Part 20 (2/2)
A writer in _Chambers's Journal_ tells of a curious cla.s.s of clergymen who existed forty years ago, and were known as ”Northern Lights,” the light from a spiritual point of view being somewhat dim and flickering.
The writer, who was the vicar for twenty-five years of a moorland parish, tells of several clerks who were a.s.sociated with these clerics, and who were as quaint and curious in their ways as their masters[83].
The village was a hamlet on the edge of the Yorks.h.i.+re moors, near the confines of Derbys.h.i.+re. Beside the church was a public-house kept by the parish clerk, Jerry, a dapper little man, who on Sundays and funeral days always wore a wig, an old-fas.h.i.+oned tailed coat, black stockings, and shoes with buckles. His house was known as ”Heaven's Gate,” where the farmers from the neighbouring farms used to drink and stay a week at a time. Jerry used to direct the funerals, make the clerkly responses, and then provide the funeral party with good cheer at his inn. His invitation was always given at the graveside in a high-pitched falsetto voice, and the formula ran in these words, and was never varied:
”Friends of the corpse is respectfully requested to call at my house, and partake then and there of such refreshments as is provided for them.”
[Footnote 83: By the kindness of the editor of _Chambers's Journal_ I am permitted to retell some of the stories of the manners of these clerks and parsons.]
Much intemperance and disorder often followed these funeral feastings.
An old song long preserved in the district depicts one of these funerals, which was by no means a one-day affair, but sometimes lasted several days, during which the drinking went on. The inn was perhaps a necessity in this out-of-the-world place, but it was unfortunately a great temptation to the inhabitants, and to the old Northern Light parson who preceded the vicar whose reminiscences we are recording. Here in the inn the old parson sat between morning and afternoon service with a long clay pipe in his mouth and a gla.s.s of whisky by his side. When the bells began to settle and the time of service approached, he would send Jerry to the church to see if many people had arrived. When Jerry replied:
”There's not many comed yet, Mr. Nowton,” the parson would say:
”Then tell them to ring another peal, Jerry, and just fill up my gla.s.s again.”
The communion plate was kept at the inn under Jerry's charge. Three times a year it was used, and the circ.u.mstances were disgraceful. Four bottles of port wine were deemed the proper allowance on communion days, and after a fractional quant.i.ty had been consumed in the church, the rest was finished by the churchwardens at the inn. One of these churchwardens drank himself to death after the communion service. He was a big man with a red face, and was always present when a bear was baited at the top of the hill above the village. One day the bear escaped and ran on to the moor; everybody scattered in all directions, and several dogs were killed before the bear was caught.
The successor of Jerry as clerk, but not as publican, was a rough, honest individual who was called d.i.c.k. When excited he had two oaths, ”By'r Lady!” and ”By the ma.s.s!” but as he always p.r.o.nounced this last word _mess_, it was evident he did not understand the nature of the oath he used. He had a rough-and-ready way of doing things, and when handing out hymn-books during service he used to throw a book up to an applicant in the gallery to save the trouble of walking up the stairs in proper fas.h.i.+on. He talked the broadest Yorks.h.i.+re dialect, and it was not always easy to understand him. This was particularly the case when, in his capacity as clerk, he repeated the responses at the funeral service.
A tremendous snowfall happened one winter, and the roads were all blocked. It was impossible for any one to go to church on the Sunday morning following the fall, as the snow had not been cleared away. It was necessary for the vicar, however, to get there, as he had to read out the banns of marriage which were being published; so, putting on fis.h.i.+ng-waders to protect himself from the wet snow, he succeeded with some difficulty in getting through the drifts. In the churchyard, standing before the church clock, he found d.i.c.k intently gazing at it, so he asked him if it was going. His reply was laconic: ”Noa; shoo's froz.” He and the vicar then went into the church, and the necessary publication of banns was read in the presence of the clerk alone.
In those days it was necessary that the wedding service should be all over by twelve o'clock, and it was most important that due notice should be given of the date of the wedding, a matter about which d.i.c.k was sometimes rather careless.
The vicar had gone into Derbys.h.i.+re for a few days to fish the River Derwent. He was fis.h.i.+ng a long distance up the stream when he heard his name called, and saw his servant running towards him, who said that a wedding was waiting for him at the church. d.i.c.k had forgotten to give due notice of this event. The vicarage trap was in readiness, but the road over the Derbys.h.i.+re Peak was rough and steep, the pony small, the distance ten miles, and the vicar enc.u.mbered with wet clothes. The chance of getting to the church before twelve o'clock seemed remote. But the vicar and pony did their best; it was, however, half an hour after the appointed time when they reached the church. Glancing at the clock in the tower, the vicar, to his astonishment, found the hands pointing to half-past eleven. The situation was saved, and the service was concluded within the prescribed time. The vicar turned to the clerk for an explanation. ”I seed yer coming over the hill,” he said, ”and I just stopped the clock a bit.” d.i.c.k was an ingenious man.
