" The clergyman corrected himself, when the
singer again rose: "You're wrang agearn; it's twenty-second hymn."
Without any remark the clergyman corrected the number, and the man again
jumped up: "That's reet, mon, that's reet." When the old singer died his
widow was very anxious there should be some record on his tombstone of
his having played the clarionet in church; so above his name a
trumpet-shaped instrument was carved on the stone, and some doggerel
lines were to be added below. The vicar had great difficulty in
persuading the family to abandon the lines for the text, "The trumpet
shall sound, and the dead shall be raised."
A neighbouring vicar was on one occasion taking the duty of an old man
with failing eyesight, and Dick reminded him before the afternoon
service that there was a funeral at four o'clock. "You must come into
the church and tell me when it arrives," he told the clerk, "and I will
stop my sermon." It was the habit of the old clergyman to relapse into a
strong Yorkshire dialect when speaking familiarly, and this will account
for the brief dialogue which passed between him and Dick as he stood at
the lectern. In due course the funeral arrived at the church gates, and
the first intimation the congregation inside the church had of this fact
was the appearance of Dick, who noisily threw open the big doors of the
south porch.
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