248 
NATURE NOTES. 
what one had been familiar with in the south of England. In 
place of the southern Churches, Woods and Meads, we had 
here such common names as Kirk, Shaw, Haigh, Hirst, and 
Murgatroyd ; and the Christian names were quite scriptural in 
sound, such as Enoch, Ephraim, and Jeremiah. Then in the 
south a fondness seemed to be shown for names that would 
appear to suggest a rural or a celestial origin, such as Cedar 
Avenue, Eden Villa, Nightingale Lane, Paradise Road ; but 
here they had quite a different sound such as Brockholes, Royd 
Lane, Todmorden, Buckstones, Deerhill, and Wolfstones, which 
seemed to carry one back to a wilder time or a more northern 
origin. Yet by and by one got to like these names, and even 
find in some of them a very noteworthy significance. 
Some of the words commonly employed by the natives I had 
to get used to by degrees. In an early walk when asking a 
Moorland Yorkshireman the way to a certain place, he told me 
if I went a little way up I should find a gate on the left hand, 
by which “ over top o’ t’ reservoirbank,” I should get to my 
destination ; so I went on and on, a long way, looking out for 
a five-barred structure of wood, which was my notion of a 
gate, but I found there no such thing. Then I began to think 
that there never could be a gate of this type in all the region, 
seeing that it consisted of open moorlands, and had no gates, 
in the southern sense of the word. But I was familiar with 
Burns’s poems, and used to sing a song of his that began thus : — 
“ I gaed a waefu’ gate yestreen, a gate I fear I’ll dearly rue.” 
This surely meant, I thought, a. path ; so I went back, found 
my path, and got to my destination quite successfully. And 
many words like this used often to puzzle me. 
The people presented first a repulsive barrier. They were 
an inquisitive folk, who always cross-questioned any inquirer 
before they would give a bit of information, the first question 
often proposed being “ Wheer do ye coom from ? ” but if you 
could put up with this, you found them a very good-humoured 
race, full of mother-wit, and always ready to do you a good 
service in their own way, which might, it is true, at times be 
thought a bit rough. An example of a good-humoured York- 
shire crowd I made early acquaintance with in my very first 
journey northwards from London. Till I got to Sheffield I 
had the carriage almost the whole time to myself. The Sheffield 
platform was crowded by a mass of cricketers on their way 
home from a cricket-match, which the Yorkshire team had that 
day won by a narrow margin. They crowded into the carriage, 
helter skelter, till they not only filled the seats, but stood so 
thickly packed that there was hardly space to breathe. Feeling 
somewhat exasperated at this, as it seemed 1 had good cause 
to be angry, I at first threatened to complain to the guard. 
But they bore it all in the best of humours, and by and l>y, to 
my amazement, they asked me to appeal to the guard to stop 
