The Dalesfolk were rather superstitious; and there is an old story in the local records about the way in which the first lime was introduced to the district. It was carried on the back of a horse, and as they neared Borrowdale a thunder-storm came on, and the lime in the sack began to smoke. Thinking the sack was on fire, the man in charge went and filled his hat with water from a ditch, and threw it into the sack. As this made things worse, he grew terribly alarmed, and thinking the Evil One had something to do with it, he pitched the lime into the ditch, and leaping on to the horse, galloped home as fast as he could go.
Ploughing was attended with hard labour to those employed, and it required at least three men and three horses to work one plough. The horses were yoked one before another, and it was as much as one man could do to drive them. A second man held the plough-beam down, to prevent the plough from slipping out of the earth; while it was the work of a third to guide the whole concern, this part of the business requiring the most skill. Sometimes a fourth man was employed with pick and spade to turn up the places missed by the plough. Very little skill or labour was expended in the making of the implement, and it was nothing unusual for a tree growing in the morning to be cut down during the day, and made into a plough, with which a good stroke of work was done before night.
These good people worked much harder than their descendants of the present day. Their hours of labour were much longer, and much of what they did by hand is now done by machinery. Though ignorant and unrefined, they were honest and hospitable, and possessed a great deal of sound shrewd common-sense. In those days many of them followed several handicrafts, for the division of labour was not such as it is now; and a remarkable instance of this diversified ability is to be found in the life of the man who was the parish priest of Wordsworth’s poem, _The Excursion_. This worthy man—whose history we have slightly alluded to in an article in this _Journal_ on the Lake Country—was the son of a poor statesman, and was the youngest of twelve. At the age of seventeen he became a village schoolmaster, and a little later both minister and schoolmaster. Before and after school-hours he laboured at manual occupation, rising between three and four in the summer, and working in the fields with the scythe or sickle. He ploughed, he planted, tended sheep, or clipped and salved, all for hire; wrote his own sermons, and did his duty at chapel twice on Sundays. In all these labours he excelled. In winter-time he occupied himself in reading, writing his own sermons, spinning, and making his own clothes and those of his family, knitting and mending his own stockings, and making his own shoes, the leather of which was of his own tanning. In his walks he never neglected to gather and bring home the wool from the hedges. He was also the physician and lawyer of his parishioners; drew up their wills, conveyances, bonds, &c., wrote all their letters, and settled their accounts, and often went to market with sheep or wool for the farmers.