The Piskeys who Carried their Beds

Many years ago the Piskeys used to dance on a grassy¹ place on the top of the cliffs overlooking Newtrain Bay in the parish of Padstow. They danced there so often that the grass was worn quite bare, and until the cliffs on which they danced were undermined and broken down by the rough sea, the marks of their tiny feet were plainly seen.

An old woman who lived a short distance from Newtrain Cliffs used to tell people interested in fairies that she had often seen them dancing there. ‘They danced two and two,’ she said, ‘and so near the edge of the cliff, you would have thought they would dance over. But they never did; they were far too clever for that.’

Jinnie Chapman was the name of this old woman. She was quite a character in her way, and almost as interesting as the Small People she loved to talk about.

She was a little quick woman, with twinkling dark eyes, and whenever she went over to Newtrain to watch the Piskeys, she wore a black cottage-bonnet over her neat jinnie-guick cap, a blue print apron², [180]and a quaint³ little black turnover⁴ with a wide border of red cones⁵. This turnover she called a ‘q’ shawl, because the cones on its border were the shape of q’s, she said.

It was the great pleasure of her dull, uneventful life to see the Piskeys dancing, which she was simple enough to believe they did to give her pleasure; and she embraced every opportunity to get to the Newtrain Cliffs to watch them.

Jinnie had watched the Small People so often that she knew every one of them by sight, and how many there were that danced.

They never took any notice of the little old woman in the cottage-bonnet, the quaint shawl, and blue print apron, watching them dancing near a low stone hedge green and gold with samphire; and they laughed and talked to each other just the same as if she were not present.

They never danced, as far as Jinnie knew, except when the moon was high, and they left off dancing when the moon set like a ball of fire over the great headlands. But she did not know where they went after the moon had gone down.

One very bright moonlight night in the early autumn, when the Piskey-stools1 were thick on Newtrain Cliffs, old Jinnie came again to watch the Piskeys; and when she got there, there were not any to be seen. She could not understand it, and she went and looked at the Piskey-stools to see if they [181]were sitting on any of them having a chat, which they sometimes did when they were tired of dancing; but every Piskey-stool on the cliffs was unoccupied.

As she was wondering what had become of the Piskeys, she heard shrieks⁶ of tiny laughter, like the giggles⁷ of kittiwakes, coming up from Newtrain Bay under the cliffs; and she hastened down the steep road leading to the bay—which was romantic-looking, and almost shut in by tall cliffs—as fast as her old legs would take her.

When she got to the bottom of the road, she met four little Piskeys coming up, carrying a large Piskey-bag between them; and being very anxious to know what they were going to do with the dark-brown thing, she said:

‘My little dears, will you kindly⁸ tell me what you are going to do with the Piskey-bag?’

They were evidently too surprised to answer the old woman at once, for she had never spoken to them before, and they stared up at her open-mouthed.

‘To sleep in when the cold weather comes,’ answered a Piskey at last.

‘They are ever so comfortable to snuggle under when the snow is on the ground,’ said another little Piskey.

‘Sleep in them, do you?’ cried old Jinnie, greatly interested. ‘To think of it now! I expect they are as warm as the blanketing the blanket-weavers weave in their looms¹⁰ at Padstow. But I never [182]knew before you slept in the bags; I thought you kept your money in them.’

‘We don’t, then,’ cried the Piskeys, grinning all over their little elf faces, which were almost as brown as the Piskey-bag they were carrying. ‘We use the tiny young bags to keep our money in, not big ones like this.’

‘Up we go!’ cried one of the Piskeys to his companions, giving the one nearest him a poke⁹ in his ribs¹¹; and the four little Brown Men began to ascend¹² the steep road, carrying the Piskey-bag by its four tails, swinging it to and fro, and shrieking¹³ with laughter as they swung it.

Jinnie watched them for a few minutes, and then went down to the pebbly¹⁴ beach, where she saw dozens of little Brown Men in companies of four, each company bearing a Piskey-bag between them.

There was a long string of these Little People from the water’s edge to where she met them, which was about a dozen yards from the foot of the steep road.

The little Brown Men took no notice of her, and swung the bags just as did the first quartette, seemingly unconscious that she was watching them, and laughed and joked among themselves as they swung them.

Old Jinnie followed them up the beach and road, and she wondered to herself where they were going to take the bags; but she never knew, for when they reached the top of the cliff where they danced, they vanished, Piskey-bags and all!

