—The Dancing Master, 1728, vol. ii., p. 138.
Boys, boys, come out to play,
The moon doth shine as bright as day;
Come with a whoop, come with a call,
Come with a goodwill or don’t come at all;
Lose your supper and lose your sleep,
So come to your playmates in the street.
—Useful Transactions in Philosophy, p. 44.
This rhyme is repeated when it is decided to begin any game, as a general call to the players. The above writer says it occurs in a very ancient MS., but does not give any reference to it. Halliwell quotes the four first lines, the first line reading “Boys and girls,” instead of “Boys, boys,” from a curious ballad written about the year 1720, formerly in the possession of Mr. Crofton Croker (Nursery Rhymes). Chambers also gives this rhyme (Popular Rhymes, p. 152).
Branks
A game formerly common at fairs, called also “Hit my Legs and miss my Pegs.”—Dickinson’s Cumberland Glossary.
Bridgeboard
A game at marbles. The boys have a board a foot long, four inches in depth, and an inch (or so) thick, with squares as in the [diagram]; any number of holes at the ground edge, numbered irregularly. The board is placed firmly on the ground, and each player bowls at it. He wins the number of marbles denoted by the figure above the opening through which his marble passes. If he misses a hole, his marble is lost to the owner of the Bridgeboard.—Earls Heaton (Herbert Hardy). [The owner or keeper of the Bridgeboard presumably pays those boys who succeed in winning marbles.]