Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 10, 1899.djvu/528

 486 Miscellanea,

shall pick un up.' We goos out in the garden, she and I, on wi' the digging. Were a good few taters that year, and mother, she warn't very quick to pick un up. Zoo I sticks my fork into ground and puts my two hands top o' handle, just like this, and put my head down on un, and bid a watching o' she. All to once I zeed Mrs. Hart t'other side o' our pre-ranks, a-walking towards I that was behind my missus's back, a repating summat, an' as she did walk wi' her hands down to her side, her eyes were sot on my missus, she never stopped repating some words ; an' as she did repate 'em, she did gnash her teeth at mother, and glane that wicked on her, seemed to I she could a ate 'er. There ! the woman did look like the very devil hisself. She looked to I, by what I've a-read, as though her were a- making a charm. But, howsomdever, she mid a walked midbe ten yards, and was pretty nigh handy my missus, when she did look off 'o her an' seed I. ' Oh ! Mr. Mitchell,' she says, kinder sceered like, ' I didn't see 'ee,' and up goos her arms over her head like this, and back'ard she goes, every stap as she'd a come, wi' 'er arms up over 'er head all the time. An' I look straight at she an' says : ' Maybe 'ee didn't see I, but I've a seed thee, and watched 'ee too, and all yer doings.' Well, my wife were took in a pain, 'twere as though somebody were a pinching o' her inside out, and she were a drove nigh crazy all night long. An' I says : ' If the Lord do leave I life till to-morrow, I'll see into this.' So I got up in marning and started off to Farmer Barrett as lives handy Ilchester (25 miles by road, through Maiden Newton and Yeovil). I walked all thic day, and come evening I got to un. He were always a real good feller, were Farmer Barrett, and very under- standing he were in all such works. But he 'ouldn't never harm nobody. He 'ouldn't take a farden nother, from nobody, for what he did for un, and he did stop a lot of mischie.

" Now that feller Hutton, down to Yeovil, were a real bad un ; a awful feller for wickedness. Farmer did ' stop ' a powerful deal o' he's work. Hutton were terr'ble fraid o' Farmer Barrett, 'cause he hindered un so.

" Farmer Barrett it were as teached I to make they nails as I tivold 'ee on. A respectable house he kept, did farmer, an' ser- vants, an' a boss an' gig for hisself to ride in, all comfortable like. " They be three-headed nails. Many a time I've got up, middle o' night, to make un, for they that comed for un. But they maynt