Not one, but three or four Ugthorpe cows ceased to give their usual quantity of milk. Of course the villagers talked, and at last the priest was visited; but a hundred years ago many of the clergy, both of Rome and the Church of England, so far as learning was concerned, would have been knocked into a cocked hat by a Primitive Methodist local brother of these days. So it will be readily conceived the visit to the priest resulted in very little good. He declared the devil had got hold of the defaulting cows by the tail, and this made them hold their milk back; he further assured them the only way to get the devil to let go was to say three pater nosters and Ave Marias over their milk-pails, and to subscribe a certain sum, which had to be paid to him, to celebrate a mass to Saint somebody, who would send a holy angel to frighten the devil away. Now, I know nothing about doctoring cows, but I am inclined to the belief that old Jonathan Westcott, of Upleatham, was much nearer effecting a cure, when he ordered an aperient draught, to be followed by gentle exercise, than prayers muttered inside any number of milk-cans.
I believe the good people of that day would have fallen in with the prayers, but they drew a hard and fast line when the collection box obtruded itself. They returned home dissatisfied. They were losing their milk—that they could not help; but they could prevent their pockets being dipped into, and they did. Another meeting was held, and a watch was set on Ann, but nothing came of it. At last a neighbour’s cow dried up altogether. At this the good man was so exasperated, that he went to Ann’s and boldly accused her of milking the cows. Words ran high, till in the end he seized a three-legged stool, intending to hurl it at Ann’s head, when, lo! a curious thing happened—as he gripped the leg of the stool, a stream of milk ran from it. The neighbours, who by this time had flocked round the door, cried out with one voice: ‘Thoo’s gitten ’t; that’s what sha milks wer coos wi’.’ And sure enough such was found to be the case. On the name of any neighbour’s cow being mentioned, and a leg of the stool handled as in milking, a fine stream of milk came from it, and the bag of that individual’s cow was found on examination to have shrunk. No wonder she had fat pigs, when she could give them new milk in any quantity and from any one’s cow she liked to name. Such a stool was not a fit piece of furniture for any one to possess, so it was publicly burnt on the moor just beyond the high end of the village, near to where the windmill stands. Ann was ordered to walk three times from one end of the village to the other, clothed in nothing but her sark[46], i.e. chemise. The Godivan rule, which compelled every one to keep within doors during the time of penance, seems (so far as Ugthorpe was concerned) to have been absolutely reversed—they were all there, even down to the babies in arms. From all accounts, Ugthorpe has never had quite such a lively time since. Before judging the people and the ways of that time as altogether too idiotic, indecent, and unjust, it is as well to bear in mind that every age has its curious idiosyncrasies. In 1898 affiliation cases are heard in open court; a man may nearly kick the life out of his wife with a pair of clogs at a small outlay of about seven-and-six; but stealing a turnip necessitates a low form of diet, and enforced seclusion for three months. These masterpieces of our time will bring a smile to faces yet unborn.