period his dissipated habits made him the subject of many a practical joke.
He was afterwards employed by the farmers at Burley Woodhead; but as he became old and infirm, and troubled with rheumatism, he could not work as formerly, but did what he could, making no stipulations for wages, but asking only for his board, and that his employers should pay him whatever extra they thought his labour entitled him to receive.
About this time he became acquainted with a widow named Mary Barret, who lived in a cottage near Coldstone Beck, on the edge of Rumbold's Moor. The widow had a little garden and a paddock which, together with the cottage, had been left her by her husband, who had taken the land from the common and built the cottage on it. Job thought if he could secure the hand of the widow the house and land would be his for life. So one day he paid her a visit.
"I'll tell ye what I've been thinking," said Job Senior.
"What hast a' been thinking on then, Job? Out wi' it, lad," said the widow.
"Well, I've been thinking thou'st getting ou'd, and thou lives all by thy sen i' this house. And I'm a young man"—(he was about sixty)—"and I lives all by my sen by yond crag. Why should not thou and me make it agreeable to live together?"
"Dost a' mean that I'm to take thee as a lodger?" asked Mary Barret.
"Nay, nay, lass!" answered Job; "I mean we'd better goa to t' kirk together and be wed."
"I reckon I'm ower ou'd for that," said the widow. She was in her eightieth year.
"I doan't know if tha be ou'd," said Job; "but I knows vary weel thou'rt bonny."
