Mr. Beresford Hope recollected that in a Surrey town church the notices given out by the clerk included the announcement of the meetings at the principal inn of the town of the executors of a deceased duke.

In the days of that extraordinary free-and-easy go-as-you-please style of service which prevailed at the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth century, the most extraordinary announcements were frequently made by the clerk, and very numerous stories are told of the laxity of the times and the quaintness of the remarks of the clerk.

An old Shropshire clerk gave out on Easter Day the following extraordinary notice:

"Last Friday was Good Friday, but we've forgotten un; so next Friday will be."

Another clerk gave out a strange notice on Quinquagesima Sunday with regard to the due observance of Ash Wednesday. He said: "There will be no service on Wednesday—'coss why? Mester be going hunting, and so beeze I!" with triumphant emphasis. He is not the only sporting clerk of whom history speaks, and in the biographies of some worthies of the profession we hope to mention the achievements of a clerkly tailor who denied himself every luxury of life in order to save enough money to buy and keep a horse in order that he might follow the hounds "like a gentleman."

Sporting parsons have furnished quite a crop of stories with regard to strange notices given out by their clerks. Some of them are well known and have often been repeated; but perhaps it is well that they should not be omitted here.

About the year 1850 a clerk gave out in his rector's hearing this notice: "There'll be no service next Sunday, as the rector's going out grouse-shooting."

A Devonshire hunting parson went to help a neighbouring clergyman in the old days when all kinds of music made up the village choir. Unfortunately some difficulty arose in the tuning of the instruments. The fiddles and bass-viol would not accord, and the parson grew impatient. At last, leaning over the reading-desk and throwing up his arms, he shouted out, "Hark away, Jack! Hark away, Jack! Tally-ho! Tally-ho![71]"

[Footnote 71: Mumpits and Crumpits, by Sarah Hewitt, p. 175.]

Another clerk caused amusement and consternation in a south-country parish and roused the rector's wrath. The young rector, who was of a sporting turn of mind, told him that he wanted to get to Worthing on a Sunday afternoon in time for the races which began on the following day, and that therefore there would be no service. This was explained to the clerk in confidence. The rector's horror may be imagined when he heard him give out in loud sonorous tones: "This is to give notice, no suvviss here this arternoon, becos measter meyans to get to Worthing to-night to be in good toime for reayces to-morrow mornin'."

Old Moody, of Redbourn, Herts, was a typical parish clerk, and his vicar, Lord Frederick Beauclerk, and the curate, the Rev. W.S. Wade, were both hunting parsons of the old school. One Sunday morning Moody announced, just before giving out the hymn, that "the vicar was going on Friday to the throwing off of the Leicestershire hounds, and could not return home until Monday next week; therefore next Sunday there would not be any service in the church on that day." Moody was quite one of the leading characters of the place, whose words and opinions were law.

No one in those days thought of disputing the right or questioning the conduct of a rector closing the church, and abandoning the accustomed services on a Sunday, in order to keep a sporting engagement.

That other notice about the fishing parson is well known. The clerk announced: "This is to gi notus, there won't be no surviss here this arternoon becos parson's going fishing in the next parish." When he was remonstrated with after service for giving out such a strange notice, he replied:

"Parson told I so 'fore church."

"Surely he said officiating—not fishing?" said his monitor. "The bishop would not be pleased to hear of one of his clergy going fishing on a Sunday afternoon."

The clerk was not convinced, and made a clever defence, grounded on the employment of some of the Apostles. The reader's imagination will supply the gist of the argument.

Another rector, who had lost his favourite setter, told his clerk to make inquiries about it, but was much astonished to hear him give it out as a notice in church, coupled with the offer of a reward of three pounds if the dog should be restored to his owner.

The clerk of the sporting parson was often quite as keen as his master in following the chase. It was not unusual for rectors to take "occasional services," weddings or funerals, on the way to a meet, wearing "pink" under their surplices. A wedding was proceeding in a Devonshire church, and when the happy pair were united and the Psalm was just about to be said, the clerk called out, "Please to make 'aste, sir, or he'll be gone afore you have done." The parson nodded and looked inquiringly at the clerk, who said, "He's turned into the vuzz bushes down in ten acres. Do look sharp, sir[72]."

[Footnote 72: This story is told by Mrs. Hewett in her Peasant Speech of Devon, but I have ventured to anglicise the broad Devonshire a little, and to suggest that the scene could scarcely have taken place on a Sunday morning, as Mrs. Hewett suggests in her admirable book.]

The story is told of a rector who, when walking to church across the squire's park during a severe winter, found a partridge apparently frozen to death. He placed the poor bird in the voluminous pocket of his coat. During the service the warmth of the rector's pocket revived the bird and thawed it back to life; and when during the sermon the rector pulled out his handkerchief, the revived bird flew vigorously away towards the west end of the church. The clerk, who sat in his seat below, was not unaccustomed to the task of beating for the squire's shooting parties, called out lustily:

"It be all right, sir; I've marked him down in the belfry."

The fame of the Rev. John Russell, the sporting parson of Swymbridge, is widespread, and his parish clerk, William Chapple, is also entitled to a small niche beneath the statue of the great man. The curate had left, and Mr. Russell inserted the following advertisement:

"Wanted, a curate for Swymbridge; must be a gentleman of moderate and orthodox views."

The word orthodox rather puzzled the inhabitants of Swymbridge, who asked Chapple what it meant. The clerk did not know, but was unwilling to confess such ignorance, and knowing his master's predilections, replied, "I 'spects it be a chap as can ride well to hounds."

The strangest notice ever given out in church that I ever have heard of, related to a set of false teeth. The story has been told by many. Perhaps Cuthbert Bede's version is the best. An old rector of a small country parish had been compelled to send to a dentist his set of false teeth, in order that some repairs might be made. The dentist had faithfully promised to send them back "by Saturday," but the Saturday's post did not bring the box containing the rector's teeth. There was no Sunday post, and the village was nine miles from the post town. The dentist, it afterwards appeared, had posted the teeth on the Saturday afternoon with the full conviction that their owner would receive them on Sunday morning in time for service. The old rector bravely tried to do that duty which England expects every man to do, more especially if he is a parson and if it be Sunday morning; but after he had mumbled through the prayers with equal difficulty and incoherency, he decided that it would be advisable to abandon any further attempts to address his congregation on that day. While the hymn was being sung he summoned his clerk to the vestry, and then said to him, "It is quite useless for me to attempt to go on. The fact is, that my dentist has not sent me back my artificial teeth; and as it is impossible for me to make myself understood, you must tell the congregation that the service is ended for this morning, and that there will be no service this afternoon." The old clerk went back to his desk; the singing of the hymn was brought to an end; and the rector, from his retreat in the vestry, heard the clerk address the congregation as follows:

"This is to give notice! as there won't be no sarmon, nor no more service this mornin', so you'd better all go whum (home); and there won't be no sarvice this afternoon, as the rector ain't got his artful teeth back from the dentist!"

This story so amused George Cruikshank that he wanted to make an illustration of it. But the journal in which it ought to have appeared was very short-lived. Hence Cruikshank's drawing was lost to the world.

The clerk is a firm upholder of established custom. "We will now sing the evening hymn," said the rector of an East Anglian church in the sixties. "No, sir, it's doxology to-night." The preacher again said, "We'll sing the evening hymn." The clerk, however, persisted, "It's doxology to-night"; and doxology it was, in spite of the parson's protests.

In the days when parish notices with reference to the lost, stolen, or strayed animals were read out in church at the commencement of the service, the clerk of a church [my informant has forgotten the name of the parish] rose in his place and said:

"This is to give notice that my Lady —— has lost her little dog; he comes to the name of Shock; he is all white except two patches of black on his sides and he has got—eh?—what?—yes—no—upon my soul he has got four eyes!" It should have been sore eyes, but the long s had misled the clerk.

The clerk does not always shine as an orator, but a correspondent who writes from the Charterhouse can vouch for the following effort of one who lived in a village not a hundred miles from Harrow about thirty years ago.

There was a tea for the school children, at which the clerk, a farm labourer, spoke thus: "You know, my friends, that if we wants to get a good crop of anything we dungs the ground. Now what I say is, if we wants our youngsters to crop properly, we must see that they are properly dunged—- put the larning into them like dung, and they'll do all right."

The subject of the Disestablishment of the Church was scarcely contemplated by a clerk in the diocese of Peterborough, who, after the amalgamation of two parishes, stated that he was desired by the vicar to announce that the services in each parish would be morning and evening to all eternity. It is thought that he meant to say alternately.

I have often referred to the ancient clerkly method of giving out the hymns. It was a terrible blow to the clerk when the parsons began to interfere with his prerogative and give out the hymns themselves. All clerks did not revenge themselves on the usurpers of their ancient right as did one of their number, who was very indignant when a strange clergyman insisted on giving out the hymns himself. In due course he gave out "the fifty-third hymn," when out popped the old clerk's head from under the red curtains which hung round the gallery, and which gave him the appearance of wearing a nightcap, and he shouted, "That a baint! A be the varty-zeventh."

