The Parish Clerk Part 22

This old clerk was only absent one Sunday from "Chosen" Church, and then he was lent to the neighbouring church of Leckhampton. Instead of the response "And make Thy chosen people joyful," mindful of his change of locality he gave out with a strong nasal tw.a.n.g, "And make Thy Leck'ampton people joyful." The Psalms were somewhat a trouble to him, and to the congregation too. One verse he rendered "Like a payc.o.c.k in a wild-dook's nest, and a howl in the dessert, even so be I." He was a thoroughly good old man, and brought up a large family very respectably.

I remember the old clerk, James Ingham, of Whalley Church, Lancashire.

It is a grand old church, full of old dark oak square pews, and the clerk was in keeping with his surroundings. He was a humorous character, and had a splendid deep ba.s.s voice. He used to show people over the ruined abbey, and his imagination supplied the place of accurate historical information. Some American visitors asked him what a certain path was used for. "Well, marm," said James, "it's onsartin: but they do say the monks and nuns used to walk up and down this 'ere path, arm-in-arm, of a summer arternoon."

It is recorded of one Thomas Atkins, clerk of Chillenden Church, Kent, that he used to leave his reading-desk at the commencement of the General Thanksgiving and proceed to the west gallery, where he gave out the hymn and sang a duet with the village cobbler, in which the congregation joined as best they could. He walked very slowly down the church, and said the Amen at the end of the Thanksgiving wherever he happened to be, and that was generally half-way up the gallery stairs, whence his feeble voice, with a good _tremolo_, used to sound like the distant baaing of a sheep. It was a strange and curious performance.

Miss Rawnsley, of Raithby Hall, Spilsby, gives some delightful reminiscences of a most original specimen of the race of clerks, old Haw, who officiated at Halton Holgate, Lincolnshire. He was a curious mixture of worldly wisdom and strong religious feeling. The former was exemplified by his greeting to a cousin of my correspondent, just returned from his ordination.

He said, "Now, Mr. Hardwick, remember thou must creep an' crawl along the 'edge bottoms, and then tha'ill make thee a bishop."

He was a strong advocate of Fasting Communion. No one ever knew whence he derived his strong views on the subject. The rector never taught it.

Probably his ideas were derived from some long lingering tradition. When over seventy years of age he set out fasting to walk six miles to attend a late celebration at a distant church on the occasion of its consecration. Nothing would ever induce him to break his fast before communicating; and on this occasion he was picked up in a dead faint, his journey being only half completed.

On Wednesdays and Fridays he always went into the church at eleven o'clock and said the Litany aloud. When asked his reason, he said, "I've gotten an unG.o.dly wife and two unG.o.dly bairns to pray for, sir." He once asked one of the rector's daughters to help him in the _Parody_ of the Psalms he was making; and on another occasion requested to have the old altar-cloth, which had just been replaced by a new one, "to make a slop to dig the graves in, and no sacrilege neither."

At Sutton Maddock, Shropshire, there was a clerk who used to read "_Pe_-li-_can_ in the wilderness," and the usual "_Howl_ in the _De_sart," and "Teach the _Se_nators wisdom," and when the Litany was said on Wednesdays and Fridays declared that it was not in his Prayer Book though he took part in it every Sunday. When a kind lady, Miss Barnfield, expressed a wish that his wife would get better, he replied, "I hope her will or _summat_."

At Claverley, in the same county, on one Sunday, the rector told the clerk to give notice that there would be no service that afternoon, adding _sotto voce_, "I am going to dine at the Paper Mill." He was rather disgusted when the clerk announced, "There will be no Diving Service this arternoon, the Parson is going to dine at the Peaper Mill."

The clerk was no respecter of persons, and once marched up to the rector's wife in church and told her to keep her eyes from beholding vanity.

The Rev. F.A. Davis tells me of a story of an illiterate clerk who served in a Wiltshire church, where a cousin of my informant was vicar.

A London clergyman, who had never preached or been in a country church before, came to take the duty. He was anxious to find out if the people listened or understood sermons. His Sunday morning discourse was based on the text St. Mark v. 1-17, containing the account of the healing of the demoniacally possessed persons at Gadara, and the destruction of the herd of swine. On the Monday he asked the clerk if he understood the sermon. The clerk replied somewhat doubtfully, "Yes." "But is there anything you do not quite understand?" said the clergyman; "I shall be only too glad to explain anything I can, so as to help you." After a good deal of scratching the back of his head and much hesitating, the clerk replied, "Who paid for them pigs?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: WILLIAM HINTON, A WILTSHIRE WORTHY DRAWN BY THE REV.

JULIAN CHARLES YOUNG]

Many examples I have given of the dry humour of old clerks, which is sometimes rather disconcerting. A stranger was taking the duty in a church, and after service made a few remarks about the weather, a.s.serting that it promised to be a fine day for the haymaking to-morrow.

