity of straw, on which she lay down and fell asleep, but her slumbers were soon disturbed by a bosom of vears (litter of sucking pigs) which had just been severed from their dam and placed there to be weaned. The young sucklings, taking An' Pee for their dam, continued rooting round her with their snouts. All her endeavours to get a comfortable rest being in vain, she came out and, hearing the sound of a threshal (flail) going, and seeing a glimmer of light in the barn on the other side of the town-place, she thought that the old man of Boslow was up late threshing that he might have straw to serve his cattle over Sunday. 'Now,' said the old woman to herself, as she crossed the town-place, 'I shall get a spell of rest in the barn, for I feel so sleepy that no noise of threshing will hinder me from having a nap.' She made for a window, which stood open and through which the light glimmered, that she might have a peep at what was going on before she went in.
"Looking in she could only see, at first, an old iron chill (lamp) with two porvans (rush wicks) burning in it. The chill hung from a stake, driven into the wall opposite, at the head of the barn-boards. Then, in the faint light, she noticed a slash-staff (beating part of the flail) going up and down, but couldn't see anybody working it. That she might be able to reach her head farther in, to see better, she rolled close under the window a big stone, and, standing on that, on her tip-toes, she saw that the threshal was worked by a little old man, no more than three feet high, covered only with a few rags, and his long hair that hung over his shoulders like a bunch of rushes, (a bunch beaten for making sheep's spans). His face was broader than it was long; she couldn't make out the colour of his great round owl's-eyes, they were so shaded by his shaggy eyebrows, from between which his long nose, like a snout, poked out. His mouth reached from ear to ear, and they were set far back to make room for it. Pee noticed, too, that his teeth were very long and jagged, for he was so eager about his work that, with each stroke of the threshal, he kept moving his thin lips round and up and down, and his tongue in and out. He had nothing of a chin or neck to speak of, but shoulders broad enow for a man twice his height. His naked arms and legs were out of all proportion, and too long for his squat body; and his splayed feet were more like a quilkan's (frog's) than a man's.
"'Well,' thought An' Pee, 'this es luck, to see Piskey threshan; for, ever since I can remember, I have heard it said that Piskey threshed the corn in Boslow of winter's nights, and did other odd jobs all the year round for the old couple who lived here, but I wouldn't believe it. Yet here he es!' As she reached farther in and looked round she beheld scores of small people, no more than two feet high, attending on the thresher; some of them lugged down sheaves and placed them handy for him; others shook the straw and bore it off to the end of the barn. An' Pee couldn't help admiring how, when one side of a sheaf was threshed clean, Piskey, by a few quick, smart blows, would rise the sheaf on its butt-end, then knock it over quite cute like with the unthreshed side uppermost. When the corn was all out of that side, with a few sharp blows on the tongue of the bind, it was laid open and the straw sent to the lower end of the boards with the tip of his slash-staff. An' Pee declared that she never saw a smarter thresher in all her born days.
"When a heap of corn had gathered on the boards, he raked it off with the barn-rake and kicked the bruss-straw (short straw) out of it, leaving the corn just as clean as if it had been winded. In doing this job, he raised such a dust that it set him and the small folks sneezing, and the old woman, according to custom, said 'God bless 'e little men!' She had no sooner spoken the words than the light went out and all vanished; but she felt a handful of dust thrown into her eyes that nearly blinded the only peeper that she could see anything on, and she heard Piskey squeak out,
'I spy thy snout, old Peepan Pee;
And I'll serve thee out, or es much to me.'
"An' Pee felt rather uneasy when she remembered that the 'small people' have great spite against anyone who watches them or tries to pry into their doings.