Among tales of awe and weird mystery stands out the story of the adventures of Peter Priestly, clerk, sexton, and gravestone cutter, of Wakefield, who flourished at the end of the eighteenth century. He was an old and much respected inhabitant of the town, and not at all given to superstitious fears. One Saturday evening he went to the church to finish the epitaph on a stone which was to be in readiness for removal before Sunday. Arrived at the church, where he had his workshop, he set down his lantern and lighted his other candle, which was set in a primitive candlestick formed out of a potato. The church clock struck eleven, and still some letters remained unfinished, when he heard a strange sound, which seemed to say "Hiss!" "Hush!" He resumes his work undaunted. Again that awful voice breaks in once more. He lights his lantern and searches for its cause. In vain his efforts. He resolves to leave the church, but again remembers his promise and returns to his work. The mystic hour of midnight strikes. He has nearly finished, and bends down to examine the letters on the stone. Again he hears a louder "Hiss!" He now stands appalled. Terror seizes him. He has profaned the Sabbath, and the sentence of death has gone forth. With tottering steps Peter finds his way home and goes to bed. Sleep forsakes him. His wife ministers to him in vain. As morning dawns the good woman notices Peter's wig suspended on the great chair. "Oh, Peter," she cries, "what hast thou been doing to burn all t' hair off one side of thy wig?" "Ah! bless thee," says the clerk, "thou hast cured me with that word." The mysterious "hiss" and "hush" were sounds from the frizzling of Peter's wig by the flame of the candle, which to his imperfect sense of hearing imported things horrible and awful. Such is the story which a writer in Hone's Year Book tells, and which is said to have afforded Peter Priestly and the good people of merry Wakefield many a joke.
The Year Book is always full of interest, and in the same volume I find an account of a most worthy representative of the profession, one John Kent, the parish clerk of St. Albans, who died in 1798, aged eighty years. He was a very venerable and intelligent man, who did service in the old abbey church, long before the days when its beauties were desecrated by Grimthorpian restoration, or when it was exalted to cathedral rank. For fifty-two years Kent was the zealous clerk and custodian of the minster, and loved to describe its attractions. He was the friend of the learned Browne Willis. His name is mentioned in Cough's Sepulchral Monuments of Great Britain, and his intelligence and knowledge noticed, and Newcombe, the historian of the abbey, expressed his gratitude to the good clerk for much information imparted by him to the author. The monks could not have guarded the shrine of St. Alban with greater care than did Kent protect the relics of good Duke Humphrey. His veneration for all that the abbey contained was remarkable. A story is told of a gentleman who purloined a bone of the Duke. The clerk suspected the theft but could never prove it, though he sometimes taxed the gentleman with having removed the bone. At last, just before his death, the man restored it, saying to the clerk, "I could not depart easy with it in my possession."
Kent was a plumber and glazier by trade, in politics a staunch partisan of "the Blues," and on account of his sturdy independence was styled "Honest John." He performed his duties in the minster with much zeal and ability, his knowledge of psalmody was unsurpassed, his voice was strong and melodious, and he was a complete master of church music. Unlike many of his confrères, he liked to hear the congregation sing; but when country choirs came from neighbouring churches to perform in the abbey with instruments, contemptuously described by him as "a box of whistles," the congregation being unable to join in the melodies, he used to give out the anthem thus: "Sing ye to the praise and glory of God...." Five years before his death he had an attack of paralysis which slightly crippled his power of utterance, though this defect could scarcely be detected when he was engaged in the services of the church. Two days before his death he sang his "swan-song." Some colours were presented to the volunteers of the town, and were consecrated in the abbey. During the service he sang the 20th Psalm with all the strength and vivacity of youth. When his funeral sermon was preached the rector alluded to this dying effort, and said that on the day of the great service "Nature seemed to have reassumed her throne; and, as she knew it was to be his last effort, was determined it should be his best." The body of the good clerk, John Kent, rests in the abbey church which he loved so well, in a spot marked by himself, and we hope that the "restoration," somewhat drastic and severe, which has fallen upon the grand old church, has not obscured his grave or destroyed the memorial of this worthy and excellent clerk.
CHAPTER VII
THE CLERK IN EPITAPH
The virtues of many a parish clerk are recorded on numerous humble tombstones in village churchyards. The gratitude felt by both rector and people for many years of faithful service is thus set forth, sometimes couched in homely verse, and occasionally marred by the misplaced humour and jocular expressions and puns with which our forefathers thought fit to honour the dead. In this they were not original, and but followed the example of the Greeks and Romans, the Italians, Spaniards, and French. This objectionable fashion of punning on gravestones was formerly much in vogue in England, and such a prominent official as the clerk did not escape the attention of the punsters. Happily the quaint fancies and primitive humour, which delighted our grandsires in the production of rebuses and such-like pleasantries, no longer find themselves displayed upon the fabric of our churches, and the "merry jests" have ceased to appear upon the memorials of the dead. We will glance at the clerkly epitaphs of some of the worthies who have held the office of parish clerk who were deemed deserving of a memorial.
In the southern portion of the churchyard attached to St. Andrew's Church, Rugby, is a plain upright stone containing the following inscription:
In memory of
Peter Collis
33 years Clerk of
this Parish
who died Feb'y 28th 1818
Aged 82 years