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Bess suggested that he should be called Noah, because Noah was saved in the ark; but he objected that Noah was an old greybeard, with a family, and that he knew the flood was coming, and built the ark himself; he was not “takken unawares in his helplessness loike that poor babby.”

Moses was her next proposition—Bess had learned something of Biblical lore at the first Sunday-school Manchester could boast, the one in Gun Street, founded by Simeon Newton in 1788—but Simon was not satisfied even with Moses.

“Yo’ see, Moses wur put in’ th’ ark o’ bullrushes o’ purpose, an’ noather thee nor mi’s a Pharaoh’s dowter, an’ th’ little chap’s not loike to be browt oop i’ a pallis.”

Towards the end of the week he burst into the room; “Oi hev it, lass, oi hev it! We’n co’ the lad ‘Irk;’ nob’dy’ll hev a neame loike that, and it’ll tell its own story; an’ fur th’ after-neame, aw reckon he mun tak’ ours.”

Marriages were solemnized in the richly-carved choir of the venerable old Church, but churchings and baptisms in a large adjoining chapel; and thither Bess, who carried the baby, was ushered, followed by Simon and Mat Cooper, who were to act as its other sponsors.