and Parson Wikes was made to sit astride on the short pole the clerk and
sexton had prepared; two others were provided for the belligerent
husband and wife; and the whole village prepared to march in procession
with them. But though the parson sat complacently on his pole, the
husband and wife refused to submit to the ignominious custom, and he
armed himself with the pitch-fork, she with the poker, and began to
defend themselves against the villagers. Parson Wikes was carried to the
scene of conflict, and the clerk and sexton, in their eagerness to join
in the struggle, dropped him into the beck. Then the villagers rushed
upon him, swearing that he was shirking his duty of riding the stang,
and he had to stand up to his middle in the water, and fight them off.
Armed with the stick, which he whirled about him in single-stick
fashion, he rattled their heads and arms with it to such good purpose
that he was able to beat a retreat into the church, where he rapidly
vested himself in his surplice, and placed the sanctity of the place and
garb between him and his opponents.
The crowd now poured into the church, and Parson Wikes proceeded with
the service, leaving a trail of water up and down the chancel as he
paced to the altar and thence to the pulpit. Having prefaced his sermon
with an announcement that he took in good part the disorderly conduct
and undignified treatment he had met with, he preached them a moving
sermon on the merits of Charles the Martyr, and the ingratitude of the
people of England to such a virtuous monarch, and wound up with--"Let
those who feel the consequence of such a misfortune deplore with me upon
this melancholy occasion; but if there be any among you (and I make no
doubt there are) who may have secretly wished for this event, they have
now got their desire, and may the devil do them good with it." After
which he made the best of his way home to his rectory, and endeavoured
to counteract the effects of his dipping by moistening his clay within
with hot punch.
FOOTNOTE:
[18] "Anecdotes and Manners of a few Ancient and Modern Oddities." York,
1806.
THE REV. MR. CARTER,
PARSON-PUBLICAN.
I cannot do better than extract verbatim the following account from a
curious book entitled "Anecdotes and Manners of a Few Ancient and Modern
Oddities, interspersed with Deductive Inferences and Occasional
Observations, tending to reclaim some Interlocutory Foibles which often
occur in the Common Intercourses of Society." York, 1806:--
"The Rev. Mr. Carter, when curate of Lastingham, had a very large
family, with only a small income to support them, and therefore often
had recourse to many innocent alternatives to augment it; and as the
best of men have their enemies--too often more than the worst--he was
represented to the archdeacon by an invidious neighbour as a very
disorderly character, particularly by keeping a public-house, with the
consequences resulting from it.
"The archdeacon was a very humane, worthy, good man, who had imbibed the
principles not only of a parson, but of a divine, and therefore treated
such calumniating insinuations against his subordinate brethren with
that contempt which would accrue to the satisfaction and advantage of
such as listen to a set of sycophantic tattlers culled from the refuse
of society. Besides, the improbability of a malevolent story generally
renders it more current by increasing the scandal; and the world, like
the pious S. Austin, believes some things because they are impossible.
However, he considered that not only the conduct of the inferior clergy
claimed his attention, but also to have some idea how far their
subsistence was compatible with the sanctity of their functions;
therefore, at the ensuing visitation, when the business of the day was
over, he, in a very delicate and candid manner, interrogated Mr. Carter
as to his means of supporting so numerous a family--ever thinking of
this admirable hint to charity, that the more a person wants, the less
will do him good--which was answered, as related to me by one well
acquainted with the parties, in nearly the following words:--
"'I have a wife and thirteen children, and with a stipend of £20 per
annum, increased only by a few trifling surplice fees. I will not impose
upon your understanding by attempting to advance any argument to show
the impossibility of us all being supported from my church preferment.
