Early marriages prevail amongst the class made early self-dependent by earning their own living. Matt Cooper had long been a grandfather, Molly and his three eldest boys had been married and settled. A brisk young butcher coming to the tannery with hides had met Martha, the other girl, bearing her father’s dinner, and been so taken with her sharp, active gait, and saucy answers, that he proposed to transfer her to his shop beyond Ancoats Lane Canal-bridge, and to make his offer more palatable, suggested an amalgamation of the two households, and to take the youngest lad—Matthew, aged fourteen—as his apprentice. So ardent and promising a lover was not to be despised. Martha did not say “No,” and Matt, beginning to stoop in the shoulders, rejoiced at the prospective haven for his declining years. It was arranged that they should be married along with Bess and Tom Hulme; and so Matthew Cooper went with the Cleggs to church, not as a gallant bridegroom, but, more suitably, to give away a bride. And now how shall I describe the scene at the Old Church on Easter Monday, to convey anything like an idea to modern readers, unacquainted with the locality, the period, and the habits of the people? It must be borne in mind that registrars’ offices did not exist; that there was no marrying at dissenting chapels; that few, if any, churches were licensed for the solemnisation of matrimony; and that the collegiate parish church of Manchester was the nucleus towards which the marriageable inhabitants of all the surrounding townships and villages turned at the most important epoch of their lives. The venerable pile (now being doctored by restorers) was set, as it were, in a ring-fence of old houses, with an inner ring of low wall encircling the churchyard, which, as grave-stones testified, had once extended to the very house-steps. As I have elsewhere said, the path between this wall and the houses was known as Half Street, a portion of which, containing Mrs. Clowes’s old shop, still remains; and did I enumerate all the public-houses in this ring-fence which offered accommodation to wedding and christening parties, only a future generation of antiquaries would thank me; and even they might doubt the facts set down in a work of fiction. Nevertheless on Easter Monday not one of these hostelries had a spare foot of room. Every window and every door stood wide open. Men and women, gaily dressed as their own means or friendly wardrobes would allow, went in and out, filled rooms and passages, leaned from the windows with ribbons flying loose, or with pipes and ale-pots in their hands, calling to their friends below, whilst rival fiddlers (almost every party having its own) scraped away in anything but harmony. Horses and carts blocked up every avenue, and the churchyard itself was thronged with an excited crowd.