Note 3 — A POOR TINNER’S FEAST.

“At length—and that was jest as far back as I can remember—the cussed excisemen interfered with old women puttan their pillas to ‘cheeney.’ I’ve heard Miss Jenefer say that her Aunts and others detested them more than they ded the press-gang. Excisemen were all ‘foreigners’ (strangers to the county) then, for no West Country man wed belong to such a crew. They wed come about, every now and then, mostly when the men were away to bal, and rummage every hole and corner in search of bay salt,3 liquor, and other goods, brought from over sea by the poor men, at the risk of their lives; and ef they found ever so little pillas-gerts, et was seized and a fine threaten’d, for they caled’n malt.