Page:Yorkshire Oddities, Incidents and Strange Events.djvu/131

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
John Bartendale, the Piper.
119

human justice, and that therefore he was not disposed to reverse the decree of Providence according to the piper a prolongation of his days on earth.

Drunken Barnaby in his "Book of Travels" alludes to Bartendale, when he stops at York:

"Here a piper apprehended,
Was found guilty and suspended;
Being led to t' fatal gallows,
Boys did cry, 'Where is thy bellows?
Ever must thou cease thy tuning,'
Answered he, 'For all your cunning,
You may fail in your prediction.'
Which did happen without fiction;
For cut down, and quick interred,
Earth rejected what was buried;
Half alive or dead he rises,
Got a pardon next Assizes,
And in York continued blowing—
Yet a sense of goodness showing."

After his wonderful deliverance the poor fellow turned hostler, and lived very honestly afterwards.

When asked to describe his sensations on being hung, he said that when he was turned off, flashes of fire seemed to dart before his eyes, and were succeeded by darkness and a state of insensibility.