He was
walking from Ambergate to Buxton, and had reached Miller's Dale about
noon, just as the millers were leaving the flour mills for dinner. One
would have thought that the sight of a white hat would have delighted
the millers, but as these hats were rather dear, and beyond the
financial reach of the man in the street, they had become an object of
derision to those who could not afford to wear them, the music-hall
answer to the question "Who stole the donkey?" being at that time "The
man with the white hat!"
He had met one group of the millers coming up the hill and another lot
was following, when a man in the first group suddenly turned round and
shouted to a man in the second group, "I say, Jack, who stole the
donkey?" But Jack had not yet passed my brother, and, as he had still to
face him, he dared not give the customary answer, so, instead of
replying "The man with the white hat," he called out in the Derbyshire
dialect, with a broad grin on his face, "Th' feyther." A roar of
laughter both behind and in front, in which my brother heartily joined,
followed this repartee.
Probably some of the opprobrium attached to the white hat was because of
its having been an emblem of the Radicals.
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