(Distance walked twenty-two miles.)

Sunday, October 29th.

We were very comfortable in our apartments at Castleton, our host and hostess and their worthy son paying us every possible attention.  They were members of the Wesleyan Church, and we arranged with the young man that if he would go with us to the Parish Church in the morning, we would go to the Wesleyan Chapel in the evening with him.  So in the morning we all went to church, where we had a good old-fashioned service, and saw a monument to the memory of a former vicar, a Mr. Bagshawe, who was Vicar of Castleton from 1723 to 1769; the epitaph on it described him as—­

A man whose chief delight was in the service of his Master—­a sound scholar—­a tender and affectionate husband—­a kind and indulgent parent—­and a lover of peace and quietness, who is gone to that place where he now enjoys the due reward of his labours.

This Vicar had kept a diary, or journal, from which it appeared that he began life in a good position, but lost his money in the “South Sea Bubble,” an idea floated in the year 1710 as a financial speculation to clear off the National Debt, the Company contracting to redeem the whole debt in twenty-six years on condition that they were granted a monopoly of the South Sea Trade.  This sounded all right, and a rush was made for the shares, which soon ran up in value from L100 to L1,000, fabulous profits being made.  Sir Robert Walpole, who was then Chancellor of the Exchequer, and afterwards Prime Minister for the long period of twenty-two years, was strongly opposed to the South Sea Scheme, and when, ten years later, he exposed it, the bubble burst and the whole thing collapsed, thousands of people, including the worthy Vicar of Castleton, being ruined.

[Illustration:  CASTLETON CHURCH.]

It also appeared from the diary that, like the vicar Goldsmith describes, he was “passing rich on forty pounds a year,” for he never received more than L40 per year for his services.  The prices he paid for goods for himself and his household in the year 1748 formed very interesting reading, as it enabled us to compare the past with the present.

Bohea Tea was 8s. per pound; chickens, threepence each; tobacco, one penny per ounce; a shoulder of mutton cost him fifteen-pence, while the forequarter of a lamb was eighteen-pence, which was also the price of a “Cod’s Head from Sheffield.”

He also recorded matters concerning his family.  He had a son named Harry whom he apprenticed to a tradesman in Leeds.  On one occasion it appeared that the Vicar’s wife made up a parcel “of four tongues and four pots of potted beef” as a present for Hal’s master.  One of the most pleasing entries in the diary was that which showed that Harry had not forgotten his mother, for one day a parcel arrived at the Vicarage from Leeds which was found to contain “a blue China cotton gown,” a present from Hal to his mother.