Saturday, January 10, 1835

1835

January

Saturday 10

8 1/2

11 1/4

A nice, quiet, good kiss last night.

Damp, rainy, cold morning Fahrenheit 35° at 9 20/.. a.m. –

Breakfast at 9 40/.. – Had Mr. Samuel Washington – Paid him £100 towards the purchase of his field adjoining Roydelands (Hardcastles farm), as agreed on Wednesday at the rent Audit –when it was also agreed to complete the purchase on the 2nd of next month, I paying £260, which, with the hundred before and the £140 Washington owes Ann for Lidgate hay = £500, the price of the field –

Out at 11 1/4 – In the joiner’s shop with Charles Howarth, busy as for the last week past with the wainscot for the North parlor passage –

Then went into the pit-drift, to see for myself the width they are driving it – Hinscliffe right – Measured it with my umbrella where the man was working (about 30 yards length done) to 4 feet or very nearly that –

5 minutes in going in and out and staying about a minute with the workman – A very fatiguing journey on account of the stooping, tho’ the drift a yard high – Driving a dead level – Water standing in the bottom a couple of inches deep –

Went up to Joseph Mann sinking the vent chimney – told him I would not have the drift so wide – I was a little out of breath and spoke perhaps as if angry (more so than I really felt) – The old man turning (bringing the stuff out – the chimney begun yesterday and 5 or 6 yards deep now) begged me not to be in a passion – I merely said his request was unnecessary – I was out of breath with hurrying into and out of the drift – But the observation struck me – I stood talking quietly – Then wound up one bucket –Said I ought therefore to pay a footing for this, and going into the drift, so gave the man 2/. for them all four –

Came in at 1 1/4 – Sat with Ann at her luncheon – Dawdling over 1 thing or other.  Wrote note to ‘Mr. Bradley Architect Elland’ –

Ann and I off at 2 1/4 to Crow Nest to speak to Mrs. Washington about shirts for the poor – about 1/4 hour there – then sat 33 minutes at Cliff Hill – Mrs. Ann Walker, this and our 2 last visits, in great good humour with us both – Rained (a shower) as we went part of the way, and rained lightly more or less all the way back – Home at 5 –

Settled with Pickles and Charles Howarth, and read them the principal news of the Election – damages done etc. –

Twelve Inns much damaged and about 7 private houses, including Mr. Atkinson’s, spirit merchant, defended by Pickles and an old soldier and 3 or 4 other men who ran away into some safe place in the house – As did Mrs. Atkinson and her husband also, who had had his clothes torn by the mob at the Swan, and escaped home in a fright just before the mob attacked his house – But only broke his windows – Pickles fired twice, and the old soldier ran an old spear 5 or 6 inches deep into the shoulder of a man who was getting in at a window –

Pickles said the mob came about 6 p.m. without music or any sign of them coming, quite quietly – Nobody could tell of their coming unless they knew beforehand; and it was very odd that about 10 minutes before, Mr. Akroyd’s and the house opposite (Ann’s adjoins Mr. Atkinson’s) had the upper windows illuminated by candles – So that they afforded the mob as much light as they could – Pickles saw the woman or man dressed in a white sort of dressing gown with a red sash round the waist, who asked if the mob knew hem or her – ‘Do you know who I am’ – ‘Yes!’ said the mob, ‘We do’ – ‘Very well! That’s right’ – And when Atkinsons windows were broken, ‘Now, my lads, you’ve done enough’ – but, said Pickles, my double barrelled gun frightened them – They ran over the bridge (Clerk Bridge).  You might have stood on their heads –

They were only a parcel of lads – He, Pickles, did not feel frightened – If they had broken into the spirit vault upon him it was dark he would have no light – And meant to throw down his gun to escape angering the crowd – He believed Mr. Atkinson crept under a bed or hid himself and locked himself up somewhere upstairs –

John Booth had brought back (about 5) the answer from Mr. Bradley – Not at home, but Mrs. Bradley sure he would not disappoint me if possible to avoid it, and he would write an answer tomorrow –

My note was (vide line 19 of yesterday) 

‘Shibden hall, Saturday 10 January, 1835. 

Sir – 

I send over to inquire if I may with certainty expect you about 10 o’clock on Monday morning; and to say that, if you can possibly make it convenient to be absent from home a few days, you shall have a bed here – I shall be glad to have the opinion on several things and shall be obliged to you to bring all the plans to finish here – If you can leave anywhere in Halifax, what you wish to have with you, I will send for it on Monday – If the servant does not find you at home, be so good as let me have an answer by the post, as soon as you can – 

I am, Sir, etc. etc. etc. 

A Lister’ –

Dinner at 6 1/2 – Had Washington to pay Ann her Bailey Hall rents – Patterson did not pay – So the receipt under £50 – Sent off George at 7, or a few minutes before (leaving us to be waited upon at dinner as we could) to the post office with the Halifax Guardian newspaper of today directed to ‘the honorable Lady Stuart Whitehall, London’ –

Washington took coffee with us, and with some humming and ahing pulled out of his pocket today’s Leeds Mercury containing among the marriages of Wednesday last.  ‘Same day, at the parish church Halifax Captain Tom Lister of Shibden hall to Miss Ann Walker late of Lidget near the same place’ – I smiled and said it was very good – Read it aloud to Ann, who also smiled and then took up the paper and read the skit to my aunt, and on returning the paper to Washington, begged him to give it to us when he had done with it – He said he would, and seemed agreeably surprised to find what was probably meant to annoy, taken so quietly and with such mere amusement – Said not a word of it to my father and Marian

With them 1/2 hour till 8 1/4 – Then came upstairs – Ann did not like the joke.  Suspects the Briggses.  So does my aunt.

Wrote the 1st 21 lines of yesterday till 9 3/4 – Then 20 minutes with my aunt – In much pain – had had a very painful night and very little sleep –

Damp, showery day – Rainy evening.  F 401/2° at 10 25/.. p.m., and at that hour, looked out and saw the ground white with snow (the 1st this winter)

WYAS Finding Numbers SH:7/ML/E/17/0141 and SH:7/ML/E/17/0142