AN OLD CHESHIRE CLERK AND SOME OTHER WORTHIES
It is nearly fifty years since I used to attend the quaint old parish
church at Lawton, Cheshire, situate half-way between Congleton and
Crewe. It is a lonely spot, "miles from anywhere," having not the
vestige of a village, and the congregation was formed of well-to-do
farmers, who came from the scattered farmsteads. How well I remember the
old parish clerk and the numerous duties which fell to his lot! He
united in his person the offices of clerk, sexton, beadle,
church-keeper, organist, and ringer. The organ was of the barrel kind,
and no one knew how to manipulate the instrument or to change the
barrels, except the clerk. He had also to place ten decent loaves in a
row on the communion table every Sunday morning, which were provided by
a charitable bequest for the benefit of the poor widows of the parish.
If the widows did not attend service to curtsy for them, the loaves were
given to any one who liked to take them. Old Clerk Briscall baked them
himself. He kept a small village shop about two miles from the church.
He was also the village shoemaker. A curious system prevailed. As you
entered the church, near the large stove you would see a long bench, and
under this bench a row of boots and shoes. If any one wanted his boots
to be mended, he would take them to church with him and put them under
the bench. These were collected by the cobbler-clerk, carried home in a
sack, and brought back on the following Sunday neatly and carefully
soled and heeled. It would seem strange now if on entering a church our
eyes should light upon a row of farmers' dirty old boots and the
freshly-mended evidences of the clerk's skill. All this took place in
the fifties. In the sixties a new vicar came. The old organ wheezed its
last phlegmatic tune; it was replaced by a modern instrument with six
stops, and a player who did his best, but occasioned not a little
laughter on account of his numerous breakdowns. The old high pews have
disappeared, nice open benches erected, the floor relaid, a good choir
enlisted, and everything changed for the better.
The poor old clerk must have been almost overwhelmed by his numerous
duties, and was often much embarrassed and exasperated by the old
squire, Mr. C.B. Lawton, who was somewhat whimsical in his ways. This
gentleman used to enter the church by his own private door, and go to
his large, square, high-panelled family pew, and when the vicar gave out
the hymn, he used often to shout out, "Here, hold on! I don't like that
one; let's have hymn Number 25," or some such effort of psalmody. This
request, or command, used to upset the organ arrangement, and the poor
old clerk had to rummage among his barrels to get a suitable tune, and
the operation, even if successful, took at least ten minutes, during
which time a large amount of squeaking and the sounds of the writhing of
woodwork and snapping of sundry catches were heard in the church. But
the congregation was accustomed to the performance and thought little
of it. (John Smallwood, 2 Mount Pleasant, Strangeways, Manchester.)
Caistor Church, Lincolnshire, famous for the curious old ceremony of the
gad-whip, was also celebrated for its clerk, old Joshua Foster, who was
officiating there in 1884 at the time of the advent of a new vicar.
Trinity Sunday was the first Sunday of the new clergyman, who sorely
puzzled the clerk by reading the Athanasian Creed. The old man peered
down into the vicar's family pew from his desk, casting a despairing
glance at the wife of the vicar, who handed him a Prayer Book with the
place found, so that he could make the responses. He was very economical
in the use of handkerchiefs, and used the small pieces of paper on which
the numbers of the metrical psalm were written. In vain did the wife of
the vicar present him with red-and-white-spotted handkerchiefs, which
were used as comforters. The church was lighted with tallow
candles--"dips" they were called--and at intervals during the service
Joshua would go round and snuff them. The snuffers soon became full, and
it was a matter of deep interest to the congregation to see on whose
head the snuff would fall, and to dodge it if it came their way.
The Psalms of Tate and Brady's version were sung and were given out with
the usual preface, "Let us sing to the praise and glory of God the 1st,
2nd, 5th, 8th, and 20th verses of the ---- Psalm with the Doxology."
How that Doxology bothered the congregation! The Doxologies were all at
the end of the Prayer Book, and it was not always easy to hit the right
metre; but that was of little consequence. A word added if the line was
too short, or omitted if too long, required skill, and made all feel
that they had done their best when it was successfully over. After the
old clerk's death, he was succeeded by his son Joshua, or Jos-a-way, as
the name was pronounced, whose son, also named Joshua the third, became
clerk, and still holds the office.
The predecessor of the vicar was a pluralist, who held Caistor with its
two chapelries of Holton and Clixby and the living of Rothwell. He was
non-resident, and the numerous churches were served by a curate. This
man was a great smoker, and used to retire to the vestry to don the
black gown and smoke a pipe before the sermon, the congregation singing
a Psalm meanwhile. One Sunday he had an extra pipe, and Joshua told him
that the people were getting impatient.
"Let them sing another Psalm," said the curate.
"They have, sir," replied the clerk.
"Then let them sing the 119th," replied the curate.
At last he finished his pipe, and began to put on the black gown, but
its folds were troublesome, and he could not get it on.
"I think the devil's in the gown," muttered the curate.
"I think he be," dryly replied old Joshua.
