Note 11 — The Piskey-Purse

It was all so surprising that Gerna told herself she would never be surprised any more whatever happened. And when the two Wee Lovers, separated by cruel Fate for one hundred years, met and greeted each other in lover fashion, all over the great moor broke the sound of pealing bells, so tiny and so silvery and with such music in their tones the like of which Gerna had never in all her life heard before. And where the bells were rung from she never knew, for there were no steeples or towers anywhere that she could see. As the bells’ music rang on, and all the little moorland birds sang more entrancingly than before, she saw hundreds and hundreds of the Small People, all more or less beautiful, come out from behind clumps of Bog-myrtle, and banks of thyme, and beds of sweet-scented orchis,11 all laughing and singing as they came towards the Tolmên, where the dear Little Lady and her True Love were standing hand in hand, smiling and bowing and looking as happy as ever they could look.