"Ah, sir," replied the clerk, "they do say that the hypocrites can discern the face of the sky."

The Rev. Julian Charles Young, rector of Ilmington, in his _Memoir of Charles Mayne Young, Tragedian_, published in 1871, speaks of the race of parish clerks who flourished in Wiltshire in the first half of the last century. Instead of a nice discrimination being exercised in the choice of a clerk, it seems to have been the rule to select the sorriest driveller that could be found--some "lean and slippered pantaloon, with spectacles on nose and pouch at side,"

"triumphant over time, And over tune, and over rhyme"--

who by his snivelling enunciation of the responses and his nasal drawlings of the A--mens, was sure to provoke the risibility of his hearers. Mr. Young's own clerk was, however, a very worthy man, of such lofty aspirations and of such blameless purity of life, that in making him Nature made the very ideal of a village clerk and schoolmaster, and then "broke the mould." His grave yet kindly countenance, his well-proportioned limbs encased in breeches and gaiters of corded kerseymere, and the natural dignity of his carriage, combined "to give the world a.s.surance of" a bishop rather than a clerk. It needed familiarity with his inner life to know how much simpleness of purpose and simplicity of mind and contentment and piety lay hid under a pompous exterior and a phraseology somewhat stilted.

His name was William Hinton, and he dwelt in a small whitewashed cottage which, by virtue of his situation as schoolmaster, he enjoyed rent free.

It stood in the heart of a small but well-stocked kitchen garden. His salary was 40 per annum, and on this, with perhaps 5 a year more derived from church fees, he brought up five children in the greatest respectability, all of whom did well in life. They regarded their father with absolute veneration. By the side of the labourer who only knew what he had taught him, or of the farmer who knew less, he was a giant among pygmies--a Triton among minnows.

When Mr. Young went to the village, with the exception of a Bible, a Prayer Book, a random tract or two, and a _Moore's Almanac_, there was scarcely a book to be found in it. The rector kindly allowed his clerk the run of his well-stocked library. Hinton devoured the books greedily.

So receptive and imitative was his intellect that his conversation, his deportment, even his spirit, became imbued with the individuality of the author whose writings he had been studying. After reading Dr. Johnson's works his conversation became sententious and dogmatic. _Lord Chesterfield's Letters_ produced an airiness and jauntiness that were quite foreign to his nature. His favourite authors were Jeremy Taylor, Bacon, and Milton. After many months reverential communion with these Goliaths of literature he became pensive and contemplative, and his manner more chastened and severe. The secluded village in which he dwelt had been his birthplace, and there he remained to the day of his death.

He knew nothing of the outer world, and the rector found his intercourse with a man so original, fresh, and untainted a real pleasure. He was physically timid, and the account of a voyage across the Channel or a journey by coach filled him with dread. One day he said to Mr. Young, "Am I, reverend sir, to understand that you voluntarily trust your perishable body to the outside of a vehicle, of the soundness of which you know nothing, and suffer yourself to be drawn to and fro by four strange animals, of whose temper you are ignorant, and are willing to be driven by a coachman of whose capacity and sobriety you are uninformed?" On being a.s.sured that such was the case, he concluded that "the love of risk and adventure must be a very widely-spread instinct, seeing that so many people are ready to expose themselves to such fearful casualties." He was grateful to think that he had never been exposed to such terrific hazards. What the worthy clerk would have said concerning the risks of motoring somewhat baffles imagination.

When just before the opening of the Great Western Railway line the Company ran a coach through the village from Bath to Swindon, the clerk witnessed with his own eyes the dangers of travelling. The school children were marshalled in line to welcome the coach, bouquets of laurestina and chrysanthema were ready to be bestowed on the pa.s.sengers, the church bells rang gaily, when after long waiting the cheery notes of the key-bugle sounded the familiar strains of "Sodger Laddie," and the steaming steeds hove in sight, an accident occurred. At a sharp turn just opposite the clerk's house the swaying coach overturned, and the outside pa.s.sengers were thrown into the midst of his much-prized ash-leaf kidneys. The clerk fled precipitately to the extreme borders of his domain, and afterwards said to the rector, "Ah, sir, was I right in saying I would never enter such a dangerous carriage as a four-horse coach? I a.s.sure you I was not the least surprised. It was just what I expected."

When the first railway train pa.s.sed through the village he was overwhelmed with emotion at the sight. He fell prostrate on the bank as if struck by a thunder-bolt. When he stood up his brain reeled, he was speechless, and stood aghast, unutterable amazement stamped upon his face. In the tone of a Jeremiah he at length gasped out, "Well, sir, what a sight to have seen: but one I never care to see again! How awful!

I tremble to think of it! I don't know what to compare it to, unless it be to a messenger despatched from the infernal regions with a commission to spread desolation and destruction over the fair land. How much longer shall knowledge be allowed to go on increasing?"

