incapable, and though he was sometimes mulcted in a fine, as often as
not some smart sally of wit won the admiration and sympathy of the
"Great Unpaid," who let him down as softly as their sense of duty
would permit. Dick, on those occasions, would declare that it was his
legs only, and not his head, that was drunk. He would assert that,
like a barrel, he was easily upset when only partially filled; but,
when full to the bung and end up, he was steady as a rock.
At one time in his career Dick kept a beer-house, the sign over the
door being a representation of the Globe, with the head and shoulders
of a man projecting through it, and underneath it the legend: "Help me
through this World!" By way of counteracting any bad moral effects
that arose from his vending of beer on week-days, he taught a
Bible-class in a room over the beer-shop on Sundays. He christened one
of his sons "Gentleman," Gentleman Taylor, being determined, as he
said, to have one gentleman in the family, whatever else.
Poor Dick Taylor! I always felt grateful to his personality and to the
humour which girt him round. He was a link that bound us to the past;
a kind of embodied poetical idea in keeping with the ancient Forest
and its traditions. I have more than half a suspicion that he must
have been lying dormant for centuries in the muniment-room of
Clitheroe Castle, and, like Rip Van Winkle, awoke at length to resume
his interrupted duties. I never conversed with him without being
carried in imagination back to bygone times, and on such occasions it
was with a half-resentful feeling of annoyance that the proximity of a
later--should we be justified in saying, a higher?--civilization, in
the guise of a smoky factory chimney, dispelled the illusion.
The post of ale-taster, though still nominally maintained, is in
reality obsolete, and could not be revived, even in out-of-the-way
places, without committing an anachronism. Even in Dick Taylor's day
the office was looked upon as belonging to the past--a relic of a
bygone age, in which a social system, different from the present,
prevailed. It belonged to the days of stocks and pillories, of ducking
and cucking stools and scolds' bridles; of sluggard wakeners and dog
whippers. _Tempora mutantur._ It needed a genial humorist to assume
the duties of the office in this latter half of the nineteenth
century, and a vulgar imitator would find no favour.
In a wide and populous district the duties, when conscientiously
performed, were more than mortal stomach could bear unharmed, even
though the paunch were like that of Falstaff, which Dick's was not,
and leaving out of account the temptations which beset such an
official. Dick took to ale-tasting as a jest, though he fulfilled his
duties with a mock gravity that enhanced the fun of the situation.
Keen as was his taste for ale, he had a keener relish for the humour
of the position. Alas! it was joking perilously near to the edge of a
precipice. The last of the Ale-tasters died, a martyr to duty, on the
10th day of October, 1876. _Sic itur ad astra._
A number of curious legends, not lacking in humour, are current in the
Rossendale district. It is said that some of the youths of
Crawshawbooth village were amusing themselves at football on a Sunday
afternoon in the field between Pinner lodge and Sunnyside House. A
gentlemanly personage, dressed in black, approached and stood looking
at them for some time apparently interested in the game of the
Sabbath-breakers. The ball at length rolled to his feet, and, unable,
perhaps, to resist the temptation, he took it in his hand, and gave it
a kick that sent it spinning into the air; but instead of the ball
returning to _terra firma_, it continued to rise until it vanished
from the sight of the gaping rustics.
Turning to look at the stranger who had performed such a marvellous
feat, they espied--what they had not observed before--the cloven hoof
and barbed tail (just visible from underneath the coat) of his Satanic
Majesty! The effect of this unexpected discovery on the onlookers may
be imagined. Had the wall round the field been twelve feet high
instead of four it could hardly have prevented their exit. As for the
cause of their sudden dispersion, he vanished in a blaze of fire, and
the smell of the brimstone fumes produced by his disappearance was
felt in the village for many weeks after.
* * * * *
Another story of the same personage is the following: At the corner of
the field between Stacksteads and the railway is a large
irregularly-shaped mound made up of earth, clay and coarse gravel. The
debris of which it is composed has probably been washed down out of
"Hell Clough," a depression in the hills immediately opposite, and
deposited at this place at a remote period of time. But there is a
legend connected with it. It is said that before the river Irwell had
scooped out its present channel through the Thrutch Glen--a narrow
gorge about eighty feet wide, through which the river, the road and
the railway run side by side--the whole of the valley extending thence
up to Bacup foot was covered by a vast sheet of water--a great lake
embanked by the surrounding hills. At Hell Clough it is said that his
Satanic Majesty had a country seat and was accustomed to perform his
ablutions in the lake in question. One day the water, swollen by heavy
rains, and lashed into fury by the wind, overflowed its banks at the
Thrutch, ploughing out a passage through the rock and shale which
hitherto had barred its progress. His Majesty of the cloven foot, who
stood upon the edge of the lake enjoying the storm himself had raised,
began to perceive the sudden withdrawal of the water from his feet.
