SUPPLEMENTARY TO HALLANTIDE.
I remember being down in Uncle Oliver Pooley’s Mill, in Nancherrow Bottom, one afternoon about the time Dick Rostram went to St. Just feast. Two women were there awaiting their turn to serge their barley-meal. In making remarks about a new house that a neighbour of theirs had just built for himself, one of the women said to the other, “What do ’e think, cheeld-vean? They’ve got a planchan put down in the little room, t’other side of the ‘entry,’ and they cal’n a pare-lar, forsuth; why a es but a good hale and make the most of n. Aw, the pride of some folks who have jest got a sturt! Es enough to make one sick to think o’ them, cheeld-vean.” “Now hold thy clack: thee art sick with envy,” replied the one addressed in such endearing terms. “They have always minded their own business and ben careful enough to save the money to build a new house weth a planched parlour. Thee west like to have one thyself, I suppose. I shud, and hope I may one day, planched parlour and all. Then I’ll have a carpet for’n, to be comfortable in my old years. Now go and mind thy flour; es nearly all down. Thee west dearly like to be a witch,” continued the outspoken dame, “to put a spell of ill luck on thy neighbours and blast both man and beast, but thou artn’t crafty enow yet; but live in hopes that the devil will teach thee some day, for a es of women like thee that witches are made.”
The woman thus reviled, then took her meal with no other sifting than what it had in the jigger, and went away without making any reply.
Then the angry out-spoken one, turning towards An Polly, the old miller’s wife, said, “Ef that faggot hadn’t stopped her jaw I’d a chucked her, by asking her how the little pig was gettan on that her boys, weth their dog, chased into the peth t’other night, thinkan a belonged to somebody else. Have ’e heard the story, An Polly?”
“No, nor I waant,” replied she, “for you are all alike in backbitan one another, and as great as inkle makers sometimes when you’ve got another woman to tear to pieces among ’e. I wish, for my part, that old Oliver could bear the mill-dust, and play the fiddle to set ’e all a dancing, while you’re waiting, like he used to, and like the mellar of Pendeen Mill do still, for you [61]can’t be quiet a minute, and a es better to pass the time dansan than slanderan one t’other.”
Lovey (Loveday) the daughter, came down from the mill-bed, as her mother went into the house. “Do tell me, An Jenny,” said she, “what a es about the pig.” “That woman,” replied An Jenny, “jest gone es as full of spite as an egg es full of meat. She didn’t know, or perhaps forgote, that those she sneered at were cousins to me; a good wey off to be sure they are, but blood es thicker than water, and when fourth cousins get well off they seem nearer than poor first cousins, or others. Well, I was goen to tell ’e how a neighbour’s pig can’t show es nose near her door, but a es sure to be scalped by havan a kettle full of boilan water thrown over am; and her ashes’ pile, close to her door, es always covered weth pieces of sour half-sooked barley fuggans, left to go sour and vinneyed; with fish and other things left to go stale and stinkan. Pigs have good noses, poor things, and when out to lanes will come and muzzle-up the ashes to get at any offal. One night last week a neighbour’s boys, whose pig had often ben ill-used,—sometimes burnt over head and ears weth a showl full of turfey fire, when she had no water boilan,—watched to find the way clear when she was gone out to ‘coursey’ until et was time for her to get supper for Bill and the two boys when they come home from bal. The boys whipped into the crow where Bill’s little white pig had a few days before been put to feed agenst wenter, and they so smeered et with gudgeon gress1 and soot that a looked jest like one of the new sort of black pigs. Soon after, when they saw light in Bill’s house, they turned his pig out and bolted the crow door. A few minutes after the boys who painted Bill’s pig heard’n screechan and seed’n tearan round the town-place like mad, till he got between his crow and the turf-rick and there stopt. P’raps you dont know what a trap Billy’s peeth es, and more dangerous than before a hedge was made close to one end ofn; the broad, flat stone in which the winze-‘millar’ do work es built into this new hedge, and the hook-handle on another broad stone weth the peeth between, only half-covered weth a few loose, broken pieces of old bal tember. After the poor pig had been there a few minutes Bill’s boys, as ugly as their mother, came home, and their snappish cur found the pig and gave chase to’n; it run’d slap up agen the hedge and tried to turn, but, bean nearly ef not quite blind, and the dog bitean es hinder parts, tha poor little thing in tryan to scramble over the peeth fell into’n. Now they were for life to get ropes, and a ladder to take up the pig lest they got into trouble; they were hours in bringen the pig to grass, and dedn’t find out tell next day that it was their own! [62]
“Whatever An Polly may say,” continued Jenny, after pausing a moment to take snuff, “I never say anything but the truth about anybody. I pity them sometimes, from my very heart, and when I go to meetan pray that the Lord may give them grace to turn from their wicked ways; and I can’t help pittyan Billy even now that I think what a wisht feast a had last year, and don’t suppose he’ll have any this.”
“Stop a minute,” said Lovey, “I must turn off the water from the mill-wheel.”
“Now tell us about Billy’s feast,” said Lovey, on seating herself, “and we won’t interrupt ’e.”
“You know both of ’e and everybody else here-abouts,” said An Jenny, “than ef a San Juster don’t keep up the feast in some way jest as a can he’s looked down on and jeered at.”