The following account of a notice, which was scarcely authorised, shows the homely manners of former days. It was at Sapiston Church, a small village on the Duke of Grafton's estate. The grandfather of the present Duke was returning from a shooting expedition, and was passing the church on Sunday afternoon while service was going on. The Duke quietly entered the vestry, and signed to the clerk to come to him. The Duke gave the man a hare, and told him to put it into the parson's trap, and give a complimentary message about it at the end of the service. But the clerk, knowing his master would be pleased at the little attention, could not refrain from delivering both hare and message at once before the whole congregation. At the close of the hymn before the sermon he marched into a prominent position holding up the gift, and shouted out, "His Grace's compliments, and, please sir, he's sent ye a hare."

In giving out the hymns or Psalms many difficulties of pronunciation would often arise. One clerk had many struggles over the line, "Awed by Thy gracious word." He could not manage that tiresome first word, and always called it "a wed." The old metrical version of the Psalm, "Like as the hart desireth the water-brooks," etc. is still with us, and a beautiful hymn it is:

"As pants the hart for cooling streams When heated in the chase."

A Northumbrian clerk used to give out the words thus:

"As pants the 'art for coolin' streams When 'eated in the chaise,"

which seems to foreshadow the triumph of modern civilisation, the carted deer, a mode of stag-hunting that was scarcely contemplated by Tate and Brady.



CHAPTER XIV

SLEEPY CHURCH AND SLEEPY CLERKS

There was a time when the Church of England seemed to be asleep. Perhaps it may have been that "tired nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep," was only preparing her exhausted energies for the unwonted activities of the last half-century; or was it the sleep that presaged death? Her enemies told her so in plain and unvarnished language. Her friends, too, said that she was folding her robes to die with what dignity she could. Lethargy, sloth, sleep—a dead, dull, dreary sleep—fell like a leaden pall upon her spiritual life, darkening the light that shone but vaguely through the storied panes of her mediaeval windows, while a paralysing numbness crippled her limbs and quenched her activity.

Such scenes as Archbishop Benson describes as his early recollection of Upton, near Droitwich, were not uncommon. The church was aisleless, and the middle passage, with high pews on each side, led up to the chancel-arch, in which was a "three-decker," fifteen feet high. The clerk wore a wig and immense horn spectacles. He was a shoemaker, dressed in black, with a white tie. In the gallery sat "the music"—a clarionet, flute, violin, and 'cello. The clerk gave out the "Twentieth Psalm of David," and the fiddlers tuned for a moment and then played at once. Then they struck up, and the clerk, absolutely alone, in a majestic voice which swayed up and down without regard to time or tune, sang it through like the braying of an ass; not a soul else joined in; the farmers amused and smiling at each other. Such scenes were quite usual.

In Cornwall affairs were worse. In one church the curate-in-charge had to be chained to the altar rails while he read the service, as he had a harmless mania, which made him suddenly flee from the church if his own activities were for an instant suspended, as, for example, by a response. The churchwarden, a farmer, kept the padlock-key in his pocket till the service was safely over, and then released the imprisoned cleric. At another Cornish church the vicar's sister used to read the lessons in a deep bass voice.

Congregations were often very sparse. Few people attended, and perhaps none on weekdays, unless the clerk was in his place. On such occasions the parson was tempted to emulate the humour of Dean Swift, who at the first weekday service that he held after his appointment to the living of Laracor, in the diocese of Meath, after waiting for some time in vain for a congregation, began the service, addressing his clerk, "Dearly beloved Roger, the scripture moveth you and me in sundry places," etc.

When the Psalms were read, you heard the first verse read in a mellifluous and cultured voice. Perhaps it was the evening of the twenty-eighth day of the month, and you listened to the sacred words of Psalm cxxxvii., "By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept, when we remembered thee, O Sion." Then followed a bellow from a raucous throat: "Has fur ur 'arp, we 'anged 'em hup hupon the trees that hare thurin." And then at the end of the Lord's Prayer, after every one had finished, the same voice came drowsily cantering in: "For hever and hever, Haymen." Sometimes we heard, "Let us sing to the praise and glory of God the 'undred and sixtieth Psalm—'Ymn 'ooever." The numbers of the hymns or Psalms were scored on the two sides of a slate. Sometimes the functionary in the gallery forgot to turn the slate after the first hymn. "Let us sing," began the clerk—(pause)—"Turn the slate, will you, if you please, Master Scroomes?" he continued, addressing the neglectful person.

The singing was no mechanical affair of official routine—it was a drama. "As the moment of psalmody approached a slate appeared in front of the gallery, advertising in bold characters the Psalm about to be sung. The clerk gave out the Psalm, and then migrated to the gallery, where in company with a bassoon and two key-bugles, a carpenter understood to have an amazing power of singing 'counter,' and two lesser musical stars, formed the choir. Hymns were not known. The New Version was regarded with melancholy tolerance. 'Sternhold and Hopkins' formed the main source of musical tastes. On great occasions the choir sang an anthem, in which the key-bugles always ran away at a great pace, while the bassoon every now and then boomed a flying shot after them." It was all very curious, very quaint, very primitive. The Church was asleep, and cared not to disturb the relics of old crumbling inefficiency. The Church was asleep, the congregation slept, and the clerk often slept too.

Hogarth's engraving of The Sleeping Congregation is a parable of the state of the Church of England in his day. It is a striking picture truly. The parson is delivering a long and drowsy discourse on the text: "Come unto Me, all ye that labour, and I will give you rest." The congregation is certainly resting, and the pulpit bears the appropriate verse: "I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labour in vain." The clerk is attired in his cassock and bands, contrives to keep one eye awake during the sermon, and this wakeful eye rests upon a comely fat matron, who is fast asleep, and has evidently been meditating "on matrimony," as her open book declares. A sleepy church, sleepy congregation, sleepy times!

Many stories are told of dull and sleepy clerks.

A canon of a northern cathedral tells me of one such clerk, whose duty it was, when the rector finished his sermon, to say "Amen." On a summer afternoon, this aged official was overtaken with drowsiness, and as soon as the clergyman had given out his text, slept the sleep of the just. Sermons in former years were remarkable for their length and many divisions.

After the "firstly" was concluded, the preacher paused. The clerk, suddenly awaking, thought that the discourse was concluded, and pronounced his usual "Arummen." The congregation rose, and the service came to a close. As the gathering dispersed, the squire slipped half a crown into the clerk's hand, and whispered: "Thomas, you managed that very well, and deserve a little present. I will give you the same next time."



At Eccleshall, near Sheffield, the clerk, named Thompson, had been, in the days of his youth, a good cricketer, and always acted as umpire for the village team. One hot Sunday morning, the sermon being very long, old Thompson fell asleep. His dream was of his favourite game; for when the parson finished his discourse and waited for the clerk's "Amen," old Thompson awoke, and, to the amazement of the congregation, shouted out "Over!" After all, he was no worse than the cricketing curate who, after reading the first lesson, announced: "Here endeth the first innings."

Every one has heard of that Irish clerk who used to snore so loudly during the sermon that he drowned the parson's voice. The old vicar, being of a good-natured as well as a somewhat humorous turn of mind, devised a plan for arousing his lethargic clerk. He provided himself with a box of hard peas, and when the well-known snore echoed through the church, he quietly dropped one of the peas on the head of the offender, who was at once aroused to the sense of his duties, and uttered a loud "Amen."

This plan acted admirably for a time, but unfortunately the parson was one day carried away by his eloquence, gesticulated wildly, and dropped the whole box of peas on the head of the unfortunate clerk. The result was such a strenuous chorus of "Amens," that the laughter of the congregation could not be restrained, and the peas were abolished and consigned to the limbo of impractical inventions. Possibly the story may be an invention too.

One of the causes which tended to the unpopularity of the Church was the accession of George IV to the throne of England. "Church and King" were so closely connected in the mind of the people that the sins of the monarch were visited on the former, and deemed to have brought some discredit on it. Moreover, the King by his first act placed the loyal members of the Church in some difficulty, and that was the order to expunge the name of the ill-used, if erring, Queen Caroline from the Prayers for the Royal Family in the Book of Common Prayer.

One good clergyman, Dr. Parr, vicar of Hatton, placed an interesting record in his Prayer Book after the required erasure: "It is my duty as a subject and as an ecclesiastic to read what is prescribed by my Sovereign as head of the Church, but it is not my duty to express my approbation." The sympathy of the people was with the injured Queen, and they knew not how much the clergy agreed with them. During the trial popular excitement ran high. In a Berkshire village the parish clerk "improved the occasion" by giving out in church "the first, fourth, eleventh, and twelfth verses of the thirty-fifth Psalm" in Tate and Brady's New Version:

"False witnesses with forged complaints Against my truth combined, And to my charge such things they laid As I had ne'er designed."

