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
"I was once busily employed in coursing a hare when I was pounced upon
by a Mr. ----. He came suddenly upon me, with so many violent
denunciations that I was for a time really in a fright. However, I
eventually recovered my recollection, and had the good sense to leave
him without giving way to any abusive language in reply. I secretly,
however, resolved to have my revenge, and that in a way at once in
accordance with my profession and my own interest. I ordered two or
three of the persons I could place the most reliance in to be ready to
accompany me with their horses to Foggathorpe, the village in which I
think the gentleman resided. I had long had a key of his granary, in
which I knew he had recently stored a quantity of wheat of the finest
quality, and for which the soil of that village is much famed.
"We had already been up to the granary once with our horses, having
taken them loaded away, and secreted several sacks of wheat in a wood a
little from the turnpike road, and about three miles from the house. We
had filled our sacks a second time, and got them upon the horses, having
previously placed everything in the granary as we found it, or as nearly
so as we could. I had just thrown my legs over my horse, then standing
near the steps of the granary, I being the last of the party, when I
heard the gentleman's voice, which I at once knew, for neither his early
habit of rising nor the tone of his voice were unknown to me. It was
quite dark, and I proceeded with great care on the way towards the high
road till I reached a gate about seventy or eighty yards from his house.
By some mismanagement on my part, I had no sooner passed through the
gate than I fell back into its place with considerable noise. I again
heard his voice, but I made the best of my way with my load, and I felt
no little relief when I found myself in the Market-Weighton turnpike
road. Though I had no very great opinion of the gentleman's courage, I
felt quite sure he would have used every endeavour to make out the
charge against me had his suspicions of what had taken place been once
roused. As to his following me alone at that moment I had not the most
distant fear, for I knew well the care he always took of himself.
However, the whole affair passed over. I never heard that he missed what
we took away, and the reason probably was, that he at that very time had
a large stock of wheat on hand for the purpose of speculation, as I
afterwards learned. I remember this wheat was of such singularly good
quality that I sold it for the great sum of one guinea and ninepence the
bushel, a price I scarcely ever remember to have equalled.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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