[Footnote 72:  This story is told by Mrs. Hewett in her Peasant Speech of Devon, but I have ventured to anglicise the broad Devonshire a little, and to suggest that the scene could scarcely have taken place on a Sunday morning, as Mrs. Hewett suggests in her admirable book.]

The story is told of a rector who, when walking to church across the squire’s park during a severe winter, found a partridge apparently frozen to death.  He placed the poor bird in the voluminous pocket of his coat.  During the service the warmth of the rector’s pocket revived the bird and thawed it back to life; and when during the sermon the rector pulled out his handkerchief, the revived bird flew vigorously away towards the west end of the church.  The clerk, who sat in his seat below, was not unaccustomed to the task of beating for the squire’s shooting parties, called out lustily: 

“It be all right, sir; I’ve marked him down in the belfry.”

The fame of the Rev. John Russell, the sporting parson of Swymbridge, is widespread, and his parish clerk, William Chapple, is also entitled to a small niche beneath the statue of the great man.  The curate had left, and Mr. Russell inserted the following advertisement: 

“Wanted, a curate for Swymbridge; must be a gentleman of moderate and orthodox views.”

The word orthodox rather puzzled the inhabitants of Swymbridge, who asked Chapple what it meant.  The clerk did not know, but was unwilling to confess such ignorance, and knowing his master’s predilections, replied, “I ’spects it be a chap as can ride well to hounds.”

The strangest notice ever given out in church that I ever have heard of, related to a set of false teeth.  The story has been told by many.  Perhaps Cuthbert Bede’s version is the best.  An old rector of a small country parish had been compelled to send to a dentist his set of false teeth, in order that some repairs might be made.  The dentist had faithfully promised to send them back “by Saturday,” but the Saturday’s post did not bring the box containing the rector’s teeth.  There was no Sunday post, and the village was nine miles from the post town.  The dentist, it afterwards appeared, had posted the teeth on the Saturday afternoon with the full conviction that their owner would receive them on Sunday morning in time for service.  The old rector bravely tried to do that duty which England expects every man to do, more especially if he is a parson and if it be Sunday morning; but after he had mumbled through the prayers with equal difficulty and incoherency, he decided that it would be advisable to abandon any further attempts to address his congregation on that day.  While the hymn was being sung he summoned his clerk to the vestry, and then said to him, “It is quite useless for me to attempt to go on.  The fact is, that my dentist has not sent me back my artificial teeth; and as it is impossible for me to make myself understood, you must tell the congregation that the service is ended for this morning, and that there will be no service this afternoon.”  The old clerk went back to his desk; the singing of the hymn was brought to an end; and the rector, from his retreat in the vestry, heard the clerk address the congregation as follows: