'I grant you such a state of things seems almost incredible in our enlightened nineteenth century,' continued Mr. Lambert, 'but many of my older brethren have curious stories to tell of their parishioners, all of them rather amusing than otherwise. Your predecessor, Heriot—Dr. Bailey—had a rare stock of racy anecdotes, with which he used to entertain us on winter evenings over a glass of hot whisky toddy.'
'To which he was slightly too much addicted,' observed Dr. Heriot.
'Well, well, we all have our faults,' replied the vicar, charitably. 'We will not speak against poor Bailey, who was in the main a downright honest fellow, though he was not without his weakness. Betha used to remonstrate with him sometimes, but it was no use; he said he was too old to break off a habit. I don't think, Heriot, he ever went to great lengths.'
'Possibly not,' was the somewhat dry reply, 'but we are willing to be amused by the old doctor's reminiscences.'
'You know the old Westmorland custom for giving names; well, some forty years ago George Bailey, then a young doctor new to practice, was sent for to visit a man named John Atkinson, who lived in a house at the head of Swale-dale.
'Having reached the place, he knocked at the door, and asked if John Atkinson lived there.
'"Nay," says the woman, "we've naebody ev that nyam hereaboots."
'"What?" says Bailey, "nobody of the name in the dale?"
'"Nyah," was the reply, made with the usual phlegm and curtness of the genuine Daleswoman. "There's naebody ev that nyam."
'"Well, it is very odd," returned Bailey, in great perplexity. "This looks like the house to which I was directed. Is there any one ill in the dale?"