Under the name of _queesting_.[15] At night the lover has access to his
mistress after she is in bed; and, upon an application to be admitted
upon the bed, which of course is granted, he raises the quilt, or rug,
and in this state _queests_, or enjoys a harmless chit-chat with her,
and then retires. This custom meets with the perfect sanction of the
most circumspect parents, and the freedom is seldom abused. The author
traces its origin to the parsimony of the people, whose economy
considers fire and candles as superfluous luxuries in the long winter
evenings."
The Hon. Henry C. Murphy of Brooklyn, N. Y., late United States minister
at the Hague, has furnished us with the following note in relation to
this Nederduitsche custom: "As to its being a Dutch custom, it was so to
a limited extent in Holland in former times, and may yet be, though I
did not hear of it when I was there. Sewell gives the word _queesten_,
or _kweesten_, in his dictionary, printed over a century ago. The word
is defined in the dictionary of Wieland, the principal lexicographer in
that country, as follows: '_Kweesten_. Upon the islands of Texel and
Vlieland[16] they use this word for a singular custom of wooing, by
which the doors and windows are left open, and the lover, lying or
sitting outside the covering, woos the girl who is underneath.' Sewell
confines the custom to certain islands or lands near the sea."