[Gutenberg 51177] • Legends of Lancashire

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1841 edition. Excerpt: ... the devil'S wall. "Jeremiah, read those directions and intimations once more; they contain no less than a challenge to my valour. Truly his Black Majesty seems to think that he can toss about the ball of earth for his amusement; and that there is not a tailor who would venture to c measure him.' Ah! Nick, give me a trial." Thus spoke Gideon Chiselwig, tailor, in Ormskirk. Unlike the most of his brethren belonging to that honourable profession, he could boast of six feet of perpendicular matter; but conceiving that even that height was too low a tabernacle for his giant soul, he fixed to the one extremity a long red nightcap, whilst he made the other move on tiptoe, much to the mirth of the quizzing old maids, for which that town is noted. He was never seen with that upper garment, commonly called a coat; unless to display one of fashionable cut, which he had just finished; and the absence of this did not take from Gideon's stature. Some conjectured that he knew this; others had seen Mrs. Gideon, at home, arrayed in what, evidently, had once been a coat; and they jocosely remarked, that she had altogether monopolized the use of her husband's apparel, for now they had seen her with the coat, and Gideon himself had confessed that she wore the breeches.--He had a vest, but the pockets were only visited by his hands; silver and gold they had never weighed; so that to all intents and purposes--the wife wore the vest also. Nature, however, had denied him her average allowance of breadth and thickness, so much so, that in a tour to remarkable places, during the honey-moon, having entered a museum in the metropolis, the blushing bride was asked by the keeper, what was the price she fixed upon the piece of anatomy which she brought. Gideon, did, ...