Now that was just the answer I might have expected from Pudsey, and I decided to waste no more time there. So I made for the Heavy Woollen District--capital letters, if you please, Mr Printer--- and straightway put my question. But the Heavy Woollen District was far too thrang itself to take interest in anybody else's thrangness; it knew nothing about quests or emblems, cared little about Throp's wife, and less about me. So I commended the Heavy Woollens to the tender mercies of the excess profits taxers and sped on my way. I struck across country for the Calder Valley, but neither at Elland, which calls itself Yelland, nor at Halifax, which is said to be the pleasantest place in England to be hanged in, could I obtain any clue as to the lady's identity. "Thrang as Throp's wife" was everywhere a household phrase, but that was all. I was beginning to grow weary; besides, I wanted my pipe. "What is the use," I asked Halifax, "of your establishing Literary and Philosophical Societies, Antiquarian Societies, and a local branch of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, if you cannot get to the bottom of Throp's wife?" Halifax was somewhat taken aback at this, and its learned antiquaries, in self-defence, assured me that, if she had been a Roman remain they would have known all about her. "But how do you know that she is not a Roman remain?" I asked. "Nobody can tell a woman's age. She may even be a solar myth." Say what I might, I could not induce Halifax to join in "the quest of Throppes wife"; it savoured too much of quixotry for sober-minded Halifax. I now realised that the quest must be a solitary one, and I consoled myself with the thought that, if the ardours of the pilgrimage were unshared, so would be the glory of the prize. Fired with new enthusiasm, I shouted the name of Throp's wife to the everlasting hills, and the everlasting hills gave back the slogan in reverberating echoes--"Throp's wahfe." By midday I had reached the summit of Stanbury Moor, and the question was whether I should descend the populous Worth Valley to Keighley or strike northwards across the hills. Instinct impelled me to the latter course, and instinct was right. Late in the afternoon, faint but pursuing, I reached a hill-top village which the map seemed to identify with a certain Cowling Hill, but which was always spoken of as Cohen-eead. I made my way to "The Golden Fleece," and there, in the bar parlour, I met an old man and a merry. His face was as round and almost as red as a Dutch cheese, and many a year had passed since he had last seen his feet. I felt drawn to this old man, whose baptismal name was Timothy Barraclough, but who always answered to the by-name of Tim o' Frolics; and when we had politely assured one another that it was grand weather for the hay and that lambs would soon be making a tidy price at Colne market, I spoke to him of the quest.