58 Transactions. 



" And may ye better reck the rede 

 Than ever did th' adviser." 



To kep, meaning to catch, to intercept, in which latter 

 word intercept we may still recognise the verb. 

 The word occurs in Chaucer : 



•' These sely clerkes rennen up and down, 

 With kepe, kepe ; stand, stand, 

 Ga whistle them, and I shall kepe them here." 



—The Reves Tale, p. 122. 



The Scotch word wauf or v!aff appears to be the English 

 waif or stray. 



To the second class belong such words as — 



To ettle, meaning to aim at, to purpose. To host, to cough. 

 To skael, to disperse, to scatter. To steek, to close, to shut 

 up. To skelp, to give one a stroke. To speir, to ask after, 

 to enquire for. 



Such words as these are wholly obsolete in England, and 

 out of use in English, and they seem to carry us back to a 

 remote and early period in the history of the language. 



The only topic which remains to be noticed here is the 

 conjugation of verbs. Generally speaking the Scotch pre- 

 serve the verbs regular. They also preserve the present 

 tense of the verb to dead, whereas the English have adopted 

 the verb to clothe. Clothe, clad, clad. And in the past 

 tense of the verb to go the English have incorporated what 

 appears the verb to wend, go, went, gone, whereas the Scotch 

 Bay gae, gaed, gane. 



Clead — 



" O wou ! quo he, were ye as black 

 As ere the crown o' my daddy's hat, 

 'Tis I ivad lift thee on my back, 



And awa with thee I wad gang. 

 '• And oh ! quo she, were I as white, 

 As ere the snaw upon the dyke, 

 . I'd deed sae braw and lady like, 



And aflf wi' thee I wad gang." 



