CURIOUS STORIES
The old clerk of Clapham, Bedford, Mr. Thomas Maddams, always used to
read his own version of Psalm xxxix. 12: "Like as it were a moth
fretting in a garment." Apparently his idea was of a moth annoyed at
being in a garment from which it could not escape.
A parish clerk (who prided himself upon being well read) occupied his
seat below the old "three-decker" pulpit, and whenever a quotation or an
extract from the classics was introduced into the sermon he, in an
undertone, muttered its source, much to the annoyance of the preacher
and amusement of the congregation. Despite all protests in private, the
thing continued, until one day, the vicar's patience being exhausted, he
leant over the pulpit side and immediately exclaimed, "Drat you; shut
up!" Immediately, in the clerk's usual sententious tone, came the reply,
"His own." (William Haggard, _Liverpool Daily Post_.)
* * * * *
N.B. I have heard this story before, and in a different key:
The preacher was a young, bumptious fellow, fond of quoting the
classics, etc. One day a learned classic scholar attended his service,
and was heard to say, after each quotation, "That's Horace," "That's
Plato," and such-like, until the preacher was at his "wits' ends" how
to quiet the man. At last, leaning over the pulpit, he looked the man in
the face, and is reported to have said, "Who the devil are you?" "That's
his own!" was the prompt response.
* * * * *
In one of the village churches near Honiton, in 1864, the usual duet
between the parson and clerk had been the custom, when the vicar
appealed to the congregation to take their part. In a little while they
took courage, and did so. This annoyed the clerk, and he could not make
the responses, and made so many mistakes that the vicar drew his
attention to the matter. He replied, with much irritation, "How can _I_
do the service with a lot of men and women a-buzzing and a-fizzing
about me?"
* * * * *
A somewhat similar story is told of another church:
An old gentleman, now in his eightieth year, remembers attending Romford
Church when a youth, and says that at that time (1840) the parish clerk
was a person who greatly magnified his office. On one occasion he
checked the young man for audibly responding, on the ground that he, the
clerk, was the person to respond audibly, and that other people were to
respond inaudibly.
* * * * *
Communicated by Miss Emily J. Heaton, of Sitting-bourne:
My father lived and worked as the clergyman of a parish until he was
eighty-nine years of age. He remembered a clerk in a Yorkshire parish in
the time of one of the Georges. The clergyman said the versicle, "O
Lord, save the King," and the clerk made no reply. The prayer was
repeated, but still no answer. He then touched the clerk, who sat in
the desk below, and who replied:
"A we'ant! He won't tak tax off 'bacca!"
* * * * *
Communicated by Mr. Frederick Sherlock:
I remember as a lad attending a church which owned a magnificent
specimen of the parish clerk. He used to wear a dress-coat, and it was
his practice to follow the clergy from the vestry, and while the vicar
and curate were saying their private prayers in the reading-desk in
which they both sat together, the venerable clerk with measured tread
passed down the centre of the church affably smiling and bowing right
and left to such of the parishioners as were in his favour. In due
course he arrived in the singers' gallery, where he had the place of
honour under the organ: the good old man was leading soloist, which we
well knew when Jackson's _Te Deum_ was sung on the greater festivals,
for there was always a solemn pause before the venerable worthy quavered
forth his solo.
* * * * *
It was a pew-rented church, and once a quarter strangers were startled,
when the vicar from his place in the reading-desk had announced the
various engagements of the week, to hear the clerk's majestic voice from
his place in the gallery add, "And _I_ beg to announce" (with a marked
emphasis on the _I_) "that the churchwardens will attend in the vestry
on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday next, at eight o'clock, for the
purpose of receiving pew rents and letting seats for the
ensuing quarter."
* * * * *
As touching parish clerks, it is of interest to recall that William
Maybrick was clerk of St. Peter's, Liverpool, from 1813-48. He had two
sons, William, who became clerk, and Michael, who was organist at St.
Peter's for many years. William Maybrick, junior, had also two sons,
James, whose name was so much before the public owing to the
circumstances surrounding his death, and Michael, better known as
"Stephen Adams," the famous composer and singer.
