Transcribed by Steven Wood from the Keighley Herald(1893).
ADVENTURES and RECOLLECTIONS
of
BILL O’TH HOYLUS END.
told byhimself.
CHAPTER I. [1]
[Bill o’th Hoylus End might be termed a localWill-o’th-Wisp. He has been everything by turns, andnothing long. Now, a lean faced lad, “a mere anatomy, amountebank, a thread bare juggler, a needy, hollow-ey’d,sharp looking wretch;” now acting the pert, bragging youth,telling quaint stories, and up to a thousand raw tricks; nowtumbling and adventuring into manhood with yet the oil and fireand force of youth too strong for reason’s sober guidance;and now—well and now—finding the checks of time havebegun to grapple him, he looks back upon the past and tells hiscurious stories o’er again. Verily, as Shakespeare declaresin All’s Well, “the web of his life is of amingled yarn, good and ill together;” and through it allthere is a kind of history, just as
“There is a history in all men’slives,
Figuring the nature of the times deceased.”
This son of Mischief, Art and Guile has stooped to many thingsbut to conquer himself and be his own best friend; that is,according to the conception of the ordinary, respectable, get-onfolk of the world. He has followed more or less the wild,shifting impulses of his nature—restless and reckless, ifaimless and harmless; fickle and passionate, if rebelliouslynatural; exhausting his youth and manhood in fruitless action,and devoting the moments of reflection to the playful current ofthe muse’s fancy, forsooth, to the delectation of the moreprosaic humanity in this his locality. A life of pleasure wasever his treasure, and he agrees, after experience oflife’s fitful dream, that
E’en Pleasure acts a treacherous part,
She charms the scene, but stings the heart,
And while she gulls us of our wealth,
Or that superior pearl, our health,
[Yet, and these are the two lines he substitutes for themelancholy truth of an old poet],
Yet she restores for all the pains,
By giving Merit her exchange.
Though the poetic flame has flickered from time to time, ithas never been extinguished. There is health and buoyancy stillin his muse. It is the one thing essential, the one thingpermanent in his nature—ever ready to impart the mysticjingle to pictures of fun and frolic, or perchance judgement andreflection. Thus, as the local Burns, he stands unrivalled. Hispoetic effusions speak for themselves, but there are other traitsin his career which he wished to convey to the public, whichmight while away an occasional half-hour in the reading of hisstories of the tricks of his boyhood, the adventures of his earlymanhood, and to learn how he became—well, what he is! Hehas been caught in divers moods and at sundry times, and hiswords have been taken in shorthand, the endeavour always being tokeep the transcript as faithful as circumstances would allow. Nopretence is here made to evolve a dramatic story, but rather topresent Bill’s career simply and faithfully for publicperusal; for to use Dr. Johnson’s words, “If a man isto write a panegyric, he can keep the vices out of sight; but ifhe professes to write a life he must represent it really as itwas.”]
MY BIRTHPLACE, HOME AND PARENTAGE
It was on the 22nd day of March, 1836, in a village midwaybetween Keighley and Haworth, in a cottage by the wayside, thatI, William Wright, first saw light. The hamlet I have justalluded to was and now is known by the name of Hermit Hole: whichname, by the way, is said to have been given to