Divining the cause, he slipped on a large apron, and, hastily filling
it with soil and gravel, made with all speed to repair the breach.
But, just as he reached the place where the mound described is
situated, his apron strings broke, and the mass of rubbish which he
carried fell to the ground, where it has lain to this day.
It is some such tradition of the close proximity of the devil to the
district which has given rise to the saying, quoted by Samuel Bamford:
"There's a fine leet i' th' welkin, as th' witch o' Brandwood said
when th' devil wur ridin' o'er Rossenda."
The "witch o' Brandwood" was probably concerned in the following
incident. It would appear that the intention of the founders of the
old Church at Kirk was to build it on a site at Mitchellfield-nook,
and that the materials for the structure were deposited at that
place--when one morning it was discovered that the whole had been
transported overnight by some unseen power to the hillside on which
the Church stands.
Not to be diverted from their purpose, the inhabitants again conveyed
the materials to the place which they had originally fixed upon, and
appointed a watch to frustrate any further attempts at removal. But
one night as the sentinel slumbered at his post--an enchanted sleep,
probably--the unseen hands had again been busy, with similar results.
A third time the materials were deposited on the chosen site, and, on
this occasion, three of the inhabitants appointed to keep watch and
ward. As these sat toasting their toes at a wood fire they had
kindled, an old lady with a kindly countenance, coming past, saluted
them with a pleasant "good e'en," at the same time offering them each
a share of some refreshment which she carried. This they had no sooner
partaken of, than a profound drowsiness overtook them, ending in a
deep and protracted sleep--from which in the morning they were
aroused by the shouts of the bewildered rustics who came only to find
that the pranks had a third time been repeated. So, yielding to the
decision of a power which was not to be outmanoeuvred, the builders
erected the church on its present site.[11]
[11] A somewhat similar legend exists in connection with the old
churches at Rochdale and Burnley.
* * * * *
Reverting again to hand-loom days, and stepping over by Sharneyford
and Tooter Hill--"th' riggin' o' th' world," as Tim Bobbin called
it--the high ridge separating Rossendale from the Todmorden Valley, by
way of Dulesgate (Devil's gate), where Waugh assisted at the poker
weighing--we may encounter some of the finest examples of Lancashire
and Yorkshire border character, their conversation overflowing with
mother-wit and ready repartee. Speaking of some one who had a "good
conceit of himself," said old John Howorth to me; "there's only three
spoonfuls o' wit (sense) i' th' world, and yon mon has gettin' two on'
em!"
One old dame, recounting the struggles of poor folk in the days when
there was plenty of law, but a sad lack of justice--not to speak of
mercy--dealt out to the workers, and describing the kind of men and
their head servants who held the noses of the poor to the grindstone
while they themselves were laying the foundations of big fortunes,
spoke thus:
"Yei, it wur hard work for poor folk i' thoose days. We geet sixpence
a cut for weyving cuts, and in a whool week, working long hours, we
couldna' get through moore nor about nine or ten cuts--for they were
twenty yards long apiece. That would mak' five shillin' a week at
moast; an' when we had finished 'em, we had to carry 'em on our backs
two or three mile to th' taker-in.
"I con remember my owd mon once takin' his cuts in, and he had tramped
through th' weet and snow on a cowd winter's mornin', and when he had
gettin' his cuts passed by th' taker-in, he axed him if he would gi'e
him a penny to buy a penny moufin to eat as he wur goin' back whoam;
but th' taker-in said to him: 'Eh mon! if I wur to gi'e thee a penny
it would be gi'en' thee o' th' profit 'at our maisters get fro' a cut,
(whereas at the time they were probably making a clear guinea by each
of them). They're nearly working at a loss now by every cut yo
weyving. No, it'll never do to gi'e thee pennies in that reckless
fashion, Jone!'