These words he sang most lustily.

Cowper mentions a similar application of psalmody to political affairs in his Task:

"So in the chapel of old Ely House When wandering Charles who meant to be the third, Had fled from William, and the news was fresh, The simple clerk, but loyal, did announce, And eke did rear right merrily, two staves Sung to the praise and glory of King George."

It was not an unusual thing for a parish clerk to select a psalm suited to the occasion when any special excitement gave him an opportunity. Branston, the satirist, in his Art of Politicks published in 1729, alluded to this misapplication of psalmody occasionally made by parish clerks in the lines:

"Not long since parish clerks with saucy airs Apply'd King David's psalms to State affairs."

In order to avoid this unfortunate habit, a country rector in Devonshire compiled in 1725 "Twenty-six Psalms of Thanksgiving, Praise, Love, and Glory, for the use of a parish church, with the omission of all the imprecatory psalms, lest a parish clerk or any other should be whetting his spleen, or obliging his spite, when he should be entertaining his devotion."

Sometimes the clerks ventured to apply the verses of the Psalms to their own private needs and requirements, so as to convey gentle hints and suggestions to the ears of those who could supply their needs. Canon Ridgeway tells of the old clerk of the Church of King Charles the Martyr at Tunbridge Wells. His name was Jenner. He was a well-known character; he used to have a pipe and pitch the tune, and also select the hymns. It was commonly said that the congregation always knew when the lodgings in his house on Mount Sion were unlet; for when this was the case he was wont to give out the Psalm:

"Mount Sion is a pleasant place to dwell."

At Great Yarmouth, until about the year 1850, the parish clerk was always invited to the banquets or "feasts" given by the corporation of the borough; and he was honoured annually with a card of invitation to the "mayor's feast" on Michaelmas Day. On one occasion the mayor-elect had omitted to send a card to the clerk, Mr. David Absolon, who was clerk from 1811 to 1831, and had been a member of the corporation and common councillor previous to his appointment to his ecclesiastical office. On the following Sunday, Master David Absolon reminded his worship of his remissness by giving out the following verse, directing his voice at the same time to the mayor-elect:

Let David his accustomed place In thy remembrance find."

The words in Tate and Brady's metrical version of Psalm cxxxii. run thus:

"Let David, Lord, a constant place In Thy remembrance find[73]."

[Footnote 73: History of St. Nicholas' Church, Great Yarmouth, by the present Clerk, Mr. Edward J. Lupson, p. 24.]

In the same town great excitement used to attend the election of the mayor on 29 August in each year. Before the election the corporation attended service in the parish church, and the clerk on these occasions gave out for singing "the first two staves of the fifteenth Psalm:

"Lord, who's the happy man," etc.

The passing of the Municipal Act changed the manner and time of the election, but it did not take away the interest felt in the event. As long as Tate and Brady's version of the Psalms was used in the church, that is until the year 1840, these "two staves" were annually sung on the Sunday preceding the election[74].

[Footnote 74: Ibid., p. 23.]

In these days of reverent worship it seems hardly possible that the beautiful expressions in the psalms of praise to Almighty God should ever have been prostituted to the baser purposes of private gain or municipal elections.

Sleepy times and sleepy clerks—and yet these were not always sleepy; in fact, far too lively, riotous, and unruly. At least, so the poor rector of Hayes found them in the middle of the eighteenth century. Such conduct in church is scarcely credible as that which was witnessed in this not very remote parish church in not very remote times. The registers of the parish of Hayes tell the story in plain language. On 18 March, 1749, "the clerk gave out the 100th Psalm, and the singers immediately opposed him, and sung the 15th, and bred a disturbance. The clerk then ceased." Poor man, what else could he have done, with a company of brawling, bawling singers shouting at him from the gallery! On another occasion affairs were worse, the ringers and others disturbing the service, from the beginning of the service to the end of the sermon, by ringing the bells and going into the gallery to spit below. On another occasion a fellow came into church with a pot of beer and a pipe, and remained smoking in his pew until the end of the sermon[75]. O tempora! O mores! as some disconsolate clergymen wrote in their registers when the depravity of the times was worse than usual. The slumbering congregation of Hogarth's picture would have been a comfort to the distracted parson.

[Footnote 75: Antiquary, vol. xviii, p. 65. Quoted in Social Life as told by Parish Registers, p. 54.]

To prevent people from sleeping during the long sermons a special officer was appointed, in order to banish slumber when the parson was long in preaching. This official was called a sluggard-waker, and was usually our old friend the parish clerk with a new title. Several persons, perhaps reflecting in their last moments on all the good advice which they had missed through slumbering during sermon time, have bequeathed money for the support of an officer who should perambulate the church, and call to attention any one who, through sleep, was missing the preacher's timely admonition. Richard Dovey, of Farmcote, in 1659 left property at Claverley, Shropshire, with the condition that eight shillings should be paid to, and a room provided for, a poor man, who should undertake to awaken sleepers, and to whip out dogs from the church of Claverley during divine service[76].

[Footnote 76: Old English Customs and Curious Bequests, S.H. Edwards (1842), p. 220.]

John Rudge, of Trysull, Staffordshire, left a like bequest to a poor man to go about the parish church of Trysull during sermon to keep people awake, and to keep dogs out of church[77]. Ten shillings a year is paid by a tenant of Sir John Bridges, at Chislett, Kent, as a charge on lands called Dog-whipper's Marsh, to a person for keeping order in the church during service[78], and from time immemorial an acre of land at Peterchurch, Herefordshire, was appropriated to the use of a person for keeping dogs out of church, such person being appointed by the minister and churchwardens.

[Footnote 77: Ibid., p. 221.]

[Footnote 78: Ibid., p. 222.]

Mr. W. Andrews, Librarian of the Hull Institute, has collected in his Curiosities of the Church much information concerning sluggard-wakers and dog-whippers. The clerk in one church used a long staff, at one end of which was a fox's brush for gently arousing a somnolent female, while at the other end was a knob for a more forcible awakening of a male sleeper. The Dunchurch sluggard-waker used a stout wand with a fork at the end of it. During the sermon he stepped stealthily up and down the nave and aisles and into the gallery marking down his prey. And no one resented his forcible awakenings.

The sluggard-waker and dog-whipper appear in many old churchwardens' account-books. Thus in the accounts of Barton-on-Humber there is an entry for the year 1740: "Paid Brocklebank for waking sleepers 2 s. 0." At Castleton the officer in 1722 received 10 s. 0[79]. The clerk in his capacity of dog-whipper had often arduous duties to perform in the old dale churches of Yorkshire when farmers and shepherds frequently brought their dogs to church. The animals usually lay very quietly beneath their masters' seat, but occasionally there would be a scrimmage and fight, and the clerk's staff was called into play to beat the dogs and produce order.

[Footnote 79: The reader will find numerous entries relating to this subject in the work of Mr. W. Andrews to which I have referred.]

Why dogs should have been ruthlessly and relentlessly whipped out of churches I can scarcely tell. The Highland shepherd's dog usually lies contentedly under his master's seat during a long service, and even an archbishop's collie, named Watch, used to be very still and well-behaved during the daily service, only once being roused to attention and a stately progress to the lectern by the sound of his master's voice reading the verse "I say unto all, Watch." But our ancestors made war against dogs entering churches. In mediaeval and Elizabethan times such does not seem to have been the case, as one of the duties of the clerks in those days was to make the church clean from the "shomeryng of dogs." The nave of the church was often used for secular purposes, and dogs followed their masters. Mastiffs were sometimes let loose in the church to guard the treasures, and I believe that I am right in stating that chancel rails owe their origin to the presence of dogs in churches, and were erected to prevent them from entering the sanctuary. Old Scarlett bears a dog-whip as a badge of his office, and the numerous bequests to dog-whippers show the importance of the office.

Nor were dogs the only creatures who were accustomed to receive chastisement in church. The clerk was usually armed with a cane or rod, and woe betide the luckless child who talked or misbehaved himself during service. Frequently during the course of a long sermon the sound of a cane (the Tottenham clerk had a split cane which made no little noise when used vigorously) striking a boy's back was heard and startled a sleepy congregation. It was all quite usual. No one objected, or thought anything about it, and the sermon proceeded as if nothing had happened. Paul Wootton, clerk at Bromham, Wilts, seventy years ago performed various duties during the service, taking his part in the gallery among the performers as bass, flute serpent, an instrument unknown now, etc., pronouncing his Amen ore rotundo and during the sermon armed with a long stick sitting among the children to preserve order. If any one of the small creatures felt that opere in longo fas est obrepere somnum, the long stick fell with unerring whack upon the urchin's head. When Mr. Stracey Clitherow went to his first curacy at Skeyton, Norfolk, in 1845, he found the clerk sweeping the whole chancel clear of snow which had fallen through the roof. The font was of wood painted orange and red. The singers sat within the altar rails with a desk for their books inside the rails. There was a famous old clerk, named Bird, who died only a year or two ago, aged ninety, and, as Mr. Clitherow informed Bishop Stanley, was the best man in the parish, and was well worthy of that character.

