Traditions And Hearthside Stories Of West Cornwall Part 12

"Art thou come home such a fool as not to know thy own cheeld?" she replied. "Who else should be in but our Patience and her sweetheart Jan the cobbler. I left them there half an hour ago, when I went down in the moors for a 'burn' of fuel. Come in, quick, and let's see how thee art looking, after being so long away. Wherever hast a been to? We didn't know if thee wert alive or dead. If I had been married again n.o.body could blame me."

Patience, hearing her father's voice, ran out, and great was her joy to find him come home. Tom shook hands with her sweetheart, saying, "I could never have believed when I left thee, Jan, a mere hobble-de-hoy, I should come back and find thee such a stout man, and the cheeld too, grown a woman--taller than her mother."

Tom having taken his accustomed place on the bench, his wife said, "I see thee hast got a buff coat and a pair of new high boots, fit for any gentleman or a lord of the land to wear on Sundays and high holidays, and I suppose you have brought home something new for me and the maid to wear that you mayn't be ashamed of us, when rigged in your boots and buff. Come now, Tom dear," continued she, over a bit, when they had admired what Tom didn't tell them he took from the robber; "Come, love, let's see what have 'e got for us?"

"I have brought 'e home myself," Tom replied, "and a charm-stone for Patience to wear when she is married, that will be better than a fortune of gold and lands for her and her husband. Besides, I have brought 'e a cake," continued he, in placing it on the board.

"And is that all?" demanded his wife, looking as black as thunder at him; "and tell us what's become of thy wages then," continued she with increasing anger.

"I gave my two pounds a year wages," he replied, "back again to my master for six pounds' worth of wit, and he gave me that cake for thee."

"Ay, forsooth," said she in a rage. "Thee art a wise man from the East, that lacked wit to know his own cheeld after being three years from home. Go the way'st away again, and take thy fuggan along with thee."

Saying this she s.n.a.t.c.hed up the cake and fired it at her husband, aiming for his head; but Tom ducked quick, the cake went smash against the wall, broke in pieces, and out of it fell a lot of money. Silver and gold ringled on the floor! When all was picked up and counted they found Tom's three years' wages and many s.h.i.+llings over.

"Oh, my dear Tom," said his wife, "no tongue can tell how glad I am to see thee home again, safe and sound, after being so long away in strange countries one didn't know where. And thou didst know well enow about the money, and only played the trick to try me."

"The devil a bit," said Tom, "but I forgive thee, and let's have supper."

The wife gave Patience a large bottle, telling her to run quick over to Trebeor and have it filled with the best she could get, to drink her father's health and welcome home. Turning to Tom she said, "The sand will soon be down in the hour-gla.s.s, and then a leek-and-pilchard pie, put down to bake before I went out for fuel, will be ready; meanwhile let's have a piece of thy cake; it seems very good."

When Patience and Jan had gone away for liquor, Tom's wife seated herself on the chimney-stool, with a piece of the cake in her hand, and said quite coaxing like, "Take thy piece of cake in thy hand, my son, and come the way'st here alongside of me; I have something to tell thee."

When both of them were seated on the chimney-stool, very lovingly, eating their cake together, she continued to say, "I hope thee wesent be vexed, Tom dear, to hear me confess the truth; and if thee art it can't be helped now; so listen, and don't leave thy temper get the upper hand of all thy wisdom, for I have had a young fellow living in the house more than two years and we have slept in the same bed lately every night. Why thee art looking very black good man, but he is very innocent and handsome and so thee west say; he is in my bed asleep now! Come the way'st down in the 'hale' and see him. One may see by thy looks that thee hast a mind to murder the youngster, but have patience and come along."

Tom sprang up, like one amazed, and followed his wife when she took the chill (lamp) and entered the other room.

"Come softly, Tom," said his wife, as she approached the bed, turned down the bedclothes, and showed her husband, to his great surprise, a fine boy nearly three years old. She then told Tom how, after being many years without children, when he left her for the East she found reason to expect an increase to their limited family. Tom's joy was now past all bounds. He had always wished for a boy, and hadn't satisfied himself with kissing the child, and admiring his big-boned limbs (for one of his age) when Patience and her sweetheart entered. Tom and the rest drank to the boy's health, and all was now joy and content.

