“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?”