Even in London churches unfortunate events happened, and somnolent clerks were not confined to the country. A correspondent remembers that in 1860, when St. Martin's-in-the-Fields was closed for the purpose of redecorating, his family migrated to St. Matthew's Chapel, Spring Gardens (recently demolished), where one hot Sunday evening one of the curates of St. Martin's was preaching, and in the course of his sermon said that it was the duty of the laity to pray that God would "endue His ministers with righteousness." The clerk was at the moment sound asleep, but suddenly aroused by the familiar words, which acted like a bugle call to a slumbering soldier, he at once slid down on the hassock at his feet and uttered the response "And make Thy chosen people joyful." My informant remarks that the "chosen people" who were present became "joyful" to an unseemly degree, in spite of strenuous efforts to restrain their feelings.

Sometimes the clerk was not the only sleeper. A tenor soloist of Wednesbury Old Church eighty years ago used to tell the story of the vicar of Wednesbury, who one very sultry afternoon retired into the vestry, which was under the western tower, to don his black gown while a hymn was being sung by the expectant congregation. The hymn having been sung through, and the preacher not having returned to ascend the pulpit, the clerk gave out the last verse again. Still no parson. Then he started the hymn, directing it to be sung all through again; but still the vicar returned not. At last in desperation he gave out that they "would now sing," etc. etc., the 119th Psalm. Mercifully before they had all sunk back into their seats exhausted the long-lost parson made his hurried reappearance. The poor old gentleman had dropped into an arm-chair in the vestry, and overcome by the heat had fallen soundly asleep. As to the clerk, he could not leave his seat to go in search of him; there was no precedent for both vicar and clerk to be away from the three-decker before the service was brought to a close.

The old clerk is usually intensely loyal to the Church and to his clergyman, but there have been some exceptions. An example of a disloyal clerk comes from the neighbourhood of Barnstaple.

A parish clerk, apparently religious and venerable, held his position in a village church in that district for thirty years. He carried out his duties with regularity and thoroughness equalled only by the parish priest. This old clerk would frequently make remarks—not altogether pleasing—about Nonconformists, whom he summed up as a lot of "mithudy nuezenses" (methodist nuisances).

A new rector came and brought with him new ideas. The parish clerk would not be required for the future. As soon as the old clerk heard this he attached himself to a local dissenting body and joined with them to worship in their small chapel. This, after thirty years' service in the Church and a bitter feeling against Nonconformists, is rather remarkable.

In the forties there was a sleepy clerk at Hampstead, a very portly man, who did ample justice to his bright red waistcoat and brass buttons. The church had a model old-time three-decker. The lower deck was occupied by the clerk, the upper deck by the reader, and the quarter-deck by the preacher. The clerk, during the sermon, would often fall asleep and make known his state by a snore. Then the reader would tap his bald head with a hymn-book, whereupon he would wake up and startle the congregation by a loud and prolonged "Ah-men."

We are accustomed now to have our churches beautifully decorated with flowers and fruits and holly and evergreens at the great festivals and harvest thanksgiving services. Sometimes on the latter occasions our decorations are perhaps a little too elaborate, and remind one of a horticultural show. No such charge could be brought against the old-fashioned method of church decoration. Christmas was the only season when it was attempted, and sprigs of holly stuck at the corners of the old square pews in little holes made for the purpose were always deemed sufficient. This was always the duty of the clerk. Later on, when a country church was found to be elaborately decorated for Christmas and the clerk was questioned on the subject, he replied, shaking his head, "Ah! we're getting a little High Church now." At Langport, Somerset, the pews were similarly adorned on Palm Sunday with sprigs of the catkins from willow trees to represent palms.

I have already mentioned some instances of clerks who were sometimes elated by the dignity of the office and full of conceit. Wesley enjoyed the experience of having a conceited clerk at Epworth, who not only was proud of his singing and other accomplishments, but also of his personal appearance. He delighted to wear Wesley's old clerical clothes and especially his wig, which was much too big for the insignificant clerk's head. John Wesley must have had a sense of humour, though perhaps it might have been exhibited in a more appropriate place. However, he was determined to humble his conceited clerk, and said to him one Sunday morning, "John, I shall preach on a particular subject this morning, and shall choose my own psalm, of which I will give out the first line, and you will proceed and repeat the next as usual." When the time for psalmody arrived Wesley gave out, "Like to an owl in ivy bush," and the clerk immediately responded, "That rueful thing am I." The members of the congregation looked up and saw his small head half-buried in his large wig, and could not restrain their smiles. The clerk was mortified and the rector gratified that he should have been taught a lesson and learned to be less vain.

Old-fashioned ways die hard. Only seven years ago the incumbent of a small Somerset parish found when in the pulpit that he had left his spectacles at home. Casting a shrewd glance around, he perceived just below him, well within reach, one of his parishioners who was wearing a large pair of what in rustic circles are termed "barnacles" tied behind his head. Stretching down, the parson plucked them from the astonished owner's brow, and, fitting them on his clerical nose, proceeded to deliver his discourse. Thenceforward the clerk, doubtless fearing for his own glasses, never failed to carry to church a second pair wherewith to supply, if need be, his coadjutor's shortcomings.

Another and final story of sleepy manners comes to us from the north country. A short-sighted clergyman of what is known as the "old school" was preaching one winter afternoon to a slumberous congregation. Dusk was falling, the church was badly lighted, and his manuscript difficult to decipher. He managed to stumble along until he reached a passage which he rendered as follows: "Enthusiasm, my brethren, enthusiasm in a good cause is an excellent—excellent quality, but unless it is tempered with judgment, it is apt to lead us—apt to lead us—Here, Thomas," handing the sermon to the clerk, "go to the window and see what it is apt to lead us into."



CHAPTER XV

THE CLERK IN ART

The finest portrait ever painted of a parish clerk is that of Orpin, clerk of Bradford-on-Avon, Wilts, whose interesting old house still stands near the grand parish church and the beautiful little Saxon ecclesiastical structure. This picture is the work of Thomas Gainsborough, R.A., and is now happily preserved in the National Gallery. Orpin has a fine and noble face upon which the sunlight is shining through a window as he turns from the Divine Book to see the glories of the blue sky.

"Some word of life e'en now has met His calm benignant eye; Some ancient promise breathing yet Of immortality. Some heart's deep language which the glow Of faith unwavering gives; And every feature says 'I know That my Redeemer lives.'"

The size of this canvas is four feet by three feet two inches. Orpin is wearing a blue coat, black vest, white neck-cloth, and dark breeches. His hair is grey and curly, and falls upon his shoulders. He sits on a gilt-nailed chair at a round wooden table, on which is a reading-easel, supporting a large volume bound in dark green, and labelled "Bible, Vol. I." The background is warm brown.

Of this picture a critic states: "The very noble character of the worthy old clerk's head was probably an additional inducement to Gainsborough to paint the picture, Seldom does so fine a subject present itself to the portrait painter, and Gainsborough evidently sought to do justice to his venerable model by unusual and striking effect of lighting, and by more than ordinary care in execution. It might almost seem like impertinence to eulogise such painting, as this canvas contains painting which, unlike the works of Reynolds, seems fresh and pure as the day it left the easel; and it would be still more futile to attempt to define the master's method."

The history of the portrait is interesting. It was painted at Shockerwick, near Bradford, where Wiltshire, the Bath carrier, lived, who loved art so much that he conveyed to London Gainsborough's pictures from the year 1761 to 1774 entirely free of charge. The artist rewarded him by presenting him with some of his paintings, The Return from Harvest, The Gipsies' Repast, and probably this portrait of Orpin was one of his gifts. It was sold at Christie's in 1868 by a descendant of the art-loving carrier, and purchased for the nation by Mr. Boxall for the low sum of L325.

The mediaeval clerk appears in many ancient manuscripts and illuminations, which show us, better than words can describe, the actual duties which he was called upon to perform. The British Museum possesses a number of pontificals and other illustrated manuscripts containing artistic representations of clerks. We see him accompanying the priest who is taking the last sacrament to the sick. He is carrying a taper and a bell, which he is evidently ringing as he goes, its tones asking for the prayers of the faithful for the sick man's soul. This picture occurs in a fourteenth-century MS. [6 E. VI, f. 427], and in the same MS. we see another illustration of the priest administering the last sacrament attended by the clerk [6 E. VII, f. 70].



Another illustration shows the priest baptizing an infant which the male sponsor holds over the font, while the priest pours water over its head from a shallow vessel. The faithful parish clerk stands by the priest. This appears in the fifteenth-century MS. Egerton, 2019, f. 135.