"It wur hard work i' thoose days, I can tell thi', to get porritch and
skim milk twice a day, wi' happen a bit o' bacon on Sundays. Once I
had to go fro' near to Stoodley Pike, across Langfield Moor, wi' my
cuts. It were a raw cowd morning, very early, before it wur gradely
leet. An' when I geet to th' taker-in--eh! an' they wur hard uns,
thoose takers-in!--he says when he seed me:
"'Hillo! are yo here so soon, Betty? Warn't yo fley'd o' meetin' th'
de'il this morning as yo coom across Langfield Moor?'
"'Nowt o' th' soart,' I said, I wur noan feart o' meetin' th' de'il up
o' th' moor, for I knew th' hangmets weel that I'd find th' de'il when
I geet here!"
* * * * *
Saving habits, to a much greater extent than prevail in the larger
towns, are a characteristic of the working people in these outlying
and semi-rural districts. This is accounted for to some extent by the
absence of temptation to the spending of money, and so the habit of
thrift gains in strength by the daily practice of it; just as the
opposite holds good where the opportunities for squandering money and
the temptation to do so are multiplied.
By reason, also, of the comparative isolation, a more marked
simplicity of character is observable among the people. Rambling with
a friend over the moors above Walsden, we called at a lonely farmhouse
to obtain such refreshments with bread and cheese as the goodwife
might be able to provide. With as much gravity as he could command, my
friend inquired of the damsel who waited on us, at what hour the
theatre opened up there. She hesitated for a moment as though trying
to realize the idea of a theatre, and then with equal gravity and
greater sincerity explained that there was no theatre in their
locality, though occasionally in the schoolroom, some mile and a half
distant, they had Penny Readings in Winter, and at times a Missionary
meeting.
The theatre is a luxury in which they do not care to indulge very
largely, even if they had the opportunity of doing so. It may be that
the matter-of-fact qualities of their minds have been cultivated at
the expense of the imagination, like those of the youth to whom I
lent a copy of the "Pilgrim's Progress," recommending him to read it,
and believing it would interest him. When he brought it back I asked
him how he had enjoyed the book. His answer was scarcely what I
expected, and it was spoken in a contemptuous tone: "Why," said he,
"it's nobbut a dreyam!" One might be justified in coming to the
conclusion that in this youth there was the making of a hard-headed,
practical Lancashire cotton spinner.
But the Lancashire operative class are not all lacking in imagination,
as the next incident will show. Chancing to be in London one evening,
and going along the Strand, I came across two old Lancashire
acquaintances--working men--sauntering in the opposite direction. They
had come up on a three days' cheap trip to view the sights of the
Metropolis. Desiring to be of assistance to them in that direction,
and to make myself agreeable, I invited them to go with me to one of
the theatres. This proposal, however, did not seem to attract
them--the theatre was hardly in their line; so, by way of alternative,
and remembering that they were strong politicians, I suggested that
they should accompany me to the "Coger's Hall," at the bottom of Fleet
Street, and listen to a political discussion. This suggestion they
eagerly accepted, and, strolling along, we shortly found ourselves
snugly ensconsed in the discussion forum, each in an arm-chair, a pint
of stout in a pewter on the table in front of each of us, and long
clay pipes in our mouths. The subject of the evening was a burning
political question, and the discussion went on with great animation. I
saw that my friends were enjoying it immensely; at length, nudging one
of them, I inquired:
"How do you like it, Jim?"
Taking his pipe from between his teeth, his face beaming with a kind
of solemn satisfaction:
"Like it," he replied, "it's same as being i' heaven!"
He had in fact attained to the very acme of enjoyment; comfortably
seated in his chair, enjoying his pipe, his sense of hearing charmed
by the orators' well-turned periods, and, as he expressed it, "he
could sup when he'd a mind!" I have often seen my friends since then,
and I find that that evening spent in the discussion room at Coger's
Hall is marked with a red letter in their memory.
* * * * *
"Drufty Ned" was well named, and he had numberless ways of raising the
wind when he wanted a gill with never a bodle to pay for it. One day
he called at Owd Sall o' Croppers, who kept the "Hit or Miss"
beerhouse and sold oatcake baked in Lancashire fashion on a
"bakstone."
"Let's ha' hauve a dozen o' yor oatcakes, Sall," said Ned, as he sat
down by the fireside and leaned his elbows on the well-scrubbed table
in the tap-room.
