"Peg, or Peggy, as some do more euphoniously denominate her, was maid, woman, or servant—ancilla, famula, ministra, not pedissequa, or one who attends her mistress abroad, but rather a servant of all work, in the house yonder at Waddow, many years past. Indeed, my grandmother did use to speak of it as ex vetere famâ—traditionary, or appertaining unto the like."
"I tell thee what, gossip, if thee doesn't get on faster wi' thy tale, Peggy's ghost will have a chronicle of another make. I can see Nic's tongue is yammering to take up a stitch i' thy narrative," interrupted the leathern artificer.
"And I'd bring it up in another guess way," said Nicholas, tartly, "than wi' scraps and scrapings fro' gallipots, and remnants o' mass books."
"Pray ye, friends, be at peace a while, or I may be dealt with never a word to my question," said the stranger beseechingly.
"Go on," rejoined the peremptory occupant of the chimney-corner; "but let thy discourse be more akin to thy text."
The schoolmaster, thus admonished, again set forward.
"As I was a-saying precedent or prior to this unseasonable interruption—medium sermonem—I crave your mercy, but I was born, as I may say, with the Latin, or the lingua latialis in my mouth, rather than my mother-tongue; so, as I was a-saying, this same Peggy, filia or daughter to Ellen, if I mistake not, seeing that Peg O'Nell doth betoken, after the manner and use of these rude provincials, that the genitrix or mater is the genitive or generator, being"——
"Now a murrain light on all fools, coxcombs, and"——
"Tailors' shins—hang thee, for thou hast verily split mine wi' thy gilly-pegs. They're as sharp as a pair of hatchets," said an unfortunate neighbour who had the ill-luck to encounter the gyrations of these offensive and weapon-like appendages to the trunk of Nicholas Slater, who, in his great ardour and distress at the floundering and abortive attempts of the scholar, threw them about in all directions, to the constant jeopardy and annoyance of those more immediately within their sphere of operation.
"Keep 'em out o't gait then," said the testy aggressor, angry at the interruption, being fearful of losing so lucky an opportunity.