Lancashire Idylls (1898) by Marshall Mather
page 8 of 236 (03%)
page 8 of 236 (03%)
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that no corpse passed through Rehoboth gates after four o'clock.
* * * * * 'You'll happen look in an' see th' owd woman afore yo' go wom',' said Joseph to Mr. Penrose, as the minister finished his entry of the funeral in the chapel register, 'hoo's nobbud cratchenly (shaky).' Joseph and his wife lived in the lower room of a three-storied cottage at the end of the chapel, the second and third stories of the said cottage being utilized by the Rehoboth members as Sunday-schools. Entering, Mr. Penrose saw the old woman crouching over the hearth and doing her best to feed the fast-dying fires of her vitality. As she raised her wrinkled face, crowned with white hair and covered with a coloured kerchief, a gray shawl wrapped round her lean and stooping shoulders, she smiled a welcome, and bade him be seated. 'So yo'n put away owd Chris,' she said, as soon as Mr. Penrose had taken his seat by her side. 'Well, he were awlus one for sleepin'. Th' owd felley would a slept on a clooas-line if he could a' fun nowhere else to lay hissel. But he'll sleep saander or ever naa. They'll bide some wakkenin' as sleep raand here, Mr. Penrose. Did he come in a yerst, or were he carried?' 'He was carried,' answered the minister, somewhat in uncertainty as to the meaning of the old woman's question. |
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