[133] Should any reader of this day find fault with the inelegant manner in which the dialogue is carried on between Kitchen and the soldier, in defence I beg leave to say, the dialogue is told as general Bibo related it, and though in many parts of the tale I have made so many alterations, that I should not be guilty of any impropriety in calling it an original: I do not consider myself authorized to change the dialogues occasionally introduced.
[134] In Kirby Malhamdale church-yard is a public house, verifying the lines of the satirist:—
Where God erects a house of prayer,
The devil builds a chapel there.
[135] Skipton-castle.
[136] Rylstone-hall. See Wordsworth’s beautiful poem the White Doe.
[137] History of Craven.
SALT.
The conjecture of T. Q. M. concerning the disappearance of the spectre-host, and the breaking up of the nocturnal banquet, in the church-yard of Kirby Malhamdale, is ingenious, and entitled to the notice of the curious in spectral learning: but it may be as well to consider whether the point of the legend may not be further illustrated.
According to Moresin, salt not being liable to putrefaction, and preserving things seasoned with it from decay, was the emblem of eternity and immortality, and mightily abhorred by infernal spirits. “In reference to this symbolical explication, how beautiful,” says Mr. Brand, “is that expression applied to the righteous, ‘Ye are the salt of the earth!’”