The landlady had told her husband, when he came in from his work, that their stranger-guest much wished to hear our old drolls and songs; and to see the remarkable places round about. That was the chief reason why the master of the house was so desirous that the company might tell something, of native growth, which a stranger might deem noteworthy.
Having told the fairy-tale, our host, addressing his wife, said “now Jenny, I’ve told that story to please thee, tell us how Betty Stags was served by a kindlier sort of spriggans (sprites).”
“When I’ve cleaned up a bit, perhaps I may,” replied she, “and Uncle Honney (Hanibal) may sing us a song that while ef he will be so good.”
“That I wed, weth all my heart,” said an old man belonging to the stamps, “ef we had one worth singan; but there’s none known, in these parts, good for anything. Such cheerful songs and rare old ballads as we used to sing, to lighten our labour, are all condemned now, and the singer cried down as ‘carnal-minded.’ In place of them we hear nothan but revival hymns, and I for one can’t make out any sense in them.”
“You have worked in bals up along as far as Dolcoath, or farther,” said our host, “and I have surely heard ’e tell a song or an old ballad that you had heard up that way long ago.”
“But the west es I can’t tell enough of’n to make out the rhymes,” replied the old man; “I only remember that when I was a youngster workan on the floors in Dolcoath, about the time that Boney was expected to invade, and that his troops wed be landed here in the West; et might be on Market-jew Green, or Gwenvor Sand, in Whitsand Bay, out westward. Boney had flat-bottomed boats made, to be sent with the transport ships, and in such boats his troops cud come ashore in shallow water.”
“I only jest remember that time,” said another old man, “there was much alarm amongst the farmers; the ‘guides’ were called out, and the cattle branded on horns and hoofs, that they might be known to their owners, when all the stock belongan to a neighbourhood, should be herded together, and drivan away up along, as it was expected they wed, that the enemy should not come at them.” [96]
“Don’t ’e mind, too,” resumed Uncle Honney, “how notices were put upon Church doors, and other places, forbiddan any bonfires to be made at Midsummer, lest they might be mistaken for bickan-fires,1 and give a false alarm, like Santusters ded, when they thoft the French had one night landed on Gwenvor Sand, where the Danes used to come ashore and pillage the country round. There were trusses of dry furze kept upon all the bickan-hills, ready for firan; it was the women in Santust ’Chtown who raised the alarm and caused the bickans to blaze from Chapel Carn Brea to Plymouth; troops were dispatched from garrison, but they didn’t know where to take to, lost their way west of Falmouth, and were found down in Gweek, a week after ‘jousters’ and other market-folk had brought news of this false alarm to Falmouth. About that time it was when this song was often singed by tinners around Redruth.
“I don’t remember how the words were broft into rhymes mind ’e. Et said how Englishmen had beaten the French over and over again; taken countries they once ruled over, had them still, and meant to keep them too. Ef Boney’s men landed upon Cornish shores, we wed beat them to bruss. Then it was said how the French were a ‘heap of poor pelyacks’2 who, at home, had neither decent meat nor clothes; but were glad to catch quilkans,3 bullhorns,4 and padgy-paws;5 and to stampy about in temberan shoes.
“The burden, or running verse, that came in at every four lines was this:—
‘They shall not eat of our good meat,
Our pelchers and petates.’ ”
“There was an old Cornish Dialogue in verse, too,” said another old man, “which gave much the same account.”
“I should dearly like,” said the visitor, “to get copies of that song and dialogue, or of as much as is known of them.”
“That old piece Uncle Honney spoke of es forgotten among us,” replied our host, “but I know another, not so old, that’s often told for Christmas pastime, in place of a Guise-dance of St. George and the Turkish Knight; we’ll get’n up for ’e now, the same as we do at Christmastide; ef Jenny will be Mal Treloar, I’ll take the part of Sandry Kemp.”
“That I will,” said our hostess, “and Uncle Honney can give me the word when I may forget et, jest as he do to youngsters actan a Christmas play; he’ll speak for the Cap’n, too, and say other bits requiran a third speaker.”
The company having placed themselves as the landlady directed, gave the following Cornish Dialogue: [97]