But Fewson, if he did not teach it, felt himself to be well up in astronomy. One summer, an old boy of his told me, he got the children--my informant amongst the number--to collect from their parents and others for a trip to Hornsea. When the money was all in he complained that the amount was insufficient for a trip, and suggested that a telescope he had seen advertised should be bought with the money. If this were done, he promised that those who had subscribed should have the telescope in turn to look through from Saturday to Monday. The telescope was purchased, and each subscriber had it once, and then it was no more seen. From that time it became the entire property of the master. The children never again collected for a trip, and small wonder.
Fewson was a good singer and musician generally, so in addition to his office as clerk he held the position of choirmaster. At church on Sunday he sat at the west end, the boys of the village sitting behind him, and it was part of his duty to see that they behaved themselves decorously. Should a boy make any disturbance Fewson's hand fell heavily on the offender's ears, and so sharply that the sound of the blows could be heard throughout the church. Such incidents as this were by no means uncommon in churches in the days when Fewson and Dixon flourished, and they were looked upon as nothing extraordinary, for small compunction was felt in the punishment of unruly urchins.
I have been told of another clerk, for instance, who dealt such severe blows on the heads of boys, who behaved in the least badly, with a by no means small stick, that, like Fewson's, they, too, resounded all over the church. This clerk was known as "Old Crack Skull," and there were many others who might as appropriately have borne the name.
As parish clerk, Fewson attended the Archdeacon's visitation with the churchwardens, whose custom it was on each such occasion to spend about £3 in eating and drinking. On the appointment of a new and reforming churchwarden this expenditure was stopped, and for the first time Fewson returned to Riston sober. Here he looked at the churchwarden and sorrowfully said, "For thirty years I have been to the visitation and always got home drunk; Sally will think I haven't been." He then turned into the public-house, and afterwards reached home in the condition Sally, his wife, would expect.
Insobriety was the normal condition of Fewson after school hours. It was his invariable custom to visit the public-house each evening, where he always found a clean pipe and an ounce of tobacco ready for him. Here he acted as president of those who forgathered, being by virtue of his wisdom readily conceded this position. His favourite drink was gin, and of this he imbibed freely; leaving for home about ten o'clock, which he found usually only after many a stumble and sometimes a fall. He, however, managed to save money, with which he built himself a house at Arnold, adorning it, as still to be seen, with the carved heads of saints and others, begged from the owners of the various ancient ecclesiastical piles of the neighbourhood. He died about seventy years ago, and was buried at Riston.
Between Dixon and Fewson there was much friendly strife with regard to the solving of hard arithmetical problems. This contest was no mere private matter. It was entered into with great zest by the men of both the villages concerned; the Catwickians and the Ristonians each backing their man to win. "A straw shows which way the wind blows," we say, and herein we may feel a breathing of the Holderness man's love of his clan, an affection which has done much to develop and to strengthen his character.
Dixon was employed by the harvesters and others to measure the land which they had reaped, or on which they had otherwise worked. When the different measurements had been taken, he, of course, had to find the result. For this, he needed no pen, ink, or paper, nor yet a slate and pencil. He made his calculations by a much more economic method than these would supply. He sat down in the field he had measured, took off his beaver hat, and, using it as a kind of blackboard, with a piece of chalk worked out the result of his measurements on its crown.