you wi' dildrams deceive you with idle tales
—but that you may zee the coits with " your
own blessed eyes."

Church and church-going are favourite
subjects of talk. In a Devonshire dialogue, written
by the sister of Sir Joshua Reynolds,
three-fourths of a century ago, the following
bit of devout talk occurs:

"I larn'd the nestle draft (weakest child of the
family) to read an zay es prayrs. Wan day a
was a kneeling to my knee an zaying arter me,
' Give us this day our daily bread' a reamed
(stretched out) es neck, way es sweet begging
eyes, an zed saft in my ear, ' Maant us ask for
a crum of butter upon it?' I hugg'd en in.
' My precious lam' quoth I, ' be a good boy,
and you wan't lack butter upon your bread.'
Pretty zoul! a made a rare gammet (strange
fun) vor us last neart (night). There was a
wholly rally of us to the Pigeons a wan is,
come for barm (at the same time for yeast),
and his maester was a palavering away about
religion as a allers (always) doth when he's
half-a-go. 'Come yender' saith he to Batt;
stand vore and pit your hands behind your
back, and zay the chief end o' man. Who made
tha?' Batt nadded his hed and zed, 'God!'
' Wot did God make tha vor? Speak,
mumchance! (stupid). Wot did God make tha vor?
Wot dist stand digging thee head an stuttering
zo for?' Batt looked up zo harmless and zed,
' To carry dung to Crowbere' Good zure, what
a hullabaloo they zet up, and zed a was a fule.
I was ready to blake (burst) way laffing. His
maester looked brinded (angrily) upon en.
' You drumble-drone dunder-headed slinpon
(simpleton), ef a had a good smart switch in
ma 'and, I'd twack thee till I made thee twine
(wriggle) like an angletwich!' (snake). A was
zo mad as a Scoff (Scotsman?), es lips bevered
(trembled) agen."

But a little more must be said about the
pixies, for if you want to untie the rustic's
tongue, let him go with you to the pixie world,
for him the sole region of romance, and of
which he has many a tale to recount. But
beware of throwing any doubt upon his veracity,
or distrusting the authority to which he refers.
Your incredulousness or infidelity will soon
reduce him to silence, whereas, if you encourage
him by showing not only that you are
interested in, but that you believe his stories are
not gammet—mere joke and fancy—and that
they are gospel-true, he will go on from one
"I've yeard tell" to another, like Scherazarade
in the Arabian Nights—how two young lovers,
listening to the pixies singing and intruding
upon their haunts, were begeged (bewitched)
into a quagmire, where they were stogged
(stuck in the mud) for the whole night, and
heard the pixies laughing at them and
clapping their hands, while at every step they got
deeper and deeper into the mux. Then the
nightmare with which some of them tormented
Rab Rabson, who was jealous of Molly, his
excellent and virtuous wife, and the mother of
a large family, while others pinched him black
and blue. Then how Bett Buzzum revealed
one of their secrets, of which she had become
possessed; they entered into her house when
she was gone to market, bolted it on the
inside, broke her spinning-wheel, tossed about
the wool, and tore her yarn into shreds, waiting
her arrival in the heavy rain, in which she was
thoroughly drenched, and when she had roused
the blacksmith to force the hatch, they saw the
pixies jump out of the window, and heard them
talk of their own fun and the old homan's fury.
He can show you the pixy-seats—the knots and
entanglings on the manes of the horses which
have employed their busy fingers when the
animals have been turned out to run wild upon
the moor, the king of the pixies, probably Puck
himself, directing their proceedings while seated
upon his throne the—pix-puff—one of the largest
of the British fungi.

There was scarcely a farm-house or cottage
slated, or tiled; they were all thatched in those
times. The danger from fire was small, standing
as they stood, alone, and not being exposed to
any danger from the imprudence of careless
neighbours. A datch'd roof was deemed an essential
comfort. " Why, don't it kip out the vrost
in winter and the zin in zummer? A can't look
at the slate without veeling avrore when 'tis
cold, and a sweltering when 'tis het" What more
picturesque than the cottage white as snow,
with the clematis, the honeysuckle, and the
roses running up its walls? A roof of thatch
re-roofed with green mosses, among which grows
the house-leek, whose flowers peep out like
birdlets from their nests. Many a village and
small town in Devonshire has been wholly
destroyed by fire fed by the dry straw which
covered the houses, and, when restored, this
source of peril has been removed; but the
solitary dwellings remain in their pristine beauty,
mementoes of the past, and adornings of the
present days.

The mode of life was very simple. There was
food in superfluity. Mutton and poultry, pork,
ham, bacon, and on any great occasion " a
roaster," furnished by the pigslooze; for tipple,
there was zyder—all the produce of the varm.
The old Devonian meals used to be described as
no less than six in a day: " staybit and breakfast
ammat and dinner, mumpet and crumpet,
and a bit arter zupper." Our morning meal
was brown bread steeped in rich warm milk
stroaked from the cow; for ammat, rough cider—
sweet cider was held to be detestable—a nug of
vinny cheese and barley bread. A virkin of cider
was always accessible, free as water to the
household; tay was had between the dinner and
supper—the last a substantial repast, but the
tea was not the monotonous leaf brought from
the flowery land, but there were many varieties,
such as organ tay, and balm tay, and mint tay,
and rosemary tay, bunches of all which were
seen hanging to dry in the wide chimney; there
were camomile and coltsfoot, the infusion of
which was to be drunk "if anything went
wrong." A most popular aliment was mutton
broth, in which turnips, and carrots, and