[Footnote 93:  Old Russell, for many years clerk of the parish of East Lavant in the county of Sussex.]

There was one occasion on which he especially distinguished himself, and I shall never forget it.  A farmyard of six outbuildings abutted upon the church burial ground, and it was but natural that all the fowls should stray into it to feed and enjoy themselves in the grass.  Amongst these was a goodly flock of guinea-fowls, which oftentimes no little disturbed the congregation by their peculiar cry of “Come back! come back! come back!” One Sunday the climax of annoyance was reached when the whole flock gathered around the west door just as my father was beginning to read the first lesson.  His voice, never at any time very strong, was completely drowned.  Whereupon old Russell hastily left his seat, book in hand, and clattering as usual on his heels down the aisle disappeared through the door on vengeance bent.  The discomfiture of the offending fowls was instantly apparent by the change in their cry to one more piercing still as they fled away in terror.  Then all was still, and back comes old Russell, a gleam of triumph on his face and somewhat out of breath, but nevertheless able without much difficulty to take up the responses in the canticle which followed the lesson.  Scarcely, however, had the congregation resumed their seats for the reading of the second lesson when the offending flock again gathered round the west door, and again, as if in defiant derision of Russell, raised their mocking cry of “Come back! come back! come back!” And back accordingly he went clatter, clatter down the aisle, a stern resolution flashing from his eye, and causing the little boys as he passed to quail before him.  Now it so happened that the lesson was a short one, and, moreover, Russell took more time, making a farther excursion into the churchyard than before, in order if possible to be rid entirely of the noisy intruders.  Just as he returned to the church door, this time completely breathless, the first verse of the canticle which followed was being read, but Russell was equal to the occasion.  All breathless as he was, without a moment’s hesitation, he opened his book at the place and bellowed forth the responses as he proceeded up the church to his seat.  The scene may be imagined, but scarcely described:  Russell’s quaint little figure, the broad-rimmed spectacles on his nose, the ponderous book in his hands, the clatter of his heels, the choking gasps with which he bellowed out the words as he laboured for breath, and finally the sudden disappearance of the congregation beneath the shelter of their high pews with a view to giving vent to their feelings unobserved—­all this requires to have been witnessed to be fully appreciated.

It chanced one Sunday that a parishioner coming into church after the service had begun omitted to close the door, causing thereby an unseemly draught.  My father directed Russell to shut it.  Accordingly, book in hand and with a thumb between the leaves to keep the place, he sallied forth.  But, alas! in shutting the door the thumb fell out and the place was lost, and after floundering about awhile to find, if possible, the proper response, he at length made known to the congregation the misfortune which had befallen him by exclaiming aloud, “I’ve lost my place or summut.”