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.

There was an old miller, living at an old mill not so very far away, who had the reputation of knowing more about piskies than any man breathing. It was only a walking distance for the Bookworm, and Guy took his rod with him, having been told that below the mill he might cast a fly with some prospect of sport. Whipping a stream is something, and Guy said he'd rather cast at shadows than hang about a dusty old mill, listening to a foolish old man prating about foolish things. In fact, he was a little strong in his language, as he usually was when talking about people or things which did not interest him very much.

The old piskie man at the mill was, in fact, the Bookworm's "find," which was quite enough, as a rule, to put Guy in opposition, and incline him to use epigrammatic language touched with red.

We reached the mill, the like of which is hardly to be found again within the four corners of the kingdom. It was a one-story building, and that so low that we had to be careful when inside not to knock our heads against the beams, and the machinery was as primitive as the process of grinding corn between revolving stones driven by water power. The ancient hopper was being slowly consumed by worms, and the "bolting" cloths hung limp and dusty, like the cloths sent home from Egyptian tombs. We first spied the miller looking through a ventilation hole, which served as a window. When we entered the mill he was sitting on the lid of a thick oak chest, which had outlived the centuries, and seemed quite capable of lasting for ever.

The miller was withered, like the chest, and might have been believed if he said he was as old as the mill, only his eyes were bright and ferrety as they took stock of us through the flour dust accumulated on his eyebrows and lashes—a sort of flour mummy outside of his grave-clothes out for an airing, he looked. The machinery was in motion when we entered, and a fine dust soon settled upon us, and then set us coughing and choking, so that we made a hasty retreat through the door, the top half of which was already open.

The miller's cottage was a thatched dwelling tacked on to the mill, which was also thatched, but nothing was visible of the cottage but windows, on account of the clustering roses and myrtles and fuschias which clung to the old "cob" walls, and crept along the eaves, and scrambled along the thatch.

The old miller followed us out into the open, and stopped the wheel by turning off the water; and then we noticed that the dripping wheel was festooned with lichen, and was half-hidden under the shadow of a huge flowering laurel. There were only three other cottages in the village, and these were all flower-laden; and now the clat, clat, clatter of the old wheel was stopped, the air was musical with the hum of insect symphonies. And then the perfume!

We looked at one another and wondered.

"Quiet like," said the old man; and that was all he had to say about this antique gem in a garden of myrtles and roses. "Quiet like," indeed! Surely men may live in beauty until they cease to see it.

We were out piskie-hunting to-day, all except Guy, who already had his eye upon the stream which passed the old mill, then broadened where it could be seen glistening in the sunshine. He wasn't long before he deserted us, and we were not sorry, being sure that if he once commenced questioning the miller in his off-hand manner, the old man would dry up quickly, and we should hear little.

The Bookworm took the old man's fancy by telling him about a new process for grinding flour between rollers so hard that they could only be cut by diamonds, and then, with many windings, got on the track of the piskies. He took a lot of starting, it is true, but when once started he covered a good deal of ground. He would take his own course, and a crooked one it was, but capable of being straightened out, which is more than can truly be said of the discourses of some very learned people.

He was as "sure and sartin" that piskies were real beings, and existed even now, as that "water was wet," and he ought to know, because there was a piskie which belonged to the old mill. There was some trouble one day at the mill about the non-delivery of "grist," the miller being charged with taking unfair toll, and he shifted the responsibility on to his wife, who thereupon transferred the blame to the piskie, as the person least likely to suffer in consequence. It so happened that the piskie got to know of the slander, and he came to the mill in a great rage, and swore an oath binding in fairyland, not to do another stroke of work in the old mill for two generations.

"When I was a boy," said the old man, "I used to see the piskie that belonged to the mill sitting on the stones when they were grinding as comfortable as a fly would rest upon a turning wheel. And why not? When my father went to market, and stopped away days, when there was no need, the work was done all the same. My father liked that very well, only the piskie would give too good 'tummels' when he filled the sacks; and when my father took too much toll, then he would tickle the palm of his hand, and make it itch, to remind him that he was cheating. When a miller is honest, a tuft of hair grows in the middle of his palm; but it didn't ever sprout in my fathers, which made him poor-tempered sometimes. The piskie was in the shape of a man—very dark, black-haired, and cross-eyed. He could work best, the old folks said, when not seen; only his voice was large for his size, and made people know when he was about. He was the spirit of the mill, and belonged to it, so there was no question of payment; and the children grew knowing he was there, and were not afraid. Why should they be? When the piskie said he would do no more work for two generations, my father stuck to work himself, which was better for him in the long run; and I've had to stick to it, and shall stick to it till I die, and then the piskie will be free to come again."

"And are there piskies now?"

"Why not?"

"I don't know. But do people believe in them?" asked the Bookworm.

The old miller seemed to resent the question, and was so long in replying that we thought we had made a mess of it. It, however, appeared that he was only thinking; and at last he said—

"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——"

I know I lost a great deal, and ought to be sorry for it, I dare say; but the word "receptivity" was too much, and I managed to escape that time.