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 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 gress [4] 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!
“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.”