[50] Folk at's a dur to keep oppen, connut do't wi'th wynt—folk that have a house to maintain, cannot do it with the wind.
[51] Th' War Office—a name applied to the village of Bamford.
[52] Hollingworth's Mancuniensis, Willis's edition, p. 53.
[53] Court Magazine, vol. 8, No. 45.
[54] Those somewhat remarkable posts have been removed of late years, and stout pillars of stone occupy their places.
[55] Those oaks have been felled, and the kloof is now comparatively denuded of timber; the underwood on the left side is nearly swept away. Sad inroads on the ominous gloom of the place.
[56] Kuerden's MS., fol. 274, Chetham Library.
[57] Leland's "Itinerary" (Hearne's edit.), vol. vii. p. 42.
[58] The following note is attached to this passage in Mr. Booker's volume:—"The annals of Blackley bear ample testimony to the superstition of its inhabitants. It has had its nine days' wonder at every period of its history. Hollingworth, writing of that age of portents and prodigies which succeeded the Reformation, says:—'In Blackley, neere Manchester, in one John Pendleton's ground, as one was reaping, the corne being cut seemed to bleede; drops fell out of it like to bloud; multitudes of people went to see it: and the straws thereof, though of a kindly colour without, were within reddish, and as it were bloudy!' Boggart-hole Clough, too, was another favourite haunt of ghostly visitants, the legend of which has been perpetuated by Mr. Roby in his "Traditions of Lancashire," vol. 2, pp. 295, 301. Nor has it ceased in our day: in 1852 one of its inhabitants imperilled the safety of his family and neighbours, by undermining the walls of his cottage, in his efforts to discover the hidden cause of some mysterious noise that had disturbed him."