living.

Another squire, of more distinguished family and larger property—one is thence led to imagine of better education, but that does not always follow—died at his house, not many miles from Haworth, only a few years ago.  His great amusement and occupation had been cock-fighting.  When he was confined to his chamber with what he knew would be his last illness, he had his cocks brought up there, and watched the bloody battle from his bed.  As his mortal disease increased, and it became impossible for him to turn so as to follow the combat, he had looking-glasses arranged in such a manner, around and above him, as he lay, that he could still see the cocks fighting.  And in this manner he died.

These are merely instances of eccentricity compared to the tales of positive violence and crime that have occurred in these isolated dwellings, which still linger in the memories of the old people of the district, and some of which were doubtless familiar to the authors of “Wuthering Heights” and “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.”

The amusements of the lower classes could hardly be expected to be more humane than those of the wealthy and better educated.  The gentleman, who has kindly furnished me with some of the particulars I have given, remembers the bull-baitings at Rochdale, not thirty years ago.  The bull was fastened by a chain or rope to a post in the river.  To increase the amount of water, as well as to give their workpeople the opportunity of savage delight, the masters were accustomed to stop their mills on the day when the sport took place.  The bull would sometimes wheel suddenly round, so that the rope by which he was fastened swept those who had been careless enough to come within its range down into the water, and the good people of Rochdale had the excitement of seeing one or two of their neighbours drowned, as well as of witnessing the bull baited, and the dogs torn and tossed.

The people of Haworth were not less strong and full of character than their neighbours on either side of the hills.  The village lies embedded in the moors, between the two counties, on the old road between Keighley and Colne.  About the middle of the last century, it became famous in the religious world as the scene of the ministrations of the Rev. William Grimshaw, curate of Haworth for twenty years.  Before this time, it is probable that the curates were of the same order as one Mr. Nicholls, a Yorkshire clergyman, in the days immediately succeeding the Reformation, who was “much addicted to drinking and company-keeping,” and used to say to his companions, “You must not heed me but when I am got three feet above the earth,” that was, into the pulpit.

Mr. Grimshaw’s life was written by Newton, Cowper’s friend; and from it may be gathered some curious particulars of the manner in which a rough population were swayed and governed by a man of deep convictions, and strong earnestness of purpose.  It seems that he had not been in any way remarkable for religious zeal, though he had led a moral life, and been conscientious in fulfilling his parochial duties, until a certain Sunday in September, 1744, when the servant, rising at five, found her master already engaged in prayer; she stated that, after remaining in his chamber for some time, he went to engage in religious exercises in the house of a parishioner, then home again to pray; thence, still fasting, to the church, where, as he was reading the second lesson, he fell down, and, on his partial recovery, had to be led from the church.  As he went out, he spoke to the congregation, and told them not to disperse, as he had something to say to them, and would return presently.  He was taken to the clerk’s house, and again became insensible.  His servant rubbed him, to restore the circulation; and when he was brought to himself “he seemed in a great rapture,” and the first words he uttered were, “I have had a glorious vision from the third heaven.”  He did not say what he had seen, but returned into the church, and began the service again, at two in the afternoon, and went on until seven.

From this time he devoted himself, with the fervour of a Wesley, and something of the fanaticism of a Whitfield, to calling out a religious life among his parishioners.  They had been in the habit of playing at foot-ball on Sunday, using stones for this purpose; and giving and receiving challenges from other parishes.  There were horse-races held on the moors just above the village, which were periodical sources of drunkenness and profligacy.  Scarcely a wedding took place without the rough amusement of foot-races, where the half-naked runners were a scandal to all decent strangers.  The old custom of “arvills,” or funeral feasts, led to frequent pitched battles between the drunken mourners.  Such customs were the outward signs of the kind of people with whom Mr. Grimshaw had to deal.  But, by various means, some of the most practical kind, he wrought a great change in his parish.  In his preaching he was occasionally assisted by Wesley and Whitfield, and at such times the little church proved much too small to hold the throng that poured in from distant villages, or lonely moorland hamlets; and frequently they were obliged to meet in the open air; indeed, there was not room enough in the church even for the communicants.  Mr. Whitfield was once preaching in Haworth, and made use of some such expression, as that he hoped there was no need to say much to this congregation, as they had sat under so pious and godly a minister for so many years; “whereupon Mr. Grimshaw stood up in his place, and said with a loud voice, ‘Oh, sir! for God’s sake do not speak so.  I pray you do not flatter them.  I fear the greater part of them are going to hell with their eyes open.’”  But if they were so bound, it was not for want of exertion on Mr. Grimshaw’s part to prevent them.  He used to preach twenty or thirty times a week in private houses.  If he perceived any one inattentive to his prayers, he would stop and rebuke the offender, and not go on till he saw every one on their knees.  He was very earnest in enforcing the strict observance of Sunday; and would not even allow his parishioners to walk in the fields between services.  He sometimes gave out a very long Psalm (tradition says the 119th), and while it was being sung, he left the reading-desk, and taking a horsewhip went into the public-houses, and flogged the loiterers into church.  They were swift who could escape the lash of the parson by sneaking out the back way.  He had strong health and an active body, and rode far and wide over the hills, “awakening” those who had previously had no sense of religion.  To save time, and be no charge to the families at whose houses he held his prayer-meetings, he carried his provisions with him; all the food he took in the day on such occasions consisting simply of a piece of bread and butter, or dry bread and a raw onion.

The horse-races were justly objectionable to Mr. Grimshaw; they attracted numbers of profligate people to Haworth, and brought a match to the combustible materials of the place, only too ready to blaze out into wickedness.  The story is, that he tried all means of persuasion, and even intimidation, to have the races discontinued, but in vain.  At length, in despair, he prayed with such fervour of earnestness that the rain came down in torrents, and deluged the ground, so that there was no footing for man or beast, even if the multitude had been willing to stand such a flood let down from above.  And so Haworth races were stopped, and have never been resumed to this day.  Even now the memory of this good man is held in reverence, and his faithful ministrations and real virtues are one of the boasts of the parish.

But after his time, I fear there was a falling back into the wild rough heathen ways, from which he had pulled them up, as it were, by the passionate force of his individual character.  He had built a chapel for the Wesleyan Methodists, and not very long after the Baptists