There was another character in the parish quite as peculiar as d.i.c.k, and he was one of the princ.i.p.al singers, who sat in the west gallery. He had formerly played the clarionet, before an organ was put into the church.
During service he always kept a red cotton handkerchief over his bald head, which gave him a decidedly comic appearance.
On one occasion the clergyman gave out a hymn in the old-fas.h.i.+oned way: ”Let us sing to the praise and glory of G.o.d the twenty-first hymn, second version.” Up jumped the old singer and shouted, ”You're wrang, maister; it's first version.” The clergyman corrected himself, when the singer again rose: ”You're wrang agearn; it's twenty-second hymn.”
Without any remark the clergyman corrected the number, and the man again jumped up: ”That's reet, mon, that's reet.” When the old singer died his widow was very anxious there should be some record on his tombstone of his having played the clarionet in church; so above his name a trumpet-shaped instrument was carved on the stone, and some doggerel lines were to be added below. The vicar had great difficulty in persuading the family to abandon the lines for the text, ”The trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised.”
A neighbouring vicar was on one occasion taking the duty of an old man with failing eyesight, and d.i.c.k reminded him before the afternoon service that there was a funeral at four o'clock. ”You must come into the church and tell me when it arrives,” he told the clerk, ”and I will stop my sermon.” It was the habit of the old clergyman to relapse into a strong Yorks.h.i.+re dialect when speaking familiarly, and this will account for the brief dialogue which pa.s.sed between him and d.i.c.k as he stood at the lectern. In due course the funeral arrived at the church gates, and the first intimation the congregation inside the church had of this fact was the appearance of d.i.c.k, who noisily threw open the big doors of the south porch. He then stood and beckoned to the clergyman, but his poor blind eyes could not see so far. d.i.c.k then came nearer and waved his hat before him. This again met with no response. Then he got near enough to pluck him by the arm, which he did rather vigorously, shouting at the same time, ”Shoo's coomed.” ”Wha's coomed?” replied the clergyman, relapsing into his Yorks.h.i.+re speech. ”Funeral's coomed,” retorted d.i.c.k.
”Then tell her to wait a bit while I finish my sermon”; and the old man went quietly on with his discourse.
Another instance of d.i.c.k's failing to give proper notice of a service was as follows; but on this occasion it was not really his fault. Some large reservoirs were being made in the parish, and nearly a thousand navvies were employed on the works. These men were constantly coming and going, and very often they brought some infectious disorder which spread among the huts where they lived. One day a navvy arrived who broke out in smallpox of a very severe kind, and in a couple of days the man died, and the doctor ordered the body to be buried the moment a coffin could be got. It was winter-time, and the vicar had ridden over to see some friends about ten miles away. As the afternoon advanced it began to rain very heavily, and he decided not to ride back home, but to sleep at his friend's house. About five o'clock a messenger arrived to say a funeral was waiting in the church, and he was to come at once. He started in drenching rain, which turned to sleet and snow as he approached the moor edges. It was pitch-dark when he got off his horse at the church gates, and with some difficulty he found his way into the vestry and put a surplice over his wet garments. He could see nothing in the church, but he asked when he got into the reading-desk if any one was there. A deep voice answered, ”Yes, sir; we are here”; and he began the service, which long practice had taught him to repeat by heart. When about half-way through the lesson he saw a glimmer of light, and d.i.c.k entered the church with a lantern, which he placed on the top of the coffin. It was a gruesome scene which the lantern brought into view. There was the coffin, and before it, in a seat, four figures of the navvy-bearers, and d.i.c.k himself covered with snow and as white as if he wore a surplice.
They filed out into the churchyard, but the wind had blown the snow into the grave, and this had to be got out before they could lower the body into it. The navvies, who were kind-hearted fellows, explained that they could give no notice of the funeral beforehand, and they quite understood the delay was no fault of the vicar's or d.i.c.k's.
d.i.c.k was, in spite of his faults, an honest and kind-hearted man, and his death, caused by a fall from a ladder, was much regretted by his good vicar. On his death-bed the old clerk sent for his favourite grandson, who succeeded him in his office, and made this pathetic request: ”Thou'lt dig my grave, Jont, lad.”
With d.i.c.k the last of the ”Northern Lights” flickered out. Nothing now remains in the village recalling those old times. The village inn has been suppressed, and the drinking bouts are over. The old church has been entirely restored, and there is order and decency in the services.
The strange thing is that it should have been possible that only forty years ago matters were in such a state of chaos and disorder, and in such need of drastic reformation.
Another Yorks.h.i.+re clerk flourished in the thirties at Bolton-on-Dearne named Thomas Rollin, commonly called Tommy. He used to render Psalm cii.
6: ”I am become a _pee-li-can_ in the wilderness, and an owl in the _dee-sert_.” Tommy was a tailor by trade, and made use of a ready-reckoner to a.s.sist him in making up his accounts, and his familiarity with that useful book was shown when reading the second verse of the forty-fifth Psalm, which Tommy invariably read: ”My tongue is the pen of a _ready-reckoner_,” to the immense delight of the youthful members of the congregation.
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