But I am fortunate enough to live in a neighbourhood where there are
many rivulets which abound with fish, and being particularly partial to
angling, I am frequently so successful as to catch more than my family
can consume while good, of which I make presents to the neighbouring
gentry, all of whom are so generously grateful as to requite me with
something else of seldom less value than two or three-fold. This is not
all. My wife keeps a public-house, and as my parish is so wide that some
of my parishioners have to come from ten to fifteen miles to church, you
will readily allow that some refreshment before they return must
occasionally be necessary, and when can they have it more properly than
when their journey is half performed? Now, sir, from your general
knowledge of the world, I make no doubt but you are well assured that
the most general topics in conversation at public-houses are politics
and religion, with which ninety-nine out of one hundred of those who
participate in the general clamour are totally unacquainted; and that
perpetually ringing in the ears of a pastor who has the welfare and
happiness of his flock at heart, must be no small mortification. To
divert their attention from these foibles over their cups, I take down
my violin and play them a few tunes, which gives me an opportunity of
seeing that they get no more liquor than necessary for refreshment; and
if the young people propose a dance, I seldom answer in the negative;
nevertheless, when I announce time for return, they are ever ready to
obey my commands, and generally with the donation of a sixpence they
shake hands with my children, and bid God bless them. Thus my
parishioners enjoy a triple advantage, being instructed, fed, and amused
at the same time. Moreover, this method of spending their Sundays is so
congenial with their inclinations, that they are imperceptibly led along
the paths of piety and morality; whereas, in all probability, the most
exalted discourses, followed with no variety but heavenly
contemplations, would pass like the sounds of harmony over an ear
incapable of discerning the distinction of sounds. It is this true sense
of religion that has rendered my whole life so remarkably cheerful as it
has been, to the great offence of superstitious and enthusiastic
religionists. For why should priests be always grave? Is it so sad to be
a parson? Cheerfulness, even gaiety, is consonant with every species of
virtue and practice of religion, and I think it inconsistent only with
impiety and vice. The ways of heaven are pleasantness. Let "O be joyful"
be the Christian's psalm, and leave to the sad Indian to incant the
devil with tears and screeches. Now, to corroborate my remarks upon
cheerfulness as conducive to contentment, I will by leave solicit so
much of your indulgence as to hear the following extract from the works
of an eminent divine of the Established Church:--The Thirty-Nine
Articles are incomplete without a fortieth precept enjoining
cheerfulness; or you may let the number stand as it does at present,
provided you expunge the thirteenth article, and place that heavenly
maxim in the room of it. Might not the Archbishop of Cashel have been a
sound divine though he added the arch-stanza about Broglio to the old
Irish ballad in praise of Moll Roe? Or did the Bishop (not the Earl) of
Rochester's poems on the man-like properties of a lady's fan ever
impeach his orthodoxy in the least?'
"Here the archdeacon very candidly acknowledged the propriety of Mr.
Carter's arguments in defence of his conduct, and complimented him on
his discernment in using the most convenient vehicle for instruction;
observing that, although he might deviate a little from the plans
generally advised for the accomplishment of that purpose, yet it bore no
less authority than the celebrated Dr. Young, who wrote a play ('The
Brothers') for the propagation of the Gospel, the profits of which he
consecrated to the Society for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts."
JOB SENIOR,
THE HERMIT OF RUMBOLD'S MOOR.[19]
Job's mother was Ann Senior, of Beckfoot, near Ilkley; he was an
illegitimate child. His father, a man named Hacksworth, left him a
little money when he died. Job grew up a spruce, active young man, very
strong, and not devoid of good looks. He was employed as a labourer by
the farmers round Ilkley; but afterwards went to live at Whitkirk, near
Leeds. He there fell into disorderly ways, drank, and became careless in
his dress and dirty in his habits. Yet he was a good workman, and when
he returned to Ilkley he was readily engaged by the farmers to plough,
mow, and reap for them. He was a good fence-waller, and being a man of
prodigious strength, is said to have used very heavy stones for the
purpose, and when days were short he was frequently seen walling by
candlelight. Some of his walls are still pointed out, and the large
stones he lifted elicit surprise. In winter he employed himself in
wool-combing at a place called The Castle, near Ilkley. It is related of
him that he once laid himself down on the combing-shed floor, and that
some of his fellow-workmen chalked out his figure on the floor. By this
outline he used to cut his shirts, the material being coarse harden,
sewed with strong hemp-string.
Job was at one time an hostler in the village, and a person who knew him
well at the time says that at this period his dissipated habits made
him the subject of many a practical joke.
He was afterwards employed by the farmers at Burley Woodhead; but as he
became old and infirm, and troubled with rheumatism, he could not work
as formerly, but did what he could, making no stipulations for wages,
but asking only for his board, and that his employers should pay him
whatever extra they thought his labour entitled him to receive.
