where, as the O.E.D. suggests, the double sense of sting and ring were perhaps intended.
21. 'The grutching pixies hedge me round'. (37)
Grudge and grutch are the same word. The use of the obsolete form would therefore be fanciful if there were no difference in the sense; but there is a useful distinction: because grudge has entirely lost its original sense of murmuring, making complaint, and is confined to the consciousness and feeling of discontent, whereas grutch is recognized as carrying the old meaning of grumble. Thus Stevenson as quoted in O.E.D., 'The rest is grunting and grutching'. It is a very useful word to restore, but it may, perhaps, at this particular time find grouse rather strongly entrenched.
22. 'Where the channering insect channels'. (46)
This is, of course, our old friend
The cock doth craw, the day doth daw,
The channerin' worm doth chide',
and it looks like an attempt to define what is there meant, viz. that the worm made a channering noise in burrowing through the wood. The notion is perhaps admissible, though we cannot believe the sound to be audible.
23. 'The lispering aspens'. (53)
Lispering. We should be grateful for this word. O.E.D. quotes it from Clare's poems.
24. 'Of shallows with the shealings chalky white'. (64)