A Yorkshire clergyman the other day, visiting a poor man who had just
lost his little boy, endeavoured to console him. The poor man burst into
tears, and in the midst of his sobs exclaimed: "If 'twarna agin t' law a
should ha' liked to have t' little beggar stoofed."
A leading layman in the Wakefield diocese went to see a poor old woman
whose husband had just died after a long illness. In talking of him she
remarked, "Eh, but John's tabernacle tuk a deal o' riving to bits."
The Vicar of Sowerby Bridge met with a woman in his parish who said she
could not agree with the Church. On being pressed for particulars she
said she could not hold with renouncing the devil and all his works.
The Vicar of one of the large towns in the diocese of Wakefield was
having a pipe in his kitchen late at night when, about 11 P.M., there
was a knock at the door, and when he opened it he found two Salvation
lassies who said they had called to see if he would give them something
for their work. He said he was sorry he could not do so, though he
wished them well, and he asked if they found much drunkenness in that
town. "Yes," said one of them, "and also of its twin child of the devil,
smoking."
A Yorkshireman (the story is told of Birstall) who had a scolding wife
met a mate one morning who looked rather sad, and asked him what was the
matter. The other said, "I've lost my old missus." To this the former
replied, "I'll swop my wick un for your dead un, and pay t' funeral
expenses too!"
Another Birstall story:
When the present incumbent was appointed to Birstall, a man there said,
"We've had no Harvest Festival this time, as there was no vicar, but now
a new one is appointed I dare say we shall have a lot of them!"
A very wealthy manufacturer whose works were in the Wakefield diocese
was asked for a donation to a charitable object, and said they might put
down his name for two guineas. It was pointed out to him that his son
had already given twice that amount, and he might not like his name to
appear for less than his son's. "Oh, it's all right," he said; "you see
he has got a well-to-do father, and I haven't."
Two men went round a parish in Yorkshire, house to house, collecting a
fund for the repair of the churchyard wall. Presently they came to a
house where the man had just come in from work and was washing himself
in the back kitchen. Hearing the men in the front room he called out,
"What dost a want? Dost a want some o' ma brass? Nay, thee'll noan get
ma brass for yon job." One of the men replied, "Why, t' wall wants
mending badly." "Nay, man," answered the man in the back room, "them as
is in t' churchyard weant get out, and them as isn't in doant want to
get in. Tha, man, let it bide."
A clergyman in Yorkshire, visiting a dying man, observed him putting his
hand out of the bed and eating something from time to time, so he said
he was glad to see he could eat a little, when the man with a funny look
said, "They're my funeral biscuits. The missis went to the town and
bought them, and she's out to-day, and I'm eating them."
A poor woman at Halifax talking of her husband, said he had tried
everything--he had been a churchman, then a Wesleyan, then a Baptist,
and now he was a Yarmouth bloater. (She meant Plymouth brother, but had
got her seaports mixed.)
A girl in Hebden Bridge came to the vicar to put up her banns of
marriage. When all was done she lingered at the door and the vicar said,
"Well, Mary, is there anything more?" To this she replied rather shyly,
"Please, sir, will t' same spurrings do for another chap?" (_Spurrings_
is a Yorkshire word for banns, and is really _speerings_ or
_inquirings_.)
At Thornhill an old woman lost her brother and went continually to talk
to him at his grave. One day she was overheard saying, "Eh, William, t'
pigs turned out well. We'd a bit o' spar rib yesterday, and a wish thee
could ha' tasted it. And a've sold t' hams, William."
A former vicar of Dewsbury at a funeral in a cemetery, where the grave
was under the wall of the chapel, remarked to the widow, "It's a nice
sheltered spot." "Ah, yes," she answered, "my poor husband never could
bear a draught."