Traditions And Hearthside Stories Of West Cornwall Part 26

said they, "you can do nothing better, Jenny, than to bathe it in the Chapel Well as soon as May comes round."

Accordingly, the first Wednesday in May she took it on her back and trudged away to Chapel Uny Well.

Three times she put it through the water from west to east, then dragged it three times round the well against the sun. Whether the bath made it any better or not she couldn't tell in one week. The following Wednesday, however, the troublesome creature seemed to expect the jaunt, and to enjoy it as it rode away on her shoulder over hill and moor to the spring, where it had the same ducking again. The third Wednesday was a wet day; yet, not to spoil the spell, Jenny took the brat, placed it astride on her shoulder, held one foot in her hand, whilst he grasped her hair to keep himself steady, as they beat over the moors against wind and rain. The thing seemed to enjoy the storm, and crowed, like a c.o.c.k, when the wind roared the loudest.

They had nearly pa.s.sed round Chapel Carn Brea and were coming by some large rocks, near the open moor, when she heard a shrill voice, seemingly above her head, call out,--

"Tredrill! Tredrill!

Thy wife and children greet thee well."

Jenny was surprised to hear the shrill voice and n.o.body in sight. When she stopped an instant to look round, the thing on her shoulder cried out in a voice as shrill and loud,--

"What care I for wife or child, When I ride on Dowdy's back to the Chapel Well, And have got pap my fill?"

Frightened out of her senses, to hear the miserable little object talk like a man about his wife and his child, the poor woman cast it on the ground and there it lay sprawling, until she took courage, threw it across her shoulder, and ran back as fast as she could lay feet to ground till she came to Brea town. She stopped before some houses a little below Brea mansion, threw down the thing, that clung to her neck for dear life, on to a dung-heap beside the road.

The women of Brea all ran out to see what could be the matter. As soon as she recovered her breath she told them what she had heard. "Ah,"

exclaimed one, "didn't I tell thee, months ago, that thee wert nussan a small body's brat, ever since the neck-cuttan night, when thy child was spirited away, and that thing left in his place."

"Shure enow," said another, "anybody of common sense might see that.

Only look at the thing there, sprawling upon his back in the mud. Did one ever see a Christian cheeld like that, with his goggle eyes, squinting one way; his ugly mouth drawn another, and his pinched-up nose all a-wry too?"

"And now, Jenny," broke in the oldest crone, "'Tis lucky for 'e that I can tell 'e what you must do to get rid of this unlucky bucca, and get back thy own dear cheeld. Now there's an old way, and I don't know but it es the best; and that es to put the smale body upon the ashes' pile and beat it well with a broom; then lay it naked under a church-way stile; there leave et, and keep out of sight and hearan till the turn of night; and, nine times out of ten, the thing will be took off and the stolen cheeld put in his place. There's another plan but I never seed et tried--to make by night a smoky fire, with green ferns and dry. When the chimney and house are full of smoke as one can bear, throw the changeling on the hearth-stone; go out of the house; turn three times round; when one enters the right cheeld will be restored."

The women of Brea--resolved to try what a beating on the ashes' pile would do towards getting rid of the goblin--threw it on a heap near at hand and commenced belabouring it with their brooms. But they had scarcely touched it than it set up such a roar that it was heard in Brea mansion; and Dame Ellis came running down the town-place to see what could be the matter. She asked what they were beating in that cruel way.

Being nearly dark and the wet ashes sticking to the creature she couldn't tell what gave out such a doleful noise.

"Why mistress," says Jenny, "that thing there on the ashes' pile es what was left in our house, when my dear cheeld was spirited away, by smale people, while I was reapan in your field the very day we cut the neck.

All the neighbours know the trouble I've had ever since--how this thing that looked like my cheeld have ben all the time screechan, suckan, or eatan, and have never grown a bit, nor will make any use of his legs."

"But thats nothan," said she, recovering her breath, "to what happened a few hours ago, and most frightened me out of my senses. You mayn't believe at--that when, on my way to Chapel Uny Well, with that thing astride on my shoulder, somebody that couldn't be seen by mortal eyes cried out, 'Tredril, Tredril, thy wife and children greet thee well!'

