Page:Glossary of words in use in Cornwall.djvu/524

 INTRODUCTION. XI to let me send for Mr. Westlake, as I thinks he knows what'd make me easier, and cure the bad pains I do suffer. Mr. Payne abused my Poor Missus, and dared her to do anything of that sort, and so we were feared to do it, lest I should be pulled up again afore the Justices, and lose more days work, and perhaps get isent to Gaol. Eight days after this Mr. Payne never having come nist us, and the Union having lowd us nothing at all, my poor Missus dies, and dies from want, and in agonies of pain, and as bad off as if shed been a Savage, for she could only have died of want of them things which she wanted and I couldnt buy if she'd been in a foreign land, were there [be] no Parsons, and People as I've heard tell be treated as bad as dogs. Tears agone, if any body had been half so bad as my Missus, and nobody else would have tended to her, there' d been the clergyman of the parish, at all events, who'd have prayed with her, and seen too that she didn't die of starvation, but our Parson is in favour of this here new Law, and as he gets £60 a year from the Guardians, he amt a going to quarrel with his Bread and Cheese for the likes of we, and so he didn*t come to us. Altho' he must have knowed how ill Missus was ; and she, poor creature, went out of this here world without any Spiritual consilation whatsomever from the Poor Man's Church. We'd but one bed as I've telled you, and only one Bedroom, and it was very bad to be all in the same Boom and Bed with poor Missus after she were dead ; and as I'd no money to pay for a Cof&n, I goes to Mr. Broad, then to Mr. Major, one of the Guardians, and then to the overseers, and axes all of 'em to find a Coffin, but 'twere no use, and so, not knowing what in the World to do, off I goes to tell Mr. Westlake of it, and he was soon down at the House, and blamed me much for not letting he know afore Missus died, and finding we'd no food nor fire, nothing for a shrewd cept we could wash up something, and that we'd no soap to do that with, he gives us something to get these ere things, and tells me to go again to the Beleving Officer and t'others and try and get a Coffin, and to tell 'un Missus ought to be hurried as soon as possible, else 'twould make us all ill. This I does, as afore, but get nothing, and then Mr. Westlake give me an order where to get a Coffin, and if he had not stood a friend to me and mine, I can't think what would have become of 'em, as twas sad at Nights to see the poor little things pretty nigh break their hearts when they seed their poor dead mother by their side upoi^ the Bed. My troubles wasnt to end even'here, for strang to tell the Begistrer for Deaths for this District dont live in this the largest Parish with about dOOO inhabitants, but at a little Village of not more than 400 People and 5 Miles off, so I had to walk there and back 10 miles, which is very hard upon us poor folk, and what is worse when I got there the Begistrer wasnt up ; and when he got up he wouldnt tend to me afore hed had his breakfast, and it seemed as 'twas a very long time for a poor chap like me to be kept a waiting, whilst a man who is