About this time he became acquainted with a widow named Mary Barret, who
lived in a cottage near Coldstone Beck, on the edge of Rumbold's Moor.
The widow had a little garden and a paddock which, together with the
cottage, had been left her by her husband, who had taken the land from
the common and built the cottage on it. Job thought if he could secure
the hand of the widow the house and land would be his for life. So one
day he paid her a visit.
"I'll tell ye what I've been thinking," said Job Senior.
"What hast a' been thinking on then, Job? Out wi' it, lad," said the
widow.
"Well, I've been thinking thou'st getting ou'd, and thou lives all by
thy sen i' this house. And I'm a young man"--(he was about sixty)--"and
I lives all by my sen by yond crag. Why should not thou and me make it
agreeable to live together?"
"Dost a' mean that I'm to take thee as a lodger?" asked Mary Barret.
"Nay, nay, lass!" answered Job; "I mean we'd better goa to t' kirk
together and be wed."
"I reckon I'm ower ou'd for that," said the widow. She was in her
eightieth year.
"I doan't know if tha be ou'd," said Job; "but I knows vary weel thou'rt
bonny."
No woman's heart, not even in her eightieth year, is proof against
flattery, and the fair Mary blushed and yielded to the blooming Job, and
married they were.
"It's an easy gotten penny by the light o' the moon," said Job, looking
over his domain.
Mrs. Senior did not long survive her second marriage. She had a long
sickness, and Job was kind to her in it. "It's cou'd, Job," she said to
her husband one evening when he returned from his work on the moor.
"It's cou'd i' this bed, and I cannot feel t' warmth o' t' fire."
"Thou shalt be warm, ou'd lass, if I can fashion it," said Job. "But as
I cannot bring t' fire nigher thee, I mun bring thee nigher to t' fire."
So he pulled up a couple of flags in the floor beside the hearth, dug a
pit, and made the old woman's bed in this premature grave, so that she
could be close to the fire and comfortable, and if she wanted a cup of
tea, could put out her hand and take the pot from the hearth.
"Eh, Job!" said old Mary another day, "I think I'd like summut good to
eat afore I dies."
"Ah!" answered her husband; "then I'll get thee a rare good morsel,
that'll set thee up on thy legs again, ou'd lass."
So he bought a pound of bacon, roasted it, caught the melted fat in a
large iron spoon, and ladled it down his wife's throat.
"It's rare good now, isn't it?" exclaimed the husband, as the old woman
gulped it down. "Open the trap and I'll teem (pour) down some more."
The old woman lay back in her hole and groaned. "I'm boun' to die!" she
said.
"Nay, lass! take another spoonful first."
But the poor creature was dead. Job looked at her disconsolately for a
minute, and whilst doing so the fat of the frying bacon fell into the
fire and blazed up. "Eh! but I mustn't waste the fat," said Job. "If t'
ou'd lass cannot take it, why, I mun eat it mysen. Ah! it's varry good;
but it's hot. I reckon 't were too hot for her ou'd insides."
Job now thought that the house, garden, and paddock were his own; but he
was mistaken. The family of Barret, the first husband of Mary, claimed
it and took possession of the field. Job clung desperately to the
cottage and the potato-garth. One evening when he returned from his work
he found that the cottage had been pulled to pieces. He had hidden some
money in the walls, and this was either lost or stolen. His rage and
disappointment completely disturbed his brain, and from that time
forward he lived in a miserable hovel he erected for himself out of the
ruins of the house, in idleness and squalor.
His hut was like a dog-kennel; to enter it he was obliged to creep on
hands and knees. Within it was only large enough for him to lie down in
and turn himself about: it was thatched, and provided with a rude door,
but no window. The garden had contained fruit trees; but these he
stubbed up, and instead planted the whole garth with potatoes. He made
large, unsightly ridges, and put in a great quantity of seed, always
planting for the following year when he gathered his crop in autumn. In
one corner of his garth was a peat fire where he roasted his potatoes.