In the MS. of Froissart's Chronicle there is an illustration of the coronation procession of Charles V of France. The clerk goes before the cross-bearer and the bishop bearing his holy-water vessel and his sprinkler for the purpose of aspersing the spectators. We have already given two illustrations taken from a fourteenth-century MS. in the British Museum, which depict the clerk, as the aquaebajalus, entering the lord's house and going first into the kitchen to sprinkle the cook with holy water, and then into the hall to perform a like duty to the lord and lady as they sit at dinner.

There is a fine picture in a French pontifical of the fifteenth century, which is in the British Museum (Tiberius, B. VIII, f. 43), of the anointing and coronation of a king of France. An ecclesiastical procession is represented meeting the king and his courtiers at the door of the cathedral of Rheims, and amongst the dignitaries we see the clerk bearing the holy-water vessel, the cross-bearer, and the thurifer swinging his censer. The clerk wears a surplice over a red tunic.

One other of these mediaeval representations of the clerk's duties may be mentioned. It is a fifteenth-century French MS. in the British Museum (Egerton, 2019, f. 142), and represents the last scenes of this mortal life. The absolution of the penitent, the administration of the last sacrament, the woman mourning for her husband and arranging the grave-clothes, the singing of the dirige, the burial, and the reception of the soul of the departed by our Lord in glory. The clerk appears in several of these scenes. He is kneeling behind the priest in the administration of the last sacrament. Robed in surplice and cope he is chanting the Psalms for the departed, and at the burial he is holding the holy-water vessel for the asperging of the corpse.

There are several paintings by English artists which represent the old-fashioned clerk in all his glory in his throne in the lowest seat of the "three-decker." Perhaps the most striking is the satirical sketch of the pompous eighteenth-century clerk as shown in Hogarth's engraving of The Sleeping Congregation, to which I have already referred. As a contrast to Hogarth's Sleeping Congregation we may place Webster's famous painting of a village choir, which is thoroughly life-like and inspiring. The old clerk with enrapt countenance is singing lustily. The musicians are performing on the 'cello, clarionet, and hautboy, and the singers are chanting very earnestly and very vigorously the strains of some familiar melody. The picture is a very exact presentment of an old village choir of the better sort.



It was perhaps such a choir as this that an aged friend remembers in a remote Cornish village. It was a mixed choir, led by a 'cello, flute, and clarionet. Tate and Brady's version of the Psalms was used alternately with a favourite anthem arranged by some of the members. "We'll wash our hands," the basses led off in stentorian tones. Then the tenors followed. Then the trebles in shrill voices—"washed hands." Finally, after a pause, the whole choir shouted triumphantly, "in innocencee"; and the congregation bore it, my friend naively remarks. The orchestra on one occasion struck work. Only the clerk, who played his 'cello, remained faithful. To prove his loyalty he appeared as usual, gave out a hymn of many verses, and sang it through in his clear bass voice, to the accompaniment of his instrument.

It was not an unusual thing for the clerk to be the only chorister in a village church, and then sometimes strange things happened. There was a favourite tune which required the first half of one of the lines to be repeated thrice. This led to such curious utterances as "My own sal," called out lustily three times, and then finished with "My own salvation's rock to praise." The thrice-repeated "My poor poll" was no less striking, but it was only a prelude to "My poor polluted heart." A chorus of women and girls in the west gallery sang lustily, "Oh for a man," bis, bis—a pause—"A mansion in the skies." Another clerk sang "And in the pie" three times, supplementing it with "And in the pious He delights." Another bade his hearers "Stir up this stew," but he was only referring to "This stupid heart of mine." Yet another sang lustily "Take Thy pill," but when the line was completed it was heard to be "Take Thy pilgrim home."

Returning to the artistic presentment of clerks, there is a fine sketch of one in Frith's famous painting of the Vicar of Wakefield, whose gentle manners and loving character as conceived by Goldsmith are admirably depicted by the artist. Near the vicar stands the faithful clerk, a dear old man, who is scarcely less reverend than his vicar.

There is an old print of a portion of the church of St. Margaret, Westminster, which shows the Carolian "three-decker," a very elaborate structure, crowned by a huge sounding-board. The clergyman is officiating in the reading desk, and a very nice-looking old clerk, clad in his black gown with bands, sits below. There is a pompous beadle with his flowing wig and a mace in an adjoining pew, and some members of the congregation appear at the foot of the "three-decker," and in the gallery. It is a very correct representation of the better sort of old-fashioned service.

The hall of the Parish Clerks' Company possesses several portraits of distinguished members of the profession, which have already been mentioned in the chapter relating to the history of the fraternity. By the courtesy of the company we are enabled to reproduce some of the paintings, and to record some of the treasures of art which the fraternity possesses.



CHAPTER XVI

WOMEN AS PARISH CLERKS

A woman cannot legally be elected to the office of parish clerk, though she may be a sexton. There was the famous case of Olive v. Ingram (12 George I) which determined this. One Sarah Bly was elected sexton of the parish of St. Botolph without Aldersgate by 169 indisputable votes and 40 which were given by women who were householders and paid to the church and poor, against 174 indisputable votes and 20 given by women for her male rival. Sarah Bly was declared elected, and the Court upheld the appointment and decreed that women could vote on such elections.

Cuthbert Bede states that in 1857 there were at least three female sextons, or "sextonesses," in the City of London, viz.: Mrs. Crook at St. Mary the Virgin, Aldermanbury; Mrs. E. Worley at St. Laurence, Jewry, King Street; and Mrs. Stapleton at St. Michael's, Wood Street. In 1867 Mrs. Noble was sextoness of St. John the Baptist, Peterborough. The Annual Register for 1759 mentions an extraordinary centenarian sextoness:

Died, April 30th, Mary Hall, sexton of Bishop Hill, York City, aged one hundred and five; she walked about and retained her senses till within three days of her death.

Evidently the duties of her office had not worn out the stalwart old dame.

Although legally a woman may not perform the duties of a parish clerk, there have been numerous instances of female holders of the office. In the census returns it is not quite unusual to see the names of women returned as parish clerks, and we have many who discharge the duties of churchwarden, overseer, rate-collector, and other parochial offices.

One Ann Hopps was parish clerk of Linton about the year 1770, but nothing is known of her by her descendants except her name. Madame D'Arblay speaks in her diary of that "poor, wretched, ragged woman, a female clerk" who showed her the church of Collumpton, Devon. This good woman inherited her office from her deceased husband and received the salary, but she did not take the clerk's place in the services on Sunday, but paid a man to perform that part of her functions.

The parish register of Totteridge tells of the fame of Elizabeth King, who was clerk of that place for forty-six years. The following extract tells its own story:

March 2nd, 1802, buried Elizabeth King, widow, for 46 years clerk of this parish, in the 91st year of her age, who died at Whetstone in the Parish of Finchley, Feb. 24th.

N.B.—This old woman, as long as she was able to attend, did constantly, and read on the prayer-days, with great strength and pleasure to the hearers, though not in the clerk's place; the desk being filled on the Sunday by her son-in-law, Benjamin Withall, who did his best[80].

[Footnote 80: Burn's History of Parish Registers, p. 129.]

Under the shade of the episcopal palace at Cuddesdon, at Wheatley, near Oxford, about sixty-five years ago, a female clerk, Mrs. Sheddon, performed the duties of the office which had been previously discharged by her husband. At Avington, near Hungerford, Berks, Mrs. Poffley was parish clerk for a period of twenty-five years at the beginning of the last century. About the same time Mary Mountford was parish clerk of Misterton, near Crewkerne, Somersetshire, for upwards of thirty years. A female clerk was acting at Igburgh, Norfolk, in 1853; and at Sudbrook, near Lincoln, in 1830, a woman also officiated and died in the service of the Church. Nor was the office confined to rural women of the working class. Mr. Ellacombe remembered to have seen "a gentle-woman acting as parish clerk of some church in London."

There are doubtless many other instances of women serving as parish clerks, and one of my correspondents remembers a very remarkable example.

In the village of Willoughton, Lincolnshire, more than seventy years ago, there lived an old dame named Betty Wells, who officiated as parish clerk. For many years Betty sat in the lowest compartment of the three-decker pulpit, reading the lessons and leading the responses, and, with the exception of ringing the church bell, fulfilling all the duties of clerk.

But Betty was also looked upon as a witch, and several stories are told of how she made things very unpleasant for those who offended her.

One day there had been a christening at which Betty had done her share; but by some unfortunate oversight she was not invited to the feast which took place afterwards. No sooner had the guests seated themselves at the table than a great cloud of soot fell down the chimney smothering all the good things, so that nothing could be eaten. Then, too late, they remembered that Betty Wells had not been invited, and perfectly confident were they that she had had her revenge by spoiling the feast.

One of the farmers let Betty have straw for bedding her pig in return for manure. When one of his men came to fetch the manure away, she thought he had taken too much. So she warned him that he would not go far—neither did he, for the cart tipped right over. And that was Betty again!

We know Betty had a husband, for we hear that one evening when he came home from his work his wife had ever so many tailors sitting on the table all busily stitching. When John came in they vanished.