* * * * *
The following is a curious letter from a parish clerk to his vicar after
giving notice to quit the latter's service. He was clerk of the parish
of Maldon, Essex.
DEAR AND REV. SIR,
I avail myself of the opportunity of troubling your honour with these
lines, which I hope you will excuse, which is the very sentiments of
your humble servant's heart. Ignorantly, rashly, but reluctantly, I gave
you warning to leave your highly respected office and most amiable duty,
as being your servant, and clerk of this your most well wished parish,
and place of my succour and support.
But, dear Sir, I well know it was no fault of yours nor from any of my
most worthy parishioners. It were because I thought I were not
sufficiently paid for the interments of the silent dead. But will I be a
Judas and leave the house of my God, the place where His Honour dwelleth
for a few pieces of money? No. Will I be a Peter and deny myself of an
office in His Sanctuary and cause me to weep bitterly? No. Can I be so
unreasonable as to deny, if I like and am well, to ring that solemn bell
that speaks the departure of a soul? No. Can I leave digging the tombs
of my neighbours and acquaintances which have many a time made me
shudder and think of my mortality, when I have dug up the mortal remains
of some perhaps as I well knew? No. And can I so abruptly forsake the
service of my beloved Church of which I have not failed to attend every
Sunday for these seven and a half years? No. Can I leave waiting upon
you a minister of that Being that sitteth between the Cherubim and
flieth upon the wings of the wind? No. Can I leave the place where our
most holy services nobly calls forth and says, "Those whom God have
joined together" (and being as I am a married man) "let no man put
asunder"? No. And can I leave that ordinance where you say then and
there "I baptize thee in the name of the Father and of the Son and of
the Holy Ghost," and he becomes regenerate and is grafted into the body
of Christ's Church? No. And can I think of leaving off cleaning at
Easter the House of God in which I take such delight, in looking down
her aisles and beholding her sanctuaries and the table of the Lord? No.
And can I forsake taking part in the service of Thanksgiving of women
after childbirth when mine own wife has been delivered ten times? No.
And can I leave off waiting on the congregation of the Lord which you
well know, Sir, is my delight? No. And can I forsake the Table of the
Lord at which I have feasted I suppose some thirty times? No. And, dear
Sir, can I ever forsake you who have been so kind to me? No. And I well
know you will not entreat me to leave, neither to return from following
after you, for where you pray there will I pray, where you worship there
will I worship. Your Church shall be my Church, your people shall be my
people and your God my God. By the waters of Babylon am I to sit down
and weep and leave thee, O my Church! and hang my harp upon the trees
that grow therein? No. One thing have I desired of the Lord that I will
require even that I may dwell in the House of the Lord and to visit His
temple. More to be desired of me, O my Church, than gold, yea than fine
gold, sweeter to me than honey and the honeycomb.
Now, kind Sir, the very desire of my heart is still to wait upon you.
Please tell the Churchwardens all is reconciled, and if not, I will get
me away into the wilderness, and hide me in the desert, in the cleft of
the rock. But I hope still to be your Gehazi and when I meet my
Shunamite to say "All, all is well." And I will conclude my blunders
with my oft-repeated prayer, "Glory be to the Father and to the Son and
to the Holy Ghost. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall
be, world without end. Amen."
P.S. Now, Sir, I shall go on with my fees the same as I found them, and
will make no more trouble about them, but I will not, I cannot leave
you, nor your delightful duties.
Your most obedient servant,
GEORGE G---- G.
* * * * *
_The Rev. E. G----, Vicar of Maldon._
Communicated by the Rev. D. C. Moore:
In the parish of Belton, Suffolk, there died in 1837 a man named Noah
Pole. He had been clerk for sixty years. He wore a smock-frock; gave out
all notices--strayed horse, a found sheep, etc. He was known by the
nickname of "_Never, never_ shall be," for in this way he had for sixty
years perverted the last part of the "Gloria," "now and ever shall be."
* * * * *
In the parish of Lowestoft, Suffolk, in the forties the parish clerk's
name was Newson (would-be wits called him "Nuisance"). He was arrayed in
a velvet-trimmed robe and bore himself bravely. The way in which he
mouthed "Let us sing to the glory of God" was wonderful. But the chief
amusement he afforded was the habit of hiding his face in his hands
during each prayer, then towards the ending his head would rise till it
rested on his thumbs, and then came out sonorously, "Awl-men."