Then, in an instant, good lack, that thing from my back replied, 'That little cared he for wife or child when he rode on Dowdy's back (meaning me) to the Chapel Well, and had good pap his fill.' n.o.body can tell the fright I was in, to hear that thing talk like a man about his wife and child."

Dame Ellis, lifting the creature from the ashes' heap, said to Jenny, "I believe that thou wert either drunk or in a waking dream when pa.s.sing round the hill, and that this child, used so ill, is as truly thine as any thou hast born. Now take it home, wash it well, feed it regular, and don't thee leave it all day lying in its cradle; and, if thee canst not make it thrive, send for Dr. Madron."

Jenny and the other women at first refused to comply with Dame Ellis's advice; told her that she knew next to nothing about such matters, and related many things to prove that the creature was no mortal's child, till the lady tired with their stories, turned to go in, saying to Jenny,

"My husband shall come out and talk to thee; peradventure he may convince thee of thy error."

Squire Ellis and his wife being quakers--a sect then but little known in the West--they were thought by Brea women, and many others, to be no better than unbelieving Pagans, "who haven't the grace," said they, "to know anything about such creatures as spriggans, piskies, knackers (knockers of the mines) and other small folks, good or bad, that haunt our carns, moors, and mines; who can vanish or make themselves visible when and how they please, as all more enlightened folks know."

They well knew, however, what concerned them more--that Squire Ellis was their landlord, and that, quiet and quaker-like as he and his wife were in their talk, and demure in their looks, they were not to be trifled with; and that their will was law for all living on their estate unless they could contrive to deceive them.

Squire Ellis came down and, finding that Jenny (with her bantling and all the others) were gone into a house, where he heard them loudly talking, he had nothing to say to them; perhaps, he kept an eye on their proceedings.

Brea women, in spite of "unbelieving quakers," as they called Squire Ellis and his wife, among themselves--determined to have their own way--waited till all was dark in the great house; then Jenny, with the bantling or spriggan, and another woman, who was very knowing about changelings, pa.s.sed quietly up Brea town-place, and under a stile on the Church-way path crossing a field from Brea lane, they left the creature (then asleep) that had been such a plague to them.

Jenny returned to Brea Vean, and there stayed till morning. Being fatigued and worried she overslept herself, for it was nearly daybreak when she awoke and hurried away, between hopes and fears, to the stile; and there, sure enough, she found her own "dear cheeld," sleeping on some dry straw. The infant was as clean, from head to foot, as water could make it, and wrapped up in a piece of old gay-flowered chintz; which small folks often covet and steal from furze-bushes, when it is placed there in the sun to dry.

Jenny nursed her recovered child with great care, but there was always something queer about it, as there always is about one that has been in the fairies' power--if only for a few days. It was constantly ailing and complaining, and, as soon as it was able to toddle, it would wander far away to all sorts of out-of-the-way places. The good lady of Brea often came to see it and brought it many nice things that its mother couldn't afford to buy, and when he was about nine years of age Squire Ellis took the changeling (as he was always called) into his service, but he was found to be such a poor simple innocent that he could never be trusted to work in the fields alone, much less with cattle; as a whim would take him, every now and then, to leave his work and wander away over hills and moors for days together. Yet he was found useful for attending to rearing cattle and sheep--then kept in great numbers on the unenclosed grounds of Brea. He was so careful of his master's flock in lambing time that there was seldom any lost. Forsaken or weakly lambs were often given to him by the neighbours, and he contrived to rear them so well that, in a few years, he had a good flock of his own that Squire Ellis and everyone else allowed him to pasture wherever he and his sheep choose to wander--everybody knew the poor changeling and made him welcome. When he grew to man's estate, however, he became subject to fits, and had to remain at home with his mother great part of his time.

Yet, when the fits were over, nothing could restrain his propensity for wandering, and his sheep, goats, and even calves, always followed, and seemed equally to enjoy their rambles. He often talked to himself, and many believed that he was then holding converse with some of the fairy tribe, only visible to him, who enticed him to ramble among the carns, hills, and moors--their usual haunts.

When about thirty years of age he was missed for several days; and his flock had been noticed, staying longer than usual near the same place, on a moor between the Chapel Hill and Bartinne, and there--surrounded by his sheep--he was found, lying on a quant.i.ty of rushes which he had pulled and collected for making sheep-spans.

He lay, with his arm under his head, apparently in sweet sleep, but the poor changeling of Brea was dead.

