Roger Wrightson, at the sign of the King's Head, in Bowes, in the N. R. of Yorkshire, courted widow Railton's daughter, at the sign of the George in the same town, and has done more than a year. On Shrove Tuesday, 1715, he fell sick, and languished till Sunday next but one following, and after saying three times, "Martha, Martha, come away," then died.

Poor Martha (for that was the maid's name whom he courted) Railton, though privately, took heavily on all that time, and only had declared to her sister and mother that if he died she could not live. An honest friend is unworthily blamed for doing what I[142] would have done myself had I known it; for Martha Railton begged of him to go and see young Roger, and tell him she would gladly come and see him, if he thought fit (knowing all his father's family was against her). Roger answered, "Nay, nay, T—my, our folks will be mad; but tell her I hope I shall recover." Well, the poor lass, almost dead in sorrow, first sent an orange, but Roger's mother sent it back; yet about three days before his death Martha went. His mother was so civil as to leave her by his bedside, and ordered her daughter Hannah to come away, but she would not. Poor Martha wanted only to speak three words to him, and (although she stayed two hours) yet Hannah would not let her have an opportunity, and so, in a sorrowful manner, she left him. Her book was her constant work Friday, Saturday, and Sunday; and she would oft say to herself, "Oh! you Hannah! if he dyes my heart will burst." So on the same Sunday se'night, at five o'clock in the afternoon, the bell was tolled for him, and upon the first toll, Martha lay by her book, got her mother in her arms, with, "Oh! dear mother, he's dead, I cannot live." About three minutes after Thomas Petty went in and desired her to be more easy. Her answer was, "Nay, now my heart is burst!" And so, in mournful cries and prayers, was fainter and fainter, for about three hours, and seemed to breathe her last; but her mother and another girl of the town shrieked aloud, and so called her back again (as they term it), and, in amazed manner, distorted with convulsion fits (just as it is described in Dr. Taylor's "Holy Living and Dying"), stayed her spirit ten or twelve hours longer, and then she died.

At last things was brought to this issue, to be buried both in one grave, and the corpse met at the church gate, but Hannah objected against their being buried together, as also she did at her being laid first in the grave; but was answered that a bride has to go first to bed. She, being asked why she should be so proud and inhumane, answered, that she said, "Martha might have taken fairer on, or have been hanged." But oh, the loud mourning of friends on both sides at the corpse meeting, and more at the grave; wherein first she was decently laid, and then he. In the parish register of Bowes is the following entry:—"Rodger Wrightson, junr., and Martha Railton, both of Bowes, buried in one grave. He died of a Fever, and upon tolling his passing Bell, she cry'd out 'My heart is broke,' and in a Few hours expired, purely (or supposed, interlined in a different hand) thro' Love. March 15, 1714-5, aged about 20 years each."

Tune of "Queen Dido."