News of Tom's return having been quickly carried from house to house, supper was scarcely put aside, when in came a number of neighbours. All brought wherewith to drink his welcome home, and the night sped jovially in hearing him recount his adventures in the East Country.

Next day, Tom and his wife, being alone together, she said to him, "Now, whilst the maid is out, tell me, my son, what dost thee think of her sweetheart and of their being married soon?"

"Well, wife, from what I saw when I looked through the window last night," Tom replied, "I should say that she wouldn't break her heart, any more than her mother before her, if she were to be married to-morrow; but is Jan a fool, like I was, to give up a young man's life of pleasure and wed in haste, like I did, thou knowest, that he may repent at leisure? Yet thee wert very good looking then, just like our Patience is now, and, with thy deceiving ways, I didn't stop to consider that beauty is only skin deep. Jan the cobbler," Tom continued, nodding his head very knowingly, "is hale and strong, and come of an honest 'havage' enow. I am loath to lose the maid so soon; yet my wise master used to say to his wife, 'One that will not when he may, when he will he shall have nay;' and it is better to have a daughter but indifferently married than well kept; though the charm I have for Patience will make her a prize for a lord, yet a cobbler isn't to be despised, and a good trade is often more worth than money that may be spent; so, with all my heart, let them be wedded when they will."

A few days after Tom's return, he and Patience went down to Treen.

Whilst they were away, his wife, curious (like most women are), took it into her head to examine the coat Tom took from the robber. She wondered how it was so heavy, and noticed that the body-lining of serge was worked over very closely. She undid the cloth, and found that gold coins were quilted in all over it, two-deep in some places, between the woollen stuff and an inner lining. Before Tom returned she took out more money, all in gold, than filled a pewter quart, and then there was a good portion left untouched, for fear Tom might come home and see the nest she had found; all in good time, the money and coat were put in an old oak chest, of which she kept the key. When Tom and Patience came in she could hardly conceal her joy. They wondered at her sprightly humour yet, for a great marvel, she kept her counsel, though Tom said more than once that evening. "I can't think, old woman, what can be the matter, that thee art going about cackling to thyself like an old hen shot in the head, and with as much fuss and consequence, too, as a mabyer (young hen) searching for a nest, days before it is wanted, and finding none to her mind, good enow to drop her first egg in. And look at her, tossing her head," he continued, "don't she look proud, like the lightheaded mabyer, after laying her egg?"

As Tom knew nothing of his good fortune he continued to work on diligently, as usual.

When Feasten Monday came round Jan the cobbler and Patience were married. Her father gave her the charm-stone privately, with instructions for its use, as his old mistress had directed. Strangers were not let into the secret, because all charms lose their virtue when known to others than the charmers, who, if they give or tell it, lose its use for ever.

When the honey-moon waned Jan would sometimes get into an angry mood.

Then his wife would, un.o.bserved, slip the charm-stone into her mouth, and (let him talk or fume) keep quietly about her work. In a short time with good humour, like suns.h.i.+ne returned, he would again be heard ringing his lap-stone to the measure of some lively old tune. The quiet ways of Patience and her gentle bearing, kept love and content, with peace and plenty, in their happy dwelling; and her charm had such power that, over a while, she had seldom occasion to use it. Yet, indeed, some women, living near, who liked to let their crabbed tongues run like the clapper of a mill, would say that Patience was a poor quiet fool, and that the more one let blockheads of husbands have their own way the more they will take till they go to the dogs, or the devil, at last. Jan would tell these idle cacklers, who stuck up for woman's misrule, to mind their own affairs and that for such 'tungtavusses' as they were the old saying held good--that "a woman, a dog, and a walnut tree, the more you beat them the better they be." But gentle Patience, heedless of their prate, kept on in the even tenor of her life, and retained her husband's unabated love till the peaceful close of her days.

