210 COUNTRY ESSAYS. 



an old lady more than ninety years old said to us, " Fairies and 

 shag-boys ! * lasses are often skeart at them, but I never saw 

 none, though I have passed many a time after dark a most 

 terrible spot for them on the road at Thorpe." And certainly 

 a whole essay would be too short to tell of the quaint colloquial- 

 isms of this country side ; survivals of days before " book Eng- 

 lish" became fashionable, flotsam from the Viking ships, or 

 merely the irregular coinage of Want and Wont. Who but a 

 Lincolnshire man could fetch a " stee " (ladder) ; " lig i' the 

 crew " (lie down in the fold yard) ; " remble " his house ; or 

 "skell" (turn topsy-turvy) a heavy box? Here, too, the 

 " spreeding " ploughboy fed on abundance of milk and bacon, 

 though he will tell you he " is only among the middlins and 

 not i' very good fettle inside," will take his " docky " (luncheon) 

 by the hedge at ten, and afterwards work two yokes till dinner. 

 How expressive again is the term " heart slain," of a horse that 

 dies under too much work, while the general roughness of North 

 country perceptions comes out in a favourite proverb, " a beal- 

 ing cow" (i.e., a lowing cow) "soon forgets her calf!" Such 

 matters as these, which might easily be added to, lend an inte- 

 rest to the dullest district. Happy the man who is not above 

 noticing them. 



" Wisdom there, and truth, 

 Not shy, as in the world, and to be won 

 By slow solicitation, seize at once 

 The roving thought, and fix it on themselves, "t 



* I.e. hogboys, a corruption of the Norse word haug-bui, the tenant of 

 the haug, how, or tomb ; a ghost or goblin. See Anderson's Introduction 

 to the Orkneyinga Saga, p. ci. 



+ The " Winter Walk at Noon.' 



