Dick was, in spite of his faults, an honest and kind-hearted man, and
his death, caused by a fall from a ladder, was much regretted by his
good vicar. On his death-bed the old clerk sent for his favourite
grandson, who succeeded him in his office, and made this pathetic
request: "Thou'lt dig my grave, Jont, lad."
With Dick the last of the "Northern Lights" flickered out. Nothing now
remains in the village recalling those old times. The village inn has
been suppressed, and the drinking bouts are over. The old church has
been entirely restored, and there is order and decency in the services.
The strange thing is that it should have been possible that only forty
years ago matters were in such a state of chaos and disorder, and in
such need of drastic reformation.
Another Yorkshire clerk flourished in the thirties at Bolton-on-Dearne
named Thomas Rollin, commonly called Tommy. He used to render Psalm cii.
6: "I am become a _pee-li-can_ in the wilderness, and an owl in the
_dee-sert_." Tommy was a tailor by trade, and made use of a
ready-reckoner to assist him in making up his accounts, and his
familiarity with that useful book was shown when reading the second
verse of the forty-fifth Psalm, which Tommy invariably read: "My tongue
is the pen of a _ready-reckoner_," to the immense delight of the
youthful members of the congregation.
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