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the terse and characteristic remark of a stalwart hillsider, with 
reference to a sleek, plausible fellow who, with glib tongue, was 
‘improving ” a certain wayside incident in the moral sense. In 
these, as in some other parts, the common expression, “ clivver 
felley,”’ or ‘‘clivver chap,” is by no means intended to convey 
the idea of an acute-minded or mentally accomplished, but 
merely that of a physically robust and well-built man. 
Our surroundings no doubt largely make and mould us. The 
stony character of this border-region reproduces itself in the 
character of its inhabitants. Educated for the most part by 
Nature herself, and in no gentle mood, they take her impress ; 
hence the hillside mother-wit is of the keenest and sharpest type. 
Few are the amenities that root in so thin a soil and in a quarter 
so familiar to the winds, but those that strike, they sprout and 
blossom indeed as, when on the mountains, we meet with the 
hardy rowan which, though scantily nourished in the rocky 
crevice where the chance breeze has cast it, yet blooms aloft in 
beauty and fragrance, and with its clustering scarlet berries is 
the pride and glory of the hills. It is here that you meet with 
the sturdiest type of men and of women. It is here that you 
meet with the very warmest of welcomes. And also, it must be 
confessed, now and again with the coldest. Indeed, furtive as 
they are and distrustful at all times of new comers, to the 
stranger these moorland folk must appear at once sly and shy, 
cunning and reserved; yet let him go amongst them duly 
aceredited, or show that he is of their own ‘‘ mack’’ (make or 
class), and, as a rule, the coldness soon changes to cordiality, 
sometimes even to effusion, and the “ fatted calf” is killed 
metaphorically if not actually. Within the writer’s recollection, 
it was the custom when a poor man killed his pig—his solitary 
pig, for if he had two he was scarcely deemed poor—to invite his 
nearer neighbours to a generous repast, accompanied by moderate 
potations of ‘‘ home-brewed”’ in celebration of the ‘‘ event,” a 
right pleasant and kindly custom, but one long since disused. 
I have said that these moorland folk are distrustful of new- 
comers ; they are equally distrustful of novelties and innovations 
of any kind, whether moral or material. In no part of these 
kingdoms were the regulations of the ‘‘ New Poor Law ” enforced 
with more difficulty. Nowhere until within the last few years, 
have those numerous stalwart fellows who rejoice in the common 
name of “ Peeler’’ had so bad a time of it. And in no part are 
many ancient and obsolete customs destined to die so hard a 
death. In short it is a people not so much devoted to what has 
been, as determined to be what itis! Itis a people that brooks 
but little let or hindrance from any person whomsoever. It isa 
people with a neck not supple, but on the contrary, most 
plaguily stiff, that will not, according to a local tradition, even do 
