What the miller’s wife said of the old “droll” about a tinner’s feast was to the following effect:—

A poor tinner was determined to keep his parish feast as well as he could, that he mightn’t be looked down on, and sneered at by his comrades. He killed his pig before it was as fat as it should be; sold one side in Hallantide market; and left the other home to be put in the “kool” against winter. A piece of beef and other things were bought to keep a decent feast. The tinner whilst stopping at the Market Cross, in the Green Market, fell in with a Zennor man who had been an old comrade. The Santuster asked him into the public-house to take a pint, and they had pint upon pint, all at the tinner’s cost; the other never once offered to stand treat; yet the tinner was so glad to have met his old mate that he invited him over to feast, and the other said he’d come, with a half a word of asking.

The tinner’s wife put all the pork left at home in salt, except the “leans,” and saved them to make a good pie the Feasten Sunday. She made the “hinges” (liver and light) and other things serve them till then.

On Feasten Day the beef was boiled with such vegetables as were liked in broth; and dumplings made of great Hallan apples; a good “leans of pork pie” and “figgy” pudding baked. She had made a good cake on Feasten Eve; and that, when cold, had been placed upon a shelf over the window, just opposite the table.

They waited a good bit after their usual dinner-time, and, no feaster having arrived, the tinner began to think he might have promised to come on the Monday (he didn’t remember clearly what passed between them in the public-house;) so his wife laid by the beef, the pie, and the pudding till next day, in case the feasters might then come, so as to be provided for them. They made their own dinner, and a very good one too, of broth and the apple dumplings.

When she was going to take the table-cloth off, in came the Zennor man and his wife. The tinner thought then he must have asked his old mate to bring her. Next came in half-a-dozen [70]or more children. “Thusey (these) arn’t all mine,” said the feaster; “some of ‘themey’ are her sisters cheldran” pointing to his wife; “but they cried to go to feast too, as their cousins were goan.”

The tinner’s wife said nothing, and the children took the window-seat, without telling, that being their place at home.

All the tinner’s children had gone away out to play with their companions. The feaster and his wife being seated on the form outside the table, the beef, pork-pie, and such vegetables as were then in use were placed on the board.

“You needn’t cut away the beef for the cheldran,” said the Zennor man, “give them a basin of brath a piece.”

“No, we waan’t have brath,” cried the youngsters, “for we’ll have flesh too.”

In short, beef and pie were soon served out and devoured. The tinner’s wife had, happily, kept her pudding in the spence out of sight, when she found that her feasters would neither eat bread nor vegetables with their meat. On turnips, carrots, and cabbage being offered them, “No, no, thank ’e, all the same,” said they, “for we’ve plenty of ‘themey’ home: we can eat the fat with the lean, and the whole will go down together, honey sweet.”

There was nothing left on the table, in the way of meat, but the beef-bones, almost bare.

The pie was all eaten, and the children were licking out the dish, as they did at home, when in came an old couple and seated themselves on a bench at the lower end of the board.

“We arn’t come to feast,” said the old man, “for we wern’t asked, and we’ve had dennar hours ago; but granny couldn’t rest for thinkan about the cheldran, fearan they might run into shafts and other dangerous places over this way. After you have all finished your dennar, we’ll sing to ’e, for I and the old oman both belong to our Church choir.

“You know, I spose, that Zennor people have always been famous singers, and et must be long ago when a meremaid left the sea, changed her shape, and came to Church, dressed like a lady, all to hear our singers. She ‘comed,’ Sunday after Sunday, and singed so sweet herself that she, at last, enticed away a young fellow called Mathey Trewella, son to the church’warn, and neither of them have ever ben sen sence—that es, upon land, for I waan’t tell ’e a word of a lie and know et. You’ve heard, I spose, that in rememberance of this meremaid, her form, as sen in the sea, or of another like her, was carved on the bench-end on which she sat and singed so sweet right opposite Trewella up in the singan-laft (gallery); and even our cheldran are born singers, as you shall hear bem by, you shall.”

“We want more flesh, granfer, we do,” cried the young singers. [71]

“And seeman to me, I cud eat a mouthful of beef, too,” said granny; “ef you cud cut a little off themey bones. I like to pick the bones, for you know we say the nearer the bone the sweeter the flesh.”

The tinner placed a pewter platter, with all that remained of the beef, before this dear old couple: then the old man took from his pocket a clasp knife and scraped the bones, when the youthful singers again cried, “We want more flesh, granny, we haan’t had half enough.”

The old grandame, in her eagerness to clutch the scrapings, got her fingers cut, and slapped the old man’s face with her bloody hand. The tinner’s wife had a tender heart, poor woman; and, being grieved to hear the children crying, put a “baker” on the “brandes,” took from the bussa (earthen crock) a piece of nice streaky pork, and fried it for them.

Just then it was that the younger Zennor woman, in looking about for something more, spied the feasten cake, on a shelf over the window.

“Whatever ded ’e put that cake there, right in my sight for?” cried she, turning round to the tinner’s wife, and then said to her own husband, sitting beside her; “Hold my hands behind my back, do, that I mayn’t touch myself anywhere in sight till I’ve had a piece of that cake; for fear I mark the cheeld weth that cake. I’m in as bad a condition now as the poor oman who langed for treacle, and dipped the twopenny loaf she had in her hand, into a barl of tar, and dedn’t find out her mistake till she had eaten nearly all the bread,—her mind was so runan upon treacle, poor dear oman.”

The cake was at once taken down and cut up. The feasters all, young and old, wanted a piece, and nothing of it was left—not even the “bruyans” (crumbs.) Then the youthful singers cried again because their bellies ached.

“Don’t ’e cry, my dears,” said their granny, “the ‘quaffan’ (fulsomeness) will pass away when on the road home; hush dears, we shan’t stop much longer.”

When they had sat to eat, drink, and “squat” (stuff themselves) till they were ready to burst, they all straddled away as fast as they were able with the heavy loads they bore in their stomachs, and without so much as once asking the tinner to their own feast in return.

“Now, any one with a grain of gumption may see,” said the old miller’s wife, “how Jenefer made up her story out of this old ‘bam,’ just like the actors in a guise-dance changing parts. The passon do say that our drolls and guise-dances are hundreds of years old, and well worth preserving.”

It appeared, from what the old miller’s wife afterwards said that [72]Miss Jenefer was crazy on the subject of her kindred, and that she had none so near as to be called relations. If any persons crossed her, when mounted on this hobby, she would go at them, “full tilt,” like she did at the poor woman who spoke scornfully of a “planched” parlour, or of its owners, whom the crazed old damsel claimed as her kinsfolk.

Yet most people liked the old maid very well and humoured her whims, as far as they could remember them.

Like a true Santuster she’ll never bear a “coresy” (a grudge, or ill-will) against anybody for long, but have it out and be friends. Besides she’s just as good a story-teller as the old blind droll teller and ballad-singer, Anthoney James, who takes a turn round the county every summer, and passes the winters in Plymouth, with other old pensioners. When living there he is often fetched to gentlemen’s houses where there is company who like to hear him tell his “Drake Droll,” and sing old ballads all about Sir Francis and privateering.

The arrival of An Polly’s big happy-looking son put an end to her stories, for the time.

[73]