Page:Lancashire Legends, Traditions, Pageants, Sports, Etc., with an Appendix Containing a Rare Tract.djvu/237

 fording both rivers when swollen, and in crossing the adjacent sands, without due regard to the state of the tide]. "All we, like sheep, have gone astray." [In a letter of Henry Tilson, Bishop of Elphin, dated April 2, 1651, the prelate writes—"I trist to do God service in the exercise of my ministry amongst that moorish and late rebellious plundering people [at Cumberworth]. When I went first to Rochdale, you may remember what the old ostler at the baiting willed me to do. "Take with you (said he) a great box full o' tar, for you shall find a great company of scabbed sheep."] As fierce as a dig. [A dig is a duck.] As drunk as David's old sow. Grinning like a Cheshire cat chewing gravel. Never done like Pilling Moss. As common as ploughs. His e'en twinkled like a farthing rushlight.

Quite young and all alive, Like an old maid of forty-five. What everybody has to do, nobody does it. Hoo howds up hur yed like a new bowt tit. A steady person is said to be "like Colne clock—always at one;" i.e, always the same.

Birtle [or Bircle] folk are a deeal on 'em sib an' sib, rib an' rib,— o' oo a litter,—Fittons and Diggles, and Fittons and Diggles o'er again. He'll sit a fire eawt ony time, tellin' his bits o' country tales.