That the clerk was often a person of dignity and importance is shown by
the recollections of an old parishioner of the rector of Fornham All
Saints, near Bury St. Edmunds. "Mr. Baker, the clerk," of Westley, who
flourished seventy years ago, used to hear the children their catechism
in church on Sunday afternoons. "Ah, sir, I often think of what he told
us, that the world would not come to an end till people were killed
_wholesale_, and now think how often that happens!" She was probably not
alluding to the South African or the Japanese war, but to railway
accidents, as she at once told her favourite story of her solitary
journey to Newmarket, when on her return she remarked, "If I live to set
foot on firm ground, never no more for me."
The old clerk used to escort the boys and girls to their confirmation at
Bury, and superintended their meal of bread, beer, and cheese after the
rite. There was no music at Westley, except when Mr. Humm, the clerk of
Fornham, "brought up his fiddle and some of the Fornham girls."
Nowadays, adds the rector, the Rev. C.L. Feltoe, the clerks are much
more illiterate than their predecessors, and, unlike them,
non-communicants.
Another East Anglian clerk was a quaint character, who had a great
respect for all the old familiar residents in his town of S----, and a
corresponding contempt for all new-comers. The family of my informant
had resided there for nearly a century, and had, therefore, the approval
of the clerk. On one occasion some of the family found their seat
occupied by some new people who had recently settled in the town. The
clerk rushed up, and in a loud voice, audible all over the church,
exclaimed:
"Never you mind that air muck in your pew. I'll soon turn 'em out. The
imperent muck, takin' your seats!"
The family insisted upon "the muck" being left in peace, and forbade the
eviction.
The old clerk used vigorously a long stick to keep the school children
in order. He was much respected, and his death universally regretted.
Fifty years ago there was a dear, good old clerk, named Bamford, at
Mangotsfield Church, who used to give out the hymns, verse by verse. The
vicar always impressed upon him to read out the words in a loud voice,
and at the last word in each verse to pitch his voice. The hymn, "This
world's a dream," was rendered in this fashion:
"This world's a _drame_, an empty shoe,
But this bright world to which I goo
Hath jaays substantial an' sincere,
When shall I wack and find me THEER?"
William Smart, the parish clerk of Windermere in the sixties, was a rare
specimen. By trade an auctioneer and purveyor of Westmorland hams, he
was known all round the countryside. He was very patronising to the
assistant curates, and a favourite expression of his was "me and my
curate." When one of his curates first took a wedding he was commanded
by the clerk, "When you get to 'hold his peace,' do you stop, for I have
something to say." The curate was obedient, and stopped at the end of
his prescribed words, when William shouted out, "God speed them well!"
This unauthorised but excellent clerkly custom was not confined to
Windermere, but was common in several Norfolk churches, and at Hope
Church, Derbyshire, the clerk used to express the good wish after the
publication of the banns.
The old-fashioned clerk was usually much impressed by the importance of
his office. Crowhurst, the old clerk at Allington, Kent, in 1852, just
before a wedding took place, marched up to the rector, the Rev. E.B.
Heawood, and said:
"If you please, sir, the ceremony can't proceed."
"Why not? What do you mean?" asked the surprised rector.
"The marriage can't take place, sir," he answered solemnly, "'cos I've
lost my specs."
Fortunately a pupil of the rector's came forward and confessed that he
had hidden the old man's spectacles in a hole in the wall, and the
ceremony was no longer delayed.
At Bromley College the same clergyman had a curious experience, when the
clerk was called to assist at a service for the Churching of Women. As
it was very unusually performed there, he was totally at a loss what
service to find, and asked in great perturbation:
"Please, sir, be I to read the responses in the services for the Queen's
Accession?"
The same service sadly puzzled the clerk at Haddington, who was in the
employment of the then Earl of W----. One Sunday Lady W---- came to be
churched, when in response to the clergyman's prayer, "O Lord, save this
woman, Thy servant," the clerk said, "Who putteth her ladyship's
trust in Thee."
The Rev. W.H. Langhorne tells me some amusing anecdotes of old clerks.
Once he was preaching in a village church for home missions, and just as
he was reaching the pulpit he observed that the clerk was preparing to
take round the plate. He whispered to him to wait till he had finished
his sermon. "It won't make a ha'porth o' difference," was the
encouraging reply. But at the close of the sermon there was another
invitation to give additional offerings, which were not withheld.
In the old days when _Bell's Life_ was the chief sporting paper, a
hunting parson was taking the service one Sunday morning and gave out
the day of the month and the Psalm. The clerk corrected him, but the
rector again gave out the same day and was again corrected. The rector,
in order to decide the controversy, produced a copy of _Bell's Life_ and
handed it to the clerk, who then submitted. It is not often, I imagine,
that a sporting paper has been appealed to for the purpose of deciding
what Psalms should be read in church.
One very wet Sunday Mr. Langhorne was summoned to take an afternoon
service several miles distant from his residence. The congregation
consisted of only half a dozen people. After service he said to the
clerk that it was hardly worth while coming so far. "We might have done
with a worse 'un," was his reply.
That reminds me of another clerk who apologised to a church dignitary
who had been summoned to take a service at a small country church. The
form of the apology was not quite happily expressed. He said, "I am
sorry, sir, to have brought such a gentleman as you to this poor place.
