Th’ Barrel Organ

Sceawter’s cat, he says, grew fat because it “catched two mice at one go.” Then the moor-end farmer turns toward a heifer bargain—and leaves his old acquaintance to cross the hills alone.

On an autumn evening in Lancashire’s Rossendale, the narrator climbs above the Irwell valley, past quarries and fading heather, toward a lonely cottage where the stream roars beneath the trees. There, amid ale, toast, and village gossip, the talk turns to singers coming that night—and to a barrel organ meant for the chapel. In Edwin Waugh’s affectionate portrait of country folk, a winding walk becomes a meeting with lives full of small surprises, hearty jokes, and old ways. What music—and what commotion—will the organ bring to this quiet corner of the moors?

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