BETTY STOGS'S BABY.[4]

Little more than twenty years ago, there lived in a lonely cot on a moor in Towednack a man and his wife with one child. The woman--from her slatternly habits--was known by the name of Betty Stogs; she had been married about a year and had a baby six months old or so; when, almost every day, whilst her husband was away 'to bal,' she would pa.s.s best part of the time 'courseying' from house to house in the nearest village.

The child would mostly be left in the house alone or with nothing but the cat for company. One seldom saw the colour of the bantling's skin for dirt. When anyone asked Betty why she didn't wash it oftener, "The moor es a cold place," she'd reply, "and a good layer of dirt will help keep 'n hot."

One afternoon about Midsummer she went to get milk for the child and stayed away gossiping till dusk; it was so dark when she entered her dwelling that she could scarcely see anything within it.

She went to the cradle and found it empty; the child was nowhere to be seen; nor yet the cat that always slept with it, shared its pap, and cleaned the skillet in which the 'child's-meat,' was cooked. Whilst Betty was searching about the house her husband came home from work--last core by day,--he was in a great rage with his wife and greater grief for the loss of his 'crume of a cheeld,' as he called it.

After hours spent in fruitless search Betty sat down and cried bitterly, whilst the father went away and told the neighbours what had happened.

Everybody turned out to look for the child; they examined moors and crofts for a good distance round till after daybreak without seeing sight or sign of it; but, when it was near sunrise, Betty spied the cat coming towards her, then it went back mewling into a brake of furze. She followed it and came to a plot of mossy gra.s.s, surrounded by thickets and ferns, where she saw, amongst heath and wortleberry plants, a bundle of old-fas.h.i.+oned chintz; she opened it and there was her child, sleeping like a nut. It was wrapped in several gay old gowns, with mint, balm, and all sorts of sweet herbs and flowers that are found on moors or in gardens; but otherwise it was as naked as when born, yet clean and sweet as a rose.

All the old folks said it was carried there by small-people, who intended to bear it away to the hills or carns; but it took them so long to clean it first that daylight surprised them ere they had done it to their mind; so they left it there meaning to fetch it the next night.

The fright, however, that Betty had undergone, did her good and the child too, for she pa.s.sed less time in courseying, and took more care of her babe for fear it might be stolen again. She made lots of frocks for it out of the old chintz; and it throve so well after the small folks'

cleansing that he made as stout a man as his dad, who was usually called Jan the Maunster (monster) from his bulky form.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

HOW A MORVAH MAN BOUGHT CLOTHES FOR HIS WIFE.[4]

"Contented toil, and hospitable care, And kind connubial tenderness are there."

GOLDSMITH.

Most of the dwellers in the cottages scattered over the hills to the north of Penzance (like the tinners of old) work in the mines and cultivate a few acres 'out of core.' They are also remarkable for preserving many old customs which are become extinct in less remote and more populous districts, as well as for the quaint simplicity of their manners and language. A few weeks ago a tall, middle-aged man entered a draper's shop in Penzance. His blue smock-frock, corduroy trousers, ruddy with tin stuff, and the high-poled Sunday's hat, marked him for a high-country tinner. He paused in the middle of the shop and looked around as if to select some particular one of the a.s.sistants to serve him; then going over to the counter, where the forewoman was standing, he placed three little packets of money, done up in paper, before her.

"Look-e here, my dear," says he, "here's three packats of money for three things I want of 'e. Fust of all les have somethan to make a sheft for my old oman--dowlas or calico, you know the sort of stuff, and how much will do; for my old oman es of a tidy built and shaped much like you. (The blushes and t.i.tterings among the shop girls may be imagined).

She told me how much, but I have forgot, only that a must cost ten-pence a yard; so cut off as much as will make a sheft for yourself, my dear, and see if you don't find the exact money for 'n in that paper, tied up with tape."

The paper opened, the money was found right to a farthing.

"Now, my dear, that's all right. Get some sort of stuff, made of sheep's clothing, I don't know what you call 'n, for to make an undercoat for the old oman. You know how much will do by your own measure; a must be two sh.e.l.lans a yard, and there's the money for 'n in that paper tied up with white yarn."

To make sure of the quant.i.ty wanted, the shop woman counted the cash sent, before she cut the required length of sanford. When that was adjusted,