A worse would have done, if we had only known where to find him!"
The new vicar of D---- was calling upon an old parishioner, who said to
him: "Ah! I've seen mony changes. I've seen four vicars of D----. First
there was Canon G----, then there was Mr. T----, who's now a bishop, and
then Mr. F---- came, and now you've coom, and we've wossened (worsened)
every toime."
A clerk named Turner, who officiated at Alnwick, was a great character,
and in spite of his odd ways was esteemed for his genuine worth and
fidelity to the three vicars under whom he served. He looked upon the
church and parish as his own, and used to say that he had trained many
"kewrats" in their duties. His responses in the Psalms were often
startling. Instead of "The Lord setteth up the meek," he would say,
"The Lord sitteth upon the meek." "The great leviathan" he rendered "the
great live thing." "Caterpillars innumerable" he pronounced
"caterpilliars innumerabble." When a funeral was late he scolded the
bearers at the churchyard gate.
At Wimborne Minster, Dorset, there used to be three priest vicars, and
each of them had a clerk. It was the custom for each of the priest
vicars to take the services for a week in rotation, and the first lesson
was always read by "the clerk of the week," as he was called. On
Sundays, when there was a celebration of the Holy Communion, the "clerk
of the week" advanced to the lectern after the sermon was finished, and
said, "All who wish to receive the Holy Communion, draw near." These
words, in the case of one worthy, named David Butler, were always spoken
in a high-pitched, drawling voice, and finished off with a kick to the
rearwards of the right leg.
The old clerk at Woodmancote, near Henfield, Sussex, was a very
important person. There was never any committee meeting but he attended.
So much so, that one day in church leading the singing and music with
voice and flute, when it came to the "Gloria" he sang loudly, "As it was
in the committee meeting, is now, and ever shall be ..."
An acquaintance remarked to him afterwards that the last meeting he
attended must have been a rather long one!
A story is told of the clerk at West Dean, near Alfriston, Sussex.
Starting the first line of the Psalm or hymn, he found that he could not
see owing to the failing light on a dark wintry afternoon. So he said,
"My eyes are dim, I canna see," at which the congregation, composed of
ignorant labourers, sang after him the _same_ words. The clerk was
wroth, and cried out, "Tarnation fools you all must be." Here again the
congregation sang the same words after the clerk.
Strange times, strange manners!
A writer in the _Spectator_ tells of a clerk who, like many of his
fellows, used to convert "leviathan" into "that girt livin' thing," thus
letting loose before his hearers' imagination a whole travelling
menagerie, from which each could select the beast which most struck his
fancy. This clerk was a picturesque personality, although, unlike his
predecessor, he had discarded top-boots and cords for Sunday wear in
favour of black broadcloth. When not engaged in marrying or burying one
of his flock, he fetched and carried for the neighbours from the
adjacent country town, or sold herrings and oranges (what mysterious
affinity is there between these two dissimilar edibles that they are
invariably hawked in company?) from door to door. During harvest he rang
the morning "leazing bell" to start the gleaners to the fields, and
every night he tolled the curfew, by which the villagers set their
clocks. He it was who, when the sermon was ended, strode with dignity
from his box on the "lower deck" down the aisle to the belfry, and
pulled the "dishing-up bell" to let home-keeping mothers know that
hungry husbands and sons were set free. Folks in those days were less
easily fatigued than they are now. Services were longer, the preacher's
"leanings to mercy" were less marked, and congregations counted
themselves ill-used if they broke up under the two hours. The boys stood
in wholesome awe of the clerk, as well they might, for his eye was keen
and his stick far-reaching. Moreover, no fear of man prevented him from
applying the latter with effect to the heads of slumberers during divine
service. By way of retaliation the youths, when opportunity occurred,
would tie the cord of the "tinkler" to the weathercock, and the parish
on a stormy night would be startled by the sound of ghostly, fitful
ting-tangs. To Sunday blows the clerk, who was afflicted with
rheumatism, added weekday anathemas as he climbed the steep ascent to
the bell-chamber and the yet steeper ladder that gave access to the
leads of the tower. The perpetual hostility that reigned between
discipliner and disciplined bred no ill will on either side. "Boys must
be boys" and "He's paid for lookin' arter things" were the arguments
whereby the antagonists testified their mutual respect, in both of which
the parents concurred; and his severity did not cost the old man a penny
when he made his Easter rounds to collect the "sweepings." It may,
perhaps, be well to explain that the "sweepings" consisted of an annual
sum of threepence which every householder contributed towards the
cleaning of the church, and which represented a large part of the
clerk's salary[84].
[Footnote 84: _Spectator_, 14 October, 1905.]
The Rev. C.C. Prichard recollects a curious old character at Churchdown,
near Gloucester, commonly pronounced "Chosen" in those days.
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 twang, "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 paycock 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 bass 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 ungodly wife and two ungodly 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?"
[Illustration: 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,
asserting 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 assurance 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 assured 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 passengers,
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 passengers 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 assure you I was not the least surprised. It was just what I
expected."
When the first railway train passed 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 substitute 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_.
"GRATITUDE
"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 anticipate 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.