It was part of his duty, as clerk, to choose and to give out the number
of the hymns. Now Dixon, like Fewson, was a singer, and felt that the
choir could not get on without the help of his voice in the gallery when
the hymns were sung. Consequently, he then left his box and went to the
singing loft; but, to save time, as he marched down the aisle from east
to west, and as he mounted the steps of the gallery, he slowly and
solemnly announced the number of the hymn and read the lines of the
first verse. When the hymn was sung, our bird-like clerk came down again
from the heights of the loft and returned to his perch at the base of
the pulpit.
Nowadays, we should consider such proceedings very unseemly, but it
would have been thought nothing of in the days of Dixon. Scenes,
according to our ideas, much more grotesque were then of frequent
occurrence. We have already looked on at least one; here is another
which took place in the neighbouring church of Skipsea one Sunday
afternoon some sixty years ago, and in connection with singing. The
account was given to me by a parishioner of about eighty years of age,
who was one of the choirmen on the occasion.
The leading singer, he said, there being no instrument, started a tune
for the hymn. It would not fit the words, and he soon came to a full
stop, and choir and congregation with him.
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