Page:Yorkshire Oddities, Incidents and Strange Events.djvu/235

 A YORKSHIRE BUTCHER.

subject of this memoir has been dead but a few years, and therefore I do not give his name, lest it should cause annoyance to his relatives. He was a tall, red-faced, jovial man, with a merry twinkle in his small eyes; a man who could tell a good story with incomparable drollery, and withal was the gentlest, kindest-hearted man, who would never wound the most sensitive feelings by ridicule. He had a splendid bass voice, and sang in the church choir; his knowledge of music was not inconsiderable, and for some time he was choir-master, and performed a feat few other men have been able to accomplish—he was able to keep the discordant elements of a choir in harmony. His inimitable tact, unvarying good nature, and readiness to humour the most self-consequential of the performers, made him vastly popular with them, and prevented or healed those jars which are proverbial among professed votaries of harmony.

This worthy butcher thus narrated his courtship:—

"It's a queer thing, sir, hoo things turns oot sometimes. Noo it war a queer thing hoo I chanced to get wed. I war at Leeds once, and I'd na mair thowts aboot marrying na mair 'an nowt; and I war just going doon t' street, tha knaws, sir, when I met wi' my wife—that's her 'at's my wife noo, tha knaws. I'd kenned her afore, a piece back; soa shoo comes oop to me, an' shoo ses, 'Why, James, lad, is that thee?'—'Aye,' I ses, 'it is awever.'—'Weel, James,' ses she, 'what's ta doing wi' thysen noo?'—'Why,' I ses, 'I's joost getten me a new hoose.' Soa wi' that she ses,