Earthquakes swallow up this mercantile city and its "gripple merchants," as Drayton hath it, "born to be the curse of this brave isle"!

I hear that "the custom of grippling, which may be called apple-gleaning, is, or was formerly, practised in Herefordshire.

It consists in leaving a few apples, which are called the gripples, on every tree, after the general gathering, for the boys, who go with climbing-poles and bags to collect them.