Open Writing

Yorkshire folk have a reputation of being careful with their ‘brass,’ as money is called in the White Rose County. Canniness is not the same as meanness, for mean folk won’t spend money because they are mean, whereas canny folk don’t spend money because they are convinced they cannot afford to.

Whether he could afford to spend money or not weighed on the mind of a certain Yorkshire farmer for a long time before he found the answer to his question by means of a novel way of determining the solution to his query.

Where the old city of Bradford fades into the wild countryside there stands a farm on lands it has occupied since the Civil War, on which dwelt a farmer that found himself in need of a wife.

Never having enjoyed nuptial bliss, and not trusting to find a solution on which he could depend among the local farming fraternity, most of which, his observations led him to believe, had made unwise choices and, in his considered opinion, had not been wise in their selections and thus had found themselves at the mercies of unmerciful harridans instead of enjoying the fawning attentions of submissive, tractable, obedient, meek, coy, and pretty young wives they had negotiated for, and he resolutely resolved not to follow their examples.

He had a long time girlfriend, pretty Polly, for whom he had an especial fondness, and for whom he had long entertained thoughts about taking her to be his wife. However, before he committed himself to a lifetime of happiness or misery, plenty or penury, he needed to discover whether he could afford to keep a wife before risking popping the question to her.

He weighed his options carefully. Having a wife meant that his dinner would be waiting steaming hot on the table when he came in from the fields at day’s end, and his laundry and house cleaning would be taken care of. In addition, she could do a bit of work on the farm such as milking, collecting the eggs, feeding the pigs, leading the herd of milk cows in and out of the pasture to the milking shed and to their biers when needed.

He mused that a good farmer’s wife would lift a load off his shoulders, if he was taken ill, dread thought, she could carry on by herself and do all the essential work until he was back on his feet again. She could chop the hay, mix the mash, feed the hens, pigs, cows, sheep and goats, and in between those little tasks she could keep the house clean, wash the clothes and linens, sweep the floors, get the mud out of the porches, wash the grime off the windows, even take stock to market, and do a bit of buying and selling, once she got the hang of it. All these seemed like really good ideas, and so he was encouraged by the prospect of being wedded.

All seemed fair for him to proceed and join his beloved in the bounds of holy matrimony. However, not to be reckless he carefully considered the other side of the issue and undertook to look for reasons against being married. The only difficulty he could foresee was that there would be two mouths to feed instead of one, but he didn’t think it an insurmountable barrier, especially if instead of doubling his food bill they each just ate half the amount of food that a single person would eat. Otherwise, being wed would double his domestic costs at a stroke. Besides which, he remembered there would be the cost of hiring the little Norman church, the vicar’s fees, the cost of a wedding license, she might even want a special dress for the service, maybe even some flowers, and then there was the wedding meal at which he would have to provide a meal for his family and hers too, and goodness knows how many of her aunts and uncles he would have to feed and provide ale for.

It began to be a bit of a nightmare and just as frightening to the man. He had a reputation for being canny, and by being so, he had always managed to pay his way in the world. However, it wasn’t only the wedding costs that preyed on his mind like water dripping on his head every few seconds, hammering into his brain. His biggest fear was what the daily cost might be for him to feed a woman for fifty or more years who could turn out to be as vicious as the old Viking women from whom, if she was local to that area, and she was, was descended.

Perhaps, in a few years, she would double or triple in size and cost more and more, as time went by to keep her in food and good humour. True, his admirer was a slim waif of a thing with nothing but a medium appetite and a great passion for hard work. But, what if she was to change? What would he do then?

He decided that if there were to be unexpected changes in the cost of her upkeep once she had her feet planted firmly under his table, that it would constitute a tragedy from which he would not be able to extricate himself. Better find out before he committed himself to future penury than be unexpectedly ruined some way down the road of their married life.

His mind was taken with these calculations for many moons before he reached the point where he knew he must decide, even if only in fairness to himself.

On balance, he saw many good reasons for taking a wife, but the doubt that it was a sensible, affordable thing to do hung over his head like the Sword of Damocles, and everything rested on the vexed question of whether he could or could not afford one?

Eventually, at a time when he thought he must surely go mad, he hit upon a scheme to ascertain the cost of being double instead of single, just in case his plan for them to exist on half rations should prove deleterious to their health. Like many old farmers, his capacity for calculations were based on intuition rather than on arithmetic, and so he could not chalk a sum of his single weekly food and clothing costs on the side of the barn and by simple multiplication adduce what it would be for two instead of one.

However, his solution, though primitive, was effective. He would shop as usual in the village grocery for things he could not obtain from his own farm, but instead of buying for himself he would ask for a double portion of everything so that when his account was squared at month’s end, he would know what it would cost him if he married.

When month’s end came and he was presented with his tally, he was shocked almost senseless. He knew right then that marriage was out of the question as an inordinate expense that was way beyond his willingness to pay. He was saddened but his mind was made up.

He called on his sweetheart and bluntly told her that he could not afford her and they must part. She ran indoors, slamming the door behind her without telling him how she felt about his announcement, and after waiting for several hours in case she should come out to explain her response, but her not doing so, in addition to her failing to answer his repeated knocks at her door, he went home. They never spoke again.

Yet his decision weighed on his mind whatever he was doing, waking or sleeping, working or at ease. He felt he had made the right decision, all things considered, but still he ruminated as if transfixed by some terrible thing he had done to one whose attachment to him seemed always sincere and tender.

More than a year after his disengagement to pretty Polly, during which interlude she had married a wealthy farmer, he was topping of a haystack, his mind, as usual, not strictly applied to his dangerously elevated position, when he missed his footing as he was setting the ridge, and tumbled off the haymow describing an arc, more or less, to his death by breaking his rustic neck on the ground below.

It is told that his ghost yet walks the land by night, searching, it is said, for the money he reckoned he had saved by not marrying his sweetheart.

Copyright © 2011 – Ronnie Bray

**

Ronnie's latest Yorkshire Tales CD - Volume Five OUT NOW!
http://yorkshiretales.com/main/page_cd_yt_0105.html

Listen to some of Ronnie Famous Yorkshire Tales Online at:
http://www.wix.com/jorvik/yorkshiretales

Read Some of Ronnie's Religious and Spiritual writings at:
http://www.scribd.com/Mormon-Quill