Читать книгу Goblin Tales of Lancashire - James Bowker - Страница 8

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MANY years ago there lived in a farm-house at a point of the high-road from Manchester to Stockport, where Levenshulme Church now stands, a worthy named Burton, 'Owd Dannel Burton.'A The farm held by Daniel was a model one in its way, the old man raising finer crops than any other farmer in the district. It was rumoured that Daniel was very comfortably provided for, and that a few bad years would not harm him; and so wonderfully did everything he took in hand prosper, that his 'luck' became proverbial. Such uniform prosperity could not long continue without the tongue of envy and detraction being set wagging, and the neighbours who permitted thistles to overrun their pastures whilst they gadded about to rush-bearings and wakes, finding a reproach to their idleness not only in the old man's success, but also in the careful, industrious habits of his daily life, were not slow to insinuate that there was something more than farming at the bottom of it. 'Dannel' had sold himself to Satan, said some whose pigs had faded away, and whose harvests had not been worth the gathering; and others pretended to know even the terms of the contract, and how many years the old man yet had to play on. A few of these detractors were young men whose imaginations were not kept in sufficient control, but they grew wonderfully reserved respecting the Satanic bargain after the hearty Daniel had had an interview with them, and proved to them that he had not forgotten the use of a good tough black-thorn.