He was a great authority on the ancient history of
the parish, and was formerly schoolmaster. He had brought up most
respectably a large family of sons and daughters on the smallest means,
many of whom still survive. I had a great respect for the old man, and
so he had for me. He was very great at leading that peculiarly
dirge-like wail at the huge Yorkshire funerals. I never could quite make
out any words, but as a singularly effective and musical cadence in a
minor key, it was no doubt a survival, as I once heard Canon Atkinson
say, the famous vicar of Danby, my immediate neighbour on the moors. At
last I attended Frank Hutchinson daily in his prolonged decay, and
received his solemn blessing and commendation on my work; and he
received at my hand a few hours before his death his last communion,
surrounded by all his children and grandchildren, in his small bedroom,
by the light of a single candle. I can still see his thin face uplifted.
It is thirty-five years ago, and I can still hear the striking of his
lucifer match in the midst of the afternoon service, and see him holding
up close to his own eye the candle and the book, and can hear his
tremulous "Amen," quite independent of the choral one sung by a small
choir in the chancel. He was great in epitaphs. A favourite one, which
he would recite _ore rotunda_, was:
"Let this record, what few vain marbles can,
Here lies an honest man.
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