Or otherwise, in bed or at board,
Did offend each other in deed or word,
Or, since the Parish clerk said Amen,
You wish’t yourselves unmarried agen,
Or in a twelve months time and a day,
Repented not in thought, any way;
But continued true and just in desire
As when you joyn’d hands in the holy quire.”
In 1851 “the lord of the manor declined to give the flitch, but the claimants obtained one from a public subscription, and a concourse of some three thousand people assembled in Easton Park in their honour.”[[21]] In 1855 Ainsworth himself offered to give the flitch. The candidates were Mr. James Barlow and his wife, of Chipping Ongar, and the Chevalier de Chatelain and his wife, the last named being well known in literary circles. They were old friends of Ainsworth. I have thirteen letters from Ainsworth to the Chevalier and his wife, of the most intimate character, dating from 1845 to 1880. In one of them, written at Brighton on October 22, 1854, he says:
“My dear Chevalier: Thanks for your charming little volume, full of graceful translations. You have done me the favor I find to include the ‘Custom of Dunmow’ in your collection. Within the last few days I have received another version in French of the same ballad by Jacques Desrosiers. The Tale has been translated under the title of ‘Un An et un Jour’, and published at Bruxelles. You will be glad to hear that a worthy personage has announced his intention of bequeathing a sum sufficient for the perpetual maintenance of the good old custom.”