But you," he added, giving Sydney Smith a nudge
with his stick, "I see you be no fool." The new vicar was gratified.
Yorkshiremen are keen songsters, and _fortissimo_ is their favourite
note of expression. "Straack up a bit, Jock! straack up a bit," a
Yorkshire parson used to shout to his clerk, when he wanted the Old
Hundredth to be sung. Well do I remember a delightful old clerk in the
Craven district, who used to give out the hymn in the accustomed form
with charming manner. He liked not itinerant choirs, which were not
uncommon forty or fifty years ago, and used to migrate from church to
church, and sometimes to chapel, in the district where the members
lived. One of these choirs visited the church where the Rev. ----
Morris was rector, and he was directed to give out the anthem which the
itinerant strangers were prepared to sing. He neither knew nor cared
what an anthem was; and he gave the following somewhat confused notice:
"Let us sing to the praise and glory of God the fiftieth Psalm, _while
you folks sing th' anthem_," casting a scornful glance at the wandering
musicians in the opposite gallery.
Missionary meetings and sermons were somewhat rare in those days, but
the special preacher for missions, commonly called the deputation, who
performs for lazy clerics the task of instructing the people about work
in the mission field--a duty which could well be performed by the vicar
himself--had already begun his itinerant course.
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