The cakes were brought. "Bring me a gill o' ale, Sall, while aw warm
mi toes a bit." The ale was tabled, and Ned pretending he was short of
change, hands Sall back two of the oatcakes.
"Here, Sall, take pay for th' ale wi' two o' th' oatcakes." Sall
looked at him dubiously, but took the proffered payment.
Shortly, Ned knocked on the table with his empty pot, and called for
another gill. This was brought, and Ned handed back two more of the
oatcakes in exchange.
A third time the order was given, and shortly, Ned, having finished
both his ale and the cakes, began to clunter out towards the door,
calling out, "Good day, Sall."
"Here!" cried Sall, "tha hasn't paid for th' ale."
"Paid for th' ale," responded Ned, "aw paid for th' ale wi' th'
oatbrade."
"Aw lippen thae did," said Sall a bit moidart, "aw lippen thae did,
but aw want payin' for th' oatcakes then."
"Payin' for th' oatcakes!" replied Ned, looking at the landlady in an
injured way, as though protesting that she wanted to impose upon him,
"payin' for th' oatcakes! Thae's gettin thi oatcakes, hasn't thae?"
"Yai, aw have," responded Sall. "It's queer, but it'll happen be
reet!"
* * * * *
Miss Lahee in one of her amusing sketches points out that in East and
South Lancashire, parents sometimes have their male progeny named in
baptism according to the profession or position they should like
them to attain in after life, hence we find such names as the
following applied to people for the most part in humble
circumstances:--"Captain" Duckworth, "Major" Fitton, "Doctor" Hall,
"Squire" Crawshaw, "Lord" Massey, and even "Canon" Ball. To these may
be added "Lord" Tattersall and "Gentleman" Taylor. One aspiring mother
had her hopeful son christened "Washington," but by some mistake the
name in the register got set down as "Washing done"!
* * * * *
"What size was it?" the witness was asked when in the witness box
giving evidence.
"It was about th' mickle of a piece of chalk," was the answer.[12]
[12] This is nearly as explicit as the description given by a person
of the hailstones that fell during the thunder-storm. He said that
they varied in size from a shilling to eighteen-pence.
* * * * *
In one of the hamlets lying beyond Todmorden, in the Burnley valley,
there was a curious specimen of the Lancashire border character, Hiram
Fielden, who kept a grocer's shop, and dealt also in the other
commodities expected to be inquired for by a village community. In his
younger days Hiram had been a cotton weaver in a mill, but his
ambition was to save a little money, get married, and open a "Badger's
Shop." By the exercise of great frugality, along with the help of the
savings which his wife, Betty, brought him, he achieved his purpose.
He began business in a humble way at first; but gradually as his
customers increased, his business grew, and instead of continuing to
vend treacle from a two-gallon can, he at length ventured on giving an
order for a whole hogshead at once! The arrival of this consignment
created quite a sensation in the village; the like had never been seen
there before, and the urchins who watched the process of unloading
the precious cask, and saw it safely deposited end up in the corner of
the store, smacked their lips as their imagination pictured the
luscious reservoir of sweets. In the course of the day a further
consignment--this time of whitewash brushes--arrived, and Betty,
mounting a chair in the corner, and thence stepping on to the top of
the treacle barrel, was just in the act of hanging the brushes on the
hook in the ceiling, when the barrel end gave way underneath her, and
down she settled gradually up to the arm-pits into the syrupy mass!
Hiram, who was busy at the back of the shop, hearing the crash,
hurried in to ascertain the cause, and stood for a few moments gazing
in consternation at the head of his better-half barely visible above
the barrel edge. What was to be done? Ruin and disgrace and ridicule
stared him in the face, but with great presence of mind he ran to the
shop door, closed it, shot the bolt, and then drew down the window
blind.
Mounting the barrel and securing a footing on its edge, he succeeded,
by the help of a clothes-line which he looped on to the hook overhead,
and which she stoutly grasped, in gradually extricating Betty from her
savoury bath. Carefully he stroked the treacle from her as she rose
ceilingwards, and, that no loss of merchandise might ensue, at the
same time wiping her down with a cloth dipped in a bucket of water;
thus all traces of Betty's misadventure were soon obliterated, and
nobody but themselves was any the wiser.
