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Where the moon's changes were discussed so solemnly, and people numbered the "mistis in March" in expectation of corresponding "frostis in May"; where, if a pig fell sick, public opinion counselled killing it betimes, lest it should die and be considered unfit for food; where the most time-honoured saying was counted the best wit, so that you raised a friendly smile by murmuring "Good for young ducks" when it rained; where the names of famous sorts of potatoes red-nosed kidneys, magnum bonums, and so on were better known than the names of politicians or of newspapers; where spades and reap-hooks of well-proved quality were treasured as friends by their owners and coveted by other connoisseurs it was impossible that one should not be frequently visited by the feeling of something very old-fashioned in the human life surrounding one.
A trout rising boldly at a fly is said to "'quap' up," or "boil up," or even "come at it like a dog." The word "mess" is used to imply disgust of any sort: "I see one boil up just above that mess of weed"; or, if you get a bit of weed on the hook, he will exclaim, "Bother! that mess of weed has put him down." Sometimes he remarks, "Tis these dreadful frostis that spiles everything.
"'E-es, and where be they now, Joseph? Where be the lambs as I got up afore light in the frostis and snow to attend to? Where be they? Ye know so well as I do as butcher had 'em, every one. That's my complaint you do never let me keep a thing as isn't for killin'. A body'd need a heart o' stone to stand it. This 'ere pig ye know right well as he'll be bacon afore this time next year."
"Ninety-nine times out of a hundred," said an old bricklayer of the village, baffled by some error in his work "ninety-nine times out of a hundred it'll come right same as you sets it out, but not always." Puzzles were allowed to be puzzling, and left so; or the first explanation was accepted as final. The "mistis in March" sufficiently accounted for the "frostis in May."
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