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 Bartinné, and there—surrounded by his sheep—he was found, lying on a quantity 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 pass 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.