"Last coor by night."
"A durned coor that."
A "coor" is a turn, or shift, in mine work, and the last shift by night is not popular. Guy asked the Bookworm how long he thought it would take him to pick up the dialect? and suggested leaving him behind, and calling for him later. The Bookworm was used to this sort of thing from Guy.
We picked up a dialect story, and preserved a sentence or two, warranted to be genuine.
"Giv' me a kiss, me aul' dear," said Phil Pentreath, fisherman, just home from a cruise, throwing his arms around his wife, who has got herself up for the occasion, and does not want to be rumpled. She flushes, and is in a great rage, but can't get over the ground quicker than this—
"Taake yer baastlie wristeses awah fr'm me neck, you stinken', ravishen' aythen! Lemmego! I waan't kiss'ee, and you oall auver sunken' grease-oil an' tar. My sawl an' bawdee! I shud be fitty parfit ashaamed, ef I was you, kissen' your wife in broad daalight, an' daown-steers, too." An East End girl would cut half across London in the time.
TWO COTTAGES, MEVAGISSEY.
Cornish maids don't like cool lovers, and you may kiss early and often, and be thought none the worse of by the maid you are sweet on. If nothing comes of it the kissing part will be all right, and can be wiped out, or carried forward, at pleasure. Kissing is a mode of salutation in some districts where the population is stationary and all the families somehow connected, and a strange kiss is welcome as varying the flavour. It is a sign of religious communion among the Methodists—the old people enjoy it at their love-feasts, and the young take kindly to the godly example. There is no such county on earth for "kiss-in-the-ring" at teas and picnics—old and young, rich and poor, pastors and flock, run after one another, chasing and doubling and tumbling, and then "smack, smack," and the captives are led back with eyes sparkling and lips watering for more runs and more kisses. Pious elders see their young ministers dashing after the maidens, lifting up their chins, and kissing them on the lips, and holding them in tight embrace the while, and they just nod to one another and smile, as who should say, "Bless the dear lambs, lev 'em enjoy themselves while they'm young." But only say "dance," and the dear old faces are troubled with visions of the "pit" yawning beneath their feet. There are different ways of kissing in different parishes, so a young man may tell in the dark what parish a girl comes from by the way she acts, if only he has had sufficient practice. It all comes to the same thing, though the maidens think themselves slighted if not kissed often enough. As a rule they get on very well.