276 History of the 



the fold, and a man stood before the shippon door to prevent it 

 going in again ; but it walked up to what the narrator called a 

 loophole in the barn, and slipped through like a cat ! The hole 

 was so small that not one of the lookers-on could have put his head 

 through it, and the barn referred to is the one near Hudson Mill. 

 The narrator said, ' I saw it with my own eyes, and therefore could 

 not be deceived.' " 



In the prose writings of Edwin Waugh, the Lancashire poet, are 

 to be found many curious and interesting references to Rossendale. 

 For example, in his sketch of " Rochdale to Top of Blackstone 

 Edge," he remarks, " When visiting relations of mine near Buckley, 

 I met with a story relating to one of the Buckleys of old, who was 

 a dread to the country-side ; how he pursued a Rossendale rider 

 who had crossed the moors from the Forest, to recover a stolen 

 horse from the stables of Buckley Hall by night, and how this 

 Buckley of Buckley overtook and shot him at a lonely place called 

 Th' Hillock, between Buckley and Rooley Moor." Waugh refers, 

 with some variations, to the same legend in his sketch on 

 "Dulesgate." In his story of " Dan o' Tootlers," the old fiddler, 

 one of his best productions, Waugh remarks that the " fiddler had 

 been specially invited, quite as much in the character of a guest as 

 of an itinerant musician, to enliven the rustic gathering which 

 thronged the old house at the Nine Oaks Farm at the annual churn 

 supper, as the feast of the hay-harvest is called in South 

 Lancashire. The churn supper at Nine Oaks was famous all over 

 the Forest of Rossendale, no less on account of the guests and the 

 bounty of the cheer, than on account of the presence of a minstrel 

 so well known and so universally welcomed as Dan o' Tootlers 

 was in those days." There are two curious references to 

 Rossendale places and character in the sketch, " Owd Cronies." 



" Robin at th' Crawshaw Booth has a lad 



as can creep through a cat hole!' and again, "Here, come; if 

 we're o' gooin' to talk at once, like Rossenda' churchwardens, I'll 

 wait a bit till there's a better chance." In the " Dead Man's 

 Dinner," there is a description of Newchurch with its old church 