* * * * *
At St. Mary's, Southtown (near Great Yarmouth), in the late thirties,
etc., a man named Nolloth was clerk. He was celebrated for the
uncertainty of his "H's." For example: "Let us sing to the praise and
glory of God the Heighty-heighth ymn."
* * * * *
At Gorleston (the mother church of St. Mary's, named above) a tailor
named Bristow was clerk. He was a very small man, and he had a son he
wished to succeed him. The clerk's desk was pretty wide and they sat
together. I can see them (sixty years after), one leaning on his right
arm, the other on his left; and when the time came, the duet was
_Ah_-men from the elder and A-men from the younger, one in "tenor" the
other "treble." We schoolboys used to say "Big pig, little pig."
* * * * *
Nicholson, the clerk of St. Bees, if any student was called away in
term, invariably gave out Psalm cvii., fourth part, "They that in ships
with courage bold." In those days there were no trains and no hymns.
* * * * *
At Barkham there is an old clerk who succeeded his father half a century
ago.
During the rebuilding of the church his sire, whose name was Elijah,
once visited a neighbouring parish church, and arrived rather late, just
when the rector was giving out the text: "What doest thou here,
Elijah?" Elijah gave a respectful salute, and replied: "Please, sur,
Barkham Church is undergoing repair, so I be cumed 'ere!"
* * * * *
Canon Rawnsley tells a pathetic little story of an old clerk who begged
him not to read the service so fast: "For you moòst gie me toime, Mr.
Rawnsley, you moòst i'deed. You moòst gie me toime, for I've a
graaceless wife an' two godless soons to praày for."
* * * * *
Hawker tells a story of the parish clerk at Morwenstow whose wife used
to wash the parson's surplices. He came home one night from a prolonged
visit at the village inn, the "Bush," and finding his wife's scolding
not to his mind and depressing, he said, "Look yere, my dear, if you
doan't stop, I'll go straight back again." She did not stop, so he left
the house; but the wife donned one of the surplices and, making a short
cut, stood in front of her approaching husband. He was terrified; but at
last he remembered his official position, and the thought gave
him courage.
"Avide, Satan!" he said in a thick, slow voice.
The figure made no answer.
"Avide, Satan!" he shouted again. "Doan't 'e knaw I be clerk of the
parish, bass-viol player, and taicher of the singers?"
When the apparition failed to be impressed the clerk turned tail and
fled. The ghost returned by a short cut, and the clerk found his wife
calmly ironing the parson's surplice. He did not return to the "Bush"
that night.
* * * * *
The old parish clerk of Dagenham had a habit when stating the names to
be entered into the register of saying, _Plain_ Robert or John, etc.,
meaning that Robert, etc., was the only Christian name. On one occasion
a strange clergyman baptized a child there, and being unable to hear the
name as given by the parents, looked inquiringly at the clerk. "Plain
Jane, sir," he called out in a stentorian voice. "What a pity to label
the child thus," the clergyman rejoined; "she might grow up to be a
beautiful girl." "Jane _only_, I mean," explained the clerk.
All clergymen know the difficulty of changing the names of the sovereign
and the Royal Family at the commencement of the reign of a new monarch.
In a certain parish in the south of England (the name of which I do not
know, or have forgotten), at the time of the accession of Her late
Majesty Queen Victoria, the rector charged his clerk to make the
necessary alterations in the Book of Common Prayer required by the sex
of the new sovereign. The clerk made all the needed alterations with the
greatest care as regards both titles and pronouns; but not only this, he
carried on the changes throughout the Psalter. Consequently, on the
morning of the fourth day of the month, for instance, the rector found
Psalm xxi. rendered thus: "The Queen shall rejoice in Thy strength, O
Lord: exceeding glad shall She be of Thy salvation," and so on
throughout the course of the Psalms and the whole of the Psalter. Also
in the prayer for the Church Militant, when prayer is made for all
Christian kings, princes, etc., the distracted vicar found the words
changed into "Queen, Princesses, etc." After all, the clerk showed his
thoroughness, but nothing short of a new Prayer Book could satisfy the
needs of the vicar[94].
