(Bunbury Church Accounts.)
[67] So at Chester, the top of the river bank is called “The Cop,” and a “cop-hedge” is, in Cheshire, a bank with a hedge on top of it.
A similar official at Tarvin was familiarly known as “The Cobber,” and at Tarporley as “The Awakener.”[68]
[68] The following anecdote, which is vouched for, is too good to omit:—At a certain Cheshire church, where the farmers slumbered peacefully during the afternoon sermon, the incumbent was surprised on a certain Sunday to see the farmers, one after another, waking up suddenly and vigorously rubbing their faces. At last, looking up in a gallery to the left of the pulpit, he saw a boy with a pea-shooter, and at once discerned the cause of the commotion. He shook his fist at the lad, but to no effect, and at last cried out, “Young man, desist!” but the boy, bent on his work, replied, “Never thee mind! get along with thy sermon; I’ll keep the beggars awaken for thee!”
Another curious game is “Dot.” Children move in a ring round one representing “Dot,” and sing:—
“Dun yo’ wot, ’oo were Dot?
He were not a bad lot;
Whereabouts was his cot,
Oi’n furgotten to jot.”
(North Cheshire and Malpas.)