The rector taught the clerk how to play chess, to which game he took eagerly, and taught it to the village youths. They played it on half-holidays in winter and became engrossed in it, manufacturing chess-boards out of old book-covers and carving very creditable chessmen out of bits of wood. When he was playing with his rector one evening he lost his queen and at once resigned, saying, "I consider, reverend sir, that chess without a queen is like life without a female."

Hinton knew not a word of Latin, but he had a pedantic pleasure in introducing it whenever he could. Genders were ever a mystery to him, though with the help of a dictionary he would often subst.i.tute a Latin for an English word. Thus he used the signatures "Gulielmus Hintoniensis, Rusticus Sacrista," and when writing to Mrs. Young he always addressed her as "Charus Domina." On this lady's return after a long absence, the clerk wrote in large letters, "Gratus, gratus, optatus," and dated his greeting, "Martius quinta, 1842." A funeral notice was usually sent in doggerel.

The following letter was sent to the rector's unmarried sister:

"_Januarius Prima_, 1840.

"CHARUS DOMINA,

"That the humble Sacrista should be still retained on the tablets of your memory is an unexpected pleasure. Your gift, as a criterion of your esteem, will be often looked at with delight, and be carefully preserved, as a memorial of your friendship; and for which I beg to return my sincere thanks. May the meridian sunshine of happiness brighten your days through the voyage of life; and may your soul be borne on the wings of seraphic angels to the realms of bliss eternal in the world to come is the sincere wish and fervent prayer of Charus Domina, your most obedient, most respectful, most obliged servant,

"GULIELMUS HINTONIENSIS,

"_Rusticus Sacrista_.

"GRAt.i.tUDE

"A gift from the virtuous, the fair, and the good, From the affluent to the humble and low, Is a favour so great, so obliging and kind, To acknowledge I scarcely know how.

I fain would express the sensations I feel, By imploring the blessing of Heaven May be showered on the lovely, the amiable maid, Who this gift to Sacrista has given.

May the choicest of husbands, the best of his kind, Be hers by the appointment of Heaven!

And may sweet smiling infants as pledges of love To crown her connubium be given."

The following is a characteristic note of this worthy clerk, which differs somewhat from the notices usually sent to vicars as reminders of approaching weddings:

"REV. SIR,

"I hope it has not escaped your memory that the young couple at Clack are hoping to offer incense at the shrine of Venus this morning at the hour of ten. I antic.i.p.ate the bridegrooms's anxiety.

"RUSTICUS SACRISTA."

He was somewhat curious on the subject of fashionable ladies' dresses, and once asked the rector "in what guise feminine respectability usually appeared at an evening party?" When a low dress was described to him, he blushed and shivered and exclaimed, "Then methinks, sir, there must be revelations of much which modesty would gladly veil." He was terribly overcome on one occasion when he met in the rector's drawing-room one evening some ladies who were attired, as any other gentlewomen would be, in low gowns.

William Hinton was, in spite of his air of importance and his inflated phraseology, a simple, single-minded, humble soul. When the rector visited him on his death-bed, he greeted Mr. Young with as much serenity of manner as if he had been only going on a journey to a far country for which he had long been preparing. "Well, reverend and dear sir. Here we are, you see! come to the nightcap scene at last! Doubtless you can discern that I am dying. I am not afraid to die. I wish your prayers....

I say I am not afraid to die, and you know why. Because I know in whom I have believed; and I am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day." A little later he said, "Thanks, reverend sir! Thanks for much goodwill! Thanks for much happy intercourse! For nearly seven years we have been friends here. I trust we shall be still better friends hereafter. I shall not see you again on this side Jordan. I fear not to cross over. Good-bye. My Joshua beckons me. The Promised Land is in sight."

This worthy and much-mourned clerk was buried on 5 July, 1843.

CHAPTER XIX

THE CLERK AND THE LAW

The parish clerk is so important a person that divers laws have been framed relating to his office. His appointment, his rights, his dismissal are so closely regulated by law that inc.u.mbents and churchwardens have to be very careful lest they in any way transgress the legal enactments and judgments of the courts. It is not an easy matter to dismiss an undesirable clerk: it is almost as difficult as to disturb the parson's freehold; and unless the clerk be found guilty of grievous faults, he may laugh to scorn the malice of his enemies and retain his office while life lasts.

It may be useful, therefore, to devote a chapter to the laws relating to parish clerks--a chapter which some of my readers who have no liking for legal technicalities can well afford to skip.

As regards his qualifications the clerk must be at least twenty years of age, and known to the parson as a man of honest conversation, and sufficient for his reading, writing, and for his competent skill in singing, "if it may be[85]." The visitation articles of the seventeenth century frequently inquire whether the clerk be of the age of twenty years at least.

[Footnote 85: Canon 91 (1603).]