It is related of two of the "Layrocks"--father and son--that they had been busy trying to master a difficult piece of music, one with the violin, the other with the violoncello, but were still unable to execute certain of the more intricate movements to their satisfaction. They had put their instruments aside for the night, and had retired to rest. After his "first sleep," the younger enthusiast, in ruminating over the performance of the evening, thought that if he might only rise and attempt the piece _then_, he should be able to manage it. Creeping from under the bed-clothes, he awoke his father, who also arose; and soon the two in their shirts might have been seen, through the unscreened window, flourishing their bows at an hour when ordinary mortals are laid unconscious in the arms of Somnus. The lonely traveller, had there been one at that untimely hour, would surely, like Tam o' Shanter as he passed by "Alloway's auld haunted Kirk," have felt his hair rising on end at the sight of two ghostly individuals scraping music at the dead of night, and in such unwonted attire. * * * * * The early Bacup Baptists used to immerse in the river Irwell at Lumb Head. A story is related of an irreverent wag who placed a prickly thorn at the bottom of the pool when old "Ab o' th' Yate" was baptized. On complaining of the injuries he had sustained in the process of immersion, Ab was consoled by being assured that it must have been his sins that were pricking him. * * * * * Richard Taylor of Bacup, the Rossendale "Ale-taster," was a humorist of the first water. His proper calling was that of a spindle maker, hence his sobriquet of "Spindle Dick," a rare workman at his trade when he chose, and in his soberer hours. He was a fellow of infinite jest, not lacking in sound judgment, but with that kind of twist in his nature that would never allow him for two minutes at a spell to treat any subject in a serious mood. In his hands there was nothing incongruous or far-fetched in the office of ale-taster. Its duties, incrusted with the antiquity of centuries, came as naturally to him as though he had been living in the time of the Heptarchy, and was to the manner born. The incongruity was when he forsook, as he occasionally did, his ale-tasting duties and applied himself assiduously to his business of spindle making. The appointment of ale-taster took place annually along with those of the greave, moor and hedge lookers, bellman and officers for the assize of bread at the Halmot Court of the Lord of the Honor. In earlier days the punishment for brewing or publicly vending bad ale was either a fine or a two hours' seat upon the cuck-stool before the culprit's own door. The drink, if pronounced by a discriminating judge to be _undrinkable_, being handed over to the poor folk.