His custom was, when eating, to sit with one leg on each side of the
fire of peat, his little bag of oatmeal before him; then with his staff
he poked the potatoes out of the embers, peeled them with his dirty
fingers, rolled them in his meal bag, and then ate them. He always drank
his water warm.
"Do you drink your water warm, Job?" asked a visitor.
"Yes," said the hermit, "I reckon I does."
"And your butter-milk too?"
"Aye, aye. Sithere." And he poked two stone bottles out from the embers.
"I do it to clear my voice," said the hermit. "Now thou shalt hear my
four voices." He then got up, set his face to the crag, and began a
wonderful performance of four voices--treble, alto, tenor, and bass. He
said he had picked up his "four voices" by listening to the choir in
Leeds parish church. He usually sang sacred hymns, such as "While
shepherds watched their flocks by night," "Christians, awake," and the
Old Hundredth. He went about the country in winter, singing in four
parts for money, and his performance was sufficiently remarkable for him
to be brought to perform in public at the theatre at Leeds, and in the
Headingly Gardens and the Woolsorters' Gardens at Bradford, where he
stayed for weeks at a time. He would sleep in any outbuilding or
blacksmith's shop; indeed, he was so dirty that few people would like to
have given him a bed in their houses.
He used to walk leaning on two rough sticks, wearing a pair of heavy
wooden clogs on his feet, stuffed with hay, his legs bandaged with
straw. His coat was of many colours and much patched; his trousers were
to match. He wore no braces, but kept his trousers in position with a
hempen belt, part of an old horse-girth, which he buckled round his
body. A bag on his back was fastened at the front to his belt. His head
was adorned with a hat of the most antique shape, without a brim, and
stitched together with hemp-string.
The condition of his skin, which had not seen water for years, need not
be described. His hair, once jetty black, now hung in heavy clotted
locks on his shoulders. His eyebrows were black and prominent; his eyes
low-set and watery. He wore a coarse beard, grizzled with age, and very
dirty. From his hat depended a tobacco-pipe, hung by a string.
"Never," he would say to his visitors, "never take to nowt, but whenever
you can get a penny, felt (hide) it, and let nobody know about it, and
then they cannot get it from you. Get all the brass ye can, and as soon
as ye can buy a bit o' grund like this o' mine, ye see, set it with
potatoes, and it'll keep ye. There'll be a peck or two to spare; ye can
sell them, and so ha' brass agean. Are ye married?" said the hermit to a
young man who went to see him.
"No," answered the visitor.
"Then ye are right there, young chap. Keep so. If ye get a wife, ye'll
see shoo'll be coming on wi' a family, and then that'll take all your
brass. I' th' first place, ye'll want a house and furniture, and then
there'll be rent and taxes, and your wife'll be always wanting summat
for hersen or the bairns. And besides, just look how more flour ye'll
want, and sugar, and soap, and candles. And look how many more potatoes
ye'll want for them all to eat. Eh! but they're the animals 'at eats
brass. They say that maggots eats cheese, and weevils eats cloathes, and
mice eats corn; but wife and bairns eats brass, and it's t' brass as
gets cheese, and cloathes, and corn. Nay, lad! have nowt to do wi' them
soort o' cattle. And then--if th' wife takes to bonnets and gowns, ye're
ruined directly. Nay, nay, grund is better nor a wife, and potatoes nor
bairns. If ye want to save your brass and snap up a bit o' grund, ye
munna be married."
Job's end came as he was on one of his singing rounds. It is thought
that some youngsters drugged his drink, in prank, at Silsden, and the
consequences were a violent attack of English cholera. He got back to
Ilkley, and crept into a barn belonging to the White Sheaf Inn; but the
landlord seeing that his end was near, sent for the parish authorities,
and he was moved to the Carlton workhouse, as he belonged to Burley. He
died in the course of a few days, at the age of seventy-seven, and was
buried in Burley churchyard, near Otley.
FOOTNOTE:
[19] "The Hermit of Rumbold's Moor." Bingley: Harrison (n.d.)
NANCY NICHOLSON,
THE TERMAGANT.
