Oldham Weaver, The

THE OLDHAM WEAVER.

Oi'm a poor cotton-weyver, as mony a one knoowas,

Oi've nowt for t' yeat, an' oi've woorn eawt my clooas,

Yo'ad hardly gi' tuppence for aw as oi've on,

My clogs are boath brosten, an' stuckins oi've none,

Yo'd think it wur hard,

To be browt into th' warld,

To be—clemmed, [5] an' do th' best as yo con.

Owd Dicky o' Billy's kept telling me lung,

Wee s'd ha' better toimes if I'd but howd my tung,

Oi've howden my tung, till oi've near stopped my breath,

Oi think i' my heeart oi'se soon clem to deeath,

Owd Dicky's weel crammed,

He never wur clemmed,

An' he ne'er picked ower i' his loife. [6]

We tow'rt on six week—thinking aitch day wur th' last,

We shifted, an' shifted, till neaw we're quoite fast;

We lived upo' nettles, whoile nettles wur good,[7]

An' Waterloo porridge the best o' eawr food,[8]

Oi'm tellin' yo' true,

Oi can find folk enow,

As wur livin' na better nor me.

Owd Billy o' Dans sent th' baileys one day,

Fur a shop deebt oi eawd him, as oi could na pay,

But he wur too lat, fur owd Billy o' th' Bent,

Had sowd th' tit an' cart, an' ta'en goods fur th' rent,

We'd neawt left bo' th' owd stoo',

That wur seeats fur two,

An' on it ceawred Marget an' me.

Then t' baileys leuked reawnd as sloy as a meawse,

When they seed as aw t' goods were ta'en eawt o' t' heawse,

Says one chap to th' tother, "Aws gone, theaw may see;"

Says oi, "Ne'er freet, mon, yeaur welcome ta' me."

They made no moor ado

But whopped up th' eawd stoo',

An' we booath leet, whack—upo' t' flags!

Then oi said to eawr Marget, as we lay upo' t' floor,

"We's never be lower i' this warld, oi'm sure,

If ever things awtern, oi'm sure they mun mend,

For oi think i' my heart we're booath at t' far eend;

For meeat we ha' none;

Nor looms t' weyve on,—

Edad! they're as good lost as fund."

Eawr Marget declares had hoo cloo'as to put on,

Hoo'd goo up to Lunnon an' talk to th' greet mon;

An' if things were na awtered when there hoo had been,

Hoo's fully resolved t' sew up meawth an' eend;

Hoo's neawt to say again t' king,

But hoo loikes a fair thing,

An' hoo says hoo can tell when hoo's hurt.

Footnote 5:

"Clem," to starve with hunger. "Hard is the choice, when the valiant must eat their arms or clem."—Ben Jonson.

Footnote 6:

To "pick ower," means to throw the shuttle in hand-loom weaving.

7

Nettles were once commonly eaten in Lancashire too. And nettle beer used to be widely made (and drunk) in the county

8

In Lancashire, thin oatmeal broth was called Waterloo porridge, with the emphasis very much on the initial two syllables. It was a handful of groats boiled in a lot of water, a watery gruel that might quench your thirst but hardly filled your belly. There was a cotton famine in the county just after the end of the Napoleonic wars, as trade embargoes affected the import of raw cotton into England.

The air to which this is sung is a kind of droning recitative, depending much on expression and feeling. To read it, it may, perhaps, seem humorous; but it is that humour which is near akin to pathos, and to those who have seen the distress it describes, it is a powerfully pathetic song. Margaret had both witnessed the destitution, and had the heart to feel it; and withal, her voice was of that rich and rare order, which does not require any great compass of notes to make itself appreciated. Alice had her quiet enjoyment of tears. But Margaret, with fixed eye, and earnest, dreamy look, seemed to become more and more absorbed in realising to herself the woe she had been describing, and which she felt might at that very moment be suffering and hopeless within a short distance of their comparative comfort.