Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 8.djvu/140

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. vm. AUG. 10, 1907.

him, " the tot-feller." It was his duty to .see to the eating and drinking requirements of the harvest folk, to fetch and carry from the farm-house all that was required. The line of scythemen, after a couple of hours on end, stopped when the leader called " Now ! " each man sitting down while the totter-out, with ale-can and tot, served ach mower in turn. There were other .stoppages for sharpening, but the tot was not served at each stoppage, this depending on the call of the leader. At eleven o'clock, and again at four o'clock, there were stop- pages for tots and bread and cheese, or bacon and bread, and at these " baggin' " intervals the tot went round two or three times. In the cornfields, where more hands were needed men as sicklers, and women as banders of the cut corn into sheaves more tots were used, and the tots for women "were less than those for men. The tots were of horn : some were highly polished, and others had mottoes or pictures incised. '" Tot " is not only a drinking vessel ; it is also the amount drunk : " I '11 just have a tot " = a small quantity.

THOS. RATCLIFFE.

MACKEACHAN PROVERB (10 S. viii. 8). The supposed proverb quoted from Scott's ' Heart of Midlothian ' is obviously one of Iris own coinage. Like Dickens, he not infrequently showed his skill as a literary workman after this fashion. The origin of the MacKeachan story is, of course, well Ttnown. The legend is that once, when Robert Bruce was in flight in the Galloway district, the heel of his boot became loose, and he sought the aid of the nearest shoe- maker. This was one Rob McQuechan, -at heart a disloyal Scot, who contrived, while mending Bruce's boot, to wound him badly in the heel. According to Ramsay of Ochtertyre, Burns meditated a drama on the subject, the title of which was to be ' Rob McQuechan's Elshin.' Burns is said to have spoken of the wound as of nine inches in extent, a perforation which would have settled the fate of Scotland a con- siderable time before Bannockburn.

W. B.

QUEEN MARY I. AT WORMLEY, HERTS (10 S. vii. 508). It is not probable that on her way from Framlingham to London Queen Mary went into Hertfordshire at that she " came from Wansteed, in Essex, to London on the 3rd of August," 1553 <De Guaras wrongly says the 31st of July). JOHN B. WAINEWRIGHT.
 * 11 ; and Stow in his ' Annales ' tells us

' SOBRIQUETS AND NICKNAMES ' (10 S. vii. 366, 430 ; viii. 37). Apparently none of the following has been mentioned by your correspondents :

Silly Billy = William Frederick, Duke of Gloucester.

Nolkejumskoi = William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, otherwise the " butcher."

Lord Piccadilly = William, 4th Duke of Queensberry.

The Old Lion = William, 1st Earl of Chatham.

Snuff = Charles, Lord Petersham (4th Earl of Harrington).

Black Dick = Richard, 1st Earl Howe.

Red Herrings Francis, Lord Yarmouth (3rd Marquis of Hertford).

Old Glory=Sir Francis Burdett.

Skiff y Skipton=Sir Lumley Skeffington.

Jehu = Sir John Lade.

Old Grog= Admiral Vernon.

Kangaroo General Sir George Cooke.

Bubble and Squeak=Sir Watkin Williams Wynne (5th Bt.) and Thomas Sheridan.

The Golden Ball = Edward Hughes Ball.

Count Eclipse = Dennis O'Kelly.

Tiger Roach=Capt. David Roach.

Fighting Fitzgerald = George Robert Fitz- gerald.

The Macaroni Painter = Richard Cosway.

Monk Lewis = Gregory Lewis.

Gentleman S mi th= William Smith, the actor.

Gentleman Jackson = John Jackson, the pugilist.

Antiquity or Rainy Day Smith = John Thomas Smith.

The Maid of the Oaks = Elizabeth, Countess of Derby.

Santa Carlotta= Charlotte Hayes.

HORACE BLEACKLEY.

" BLADUM " : " SIUGO " (10 S. viii. 5). The latter word is apparently a mistake for " sigalo." " Sigalum " is med. Lat. for Lat. secale, rye. In ' Notes on Irminon's Polyp tychum,' by J. H. Hessels (Trans. Philolog. Soc., 1899-1902), it is shown that " per bladum," " in blado," also meant in harvest-time, or in time when the corn re- quired weeding, &c.

H. P. L.

HOUSES or HISTORICAL INTEREST (10 S.

v. 483 ; vi. 52, 91, 215, 356, 497 ; vii. 312,

413,472 ; viii. 12). I am sorry MR. BRESLAR

persists in identifying the Regent's Canal as

) the scene of Dyer's involuntary immersion.

I There is nothing more than his own imperfect

j observation of the local topography to

I justify the suggestion ; and obviously he has