Part 20 (1/2)
Fewson was a good singer and musician generally, so in addition to his office as clerk he held the position 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.
[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 found a 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 pa.s.sion 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 being spent, 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, ba.s.soon, 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 wors.h.i.+p 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 wars.h.i.+ps 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 a.s.signed 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 paris.h.i.+oner 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! Give it 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, ”G.o.d speed 'em weel” (G.o.d 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 the parish 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 Yorks.h.i.+re 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 s.h.a.ggy eyebrows, and talked, and showed that age had not quenched the natural shrewdness of the Yorks.h.i.+reman.
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.
Yorks.h.i.+remen are keen songsters, and _fortissimo_ is their favourite note of expression. ”Straack up a bit, Jock! straack up a bit,” a Yorks.h.i.+re 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. One of 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 G.o.d 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 Yorks.h.i.+re 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.”