One of them was generally to be found spinning at her muckle wheel, retiring and advancing to the music of its cheerful hum, the while her spun thread was rapidly coiled up on the spindle. The others, as they busied themselves in their household duties, or brightened up the delf and pewter, and set it out on the shelf to its best advantage, would join in some plaintive Scotch ballad, with such good taste and skill that our friends would [230 ADVENTURES OF MR. VERDANT GREEN] frequently love to linger within hearing, though out of sight. <VG230.JPG> But these artless ditties were sometimes specially sung for them when they paid the cottage-room a visit, and sat around its canopied, projecting fire-place. For, old Andrew was a great smoker; and little Mr. Bouncer was exceedingly fond of waylaying him on his return home, and "blowing a cloud" with so loquacious and novel a companion. And Mr. Verdant Green sometimes joined him in these visits; on which occasions, as harmony was the order of the day, he would do his best to further it by singing "Marble Halls," or any other song that his limited ~repertoire~ could boast; while old Andrew would burst into "Tullochgorum," or do violence to "Get up and bar the door." It must be confessed, that the conversation at such times was sustained not without difficulty. Old Andrew, his wife, and the major portion of his family, were barely able to understand the language of their guests, whom they persisted in generalizing as "cannie Soothrons;" while the guests, on their part, could not altogether arrive at the meaning of observations that were couched in the most incomprehensible ~patois~ that was ever invented. It was "neither fish, flesh, nor good red herring," although it was flavoured with the Northumbrian burr, and mixed with a species of Scotch; and the historian of these pages would feel almost as much difficulty in setting down this north-Northumbrian dialect, as he would do were he to attempt to reduce to words the bird-like chatter of the Bosjesmen. When, for example, the bewigged Mr. Bouncer - "the laddie wi' the black pow," as they called him - was addressed as "Hinny! jist come ben, and crook yer hough on the settle, and het yersen by the chimney-lug," it was as much by action as by word that he understood an invitation to be seated; though the "wet yer thrapple wi' a drap o' whuskie, mon!" was easier of comprehension when accompanied with the presentation of the whiskey-horn. In like manner, when Mr. [AN OXFORD FRESHMAN 231] Verdant Green's arrival was announced by the furious barking of the faithful dogs, the apology that "the camstary breutes of dougs would not steek their clatterin' gabs," was accepted as an ample explanation, more from the dogs being quieted than from the lucidity of the remark that explained their uproar.