Now it happened about three years after Tom had returned from the East Country, there was a large farm in St. Levan for sale. "Ah, poor me,"

said Tom one night, after a hard day's work, "I have been toiling and moiling, like a slave, all my life long, but we shall never have an inch of land to call our own till laid in the church-hay. Yet here are our hunting gentry, who have more than they can make good use of, and they can't live on that. If we could but sc.r.a.pe together enough to buy an acre or two of fee, or only the corner of a croft, where one might have a hut and a gar'n for herbs, with the run of a common for a cow or anything else, and none to say us nay, how happy we should be. But now,"

he continued, "it is only by the lord's leave, and that I don't like to ask of any man; and why should one who hath hands to work when there is so much land in waste untilled?"

"Tom, my son, cheer up," his wife replied; "there are many worse off than we are, with our few pounds laid by for a rainy day, and health and strength to get more. Why I am afraid," said she, "that thou would'st go crazy, or die for joy, if any one gave thee enough to buy a few acres."

"I wish to gracious somebody would but try me," Tom replied.

"Well now, suppose I were to tell thee," said she, "that we have saved enough to buy good part, if not all, of the land for sale, as you shall soon see."

She then brought from the chest a quart measure of gold coins, and poured them out on the board. At the sight of the glittering gold Tom sprung up in a fright and exclaimed, "Now I know, for certain, that thee art a witch! I had often thought so. That money is the Old One's coinage; don't think that I'll have any dealings with him; I wouldn't touch with a tongs a piece of the devil's gold."

"Hold thy clack, cheeld vean, if I'm a witch thou art no conjuror, that's clear," replied she. "Now listen, and learn that the coat taken by thee from the robber-captain was all lined with gold, quilted in between the serge and the leather, and what thou seest on the board isn't all I found in it."

When Tom's surprise had somewhat abated, he counted the money and found more than was required to purchase and stock two such farms as the one then for sale. Over a while Tom bought a great quant.i.ty of land--many acres might be had for a few pounds in Tom's time, when a very small part of the land was enclosed, and much less cultivated. In a few years he was regarded as a rich yeoman, and his sons and grandsons became substantial farmers.

Tom's posterity may still be flouris.h.i.+ng in St. Levan, or some place near, for what any body can tell, as no one knows what name they took when surnames came into use, long after Tom lived in Chyannor.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

THE FAIRY DWELLING ON SELENA MOOR.[3]

"Merry elves, their morrice pacing, To aerial minstrelsy, Emerald rings on brown heath tracing, Trip it deft and merrily."

SCOTT.

When the ancient family of Noy flourished in Buryan there was a large tract of unenclosed common, belonging to the farms of Pendrea, Selena, and Tresidder, which extended from Cotnew.i.l.l.y to Baranhual, and branched off in other directions. Great part of this ground was swampy and produced a rank growth of rushes, water-flags, and coa.r.s.e herbage. Many acres were gay in summer with cotton-gra.s.s, bog-beans, cucco-flowers, and other plants usually found in such soil. In some places were dry rocky banks overgrown with sloe-trees, moor-withey, furze, and brambles; these patches being surrounded by a broad extent of quaking bog or muddy soil appeared like islands in a marsh. There were also many springs, rivulets, and pools, that seldom froze, much frequented by wild-fowl in winter. Great part of this moorland was then impa.s.sable; horse-tracks leading to Baranhual, Selena, and other farms, pa.s.sed over the dryest places, and were continued by rough causeways through swamps;--they were very bad roads at all seasons.

Most of this wilderness has long been enclosed and drained; Pendrea portion of it is now a separate tenement called Westmoor. Near Cotnew.i.l.l.y were the scattered remains of an ancient grove which, in very remote times, extended thence to Alsia-mill.

One afternoon in harvest, Mr. Noy, with some of his men, were over to Baranhual helping his kinsfolks, the Pendars. As more hands were required for the next day, which was to be the gulthise (harvest home), soon after 'croust' time he rode up to Church-town to get them, and to invite the parson, clerk, and s.e.xton--the latter was particularly welcome to the harvest folk as he was generally a good fiddler and droll-teller. With these, according to old usage, were asked the crafts-men and others who had lent hand about the harvest work, and aged inmates of the poor house; one and all were welcome to the gulthise supper.

