Now! Then! 2024! - Yorkshire On This Day

Excerpt

About this time last year, I was desired by two of our neighbours to go with them to Mr Crowther’s at Skipton, who would not speak to them about a man that had been missing twenty days, but bid them bring a boy twelve or thirteen years old. When we came in, he stood reading a book. He put me into a bed with a looking-glass in my hand, and covered me all over. Then he asked me, whom I had a mind to see, and I said, “My mother.” I presently saw her with a lock of wool in her hand, standing just in the place, and the clothes she was in, as she told me afterwards. Then he bid me look again for the man that was missing, who was one of our neighbours. And I looked and saw him riding towards Idle, but he was very drunk; and he stopped at the alehouse and drank two pints more, and he pulled out a guinea to change. Two men stood by, a big man and a little man; and they went on before him, and got two hedge-stakes; and when he came up on Windle Common at the top of the hill, they pulled him off his horse, and killed him, and threw him into a coal pit. And I saw it all as plain as if I was close to them; and if I saw the men I should know them again. We went back to Bradford that night, and the next day I went with our neighbours and showed them the spot where he was killed, and the pit he was thrown into; and a man went down and brought him up. And it was as I had told them: his handkerchief was tied about his mouth and fastened behind his neck. [Wesley:] Is it improbable only or flatly impossible, when all the circumstances are considered, that this should all be pure fiction?

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

Abbreviations:

• ER: East Riding
• GM: Greater Manchester
• NR: North Riding
• NY: North Yorkshire
• SY: South Yorkshire
• WR: West Riding
• WY: West Yorkshire

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Original

About one I preached at Bramley, where Jonas Rushford, about fourteen years old, gave me the following relation:

“About this time last year, I was desired by two of our neighbours, to go with them to Mr. Crowther’s at Skipton, who would not speak to them about a man that had been missing twenty days, but bid them bring a boy twelve or thirteen years old. When we came in, he stood reading a book. He put me into a bed with a looking-glass in my hand, and covered me all over. Then he asked me, whom I had a mind to see? and I said, ‘My mother.’ I presently saw her with a lock of wool in her hand, standing just in the place, and the clothes she was in, as she told me afterwards. Then he bid me look again for the man that was missing, who was one of our neighbours. And I looked and saw him riding towards Idle, but he was very drunk; and he stopped at the alehouse and drank two pints more, and he pulled out a guinea to change. Two men stood by, a big man and a little man; and they went on before him, and got two hedge-stakes; and when he came up on Windel-Common at the top of the hill, they pulled him off his horse, and killed him, and threw him into a coal pit. And I saw it all as plain as if I was close to them; and if I saw the men I should know them again.

“We went back to Bradford that night, and the next day I went with our neighbours and showed them the spot where he was killed, and the pit he was thrown into; and a man went down and brought him up. And it was as I had told them, his handkerchief was tied about his mouth and fastened behind his neck.”

Is it improbable only or flatly impossible, when all the circumstances are considered, that this should all be pure fiction? They that can believe this may believe a man’s getting into a bottle.

366 words.

Tags

Tags are assigned inclusively on the basis of an entry’s original text and any comment. You may find this confusing if you only read an entry excerpt.

• Beer (34) ·
• 📌Bradford (72) ·
• 📌Bramley, Leeds (5) ·
• Coal mining (24) ·
• Crowther, Timothy (1694-1761) (1), Skipton's Parish Clerk and astrologer ·
• Horse (71) ·
• 📌Idle, West Yorkshire (5), old village northeast of Bradford ·
• Magic (supernatural) (4) ·
• Methodism (38) ·
• Murder (38) ·
• Skipton (6) ·
• Vision (spirituality) (8) ·
• Wesley, John (1703-91) (21), cleric and leader of a evangelical revival movement within the Church of England known as Methodism ·

All tags.

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