Of singing cries, we may still hear in the sunny summer London streets such sweet and doleful strains as Won't you buy my sweet blooming lavender: Sixteen branches a penny! and in the dusks of November the muffin-man's bell. Besides these, we have Rag-a'-bone! Milk-o! Any scissors to grind? Clo' props! Water-creeses! and, as I remember years ago,
Young lambs to sell, white lambs to sell;
If I'd as much money as I could tell
I wouldn't be crying, Young lambs to sell!
[155]. "With Hey! with How! with Hoy."
In Rustic Speech and Folk Lore Mrs. Wright gives the decoys with which the country people all over England beguile their beasts and poultry into "shippon, sty, or pen"; or holla them on their way, but much, I have found, depends on him who hollas!
For Cows: Coop! Cush, cush!—while the milkmaid calls—Hoaf! Hobe! Mull! Proo! Proochy! Prut!
For Calves: Moddie! Mog, mog, mog! Pui-ho! Sook, sook!
For Sheep: Co-hobe! Ovey!
For Pigs: Check-check! Cheat! Dack, dack! Giss! or Gissy! Lix! Ric-sic! Shug, shug, shug! Tantassa, tantassa pig, tow a row, a row! Tig, tig, tig!
For Turkeys: Cobbler! Peet, peet, peet! Pen! Pur, pur, pur!
For Geese: Fly-laig! Gag, gag, gag! Ob-ee! White-hoddy!
For Ducks: Bid, bid, bid! Diddle! Dill, dill! Wid! Wheetie!
For Pigeons: Pees! Pod!
And for Rabbits: Map!
"Yea, and I do vow unto thee," said the voice of the beautiful virgin speaking out of the rock; "Call unto them but in their own names and language, and the strong and delicate creatures of the countries of the mind will flock into the living field of thy vision, and above the waters will befall the secret singing of birds, and thou shalt be a pilgrim. Mark how intense a shadow dwells upon this stone! Therein too lurk marvels to be seen." The voice ceased, and I heard nothing but the tapping of a fragment of dry lichen which in the draught of the hot air caused by the burning sunlight stirred between rock and sand. And I cried, "O unfortunate one, I thirst!"
[156]. "Lavender's blue."
"A poor thing," as Audrey says, but homely and melodious and once somebody's own: such a somebody as inscribed on the walls of Burford Church: