News from the Duchy | Page 6

out o' the
carriage window and got his cap blown away. That's all. Bein' a nipper
of some resource, he wasted no time, but touched off the
communicatin' button an' fetched the whole train to a standstill. George
Simmons, the guard, told me all about it last week, when I happened
across him an' asked the same question you've been askin'. George was
huntin' through the corridors to find out what had gone wrong; that's
how the blind men stepped out without his noticin'. He pretended to be
pretty angry wi' the young tacker. 'Do 'ee know,' says George, 'it's a five
pound fine if you stop a train without good reason?' 'But I had a good
reason,' says the child. 'My mother gave 'levenpence for that cap, an' 'tis
a bran' new one.'"

OUR LADY OF GWITHIAN.
"Mary, mother, well thou be! Mary, mother, think on me; Sweete Lady,
maiden clean, Shield me from ill, shame, and teen; Shield me, Lady,
from villainy And from all wicked company!" Speculum Christiani.
Here is a little story I found one day among the legends of the Cornish
Saints, like a chip in porridge. If you love simplicity, I think it may
amuse you.

Lovey Bussow was wife of Daniel Bussow, a tin-streamer of Gwithian
Parish. He had brought her from Camborne, and her neighbours agreed
that there was little amiss with the woman if you overlooked her being
a bit weak in the head. They set her down as "not exactly." At the end
of a year she brought her husband a fine boy. It happened that the child
was born just about the time of year the tin-merchants visited St.
Michael's Mount; and the father--who streamed in a small way, and had
no beast of burden but his donkey, or "naggur"--had to load up panniers
and drive his tin down to the shore-market with the rest, which for him
meant an absence of three weeks, or a fortnight at the least.
So Daniel kissed his wife and took his leave; and the neighbours, who
came to visit her as soon as he was out of the way, all told her the same
story--that until the child was safely baptised it behoved her to be very
careful and keep her door shut for fear of the Piskies. The Piskies, or
fairy-folk (they said), were themselves the spirits of children that had
died unchristened, and liked nothing better than the chance to steal
away an unchristened child to join their nation of mischief.
Lovey listened to them, and it preyed on her mind. She reckoned that
her best course was to fetch a holy man as quickly as possible to
baptise the child and make the cross over him. So one afternoon, the
mite being then a bare fortnight old, she left him asleep in his cradle
and, wrapping a shawl over her head, hurried off to seek Meriden the
Priest.
Meriden the Priest dwelt in a hut among the sandhills, a bowshot
beyond St. Gwithian's Chapel on the seaward side, as you go out to
Godrevy. He had spent the day in barking his nets, and was spreading
them out to dry on the short turf of the towans; but on hearing Lovey's
errand, he good-naturedly dropped his occupation and, staying only to
fill a bottle with holy water, walked back with her to her home.
As they drew near, Lovey was somewhat perturbed to see that the door,
which she had carefully closed, was standing wide open. She guessed,
however, that a neighbour had called in her absence, and would be
inside keeping watch over the child. As she reached the threshold, the
dreadful truth broke upon her: the kitchen was empty, and so was the

cradle!
It made her frantic for a while. Meriden the Priest offered what
consolation he could, and suggested that one of her neighbours had
called indeed, and finding the baby alone in the cottage, had taken it off
to her own home to guard it. But this he felt to be a forlorn hope, and it
proved a vain one. Neither search nor inquiry could trace the infant.
Beyond a doubt the Piskies had carried him off.
When this was established so that even the hopefullest of the
good-wives shook her head over it, Lovey grew calm of a sudden and
(as it seemed) with the calm of despair. She grew obstinate too.
"My blessed cheeld!" she kept repeating. "The tender worm of 'en! But
I'll have 'en back, if I've to go to the naughty place to fetch 'en. Why,
what sort of a tale be I to pitch to my Dan'l, if he comes home and his
firstborn gone?"
They shook their heads again over this. It would be a brave blow for