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." Whenthe 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."
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 metHis calm benignant eye;Some ancient promise breathing yetOf immortality.Some heart's deep language which the glowOf faith unwavering gives;And every feature says 'I knowThat 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 £325.
The mediæval 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 sickman'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].
The Clerk Attending The Priest At Holy Baptism
The Clerk Attending The Priest At Holy Baptism
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 theaquæbajalus, 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 mediæval representations of the clerk's duties may be mentioned. It is a fifteenth-centuryFrench 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 ofThe Sleeping Congregation, to which I have already referred. As a contrast to Hogarth'sSleeping Congregationwe 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.
The Duties Of A Clerk At A Death And Funeral
The Vicar Of Wakefield By W.P. Frith
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 ofthe 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 naïvely 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 standsthe 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.
Portrait Of Richard HuntThe Restorer Of The Clerks' Almshouses
A woman cannot legally be elected to the office of parish clerk, though she may be a sexton. There was the famous case ofOlivev.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. TheAnnual Registerfor 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].
[80]Burn'sHistory 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 sheeffectually 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."
[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.
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.
[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 theYorkshire 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'scalculator 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 timethey 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 theposition 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 £3 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.
The Church Of St. Margaret, Westminster
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 founda 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 £200. 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 beingspent, 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! Giveit 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 theparish 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, andfortissimois 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. Oneof 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 inChambers's Journaltells 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-fiveyears 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."
[83]By the kindness of the editor ofChambers's JournalI 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 hisside. 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 wordmess, 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 thecase 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 hourafter 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 remindedhim 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 seesome 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."