A few people still remember Betty Wells, and they shake their heads as they say, "Well, you see, the old woman had a very queer-looking eye," giving you to understand that it was with that particular eye she worked all these wonders.

The story of Betty Wells has been gleaned from scraps supplied by various old people and collected by Miss Frances A. Hill, of Willoughton. The unfortunate christening feast took place after the baptism of her father, and the story was told to her by an old aunt, now dead, who was grown up at the time (1830) and could remember it all distinctly. The people who told Miss Hill about Betty and her weird witch-like ways fully believed in her supernatural powers.

Another Betty, whose surname was Finch, was employed at the beginning of the last century at Holy Trinity Church, Warrington, as a "bobber," or sluggard-waker[81]. She was the wife of the clerk, and was well fitted on account of her masculine form to perform this duty which usually fell to the lot of the parish clerk. She used to perambulate the church armed with a long rod, like a fishing-rod, which had a "bob" fastened to the end of it. With this instrument she effectually disturbed the peaceful slumbers of any one who was overcome with drowsiness. The whole family of Betty was ecclesiastically employed, as her son used to sing:

"My father's a clerk, My sister's a singer, My mother's a bobber, And I am a ringer."

[Footnote 81: W. Andrews, Curiosities of the Church, p. 176.]

One of my correspondents tells of another female clerk who officiated in a dilapidated old church with a defective roof, and who held an umbrella over the unfortunate clergyman when he was reading the service, in order to protect him from the drops of rain that poured down upon him.

Doubtless in country places there are many other churches where female clerks have discharged the duties of the office, but history has not, as far as I am aware, recorded their names or their services. Perhaps in an age in which women have taken upon themselves to perform all kinds of work and professional duties formerly confined to men alone, we may expect an increase in the number of female parish clerks, in spite of legal enactments and other absurd restrictions. Since women can be churchwardens, and have been so long ago as 1672, sextons, overseers and registrars of births, and much else, and even at one time were parish constables, it seems that the pleasant duties of a parish clerk might not be uncongenial to them, though they be debarred by law from receiving the title and rank of the office.



CHAPTER XVII

SOME YORKSHIRE CLERKS

During many years of the time that the Rev. John Torre occupied the rectory of Catwick, Thomas Dixon[82] was associated with him as parish clerk. He is described as a little man, old-looking for his age, and in the later years of his life able to walk only with difficulty. These peculiarities, however, did not prevent his winning a young woman for his wife. Possibly she saw the sterling character of the man, and admired and loved him for it.

[Footnote 82: This account of the clerks Dixon and Fewson was sent by the Rev. J. Gaskell Exton, and is published by the permission of the editor of the Yorkshire Weekly Post.]

Dixon was strongly attached to the rector, so much so, that to him neither the rector nor the things belonging to the rector, whether animate or inanimate, could do wrong. He had a watch, and even though it might not be one of the best, a watch was no small acquisition to a working man of his time. He did not live in the days of the three-and-sixpenny marvel, or of the half-crown wonder, now to be found in the pocket of almost every schoolboy. Dixon's watch was of the kind worn by the well-known Captain Cuttle, which Dickens describes as being "a silver watch, which was so big and so tight in the pocket that it came out like a bung" when its owner drew it from the depths to see the time. It must, consequently, have cost many half-crowns, but yet as timekeeper it was somewhat of a failure. In this, too, it resembled that of the famous captain of which its proud possessor, as everybody knows, used to say, "Put you back half-an-hour every morning, and about another quarter towards the afternoon, and you've a watch that can be equalled by a few and excelled by none." Dixon, therefore, when asked the time of day, was usually obliged to go through an arithmetical calculation before he could reply.

On Sunday, however, all was different; he then had no hesitation whatever in at once declaring the correct time. For every Sunday morning he put his watch by the rector's clock, and it mattered not how far the rector's clock might be fast or slow, what that clock said was the true time for Dixon. And though the remonstrances of the parishioners might be loud and long, they were all in vain, for according to the rector's clock he rang the church bells, and so the services commenced. He loved the rector, therefore the rector's clock could not be wrong. Evidently Dixon was capable of strong affection, a quality of no mean moral order.

Before the enclosure of parishes was common, and their various fields separated by hedges or other fences; before, too, the ordnance survey with its many calculations was an accomplished fact, much more measuring of land in connection with work done each year was required than at present. It was a necessity, therefore, that each village should have in or near it a man skilled in the science of calculation. Consequently, the acquirement of figures was fostered, and so in the earlier part of the nineteenth century almost every parish could produce a man supposed to be, and who probably was, great in arithmetic. Catwick's calculator was Dixon, and he was generally thought by his co-villagers to be as learned a one as any other, if not more so.

He had, however, a great rival at Long Riston. This was one Richard Fewson, who, like Dixon, was clerk of his parish; but while Dixon was a shopkeeper Fewson kept the village school.

Fewson's modes of punishing refractory scholars were somewhat peculiar. Either a culprit was hoisted on the back of another scholar, or made to stoop till his nose entered a hole in the desk, and when in one or other of these positions was made to feel the singular sensation caused by a sound caning on that particular part of his anatomy which it is said "nature intends for correction." Sometimes, too, an offender was made to sit in a small basket, to the cross handle of which a rope had been tied, and by this means he was hoisted to a beam near the roof of the school. Here he was compelled to stay for a longer or shorter period, according to the offence, knowing that, if he moved to ease his crippled position, the basket would tilt and he would fall to the floor.

On one occasion, with an exceptionally refractory pupil, his mode of punishment was even more peculiar still. Having told all the girls to turn their faces to the wall—and not one of them, so my informant, one of the boys, said, would dare to disobey the order—he chalked the shape of a grave on the floor of the schoolroom. He then made the boy, an incorrigible truant, strip off all his clothes, and when he stood covered only in nature's dress, told him in solemn tones that he was going to bury him alive and under the floor. One scholar was then sent for a pick, and when this was fetched, another was sent for a shovel. By the time they were both brought, the truant was in a panic of fear, the end hoped for. The master then sternly asked the boy if he would play truant again, to which the boy quickly answered no. On this, he was allowed to dress, being assured as he did so that if ever again he stopped from school without leave he should certainly be buried alive, and so great was the dread produced, the boy from that time was regularly found at school.

If parents objected to these punishments, they were simply told to take their children from school, which, as Fewson was the only master for miles around, he knew they would be loath to do. Fewson taught nearly all the children of the district whose parents felt it necessary that they should have any education. He is said to have turned out good scholars in the three R's, his curriculum being limited to these subjects, with, for an extra fee, mensuration added.

But Fewson, if he did not teach it, felt himself to be well up in astronomy. One summer, an old boy of his told me, he got the children—my informant amongst the number—to collect from their parents and others for a trip to Hornsea. When the money was all in he complained that the amount was insufficient for a trip, and suggested that a telescope he had seen advertised should be bought with the money. If this were done, he promised that those who had subscribed should have the telescope in turn to look through from Saturday to Monday. The telescope was purchased, and each subscriber had it once, and then it was no more seen. From that time it became the entire property of the master. The children never again collected for a trip, and small wonder.

Fewson was a good singer and musician generally, so in addition to his office as clerk he held the position of choirmaster. At church on Sunday he sat at the west end, the boys of the village sitting behind him, and it was part of his duty to see that they behaved themselves decorously. Should a boy make any disturbance Fewson's hand fell heavily on the offender's ears, and so sharply that the sound of the blows could be heard throughout the church. Such incidents as this were by no means uncommon in churches in the days when Fewson and Dixon flourished, and they were looked upon as nothing extraordinary, for small compunction was felt in the punishment of unruly urchins.

I have been told of another clerk, for instance, who dealt such severe blows on the heads of boys, who behaved in the least badly, with a by no means small stick, that, like Fewson's, they, too, resounded all over the church. This clerk was known as "Old Crack Skull," and there were many others who might as appropriately have borne the name.

As parish clerk, Fewson attended the Archdeacon's visitation with the churchwardens, whose custom it was on each such occasion to spend about L3 in eating and drinking. On the appointment of a new and reforming churchwarden this expenditure was stopped, and for the first time Fewson returned to Riston sober. Here he looked at the churchwarden and sorrowfully said, "For thirty years I have been to the visitation and always got home drunk; Sally will think I haven't been." He then turned into the public-house, and afterwards reached home in the condition Sally, his wife, would expect.



Insobriety was the normal condition of Fewson after school hours. It was his invariable custom to visit the public-house each evening, where he always found a clean pipe and an ounce of tobacco ready for him. Here he acted as president of those who forgathered, being by virtue of his wisdom readily conceded this position. His favourite drink was gin, and of this he imbibed freely; leaving for home about ten o'clock, which he found usually only after many a stumble and sometimes a fall. He, however, managed to save money, with which he built himself a house at Arnold, adorning it, as still to be seen, with the carved heads of saints and others, begged from the owners of the various ancient ecclesiastical piles of the neighbourhood. He died about seventy years ago, and was buried at Riston.

