In the year 1800 the little farm at Gallow Hill near Brompton was taken by one Thomas Hutchinson whose sister Mary kept house for him. She was almost the same age and had been a schoolfellow of the poet Wordsworth at Penrith and had kept up her friendship with his family since that time, having visited them at Racedown and Dove Cottage, while the Wordsworths had stayed at the Hutchinson's farm at Sockburn-on-Tees. There was nothing sudden or romantic therefore in the marriage which took place at Brompton in 1802. Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy went down from London to the pretty Yorkshire village in September, and stayed at the little farmhouse, whose parlour windows looked across the Vale of Pickering to the steep wolds on the southern side. The house, as far as I can discover, has not been altered in the century which has elapsed, and the cosy ingle-nook in the room on the right of the entrance remains full of memories of the poet and his betrothed--his "perfect woman, nobly planned." On the fourth of October the wedding took place in Brompton Church. The grey old steeple surrounded and overhung by masses of yellow and brown foliage in the centre of the picturesque, and in many respects, ideal little village, must have formed a perfect setting for the marriage of one who was afterwards to become the Poet Laureate of his country. The register for the years 1754-1810 contains the following entry:-- "_Banns of Marriage_ ... William Wordsworth of Grasmere in Westmoreland, Gentleman, _and_ Mary Hutchinson _of_ Gallow Hill in the Parish of Brompton _were married in this_ Church _by_ Licence _this_ fourth _Day of_ October _in the year one thousand_ eight _Hundred and_ two _by me_ John Ellis officiating min^r. This marriage was solemnized between us." [Illustration: Facsimile of the Signatures in the Register.] "In the presence of THOMAS HUTCHINSON. JOANNA HUTCHINSON. JOHN HUTCHINSON." The same day Wordsworth with his wife and sister drove to Thirsk and two days afterwards reached Grasmere, where they soon settled down to an uneventful life at Dove Cottage. Dorothy Wordsworth could not "describe what she felt," but we are told that she accepted her sister-in-law without a trace of jealousy. There is still preserved in Pickering one of the parchments on which were enrolled the names of all those who were liable for service in the militia. It is headed "Militia Enrollment 1807-8" and begins:--