Rue. A row, or hedgerow. See chap. v. [p. 56]. In the Forest some of the embankments, near which perhaps the Kelts and West-Saxons lived, are called Rew- and Row-ditch. I have, too, heard of attics being called “lanes,” possibly having reference to the “ruelle” by which the space between the curtains was formerly called.
Rug-stick, also called a Lug-stick. A bar in the chimney, on which “the cotterel,” or “iron scale,” or “crane,” as it is also called, to which the kettle or pot is fastened, hangs. We find the word still used in America as the “ridge-pole” of the house, which helps us at once to the derivation.
Scale, or squoyle. See chap. xvi. [p. 182].
Scull, A.(From the Old-English scylan, and so, literally, a division). A drove, or herd, or pack of low people, always used in an opprobrious sense. It is properly applied to fish, especially the grey mullet which visits the coast in the autumn, and so metaphorically to beggars who go in companies. Milton uses the word
“——sculls that oft
Bank the mid sea.”
Paradise Lost, Book vii.
Shakspeare, too, speaks of “scaled sculls” (Troilus and Cressida, Act v. sc. 5). The expression “school of whales,” which we so often find in Arctic and whaling voyages is nothing but this word slightly altered. According to Miss Gurney’s Glossary of Norfolk words (Transactions of the Philological Society, 1855), the word “school” is applied to herrings on the south-eastern coast. Juliana Berners, in the Boke of St. Albans, curiously enough says that we should speak of “a sculke of foxes, and a sculle of frerys.”—Quoted in Müller’s Science of Language, p. 61.
Setty. Eggs are said to be “setty” when they are sat upon.
Shammock, To. To slouch. “A shammocking man” means an idle, good-for-nothing person. Applied also to animals. “A shammocking dog,” means almost a thievish, stealing dog, thus showing how the word is akin to shamble, scamble, which last verb also signifies to obtain any thing by false means.