Between Dixon and Fewson there was much friendly strife with regard to the solving of hard arithmetical problems. This contest was no mere private matter. It was entered into with great zest by the men of both the villages concerned; the Catwickians and the Ristonians each backing their man to win. "A straw shows which way the wind blows," we say, and herein we may feel a breathing of the Holderness man's love of his clan, an affection which has done much to develop and to strengthen his character.

Dixon was employed by the harvesters and others to measure the land which they had reaped, or on which they had otherwise worked. When the different measurements had been taken, he, of course, had to find the result. For this, he needed no pen, ink, or paper, nor yet a slate and pencil. He made his calculations by a much more economic method than these would supply. He sat down in the field he had measured, took off his beaver hat, and, using it as a kind of blackboard, with a piece of chalk worked out the result of his measurements on its crown.

Dixon must have been a man of resources, as are most Holderness men where the saving of money is concerned. I have heard it said that the spirit of economy has so permeated their character that it has influenced even their speech. "So saving are they," say some, "that the definite article, the, is never used by them in their talk." But this is a libel; another and a truer reason may be found for the omission in their Scandinavian origin.

Another parish clerk who held office at a church about five miles from Catwick, by trade a tailor, was a noted character and remarkable for his parsimonious habits. He is described as having been a very little man and of an extremely attenuated appearance. The story of his economy during his honeymoon, when the happy pair stayed in some cheap town lodgings, is not pleasing.

His great effort in saving, however, resulted from his sporting proclivities. Tailor though he was, he conceived a great desire to be a mighty hunter. So strong did this passion burn within him that he made up his mind, sooner or later, to hunt, and with the best, in a red coat, too. He therefore began to save with this object in view. Denying himself every luxury and most other things which are usually counted necessaries, for long he lived, it is said, on half a salt herring a day with a little bread or a few vegetables in addition. By doing so, he was able to put almost all he earned to the furtherance of the purpose of his heart. This went on till he had saved L200. Then he felt his day was come. He bought a horse, made himself the scarlet coat, and went to the hunt as he thought a gentleman should. His hunting lasted for two seasons, when, the money he had saved being spent, he went back to his trade, at which he worked as energetically as ever.

At the west end of the nave of Catwick Church formerly was erected a gallery. In this loft, as it was commonly called, the musicians of the parish sang or played. Various instruments, bassoon, trombone, violoncello, cornet, cornopean, and clarionet, flute, fiddle, and flageolet, or some of their number, were employed, calling to mind the band of Nebuchadnezzar of old. The noise made in the tuning of the instruments to the proper pitch may be readily imagined. Now, the church possesses an organ, and the choirmen and boys have their places in the chancel, while the musicians of the parish occupy the front seats of the nave. This arrangement is eminently suitable for effectually leading the praises of the people, but not perhaps more so, its noise notwithstanding, than the former style; indeed, I am somewhat doubtful if the new equals the old. The old certainly had the merit of engaging most, if not all, the musicians of the village in the worship of the church.

At the east end of the nave, in the days of the loft, stood a kind of triple pulpit, commonly called a three-decker. It was composed of three compartments, the second above and behind the first, and the third similarly placed with regard to the second. The lowest, resting on the floor, was the place for the clerk, the middle was for the parson when reading the prayers and Scriptures, and the highest for the parson when preaching. Such pulpits are now almost as completely things of the past as the old warships from which, in derision, they got their name. Once only have I read the service and preached from a three-decker, and then the clerk did not occupy the position assigned to him. Dixon, however, always used the little desk at the foot of the Catwick pulpit, and from it took his share of the service.

It was part of his duty, as clerk, to choose and to give out the number of the hymns. Now Dixon, like Fewson, was a singer, and felt that the choir could not get on without the help of his voice in the gallery when the hymns were sung. Consequently, he then left his box and went to the singing loft; but, to save time, as he marched down the aisle from east to west, and as he mounted the steps of the gallery, he slowly and solemnly announced the number of the hymn and read the lines of the first verse. When the hymn was sung, our bird-like clerk came down again from the heights of the loft and returned to his perch at the base of the pulpit.

Nowadays, we should consider such proceedings very unseemly, but it would have been thought nothing of in the days of Dixon. Scenes, according to our ideas, much more grotesque were then of frequent occurrence. We have already looked on at least one; here is another which took place in the neighbouring church of Skipsea one Sunday afternoon some sixty years ago, and in connection with singing. The account was given to me by a parishioner of about eighty years of age, who was one of the choirmen on the occasion.

The leading singer, he said, there being no instrument, started a tune for the hymn. It would not fit the words, and he soon came to a full stop, and choir and congregation with him. At this, one of the congregation, in a voice that could be heard the whole church over, called out, "Give it up, George! Give it up!" "No, no," said the vicar in answer, leaning over his desk, "No, no, George, try again! try again!" George tried again, and again failed. But the vicar still encouraged him with "Have another try, George! Have another try! You may get it yet!" George tried the third time, and now hit upon a right tune; and to the general delight the hymn was sung through.

Without doubt, in the days of our forefathers the services of the Church were conducted with the greatest freedom. But we may not judge those who preceded us by our own standard, nor yet apart from the time in which they lived.

When two young people of Catwick or its neighbourhood feel they can live no longer without each other, they in local phrase "put in the banns." They then, of course, expect to have them published, or again in local idiom "thrown over the pulpit." On all such occasions, according to a very old custom, after the rector had read out the names, with the usual injunction following, from the middle compartment of the three-decker, Dixon would rise from his seat below, and slowly and clearly cry out, "God speed 'em weel" (God speed them well). By this pious wish he prayed for a blessing on those about to be wed, and in this the congregation joined, for they responded with Amen.

Dixon was the last of the Catwick clerks to keep this custom. Much more recently, however, than the time he held office, members of the congregation, usually those seated in the loft, on the publication of the banns of some well-known people, have called out the time-honoured phrase. But it is now heard no more. The custom has gone into a like oblivion to that of the parish clerk himself, once so important a person, in his own estimation if in that of no other, both in church and parish. "The old order changeth."

Thomas Dixon died at Catwick when sixty-seven years of age. He was buried in the churchyard on January 2, 1833, and by the Rev. John Torre, the rector he served so faithfully.

When Sydney Smith went to see the out-of-the-way Yorkshire village of Foston-le-Clay, to which benefice he had been presented, his arrival occasioned great excitement. The parish clerk came forward to welcome him, a man eighty years of age, with long grey hair, thread-bare coat, deep wrinkles, stooping gait, and a crutch stick. He looked at the new parson for some time from under his grey shaggy eyebrows, and talked, and showed that age had not quenched the natural shrewdness of the Yorkshireman.

At last, after a pause, he said, striking his crutch stick on the ground:

"Master Smith, it often stroikes moy moind that folks as come frae London be such fools. But you," he added, giving Sydney Smith a nudge with his stick, "I see you be no fool." The new vicar was gratified.

Yorkshiremen are keen songsters, and fortissimo is their favourite note of expression. "Straack up a bit, Jock! straack up a bit," a Yorkshire parson used to shout to his clerk, when he wanted the Old Hundredth to be sung. Well do I remember a delightful old clerk in the Craven district, who used to give out the hymn in the accustomed form with charming manner. He liked not itinerant choirs, which were not uncommon forty or fifty years ago, and used to migrate from church to church, and sometimes to chapel, in the district where the members lived. One of these choirs visited the church where the Rev. —— Morris was rector, and he was directed to give out the anthem which the itinerant strangers were prepared to sing. He neither knew nor cared what an anthem was; and he gave the following somewhat confused notice:

"Let us sing to the praise and glory of God the fiftieth Psalm, while you folks sing th' anthem," casting a scornful glance at the wandering musicians in the opposite gallery.

Missionary meetings and sermons were somewhat rare in those days, but the special preacher for missions, commonly called the deputation, who performs for lazy clerics the task of instructing the people about work in the mission field—a duty which could well be performed by the vicar himself—had already begun his itinerant course. The congregation were waiting in the churchyard for his arrival, when the old Yorkshire vicar, mentioned above, said to his clerk, "Jock, ye maunt let 'em into th' church; the dippitation a'n't coom." Presently two clergymen arrived, when the clerk called out, "Ye maunt gang hoame; t' deppitation's coom." The old vicar made an excellent chairman, his introductory remarks being models of brevity: "T' furst deppitation will speak!" "T' second deppitation will speak!" after which the clerk lighted some candles in the singing gallery, and gave out for an appropriate hymn, "Vital spark of heavenly flame."

