“Yes,” answered Horatio, “and fresh butter and fresh eggs.”
“I’ll go to ---, if thee doen’t know what’s good for thee, anyhow. Thee’d ha’ to work ’ard to keep straaight, I can tell thee; thee’d had to plough, and danged if I believe thee could hold plough! What’s thee say to that, lad?”
“I think I could.”
“Devil a bit! now spoase thee’st got plough-handles under thy arms, and the cord in the ’ands, and thee wanted to keep t’colter from jibbin into t’ soil, wouldst thee press down wi’ might and main, or how?”
“Press down with might and main,” said Horatio.
“Right!” exclaimed Bumpkin; “danged if I doant think thee’d make a ploughman now. Dost know what th’ manin o’ mither woiy be?”
This was rather a startling question for the unsophisticated London youth. He had never heard such an expression in his life; and although he might have puzzled his agricultural interrogator by a good many questions in return, yet that possibility was no answer to “mither woiy.”
“I don’t know that, Mr. Bumpkin,” he ingenuously replied.
“No? well, there ain’t a commoner word down ere nor ‘mither woiy,’ and there ain’t a boy arf your age as doan’t know the manin o’t, so thee see thee got summat to larn. Now it mane this—spoase thee got a team o’ horses at dung cart or gravel cart, and thee wants em to come to ee; thee jest holds whip up over to the ed o’ th’ leadin orse like this ere, and says ‘mither woiy,’ and round er comes as natteral as possible.”
“O, that’s it!” said Horatio; “I see.”