Oliver Onions

“ The parson was past niceties now.
After that, half the village flocked to be married.
The end of May is always a stirring time Horwick and Wadsworth way, for on the 29th there falls due the Horwick Spring Fair, and within a fortnight or so the sheep-shearing begins. Strangers come to Horwick for the fair, and for three days the pieceboards are converted into stalls for all manner of merchandise, and a big field off the Fullergate is given over to clowns and vagabond players and tumblers, who perform in tents or on wooden stages. All is noise and bustle and gaiety ”

“ Their neighbours gave them in marriage, or they received the service at the hands of Pim o' Cuddy; and men took to be their wedded wives and to live together the women whose sons and daughters awaited the same Ordinance and their turn to take on themselves the same solemn vows. And all the time the Horwick streets were thronged, and the inns filled to overflowing, and the Back o' th' Mooiners, coming down on the Wednesday or Thursday, did not return to their hills till the Saturday or Sunday.
It was worth something, in those days, to hear Cole the clogger make sport of Dooina Benn. ”

“ The parson, still in righteous dudgeon (and, maybe, having his own opinion of the big bridegroom's method of obtaining order in the church) , had looked in for a minute and withdrawn again; but as he passed the gate of the yard there arose another tow-row, and half a dozen Back o' th' Mooiners brought in Jeremy Cope on a hurdle, as if for a stang-riding, and shuttered him off on to a pile of fleeces. “Fotch Dooina tul him!” they cried; and Cope mopped and mowed and blinked his purple lids. Monjoy rescued him from Dooina's arms. It grew late. ”

“ That, to make (in effect) the best of a very bad job, thenceforward all marriage fees would be remitted, and the clerk's proper perquisite would be paid out of the same canvas bag that had already provided the money for the new floorboards and windows and the rest of the repairs to the fabric of the church. ”