A writer in Chambers's Journal tells of a curious class of clergymen who existed forty years ago, and were known as "Northern Lights," the light from a spiritual point of view being somewhat dim and flickering. The writer, who was the vicar for twenty-five years of a moorland parish, tells of several clerks who were associated with these clerics, and who were as quaint and curious in their ways as their masters[83]. The village was a hamlet on the edge of the Yorkshire moors, near the confines of Derbyshire. Beside the church was a public-house kept by the parish clerk, Jerry, a dapper little man, who on Sundays and funeral days always wore a wig, an old-fashioned tailed coat, black stockings, and shoes with buckles. His house was known as "Heaven's Gate," where the farmers from the neighbouring farms used to drink and stay a week at a time. Jerry used to direct the funerals, make the clerkly responses, and then provide the funeral party with good cheer at his inn. His invitation was always given at the graveside in a high-pitched falsetto voice, and the formula ran in these words, and was never varied:

"Friends of the corpse is respectfully requested to call at my house, and partake then and there of such refreshments as is provided for them."

[Footnote 83: By the kindness of the editor of Chambers's Journal I am permitted to retell some of the stories of the manners of these clerks and parsons.]

Much intemperance and disorder often followed these funeral feastings. An old song long preserved in the district depicts one of these funerals, which was by no means a one-day affair, but sometimes lasted several days, during which the drinking went on. The inn was perhaps a necessity in this out-of-the-world place, but it was unfortunately a great temptation to the inhabitants, and to the old Northern Light parson who preceded the vicar whose reminiscences we are recording. Here in the inn the old parson sat between morning and afternoon service with a long clay pipe in his mouth and a glass of whisky by his side. When the bells began to settle and the time of service approached, he would send Jerry to the church to see if many people had arrived. When Jerry replied:

"There's not many comed yet, Mr. Nowton," the parson would say:

"Then tell them to ring another peal, Jerry, and just fill up my glass again."

The communion plate was kept at the inn under Jerry's charge. Three times a year it was used, and the circumstances were disgraceful. Four bottles of port wine were deemed the proper allowance on communion days, and after a fractional quantity had been consumed in the church, the rest was finished by the churchwardens at the inn. One of these churchwardens drank himself to death after the communion service. He was a big man with a red face, and was always present when a bear was baited at the top of the hill above the village. One day the bear escaped and ran on to the moor; everybody scattered in all directions, and several dogs were killed before the bear was caught.

The successor of Jerry as clerk, but not as publican, was a rough, honest individual who was called Dick. When excited he had two oaths, "By'r Lady!" and "By the mass!" but as he always pronounced this last word mess, it was evident he did not understand the nature of the oath he used. He had a rough-and-ready way of doing things, and when handing out hymn-books during service he used to throw a book up to an applicant in the gallery to save the trouble of walking up the stairs in proper fashion. He talked the broadest Yorkshire dialect, and it was not always easy to understand him. This was particularly the case when, in his capacity as clerk, he repeated the responses at the funeral service.

A tremendous snowfall happened one winter, and the roads were all blocked. It was impossible for any one to go to church on the Sunday morning following the fall, as the snow had not been cleared away. It was necessary for the vicar, however, to get there, as he had to read out the banns of marriage which were being published; so, putting on fishing-waders to protect himself from the wet snow, he succeeded with some difficulty in getting through the drifts. In the churchyard, standing before the church clock, he found Dick intently gazing at it, so he asked him if it was going. His reply was laconic: "Noa; shoo's froz." He and the vicar then went into the church, and the necessary publication of banns was read in the presence of the clerk alone.

In those days it was necessary that the wedding service should be all over by twelve o'clock, and it was most important that due notice should be given of the date of the wedding, a matter about which Dick was sometimes rather careless.

The vicar had gone into Derbyshire for a few days to fish the River Derwent. He was fishing a long distance up the stream when he heard his name called, and saw his servant running towards him, who said that a wedding was waiting for him at the church. Dick had forgotten to give due notice of this event. The vicarage trap was in readiness, but the road over the Derbyshire Peak was rough and steep, the pony small, the distance ten miles, and the vicar encumbered with wet clothes. The chance of getting to the church before twelve o'clock seemed remote. But the vicar and pony did their best; it was, however, half an hour after the appointed time when they reached the church. Glancing at the clock in the tower, the vicar, to his astonishment, found the hands pointing to half-past eleven. The situation was saved, and the service was concluded within the prescribed time. The vicar turned to the clerk for an explanation. "I seed yer coming over the hill," he said, "and I just stopped the clock a bit." Dick was an ingenious man.

There was another character in the parish quite as peculiar as Dick, and he was one of the principal singers, who sat in the west gallery. He had formerly played the clarionet, before an organ was put into the church. During service he always kept a red cotton handkerchief over his bald head, which gave him a decidedly comic appearance.

On one occasion the clergyman gave out a hymn in the old-fashioned way: "Let us sing to the praise and glory of God the twenty-first hymn, second version." Up jumped the old singer and shouted, "You're wrang, maister; it's first version." The clergyman corrected himself, when the singer again rose: "You're wrang agearn; it's twenty-second hymn." Without any remark the clergyman corrected the number, and the man again jumped up: "That's reet, mon, that's reet." When the old singer died his widow was very anxious there should be some record on his tombstone of his having played the clarionet in church; so above his name a trumpet-shaped instrument was carved on the stone, and some doggerel lines were to be added below. The vicar had great difficulty in persuading the family to abandon the lines for the text, "The trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised."

A neighbouring vicar was on one occasion taking the duty of an old man with failing eyesight, and Dick reminded him before the afternoon service that there was a funeral at four o'clock. "You must come into the church and tell me when it arrives," he told the clerk, "and I will stop my sermon." It was the habit of the old clergyman to relapse into a strong Yorkshire dialect when speaking familiarly, and this will account for the brief dialogue which passed between him and Dick as he stood at the lectern. In due course the funeral arrived at the church gates, and the first intimation the congregation inside the church had of this fact was the appearance of Dick, who noisily threw open the big doors of the south porch. He then stood and beckoned to the clergyman, but his poor blind eyes could not see so far. Dick then came nearer and waved his hat before him. This again met with no response. Then he got near enough to pluck him by the arm, which he did rather vigorously, shouting at the same time, "Shoo's coomed." "Wha's coomed?" replied the clergyman, relapsing into his Yorkshire speech. "Funeral's coomed," retorted Dick. "Then tell her to wait a bit while I finish my sermon"; and the old man went quietly on with his discourse.

Another instance of Dick's failing to give proper notice of a service was as follows; but on this occasion it was not really his fault. Some large reservoirs were being made in the parish, and nearly a thousand navvies were employed on the works. These men were constantly coming and going, and very often they brought some infectious disorder which spread among the huts where they lived. One day a navvy arrived who broke out in smallpox of a very severe kind, and in a couple of days the man died, and the doctor ordered the body to be buried the moment a coffin could be got. It was winter-time, and the vicar had ridden over to see some friends about ten miles away. As the afternoon advanced it began to rain very heavily, and he decided not to ride back home, but to sleep at his friend's house. About five o'clock a messenger arrived to say a funeral was waiting in the church, and he was to come at once. He started in drenching rain, which turned to sleet and snow as he approached the moor edges. It was pitch-dark when he got off his horse at the church gates, and with some difficulty he found his way into the vestry and put a surplice over his wet garments. He could see nothing in the church, but he asked when he got into the reading-desk if any one was there. A deep voice answered, "Yes, sir; we are here"; and he began the service, which long practice had taught him to repeat by heart. When about half-way through the lesson he saw a glimmer of light, and Dick entered the church with a lantern, which he placed on the top of the coffin. It was a gruesome scene which the lantern brought into view. There was the coffin, and before it, in a seat, four figures of the navvy-bearers, and Dick himself covered with snow and as white as if he wore a surplice. They filed out into the churchyard, but the wind had blown the snow into the grave, and this had to be got out before they could lower the body into it. The navvies, who were kind-hearted fellows, explained that they could give no notice of the funeral beforehand, and they quite understood the delay was no fault of the vicar's or Dick's.

Dick was, in spite of his faults, an honest and kind-hearted man, and his death, caused by a fall from a ladder, was much regretted by his good vicar. On his death-bed the old clerk sent for his favourite grandson, who succeeded him in his office, and made this pathetic request: "Thou'lt dig my grave, Jont, lad."

With Dick the last of the "Northern Lights" flickered out. Nothing now remains in the village recalling those old times. The village inn has been suppressed, and the drinking bouts are over. The old church has been entirely restored, and there is order and decency in the services. The strange thing is that it should have been possible that only forty years ago matters were in such a state of chaos and disorder, and in such need of drastic reformation.

Another Yorkshire clerk flourished in the thirties at Bolton-on-Dearne named Thomas Rollin, commonly called Tommy. He used to render Psalm cii. 6: "I am become a pee-li-can in the wilderness, and an owl in the dee-sert." Tommy was a tailor by trade, and made use of a ready-reckoner to assist him in making up his accounts, and his familiarity with that useful book was shown when reading the second verse of the forty-fifth Psalm, which Tommy invariably read: "My tongue is the pen of a ready-reckoner," to the immense delight of the youthful members of the congregation.