"No doubt," said the tinner after a pause, "Piskey threshed the corn and did other odd jobs for the old man of Boslow, as long as he lived, and they said that after his death he worked some time for the old widow, till he took his departure from the place about three score years ago. Some say"—
"Stop a minute, my son, I can tell 'e a story about that," said Capt. Peter, taking the pipe from his mouth, and holding up his finger:—"One night, when the hills were covered with snow and winter had come severely, the old widow of Boslow left in the barn for Piskey a larger bowl than usual of gerty milk (boiled milk, thickened with pillas, or oatmeal). Being clear moonlight she took a turn round the town-place, stopped at the barn-door, and looked in to see if Piskey were come to eat his supper while it was hot. The moonlight shone through a little window right on the barn-boards, and there, sitting on a sheaf of oats, she saw Piskey eating his gerty milk very hearty. He soon emptied his wooden bowl, and scraped it with the wooden spoon as clean as if it had been washed out. Having placed the 'temberan dish and spoon' in a corner, he stood up and patted and stroked his stomach, and smacked his lips in a way that was as much as to say, 'that's good of 'e old dear; see ef I don't thresh well for 'e to-night.' But when Piskey turned round, the old woman was sorry to see that he had nothing on but rags and a very little of them.
"'How poor Piskey must suffer with the cold,' she thought and said to herself, 'to pass great part of his time out among the rushes in the boggy moors or on the downs with this weather—his legs all naked, and a very holey breeches. I'll pitch about it at once, and make the poor fellow a good warm suit of home-spun. We all know ragged as Piskey es, he's so proud that he won't wear cast-off clothes, or else he should have some of my dear old man's—the Lord rest him.'
"No sooner thought than she begun; and, in a day or two, made a coat and breeches, knitted a pair of long sheep's-black stockings, with garters, and a nightcap, knitted too.
"When night came the old woman placed Piskey's new clothes, and a bowl of gerty milk on the barn-boards, where the moonlight would shine on them to show them best. A few minutes after leaving the barn she came back to the door, opened its upper part a little, and, looking in, saw Piskey standing up, eating his milk, and squinting at the clothes at the same time. Laying down his empty bowl he took the new breeches on the tip of his hand-staff, carried it to the window, and seeing what it was, put it on over his rags, dragged on the stockings, and gartered them, donned coat and cap, then jumped over the barn-boards, and capered round the barn, like a fellow light in the head, singing,
"'Piskey fine and Piskey gay,
Piskey now will run away.'
"And, sure enow, run away he did; for when he came round to the door opening into the mowhay he bolted out and took himself off without as much as saying, 'I wish 'e well 'till I see again' to the old woman, who stood outside the other door looking at am. Piskey never came back and the old woman of Boslow died that winter."
[An Overseer and a Parish Clerk of St. Just
about sixty years ago.]
"It was no wonder if persons coming from Penzance to Pendeen of a dark night should miss their way and think themselves piskey-led," said the tinner.