so 



bought for him by the chapel-wardens." He marched from house 

 to house with his "whittle," seeking "fresh fields and pastures 

 new," and, as master of the herd, he had the elbow chair at the 

 table head, which was often made of part of a hollow ash tree — a 

 kind of seat then common. The reader at Wythburn had for his 

 salary three pounds yearly, a hempen sark or shirt, a whittlegate, 

 and a goosegate, or right to depasture a flock of geese on Helvellyn. 

 A story is still told in Wythburn of a minister who had but two 

 sermons, which he preached in turn. The walls of the chapel 

 were at that time unplastered, and the sermons were usually placed 

 in a hole in the wall behind the pulpit. One Sunday, before the 

 service began, some mischievous person pushed the sermons so 

 far into the hole that they could not be got out with the hand. 

 When the time came for the sermon, the priest tried in vain to get 

 them out. He then turned to the congregation and told them 

 what had happened. He could touch them, he said, with his 

 forefinger, but could not get his thumb in to grasp them ; " But, 

 however," said he, " I can read you a chapter out of Job that's 

 worth both of them put together !" 



A curious custom existed at one time, of holding market at the 

 church. In Cumberland, as of old in Judea, the "house of prayer" 

 seems to have been turned, if not into "a den of thieves," at least into 

 a common mart. In 1306 the inhabitants of Cockermouth repre- 

 sented in a petition to Parliament that there was a great concourse 

 of people every Sunday at Crosthwaite church, when corn, flour, 

 peas, beans, meat, fish, and other kinds of merchandise, were 

 bought and sold ; which was so very injurious to the market at 

 Cockermouth, that the persons of that place who farmed the tolls 

 of the king were unable to pay their rent. Upon this a prohibitory 

 proclamation was issued against the unseemly usage. At the time 

 of the Restoration of Charles II., tradition says that the butcher 

 market at Wigton was held on Sunday, and the butchers hung 

 the carcases even at the church door, to attract the notice of their 

 customers as they went in and came out of church. It was even 

 no uncommon thing for people who had made their bargains before 

 the service began, to hang their joints of meat over the backs of 