1 grassy   

adj.盖满草的；长满草的

参考例句：

• They sat and had their lunch on a grassy hillside.他们坐在长满草的山坡上吃午饭。
• Cattle move freely across the grassy plain.牛群自由自在地走过草原。

2 apron   

n.围裙；工作裙

参考例句：

• We were waited on by a pretty girl in a pink apron.招待我们的是一位穿粉红色围裙的漂亮姑娘。
• She stitched a pocket on the new apron.她在新围裙上缝上一只口袋。

3 quaint   

adj.古雅的，离奇有趣的，奇怪的

参考例句：

• There were many small lanes in the quaint village.在这古香古色的村庄里，有很多小巷。
• They still keep some quaint old customs.他们仍然保留着一些稀奇古怪的旧风俗。

4 turnover   

n.人员流动率，人事变动率；营业额，成交量

参考例句：

• The store greatly reduced the prices to make a quick turnover.这家商店实行大减价以迅速周转资金。
• Our turnover actually increased last year.去年我们的营业额竟然增加了。

5 cones   

n.（人眼）圆锥细胞；圆锥体( cone的名词复数 )；球果；圆锥形东西；（盛冰淇淋的）锥形蛋卷筒

参考例句：

• In the pines squirrels commonly chew off and drop entire cones. 松树上的松鼠通常咬掉和弄落整个球果。 来自辞典例句
• Many children would rather eat ice cream from cones than from dishes. 许多小孩喜欢吃蛋卷冰淇淋胜过盘装冰淇淋。 来自辞典例句

6 shrieks   

n.尖叫声( shriek的名词复数 )v.尖叫( shriek的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• shrieks of fiendish laughter 恶魔般的尖笑声
• For years, from newspapers, broadcasts, the stages and at meetings, we had heard nothing but grandiloquent rhetoric delivered with shouts and shrieks that deafened the ears. 多少年来， 报纸上， 广播里， 舞台上， 会场上的声嘶力竭，装腔做态的高调搞得我们震耳欲聋。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

7 giggles   

n.咯咯的笑( giggle的名词复数 )；傻笑；玩笑；the giggles 止不住的格格笑v.咯咯地笑( giggle的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• Her nervous giggles annoyed me. 她神经质的傻笑把我惹火了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• I had to rush to the loo to avoid an attack of hysterical giggles. 我不得不冲向卫生间，以免遭到别人的疯狂嘲笑。 来自辞典例句

8 kindly   

adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地

参考例句：

• Her neighbours spoke of her as kindly and hospitable.她的邻居都说她和蔼可亲、热情好客。
• A shadow passed over the kindly face of the old woman.一道阴影掠过老太太慈祥的面孔。

9 poke   

n.刺，戳，袋；vt.拨开，刺，戳；vi.戳，刺，捅，搜索，伸出，行动散慢

参考例句：

• We never thought she would poke her nose into this.想不到她会插上一手。
• Don't poke fun at me.别拿我凑趣儿。

10 looms   

n.织布机( loom的名词复数 )v.隐约出现，阴森地逼近( loom的第三人称单数 )；隐约出现，阴森地逼近

参考例句：

• All were busily engaged,men at their ploughs,women at their looms. 大家都很忙，男的耕田，女的织布。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The factory has twenty-five looms. 那家工厂有25台织布机。 来自《简明英汉词典》

11 ribs   

n.肋骨( rib的名词复数 )；（船或屋顶等的）肋拱；肋骨状的东西；（织物的）凸条花纹

参考例句：

• He suffered cracked ribs and bruising. 他断了肋骨还有挫伤。
• Make a small incision below the ribs. 在肋骨下方切开一个小口。

12 ascend   

vi.渐渐上升，升高；vt.攀登，登上

参考例句：

• We watched the airplane ascend higher and higher.我们看着飞机逐渐升高。
• We ascend in the order of time and of development.我们按时间和发展顺序向上溯。

13 shrieking   

v.尖叫( shriek的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• The boxers were goaded on by the shrieking crowd. 拳击运动员听见观众的喊叫就来劲儿了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• They were all shrieking with laughter. 他们都发出了尖锐的笑声。 来自《简明英汉词典》

14 pebbly   

多卵石的，有卵石花纹的

参考例句：

• Sometimes the water spread like a sheen over the pebbly bed. 有时河水泛流在圆石子的河床上，晶莹发光。
• The beach is pebbly. 这个海滩上有许多卵石。