Page:The English Peasant.djvu/156

 interesting, as showing the sort of friends a lonely Forest child may make. For it is said to have originated with a girl who was in the habit of sharing her breakfast with a snake, and when he was inclined to lick up more than his portion, she tapped him on the head with her spoon, with this gentle reminder, "Eat your own side, Speckleback."

Curious and full of meaning are some of their expressions. Thus, "A slink of a thing" means anything, animate or inanimate, which is miserable, weak, half-starved, or of poor quality. Others are interesting because they are peculiar to the district. Ask a peasant in the New Forest the distance to a certain place, and he will reply, "I allow it to be so far."

Should the disafforestation now talked of take place, all these peculiarities will rapidly die out, and with them will pass away in England a condition of things not to be found anywhere else.