he place that on the previous evening an aged lady had been
murdered and her house plundered. An Irishman named Matthew Cocklain
disappeared from the town, and he was suspected of committing the foul
deed. He was tracked to his native country, arrested, and brought back
to Derby. At the following March Assizes, he was tried and found guilty
of the crime, sentenced to be hanged, and afterwards gibbeted. His body
was for some time suspended in the summer sun and winter cold, an object
of fright to the people in the district.

Christmas eve had come round once more, and at a tavern, near the
gibbet, a few friends were enjoying a pipe and glass around the cheerful
burning yule-log, when the conversation turned to the murderer, and a
wager was made that a certain member of the company dare not venture
near the grim gibbet at that late hour of night. A man agreed to go, and
take with him a basin of broth and offer it to Matthew Cocklain. He
proceeded without delay, carrying on his shoulder a ladder, and in his
hand a bowl of hot broth. On arriving at the foot of the gibbet, he
mounted the ladder, and put to Cocklain's mouth the basin, saying, "Sup,
Matthew," but to his great astonishment, a hollow voice replied, "It's
hot." He was taken by surprise; but, equal to the occasion, and at once
said, "Blow it, blow it," subsequently throwing the liquid into the face
of the suspended body.

He returned to the cosy room of the hostelry to receive the bet he had
won. His mate, who had been hid behind the gibbet-post, and had tried to
frighten him with his sepulchral speech, admitted that the winner was a
man of nerve, and richly entitled to the wager.

It has been asserted by more than one local chronicler that John
Whitfield, of Coathill, a notorious north country highwayman, about
1777, was gibbeted alive on Barrock, a hill a few miles from Wetherell,
near Carlisle. He kept the countryside in a state of terror, and few
would venture out after nightfall for fear of encountering him. He shot
a man on horseback in open daylight; a boy saw him commit the crime, and
was the means of his identification and conviction. It is the belief in
the district that Whitfield was gibbeted alive, and that he hung for
several days in agony, and that his cries were heartrending, until a
mail-coachman passing that way put him out of his misery by shooting
him.

On the night of July 3rd, 1779, John Spencer murdered William Yeadon,
keeper of the Scroo