Mrs. Nancy Nicholson[20] was born at Drax, in the county of York, on the
3rd day of May, 1785, and was the only child of the Rev. John Jackson,
vicar of Drax, by his second wife. Mr. Jackson had a son by a former
marriage, but he was taken by his mother's relatives into Cumberland;
consequently the daughter, Nancy, was the only child at home, and from
her infancy was indulged to a fault, and suffered to grow up without
restraint, so that she soon became a terror to the other children in the
school of which her father was the master.[21]
It is curious that the child of a schoolmaster should have been suffered
to grow to womanhood almost wholly without education; but such was the
case. The following extract from a letter written by her when aged
sixty-four shows how miserably her education had been neglected:--"Dear
Mrs. Wilson,--Your letter just came in time as I whas thinking of
letting my land but if John Harrison will come and we can a gree I ceep
it on if not I shall let it Mr. Totton of Howden whants it and Taylors
of Asselby also I Ceep all land and Hosses while I see him pray send him
word to Come this week as I must have my Patays up and also my stakes
wants thashing."
Having naturally a certain amount of shrewdness, it was mistaken for
talent, and low cunning for genius. Being indulged in every way, her
headstrong will became intolerant of the smallest restraint. She played
with the boys of the school, and acquired from them the coarsest
language, and throughout her life never learned, indeed never attempted,
to control her tongue.
When Miss Jackson was about twenty years old, the Rev. John Nicholson, a
young man from Cumberland, came to Drax to assist Mr. Jackson in his
school. He was at that time a well-disposed, gentlemanly young fellow,
who gave promise of being a scholar and of use in his generation. But
Miss Jackson, who was not without some charms of person, was the
ill-omened star that was to blight his life. Living in the house of her
father, he was brought in daily contact with her, and she exerted some
sort of fascination upon him. If two young people are brought much
together, they are sure to form an attachment, and it was so in this
case. Nancy concealed her evil disposition from the usher, and laid
herself out to catch him.
Mr. Nicholson could not be blind to the fact that Miss Jackson was
entitled to property on the death of her parents, and it is probable
enough that to a needy young clergyman without interest, the chance of
making himself master of a competence may have had more to do with his
paying his addresses to Miss Jackson than love.
In the year 1810 Mr. Jackson died, and perhaps this event decided Mr.
Nicholson to offer his hand to Nancy. He was at once accepted, and the
interest of her friends secured for him immediately the vacant situation
of master of the Grammar School. Shortly after the marriage he also
became vicar of Drax.
Mr. and Mrs. Nicholson were married at Drax Church in October, 1811, and
she then became undisputed mistress of the establishment. Her harsh and
tyrannical disposition had now free scope to develop, and the first to
feel it was the mother who had encouraged her as a child. The widow was
soon obliged to leave the house, where her daughter made it impossible
for her to live in comfort and tranquillity. The servants would not
stay; no fresh ones could be induced to enter the house under such a
mistress. She was therefore obliged to do all the work of the
school-house herself, making the unhappy boarders help her in cleaning
the house and in washing the clothes. The poor boys were scantily fed,
and otherwise miserably provided for.
Four gentlemen, including Lord Downe, were trustees of the Grammar
School at Drax, and made visits of inspection regularly every quarter.
Nancy was always prepared for these occasions. She had a clean cloth on
the table, a plentiful dinner provided, and a dumpling set before each
boy. But she took care to impress on each boarder that the one who left
the largest amount of dumpling on his plate would receive a reward, and
he should receive a hiding who emptied his plate. "And," said Mrs.
Nicholson, "let any boy beware how he looks sad or dissatisfied."
When these quarterly visits took place in the cold weather, she had a
large fire lighted in the school-room, round which she assembled the
boys, and when the trustees came in, she would address them with--"Well,
gentlemen, and you, my lord, you see how saucy these boys are; scarce
one of them has eaten his dumpling. And capital dumplings they are, my
lord and gentlemen!"
When Mr. and Mrs. Nicholson had been married about three years they took
an orphan niece of Mr. Nicholson's from Cumberland to provide for, and
to this child for several years she behaved with the greatest cruelty,
until at length Mrs. Nicholson's mother took compassion on the child,
and removed it to her own house. However, when Mrs. Nicholson considered
her niece capable of working, she insisted on her return, making her do
the work of a servant, and subjecting her to the harshest treatment. The
work was heavy, as she kept two or three cows, besides pigs and poultry.