for chirping, or whispering, being one of those
poetic words which never die out of the
language of the people. Stynt or stint, for have
done with, give over, or, more rightfully, "gie
ower," is also a Cumberland word. "A!
doughter stynt thyn heavynesse," says Dyane
to Emelye the bright; and when the Reede
calls out, "stint thi clappe!" any dalesman of
them all would understand that quite as well
as "haud thee clapper;" which would be his
own natural form of enjoining silence— most
probably with a thundering expletive for
additional emphasis. The "A," too, as an
exclamation, is quite north country. We never say
Ah! but just the flat A, when we do not say
"lo ye;" to which we are partial as a vehicle of
feeling.

"Schal it be holde for a cast or elles for
noon?" asks Child Gamelyn, when he wrestles
with the doughty champion, and, flinging him
by one of his "tornes," "kast hym on the left
syde, that three ribbes to-brak;" just as any
Musgrave or Graham might ask, after he has
thrown his man at the Carlisle wrestling
matches or the Wigton races. We are proud
of our wrestling down in the dales, and
maintain that ours is the only true form of that
sport; that the Cornish hug and the
Lancashire grip are both out of the right rule, and
that we alone practise the "tornes"— we call
them by other names now— in use when Robin
Hood and Little John wrestled "under the
grene schawes." Our Musgraves and Grahams
would hold themselves "fouled" if they did
what Pol, and Tre, and Pen think quite worthy
play; and the Carlisle umpire would think
twice before he allowed the victory to be
claimed by Cornish cantrips or Lancashire
sleights.

The Welsh would understand better than we
the miller's description of the carpenter's young
wife; "Hir mouthe was sweete as bragat is or
meth," but, "wynsyng sche was as is a jolly
colt," would come to us by virtue of that word
wynsyng; though we would call it winsome, like
our friends over the Border— to northern ears
one of the pleasantest words in the language.
If a lassie belonging to us is not winsome, she
is nothing of all that woman should be. She
may be douce, and honest, and clever, and well
favoured; but if she is not winsome, she is like
all the virtues without charity. The "riche
gnof;" who boarded students at the University,
would find himself lengthened by a syllable if he
came into Jobby's hands, and would be a gonof;
said with an emphasis that would be quite worth
an adjective; and the "persone obstiuat," whom
the "pore persoun" "wolde snybbe scharply for
the nones," might be found, so far as obstinacy
went, wherever the holy man chose to look for
him in the dales.

Siker is Chaucerian for sure; it is good
Cumberland, and good Scotch (as are many
expressions here noted) also; and we "mak siker"
when we make a rope or a bargain, or anything
else sure. Hals is neck in the older tongue, and
hawse, or hause, is the modern representative,
for the most part given only to the sick or neck
between two hills. Algates, or always, has its
motif preserved in the dale word of gate,
for way— "Gang yer ain gate, ye lile donnet,"
is mither's formula for giving up to itself
and destruction, by means of red cows
and trout-holes, the "lile donnet" who will
not be sufficiently obedient to maternal counsel.
A "clicket" is Chaucerian for a key; and we
have the verb to click for to snatch. "He
clicked it clean oot o' my hand;" "Nay, what
he oop an' clicked me off my feet afoor I
kenned whaur I war!"— both clicket and
click probably phonetic in the beginning, as,
indeed, are most of the early words in all
languages— as it is to be supposed were all the
first words when men were beginning to learn
the use of speech, and taking natural sounds as
the models to be imitated.

The frere in the Sompnour's tale says, "Have
I of your softe brede but a schivere." And
Aggy, upon the fells yonder, gives her bairns
slivers, or shivers, of bread; and sometimes
Harry-lad-shives, when more generous than
usual generous to the extent of a whole round,
instead of the mommocks or gobbets, in general
all that she allows of soft bread. "Clap-bread"
(oat-cake), or "snap and rattle," are good
enough for bairns, "mak fine lads div they; gie
'em bluid an' banes, not fleck-milk an' putty.
The softer pronunciation of ir, in the
composite of three, is comparatively a modernism;
and one which has not found its way yet down
among the mountains; where we still say thretty
for thirty, and thretteen for thirteen, all the
same as in the fourteenth century, when the
polite world was not afraid of a little roughness
on the tongue. Indeed, we Cumbrians
are fond of putting the "r" before the vowel
where the south places it after; as in this same
instance of thretty for thirty, crully for curly,
crud for curd, and the like. Our Scottish
neighbours do the same.

Necked and nicked are fell-side renderings of
notched, for which the old Chaucerian word was
nokked. A field of corn laid by the wind is
said by us to be necked, and the swan with two
necks is a corruption, the genesis of which is
known to everybody.

THE SQUIRE'S TEMPER-TRAP.

IN SEVEN CHAPTERS.

I.

THAT Taffey was a Welshman no one who
had ever made an attempt to spell the locality
in which he had been born and bred would
venture to deny. But we can accompany the
lyrist no further. Taffey was not a "thief."
The piece of beef which formed his Sunday's
dinner was not pilfered from my house nor
anybody else's. Taffey stole nothing but the
hearty goodwill and liking of everybody that
knew him. He was a swarthy fellow, on
working-days, as you would desire to see; but when
he came out on the Sabbath, close shaven, and
in a shirt as white as his own conscience,
smoking a Michaelmas daisy (his wife never