Part 46 (1/2)

Tedious (Excessive; very): ”I never did see such tedious bad stuff in all my life.” Mr. Parish might here be supplemented by the remark that his definition explains the use of the word by old Walker, as related by Nyren, when bowling to Lord Frederick Beauclerk, ”Oh,” he said, ”that was tedious near you, my lord.”

Unaccountable: A very favourite adjective which does duty on all occasions in Suss.e.x. A countryman will scarcely speak three sentences without dragging in this word. A friend of mine who had been remonstrating with one of his paris.h.i.+oners for abusing the parish clerk beyond the bounds of neighbourly expression, received the following answer:--”You be quite right, sir; you be quite right. I'd no ought to have said what I did, but I doant mind telling you to your head what I've said a many times behind your back.--We've got a good shepherd, I says, an axcellent shepherd, but he's got an unaccountable bad dog!”

Valiant (Vaillant, French. Stout; well-built): ”What did you think of my friend who preached last Sunday, Master Piper?” ”Ha! he was a valiant man; he just did stand over the pulpit! Why you beant nothing at all to him! See what a n.o.ble paunch he had!”

[Sidenote: ”PAUL PODGAM”]

Yarbs (Herbs): An old man in East Suss.e.x said that many people set much store by the doctors, but for his part, he was one for the yarbs, and Paul Podgam was what he went by. It was not for some time that it was discovered that by Paul Podgam he meant the polypodium fern.

Such are some of the pleasant pa.s.sages in Mr. Parish's book. In Mr.

c.o.ker Egerton's _Suss.e.x Folk and Suss.e.x Ways_ is an amusing example of gender in Suss.e.x. The sun, by the way, is always she or her to the Suss.e.x peasant, as to the German savant; but it is not the only unexpected feminine in the county. Mr. Egerton gives a conversation in a village school, in which the master bids Tommy blow his nose. A little later he returns, and asks Tommy why he has not done so. ”Please, sir, I did blow her, but her wouldn't bide blowed.”

[Sidenote: THE SHEPHERD'S PERILS]

In the foregoing examples Mr. Parish has perhaps made the Suss.e.x labourer a thought too epigrammatic: a natural tendency in the ill.u.s.trations to such a work. The following narrative of adventure from the lips of a South Down shepherd, which is communicated to me by my friend, Mr. C. E. Clayton, of Holmbush, is nearer the normal loquacity of the type:--”I mind one day I'd been to buy some lambs, and coming home in the dark over the bostal, I gets to a field, and I knows there was a geat, and I kep' beating the hedge with my stick to find the geat, and at last I found 'en, and I goos to get over 'en, and 'twas one of these here gurt ponds full of foul water I'd mistook for the geat, and so in I went, all over my head, and I tumbles out again middlin' sharp, and I slips, 'cause 'twas so slubby, and in I goos again, and I do think I should ha' been drownded if it warn't for my stick, and I was that froughtened, and there were some bullocks close by, and I froughtened them splas.h.i.+ng about and they began to run round, and that froughtened me; and there--well, I was all wet through and grabby, and when I got home I looked like one of these here water-cress men. But I kep' my pipe in my mouth all the time. I didn't lose 'en.”

[Sidenote: SUSs.e.x WORDS IN AMERICA]

The late Mr. F. E. Sawyer, another student of Suss.e.x dialect, has remarked on the similarity between Suss.e.x provincialisms and many words which we are accustomed to think peculiarly American. One cause may be the two hundred Suss.e.x colonists taken over by William Penn, who, as we have seen, was at one time Squire of Warminghurst. ”In recent years we have gathered from the works of American comic writers and others many words which at first have been termed 'vulgar Americanisms,' but which, on closer examination, have proved to be good old Anglo-Saxon and other terms which had dropped out of notice amongst us, but were retained in the _New_ World! Take, for instance, two 'Southern words,' (probably Suss.e.x) quoted by Ray (1674). _Squirm_:--Artemus Ward describes 'Brother Uriah,' of 'the Shakers,' as '_squirming_ liked a speared eel,' and, curiously enough, Ray gives 'To _squirm_, to move nimbly about after the manner of an eel. It is spoken of eel.' Another word is 'sa.s.s' (for sauce), also quoted by Artemus Ward.... Mrs. Phoebe Earl Gibbons (an American lady), in a clever and instructive article in _Harper's Magazine_ on 'English Farmers' (but, in fact, describing the agriculture, &c., of Suss.e.x in a very interesting way), considers that the peculiarities of the present Suss.e.x dialect resemble those of New England more than of Pennsylvania. She mentions as Suss.e.x phrases used in New England--'You hadn't ought to do it,' and 'You shouldn't ought'; 'Be you'? for 'Are you'? 'I see him,' for 'I saw.' 'You have a _crock_ on your nose,' for a s.m.u.t; _nuther_ for neither; _p?ssel_ for parcel, and a _pucker_ for a fuss. In addition she observes that Suss.e.x people speak of 'the _fall_' for autumn and 'guess' and 'reckon' like genuine Yankees.” So far Mr. Sawyer. Suss.e.x people also, I might add, ”disremember,” as Huck Finn used to do.

I should like to close the list of examples of Suss.e.x speech by quoting a few verses from the Suss.e.x version of the ”Song of Solomon,” which Mr.

Lower prepared for Prince Lucien Buonaparte some forty years ago. The experiment was extended to other southern and western dialects, the collection making a little book of curious charm and homeliness. Here is the fourth chapter:--

[Sidenote: THE SONG OF SOLOMON]

IV

1. Lookee, you be purty, my love, lookee, you be purty. You've got dove's eyes adin yer locks; yer hair is like a flock of goats dat appear from Mount Gilead.

2. Yer teeth be lik a flock of s.h.i.+p just shared, dat come up from de s.h.i.+p-wash; every one of em bears tweens, an nare a one among em is barren.

3. Yer lips be lik a thread of scarlet, an yer speech is comely; yer temples be lik a bit of a pomgranate adin yer locks.

4. Yer nick is lik de tower of Daoved, built for an armoury, what dey heng a thousan bucklers on, all s.h.i.+elds of mighty men.

5. Yer two brestes be lik two young roes, what be tweens, dat feed among de lilies.

6. Till de dee break, an der shadders goo away, I'll git me to de mountain of myrrh, and to de hill of frankincense.

7. You be hem purty, my love; der aunt a spot in ye.

8. Come along wud me from Lebanon, my spouse, wud me from Lebanon: look from de top of Amana, from de top of Shenir an Hermon, from de lions' dens, from de mountain of de leopards.

9. Ye've stole away my heart, my sister, my spouse. Ye've stole away my heart wud one of yer eyes, wud one chain of yer nick.