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.