* * * * *
The clerk at Stratfieldsaye, who was a character, once astonished a
strange clergyman who was taking the duty. The choir sat in the gallery,
and the numbers were few on that Sunday. "Mon I 'elp them chaps? they be
terrible few," said the clerk. The clergyman quite agreed that he should
render them his valuable assistance, and sit in the gallery. Presently a
man came in late, and was kneeling down to say his private prayer, when
the clergyman was horrified to see the clerk deliberately rise in the
gallery and throw a book at the man's head. When remonstrated with after
service the clerk replied carelessly, "Oh, it were only my way o'
telling him to sing up, as we were terrible short this marning."
CHAPTER XXI
CURIOUS STORIES
The old clerk of Clapham, Bedford, Mr. Thomas Maddams, always used to
read his own version of Psalm xxxix. 12: "Like as it were a moth
fretting in a garment." Apparently his idea was of a moth annoyed at
being in a garment from which it could not escape.
A parish clerk (who prided himself upon being well read) occupied his
seat below the old "three-decker" pulpit, and whenever a quotation or an
extract from the classics was introduced into the sermon he, in an
undertone, muttered its source, much to the annoyance of the preacher
and amusement of the congregation.
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