, a farm servant of Kirby Misperton agreed to serve as a
substitute on payment of L42, and a cartwright of Goathland agreed for the
same sum, while men from Manchester or Leeds were ready to accept half
that amount.

The extreme reluctance to serve of a certain Ben Wilson, a sweep of
Middleton, is shown in a story told of him by a very old inhabitant of
Pickering whose memory is in no way impaired by her years. She tells us
that this Wilson on hearing of his ill-luck seized a carving-knife and
going to the churchyard put his right hand on a gate-post and fiercely cut
off the two fingers required for firing a rifle. He avoided active service
in this way and often showed his mutilated hand to the countryfolk who may
or may not have admired the deed.

In 1823 Pickering was kept in touch with Whitby, York and Scarborough by
coaches that ran three times a week. On Monday, Wednesday and Friday a
coach (Royal Mail) left the "Black Swan" in the market place for Whitby at
the painfully early hour of four o'clock in the morning; another Royal
Mail left Pickering for York at half-past three in the afternoon on
Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. The stages were from

Whitby to Saltergate.
Saltergate to Pickering.
Pickering to Malton.
Malton to Spital Beck.
Spital Beck to York.

There was also what was called the "Boat Coach" that ran between Pickering
and Scarborough.

One of the last drivers of these coaches became a guard on the North
Eastern Railway, and he still lives in Pickering at the time of writing.

The parish chest in the vestry of Pickering Church contains among other
papers a number of apprenticeship deeds of a hundred to a hundred and
fifty years ago, in which the master promises that he will educate the boy
and "bring him up in some honest and lawful calling and in the fear of
God," and in most cases to provide him with a suit of clothes at the
completion of his term, generally at the age of twenty-one years.

The odd papers registering the arrival of new inhabitants in the district
include one dated 1729, and in them we find a churchwarden possessing such
a distinguished name as Hotham, signing that surname without a capital,
and in 1809 we find an overseer of the poor only able to make his mark
against the seal.

The largest bell in the church tower is dated 1755 and bears the
inscription, "First I call you to God's word, and at last unto the Lord."
It is said that this bell was cracked owing to the great str