Phrases
Singing psalms to a dead horse, exhorting a stolid subject.
Surplice, smock-frock.
“Ah! sir, the white surplice covers a great deal of dirt”—said by a tidy woman of her old father.
“And what be I to pay you?”
“What the Irishman shot at,” i.e. nothing—conversation overheard between an old labourer and his old friend, the thatcher, who had been mending his roof.
“Well, dame, how d’ye fight it out?”—salutation overheard.
Curate. Have you heard the nightingale yet?
Boy. Please, sir, I don’t know how he hollers.
Everything hollers, from a church bell to a mouse in a trap.