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 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.
“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 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.