Hiram, in recounting the circumstance to me, confidentially, after
long years had elapsed, declared that the run on that hogshead was
immense. It was relished by his customers, old and young, and was the
occasion of more oatmeal being consumed in the village than had ever
previously been known, so that what at first appeared to Hiram to be
an irretrievable misfortune, turned out profitable in more ways than
one.
"Eh! but, mon," said Hiram, shaking his head, and with a solemn
countenance, "that hogshead o' treacle wur th' ruination o' me."
"Ruination!" I exclaimed in puzzled surprise. "How do you mean?"
"Well, yo' see, me and our Betty had been wed for three yer, and up to
then we'd had no childer, but hoo began from that time forrud, and
never once stopped till hoo had thirteen! Eh! that hogshead o' treacle
wur t' ruination o' me!"
* * * * *
Mr Milner thus describes and explains a curious old Lancashire custom:
"When a young fellow goes courting his sweetheart on a Friday night,
the neighbours come out and ring a frying-pan to scare him away. The
reason of the practice is clear. Friday is the especial night when in
working men's houses the Penates are worshipped with pail and brush,
and a fellow skulking about the place is an intrusion and a hindrance.
In a quiet street the well-understood sound heard, then all the people
rush to their doors, and probably catch a glimpse of the swain who
loves not wisely but too well, darting down a passage or round a
corner, glad to escape with his face unseen!"
"Riding the Stang," or pole, is still common in out-of-the-way
Lancashire villages. It is usually resorted to in those rare instances
where a wife has given her husband a thrashing. The neighbours mount a
boy on a "stang," or pole, and carry him through the streets in the
neighbourhood where the incident has occurred. The procession stops at
intervals, and the boy recites the following doggerel rhymes to the
accompaniment of the drumming of pans and kettles:--
"Ting, tong to the sign o' the pan!
She has beat her good man.
It was neither for boiled nor roast,
But she up with her fist, an'
Knocked down mesther, post!"
Some of the older two-storied houses in Bolton at one time were let
out in flats, the upper floor being reached by a flight of about a
dozen or fifteen steps running up outside the gable. These were
generally unprotected by a handrail, and even the landing at the top
was equally unprotected and dangerous. Dick Windle, noted as much for
his reckless character as for his ready wit, was visiting an
acquaintance whose domicile was reached by such a flight of steps as I
have described. They had had a glass or two in the course of the
evening, and, on leaving, Dick's head was none of the clearest; and
although the night was not very dark, yet, emerging from the
gaslighted room, the steps were not easily discernible. Instead of
turning to the right as he came out by the door on to the landing,
Dick strode clean off the landing edge in front of him, and came down
with a crash to the bottom! Happily, except for a severe shaking, he
was unhurt. Gathering himself up, and whilst yet on all fours, he
called out to his friend, who was staring over the landing edge in
consternation at Dick's sudden disappearance: "D--n it, Bill! How mony
mooar steps is there o' this mak?" The prospect of a dozen more of the
same depth before he could reach the street level, might well prompt
the anxious question.
* * * * *
Journeying one day to fulfil a professional engagement at Whittingham
Lunatic Asylum near Preston, I arrived at the Junction where
passengers alight to reach the Asylum by the single line of railway
which has been made expressly for the use of that institution.
It was a bleak winter day, the sleet was driving before a nor'-west
wind, and I turned into the waiting-room at the station to warm myself
at the fire until the engine with its two carriages came up the branch
line. I happened to be the only passenger that had come by the train.
As I sat on a chair with my feet on the fender at one side of the
fire, a sturdy middle-aged man joined me, and seated himself also on a
chair on the opposite side.
"Good morning," said I, by way of introduction. He looked intently at
me for a second or two, as if to take stock whether I was a possible
lunatic on my way to the House, and then replied: "Same to yo,"
bending towards the fire and warming his hands.
"I suppose that is the Lunatic Asylum that we can see over yonder,"
jerking my thumb towards the window through which the Asylum buildings
were visible in the distance.
"Yai, it is," he replied, again looking intently in my face.
"There's a lot of mad folk in it, I suppose?"
"Ay, there is," was the answer.
"More than two thousand," I remarked.
"Ay, mooar than two thousand."
Here there was a pause for a minute in our conversation, when he
blurted out with startling suddenness:
"Aw'm one o' th' mad 'uns!"