University of Virginia Library

NORTHERN (ENGLAND); Group 2: WESTMORELAND.

The following extract is from a remarkable tract entitled A Bran New Wark, by William De Worfat; Kendal, 1785. The author was the Rev. William Hutton, Rector of Beetham in Westmoreland, 1762-1811, and head of a family seated at Overthwaite (here called Worfat) in that parish. It was edited by me for the E.D.S. in 1879.

Last Saturday sennet, abaut seun in the evening (twas lownd and fraaze hard) the stars twinkled, and the setting moon cast gigantic shadows. I was stalking hameward across Blackwater-mosses, and whistling as I tramp'd for want of thought, when a noise struck my ear, like the crumpling of frosty murgeon; it made me stop short, and I thought I saw a strange form before me: it vanished behint a windraw; and again thare was nought in view but dreary dykes, and dusky ling. An awful silence reigned araund; this was sean brokken by a skirling hullet; sure nivver did hullet, herrensue, or miredrum, mak sic a noise before. Your minister [himself] was freetned, the hairs of his head stood an end, his blead storkened, and the haggard creature moving slawly nearer, the mirkiness of the neet shew'd her as big again as she was... She stoup'd and drop'd a poak, and thus began with a whining tone. "Deary me! deary me! forgive me, good Sir, but this yance, I'll steal naa maar. This seek is elding to keep us fra starving!"... [The author visits the poor woman's cottage.] She sat on a three-legg'd steal, and a dim coal smook'd within the rim of a brandreth, oor which a seety rattencreak hung dangling fra a black randletree. The walls were plaister'd with dirt, and a stee, with hardly a rung, was rear'd into a loft. Araund the woman her lile ans sprawl'd on the hearth, some whiting speals, some snottering and crying, and ya ruddy-cheek'd lad threw on a

bullen to make a loww, for its mother to find her loup. By this sweal I beheld this family's poverty.

Notes.--Sennet, seven nights, week; seun, seven; lownd, still, calm; murgeon, rubbish earth cut up and thrown aside in order to get peat; windraw, heap of dug earth; ling, kind of heather; skirling hullet, shrieking owlet; herrensue, young heron; miredrum, bittern; blead storkened, blood congealed; neet, night; poak, bag; yance, once; seck, sack, i.e. contents of this sack; elding, fuel; steal, stool; brandreth, iron frame over the fire; seaty, sooty; rattencreak, potcrook, pothook; randletree, a beam from which the pothook hangs; stee, ladder; loft, upper room; lile ans, little ones; whiting speals, whittling small sticks; snottering, sobbing; ya, one; bullen, hempstalk; loww, flame; loup, loop, stitch in knitting; sweal, blaze.