The stories told of them and their wild doings were legion. They were said to have no religion of any sort of all, though, to be sure, it was conceded that when they were married they were properly tied at St. James's Church. And a brave display they made at a wedding: bride and bridegroom, bravely decked, walking to and from the Church, a fiddler or two heading a procession of all the Burnplatters, old and young, male and female, twenty to thirty souls. The knot firmly tied, the procession made a round of all the public houses, in Slaithwaite, and finished the day with a sumptuous repast at the "Rose and Crown" on Cop Hill; and it was the general belief that the viands, of which there was no lack, were, to a chicken, either begged, borrowed, or stolen. Whether there was or ever had been any strain of Oriental blood among the Burnplatters I hesitate to say, though I incline to think there must have been some Spanish tinge, for no one could look upon Ephraim Sykes, the reputed leader of the gang, and credit him with nought but British blood. He was of about my own age. His face was tanned, his black hair curled close to his poll, his eye dark as night, and his passions as tumultuous as hell. A blow first and the word afterwards was ever his way. And he was as handsome as a picture. Half the girls in the valley were ready to forswear home, chapel, and respectability and join the Burnplatters at a word from Ephraim. He was the best horsebreaker between Leeds and Manchester. He feared nothing that went on four legs or two--men, dogs, horses or bullocks. When Armitage's bull--Dick o' Lijah's that kept the "Rose" at the Cop--went mad they sent for Ephraim, and with my own eyes I saw him vault upon the raging creature's back and ride it in a tearing rage twenty times round the paddock and then down to Booth Banks, and when they got back it was covered with foam and as quiet as a lamb. And Ephraim was popular even with the men folk, though feared. He made a mint, of money, horse--breaking, and it was light come, light go with him. Whenever he went into the "Silent Women," or the "Globe," or the "Star", or the "Rose and Crown", you should have seen the landlord's face light up. It was open house while Ephraim was there, and, I'm sore to say it, there were in my young days more than two or three of the weavers and croppers of the Valley who liked a cheap drink if the Evil One himself had paid. In my boyhood I had struck up an acquaintance with Ephraim Sykes. A Yorkshire tyke that a devout member of my father's congregation had presented to me had been the first bond of union. Ephraim had come across me as I wandered aimlessly about the fields, with Tear'em at my heels, and had unceremoniously introduced himself, by way of Tear'em, in whom he manifested an interest that clearly did not embrace myself.