Yorkshire Oddities, Incidents, and Strange EventsBaring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
History
Yorkshire Oddities, Incidents, and Strange Events
Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Legends -- England -- Yorkshire; Yorkshire (England) -- Miscellanea
When I spoke of the flash of light before which the man had quailed, and
which had revealed the face of a woman, pale and sad, bending over it--
"Weel done, Peggy!" roared the farmer; "'tis no but Peggy wi' t'
lanthorn, lass,"--again to his wife.
"She's a good 'un," responded the lady from the kitchen.
"Who are the Boggart and Peggy?" I asked; "they seem to be intimate
acquaintances of yours."
The great Yorkshireman did not answer, but whiffed away, with his dreamy
eyes fixed on the fire.
"So t' Boggart thowt to ha' hugged thee down Pothoile!" Then he laughed.
"I reckon," mused he again, "I reckon he were a bit flayed to see Peggy
come anent him that road!"
"I wish," said I, "that you would tell me all about him and her."
"So I will, lad, bi'm bye, if thou'rt boune to Arncliffe to-neet." He
looked up at me. "We can gi' thee a bed if thou likes: it's no but a
poor one, but it's none so bad--eh, lass?" The last two words were
shouted to his wife.
"Ay, ay," she replied from the kitchen.
"Thank you very kindly," said I; "if it were not for my friend at
Arncliffe, I would accept your offer with alacrity; but as it happens, I
_must_ return there to-night."
"Gi'e us a leet, lass!" called the man, knocking the ashes from his
pipe, rising, and taking down a lanthorn.
The good woman lighted the candle for him, and the great Yorkshireman
shut the lanthorn door, took up his cap, and said to me--
"Now, if thou'rt boune to come, come on."
I rose and followed him. He led the way, and as we walked towards
Arncliffe he told me the following tale:--
"Some hundred years ago there lived a young woman in a cottage near
Kettlewell. A strange man came into the neighbourhood, gained her
affections, and married her. They settled at the little farm in which my
guide now resided. They had not lived a twelvemonth together before the
constables entered the house one evening, and took the man up on the
charge of bigamy. He had a wife and family living at Bolton, in
Lancashire. As they were carrying him off, he broke from them and fled
over the moors, and was never retaken. By some it was supposed that he
had escaped to America, but by others that he had fallen into one of the
pots and had perished. His poor second wife, heart-broken, wandered all
that night searching for him, and was found dead on the side of Penigent
next morning. And they say," added my guide, in a low voice, "that she
seeks him still; and when she's gotten him she'll tak' him before the
throne of God to be sentenced for having ruined her happiness, and been
the cause of her death. That's why he's so flayed (afraid) of meeting
wi' she, and sma' blame to him."
"So you think the wretched man perished in one of the pots?"
"I reckon he did. And he'll never have rest till his bones are laid i'
t' churchyard, and that'll never be."
"Farmer," said I, after a pause, "have you plenty of rope about your
house?"
He grunted an assent.
"Then I will descend the pot to-morrow."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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