The Parish Clerk Part 16

"Spring showered her daisies and dews on his bed, Summer covered with roses his shelterless head, And as Autumn embalmed his bodiless form, Winter wove his snow shroud in his Jacquard of storm; For his coffin-plate, charged with a common device, Frost figured his arms on a tablet of ice, While a ray from the sun in the interim came, And daguerreotyped neatly his age, death, and name.

Then the shadowing months at call Stood up to bear the pall, And three hundred and sixty-five days in gloom Formed a vista that reached from his birth to his tomb.

And oh, what a progeny followed in tears-- Hours, minutes, and moments--the children of years!

Death marshall'd th' array, Slowly leading the way, With his darts newly fashioned for New Year's Day."

Richard Furness died in 1857, and was buried with his ancestors at Eyam.

He thus sang his own requiem shortly before he pa.s.sed away:

"To joys and griefs, to hopes and fears, To all pride would, and power could do, To sorrow's cup, to pity's tears, To mortal life, to death adieu."

I will conclude this chapter on poetical clerks with a sweet carol for Advent, written by Mr. Daniel Robinson, ex-parish clerk of Flore, Weedon, which is worthy of preservation:

A CAROL FOR ADVENT

"Behold, thy King cometh unto thee."--MATTHEW xxi. 5.

Behold, thy King is coming Upon this earth to reign, To take away oppression And break the captive's chain; Then trim your lamps, ye virgins, Your oil of love prepare, To meet the coming Bridegroom Triumphant in the air.

Behold, thy King is coming, Hark! 'tis the midnight cry, The herald's voice proclaimeth The hour is drawing nigh; Then go ye forth to meet Him, With lamps all burning bright, Let sweet hosannahs greet Him, And welcome Him aright.

Go decorate your churches With evergreens and flowers, And let the bells' sweet music Resound from all your towers; And sing your sweetest anthems, For lo, your King is nigh, While songs of praise are soaring O'er vale and mountain high.

Let sounds of heavenly music From sweet-voiced organs peal, While old and young a.s.sembling Before G.o.d's "Altar" kneel; In humble adoration Let each one praise and pray, And give the King a welcome This coming Christmas Day.

CHAPTER XIII

THE CLERK GIVING OUT NOTICES

After the Nicene Creed in the Book of Common Prayer occurs a rubric with regard to the giving out of notices, the observance of Holy-days or Feasting-days, the publication of Briefs, Citations and Ex-communications, which ends with the following words:

"And nothing shall be proclaimed or published in the Church, during the time of Divine Service, but by the Minister; nor by him any thing but what is prescribed in the Rules of this Book, or enjoined by the King or by the Ordinary of the place."

This rubric was added to the Prayer Book in the revision of 1662, and doubtless was intended to correct the undesirable practice of publishing all kinds of secular notices during the time of divine service. Dr.

Wickham Legg has unearthed an inquiry made in an archidiaconal visitation in 1630, relating to the proclamation of lay businesses made in church, when the following question was asked:

"Whether hath your Parish Clerk, or any other in Prayers time, or before Prayers or Sermon ended, before the people departed, made proclamation in your church touching any goods strayed away or wanting, or of any Leet court to be held, or of common-dayes-works to be made, or touching any other thing which is not merely ecclesiasticall, or a Church-businesse?"

In times of Puritan laxity it was natural that notices sacred and profane should be indiscriminately mingled, and the rubric mentioned above would be sorely needed when church order and a reverent service were revived. But in spite of this direction the practice survived of not very strictly confining the notices to the concerns of the Church.

An aged lady, Mrs. Gill, who is now eighty-four years of age, remembers that between the years 1825 and 1835, in a parish church near Welbeck Abbey, the clerk used to announce the date of the Duke of Rutland's rent-day. Another correspondent states that after service the clerk used to take his stand on one of the high flat tombstones and announce sales by auction, the straying of cattle, etc., and Sir Walter Scott wrote that at Hexham cattle-dealers used to carry their business letters to the church, "when after service the clerk was accustomed to read them aloud and answer them according to circ.u.mstances."

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 princ.i.p.al 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 ba.s.s-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 amus.e.m.e.nt 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 l.u.s.tily:

"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 ent.i.tled to a small niche beneath the statue of the great man. The curate had left, and Mr. Russell inserted the following advertis.e.m.e.nt:

"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 Sat.u.r.day," but the Sat.u.r.day'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 Sat.u.r.day 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!"