For, &c.”
“Ah,” said my father, “all Henry Frost thinks of in his innermost mind is that I should have a most expansive pocket, and that he may be able to get drunk on what he draws from it in reward for his poem.”
When Anne died, then a difficulty arose: under what name was she to be entered in the register? The parson insisted that he could not and he would not enter her as Anne Frost, for that was not her legal name. Then Henry was angry, and carried her off to be buried in another parish, where the parson was unacquainted with the circumstances. I must say that Anne proved an excellent “wife.” She was thrifty, clean, and managed a rough-tempered and rough-tongued man with great tact, and was generally respected. She died in or about 1843.
Much later than that there lived a publican some miles off, whom I knew very well; indeed he was the namesake of and first cousin to a carpenter in my constant employ. He bought his wife for a stone two-gallon jar of Plymouth gin, if I was informed aright. She had belonged to a stonecutter, but as he was dissatisfied with her, he put up a written notice in several public places to this effect—
NOTICE.
This here be to hinform the publick as how G⸺ C⸺ be dispozed to sell his wife by Auction. Her be a dacent, clanely woman, and be of age twenty-five ears. The sale be to take place in the ⸺ Inn, Thursday next at seven o’clock.
In this case also I do not give the names, as the woman is, I believe, still alive. I believe—as I was told—that the foreman of the works remonstrated, and insisted that such a sale would be illegal. He was not, however, clear as to the points of law, and he asserted that it would be illegal unless the husband held an auctioneer’s license, and if money passed. This was rather a damper. However, the husband was very desirous to be freed from his wife, and he held the sale as he had advertised, making the woman stand on a table, and he armed himself with a little hammer. The biddings were to be in kind and not in money. One man offered a coat, but as he was a small man and the seller was stout, when he found that the coat would not fit him he refused it. Another offered a “phisgie,” i.e. a pick, but this also was refused, as the husband possessed a “phisgie” of his own. Finally the landlord offered a two-gallon jar of gin, and down fell the hammer with “gone.”
I knew the woman; she was not bad looking. The new husband drank, and treated her very roughly, and on one occasion when I was lunching at the inn she had a black eye. I asked her how she had hurt herself. She replied that she had knocked her face against the door, but I was told that this was a result of a domestic brawl. Now, the remarkable feature in these cases is that it is impossible to drive the idea out of the heads of those who thus deal in wives that such a transaction is not sanctioned by law and religion. In a parish register in my neighbourhood is the following entry—
1756. Robert Elford was baptized, child of Susanna Elford by her sister’s husband; she was married with the consent of her sister, the wife, who was at the wedding.