[Footnote 94: From the information of Miss Marion Stirling, who heard
the story from Prebendary Thornton.]
Canon Gregory Smith tells the following story of a clerk in
Herefordshire, who flourished half a century ago:
In the west-end gallery of the old-fashioned little church were
musicians with fifes, etc. etc. Sometimes, if they started badly in a
hymn, the clerk would say to the congregation, "Beg pardon, gents; we'll
try again."
As I left home one day, the clerk ran after me. "But, sir, who'll take
the duty on St. Swithin's Day?"
Once or twice, being somnolent, on a hot afternoon he woke up suddenly
with a loud "Amen" in the middle of the sermon.
When I said good-bye to him, having resigned the benefice, he said, very
gravely, "God will give us another comforter."
An old country clerk in showing visitors round the churchyard used to
stop at a certain tombstone and say:
"This 'ere is the tomb of Thomas 'Ooper and 'is eleven wives."
One day a lady remarked: "Eleven? Dear me, that's rather a lot, isn't
it?"
The old man looked at her gravely and replied: "Well, mum, yer see it
wus an' 'obby of 'is'n."
The Rev. W.D. Parish, in his _Dictionary of the Sussex Dialect_, tells
of a friend of his who had been remonstrating with one of his
parishioners for abusing the parish clerk beyond the bounds of
neighbourly expression, and who received the following answer: "You be
quite right, sir; you be quite right. I'd no ought to have said what I
did; but I döant mind telling you to your head what I've said so many
times behind your back. We've got a good shepherd, I says, an excellent
shepherd, but he's got an unaccountable bad dog."
* * * * *
Some seventy or eighty years ago at Thame Church, Buckinghamshire, the
old-fashioned clerk had a much-worn Prayer Book, and the parson and he
made a duet of the responses, the congregation not considering it
necessary or even proper to interfere. When the clerk happened to come
to a verse of the Psalms with words missing he said "riven out"
(pronounced oot), and the parson finished the verse; this was taken
quite as a matter of course by the congregation.
* * * * *
In a Lancashire church, when the rector was about to publish the banns
of marriage, the book was not in its usual place. However, he began: "I
publish the banns of marriage ... I publish ... the banns"--when the
clerk looked up from the lowest box of the "three-decker," and said in a
tone not _sotto voce_, "'Twixt th' cushion and th' desk, sur."
* * * * *
Prayer Book words are sometimes a puzzle to illiterate clerks. At the
present time in a Berkshire church the clerk always speaks of
"Athanasian's Creed," and of "the Anthony-Communion hymn."
* * * * *
His views of art are occasionally curious. An odd specimen of his race
was showing to some strangers a stained-glass window recently erected in
memory of a gentleman and lady who had just died. It was a two-light
window with figures of Moses and Aaron. "There they be, sir, but they
don't much feature the old couple," said the clerk, who regarded them as
likenesses of the deceased.
A clergyman on one occasion had some trouble with his dog. This dog
emulated the achievements of Newton's "Fido," and tore and devoured some
leaves of the parson's sermon. The parson was taking the duty of a
neighbour, and feared lest his mutilated discourse would be too short
for the edification of the congregation. So after the service he
consulted the clerk. "Was my sermon too long to-day?" "No," replied the
clerk. "Then was it too short?" "Nay, you was jist about right." Much
relieved, the parson then told the clerk the story of the dog's
misdemeanours, and of his fear lest the sermon should prove too short.
The old clerk scratched his head and then exclaimed, with a very solemn
face, "Ah! maister ----, our parson be a grade sight too long to plaise
us. Would you just give him a pup?"
* * * * *
A writer in _Notes and Queries_ tells a story of an old-fashioned
service, and with this we will conclude our collection of curious tales.
A lady friend of the writer still living, and the daughter of a
clergyman, assured him that in a country parish, where the church
service was conducted in a very free-and-easy, go-as-you-please sort of
way, the clerk, looking up at the parson, asked, "What shall we do
next, zurr?"