Chapter Six-and-Eightpence to Skimmington of S by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Skains-mate or Skeins-mate. A dagger-comrade; a fencing-school companion; a fellow cut-throat. Skain is an Irish knife, similar to the American bowie-knife. Swift, describing an Irish feast, says, “A cubit at least the length of their skains.” Green, in his Quip for an Upstart Courtier, speaks of “an ill-favoured knave, who wore by his side a skane, like a brewer's bung-knife.”

“Scurvy knave! I am none of his skainsmates.”- Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet, ii. 4.

Skald An old Norse poet, whose aim was to celebrate living warriors or their ancestors; hence they were attached to courts. Few complete Skaldic poems have survived, but a multitude of fragments exist.

Skedaddle To run away, to be scattered in rout. The Scotch apply the word to the milk spilt over the pail in carrying it. During the late American war, the New York papers said the Southern forces were “skedaddled” by the Federals. (Saxon, scedan, to pour out; Chaldee, scheda; Greek, skeda'o, to seatter.)

Skeggs Miss Carolina Wilhelmina Amelia Skeggs. A pretender to gentility who boasts of her aristocratic connections, but is atrociously vulgar, and complains of being “all of a muck of sweat.” (Goldsmith: Vicar of Wakefield.)

Skeleton There is a skeleton in every house. Something to annoy and to be kept out of sight.
   That is my skeleton - my trouble, the “crook in my lot.”
   A woman had an only son who obtained an appointment in India, but his health failed, and his mother longed for his return. One day he wrote a letter to his mother, with this strange request. “Pray, mother, get someone who has no cares and troubles to make me six shirts.” The widow hunted in vain for such a person, and at length called upon a lady who told her to go with her to her bedroom. Being there she opened a closet which contained a human skeleton. “Madam,” said the lady, “I try to keep my trouble to myself, but every night my husband compels me to kiss that skeleton.” She then explained that the skeleton was once her husband's rival, killed in a duel. “Think you I am happy?” The mother wrote to her son, and the son wrote home: “I knew when I gave the commission that everyone had his cares, and you, mother, must have yours. Know then that I am condemned to death, and can never return to England. Mother, mother! there is a skeleton in every house.”

Skeleton Jackets Jackets on which the trousers buttoned, very commonly worn by boys in the first quarter of the nineteenth century. In the illustrations of Kate Greenaway, The Pickwick Papers, Nicholas Nickleby, etc., are plenty of such skeleton suits. Shell-jackets are short fatigue jackets worn especially by military officers.

Skevington's Daughter corrupted into Scavenger's Daughter, was an instrument of torture invented by Skevington, lieutenant of the Tower under Henry VIII. It consisted of a broad hoop of iron in two parts, fastened together by a hinge. The victim was made to kneel while the hoop was passed under his legs; he was then squeezed gradually till the hoop could be got over his back, where it was fastened.

Skibbereen and Connemara (in Ireland). Types of poverty and distress.

“You would then see the United Kingdom one vast Skibbereen or Connemara; you might convert its factories into poor-houses, and its parks into potters fields to bury strangers in.”- C. Thomson: Autobiography p. 307.

Skibbereen Eagle (The). The chiel amang ye takin' notes. It was the Skibbereen, or West Cork Eagle newspaper, that solemnly told Lord Palmerston that it had “got its eye both upon him and on the Emperor of Russia.” This terrible warning has elevated the little insignificant town of Skibbereen, in the south- west coast of Ireland, quite into a Lilliputian pre-eminence. Beware, beware, ye statesmen, emperors, and thrones, for the Skibbereen Eagle has its eye upon you!

Skid A drag to check the wheels of a carriage, cart, etc., when going down hill. (Anglo-Saxon, scid, a splinter.)