This is done three times. They then change
their cry to 'Wee yen!'--'Way yen!'--which they sound in the same
prolonged and slow manner as before, with singular harmony and
effect, three times. This last cry is accompanied by the same
movements of the body and arms as in crying 'the neck.' . . . After
having thus repeated 'the neck' three times, and 'wee yen,' or 'way
yen' as often, they all burst out into a kind of loud and joyous
laugh, flinging up their hats and caps into the air, capering about
and perhaps kissing the girls. One of them then gets 'the neck' and
runs as hard as he can down to the farmhouse, where the dairymaid,
or one of the young female domestics, stands at the door prepared
with a pail of water. If he who holds 'the neck' can manage to get
into the house, in any way unseen, or openly, by any other way than
the door at which the girl stands with the pail of water, then he
may lawfully kiss her; but, if otherwise, he is regularly soused
with the contents of the bucket. On a fine still autumn evening the
'crying of the neck' has a wonderful effect at a distance, far finer
than that of the Turkish muezzin, which Lord Byron eulogises so
much, and which he says is preferable to all the bells of
Christendom.
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