Soon after 'day-down' Mr. Noy, followed by his dogs, left the public-house intending to return to Baranhual, but he didn't arrive there that night nor the next. The Pendars and their people thought he might have enjoyed himself at the _s.h.i.+p_ Inn till late, and then have gone home to Pendrea. Mr. Noy had no wife nor anybody else to be much alarmed about him, as he was a middle-aged or rather elderly bachelor.

But next day when people from Church-town, Pendrea, and scores of neighbours from other farms, came with their horses to help and to feast at the gulthise, and n.o.body among them had seen or heard of Mr. Noy from the time he left the inn, they got somewhat uneasy; yet they still supposed he might have gone to some corn-carrying down the lower side of Buryan, as was likely enow, for all the neighbours round about were just like one family then.

As usual there was a great chase bringing home the corn in trusses; leaders and other helpers took their flowery-milk (hasty pudding) for breakfast, apple pies for dinner, just when and how they could, with beer and cider whenever they felt inclined, so they might keep the mowers always building, to have the corn under thatch before supper time. All being secured in the mowhay scores of all ages enjoyed roast and boiled beef, mutton, squab pies, rabbit and hare pies, pudding, and other substantial fare, usually found at a bountiful gulthise supper; then drinking, singing, dancing, and other pastimes, were kept up till late. In the meantime Dame Pendar had sent messengers round to all places where she thought Mr. Noy might have gone, and they returned, just as the feast was breaking up, without any tidings of him.

Then everyone became anxious, and as it was near daybreak they volunteered to disperse and search in every place they could think of before going to bed.

So away they went, some on horseback, others afoot, to examine mill-pools, stream-works, cliffs, and other dangerous places, near and far away. They returned at night, but n.o.body had seen or heard of the missing gentleman. Next morning hors.e.m.e.n were despatched to other parishes, and as Mr. Noy was well known and liked there was a general turn out to hunt for him; but this day, too, was pa.s.sed in a like fruitless search miles away.

On the third day, however, in the grey of the morning, a horse was heard to neigh, and dogs were heard barking among thickets on a piece of dry ground almost surrounded with bogs and pools, on Pendrea side of Selena moor.

Now it happened that no one had thought of looking for Mr. Noy in this place so near home, but when with much ado, a score or so of men discovered a pa.s.sable road into this sort of island in the bogs, there they saw Mr. Noy's horse and hounds; the horse had found plenty of pasture there, but the dogs, poor things, were half-starved. Horse and dogs showed their joy, and led the way through thorns, furze, and brambles--that might have grown there hundreds of years--till they came to large 'skaw' trees and the ruins of an old bowjey or some such building that no one knew of. Hunters never attempted in winter to cross the boggy ground that nearly surrounded these two or three acres of dry land, and in summer no one was curious enough to penetrate this wilderness of thickets which, like all such places, was then swarming with adders.

The horse stopped at what had been a doorway, pawed on the 'drussal,'

looked around and winneyd; the dogs, followed by several people, pushed through the brambles that choked the entrance, and within they found Mr.

Noy lying on the ground fast asleep. It was a difficult matter to arouse him; at last he awoke, stretched himself, rubbed his eyes, and said, "Why you are Baranhual and Pendrea folks; however are ye all come here?

To-day is to be the gulthise, and I am miles and miles away from home.

What parish am I in? How could 'e have found me? Have my dogs been home and brought 'e here?" Mr. Noy seemed like one dazed as we say, and all benumed as stiff as a stake, so without staying to answer his questions, they gave him some brandy, lifted him on horseback, and left his steed to pick its way out, which it did readily enow, and a shorter one than they discovered.

Though told he was on his own ground, and less than half a mile from Baranhual, he couldn't make out the country as he said, till he crossed the running water that divides the farms. "But I am glad," said he "however it came to pa.s.s, to have got back in time for the gulthise."