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face is all gnarled and twisted like the bark of a tree. He tells me that he is nearly a hundred, and that he was a sailor in the Greenland fishing fleet when Waterloo was fought. He is, I am afraid, a very sceptical person, for when I asked him about the bells at sea and the White Lady at the abbey he said very brusquely:ā ā€”

ā€œI wouldnā€™t fash maselā€™ about them, miss. Them things be all wore out. Mind, I donā€™t say that they never was, but I do say that they wasnā€™t in my time. They be all very well for comers and trippers, anā€™ the like, but not for a nice young lady like you. Them feet-folks from York and Leeds that be always eatinā€™ cured herrinā€™s anā€™ drinkinā€™ tea anā€™ lookinā€™ out to buy cheap jet would creed aught. I wonder maselā€™ whoā€™d be bothered tellinā€™ lies to themā ā€”even the newspapers, which is full of fool-talk.ā€ I thought he would be a good person to learn interesting things from, so I asked him if he would mind telling me something about the whale-fishing in the old days. He was just settling himself to begin when the clock struck six, whereupon he laboured to get up, and said:ā ā€”

ā€œI must gang ageeanwards home now, miss. My granddaughter doesnā€™t like to be kept waitinā€™ when the tea is ready, for it takes me time to crammle aboon the grees, for there be a many of ā€™em; anā€™, miss, I lack belly-timber sairly by the clock.ā€

He hobbled away, and I could see him hurrying, as well as he could, down the steps. The steps are a great feature on the place. They lead from the town up to the church, there are hundreds of themā ā€”I do not know how manyā ā€”and they wind up in a delicate curve; the slope is so gentle that a horse could easily walk up and down them. I think they must originally have had something to do with the abbey. I shall go home too. Lucy went out visiting with her mother, and as they were only duty calls, I did not go. They will be home by this.

1 August.ā ā€”I came up here an hour ago with Lucy, and we had a most interesting talk with my old friend and the two others who always come and join him. He is evidently the Sir Oracle of them, and I should think must have been in his time a most dictatorial person. He will not admit anything, and downfaces everybody. If he canā€™t out-argue them he bullies them, and then takes their silence for agreement with his views. Lucy was looking sweetly pretty in her white lawn frock; she has got a beautiful colour since she has been here. I noticed that the old men did not lose any time in coming up and sitting near her when we sat down. She is so sweet with old people; I think they all fell in love with her on the spot. Even my old man succumbed and did not contradict her, but gave me double share instead. I got him on the subject of the legends, and he went off at once into a sort of sermon. I must try to remember it and put it down:ā ā€”

ā€œIt be all fool-talk, lock, stock, and barrel; thatā€™s what it be, anā€™ nowt else. These bans anā€™ wafts anā€™ boh-ghosts anā€™ barguests anā€™ bogles anā€™ all anent them is only fit to set bairns anā€™ dizzy women a-belderinā€™. They be nowt but air-blebs. They, anā€™ all grims anā€™ signs anā€™ warninā€™s, be all invented by parsons anā€™ illsome beuk-bodies anā€™ railway touters to skeer anā€™ scunner hafflinā€™s, anā€™ to get folks to do somethinā€™ that they donā€™t other incline to. It makes me ireful to think oā€™ them. Why, itā€™s them that, not content with printinā€™ lies on paper anā€™ preachinā€™ them out of pulpits, does want to be cuttinā€™ them on the tombstones. Look here all around you in what airt ye will; all them steans, holdinā€™ up their heads as well as they can out of their pride, is acantā ā€”simply tumblinā€™ down with the weight oā€™ the lies wrote on them, ā€˜Here lies the bodyā€™ or ā€˜Sacred to the memoryā€™ wrote on all of them, anā€™ yet in nigh half of them there beanā€™t no bodies at all; anā€™ the memories of them beanā€™t cared a pinch of snuff about, much less sacred. Lies all of them, nothinā€™ but lies of one kind or another! My gog, but itā€™ll be a quare scowderment at the Day of Judgment when they come tumblinā€™ up in their death-sarks, all jouped together anā€™ tryinā€™ to drag their tombsteans with them to prove how good they was; some of them trimmlinā€™ and ditherinā€™, with their hands that dozzened anā€™ slippy from lyinā€™ in the sea that they canā€™t even keep their grup oā€™ them.ā€

I could see from the old fellowā€™s self-satisfied air and the way in which he looked round for the approval of his cronies that he was ā€œshowing off,ā€ so I put in a word to keep him going:ā ā€”

ā€œOh, Mr. Swales, you canā€™t be serious. Surely these tombstones are not all wrong?ā€

ā€œYabblins! There may be a poorish few not wrong, savinā€™ where they make out the people too good; for there be folk that do think a balm-bowl be like the sea, if only it be their own. The whole thing be only lies. Now look you here; you come here a stranger, anā€™ you see this kirk-garth.ā€ I nodded, for I thought it better to assent, though I did not quite understand his dialect. I knew it had something to do with the church. He went on: ā€œAnd you consate that all these steans be aboon folk that be happed here, snod anā€™ snog?ā€ I assented again. ā€œThen that be just where the lie comes in. Why, there be scores of these lay-beds that be toom as old Dunā€™s ā€™bacca-box

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