At the church of Strathfieldsaye, where the Duke of Wellington was a regular attendant, a stranger was preaching, and the verger when he ended came up the stairs, opened the pulpit door a little way, slammed it to, and then opened it wide for the preacher to go out. He asked in the vestry why he had shut the door again while opening it, and the verger said, "We always do that sir, to wake the duke."
Mr. Ibbetson, of St. Michael's, Walthamstow, was marrying a couple when the ring was found to be too tight. A voice from behind exclaimed, "Suck your finger, you fool."
Two or three stories about vergers naturally find a place here. Possibly some of them are well known, but, even so, they will bear repetition.
A gentleman going to see a ritualistic church in London was walking into the chancel when an official stepped forward and said, "You mustn't go in there." "Why not?" said the gentleman. "I'm put here to stop you," said the man. "Oh! I see," said the gentleman, "you're what they call the rude screen, aren't you?"
A clergyman in the diocese of Wakefield told me that when he first came to the parish he found things in a very neglected state, and among other changes he introduced an early celebration of the Holy Communion. An old clerk collected the offertory, and when he brought it up to the clergyman he said, "There's eight on 'em, but two 'asn't paid."
A verger was showing a lady over a church when she asked him if the vicar was a married man. "No, ma'am," he answered, "he's a chalybeate."
A verger showing a large church to a stranger, pointed out another man and said, "That is the other verger." The gentleman said, "I did not know there were two of you," and the verger replied, "Oh yes, sir, he werges up one side of the church and I werges up the other."
Two little stories connected with Bishop Walsham How's episcopal life may well conclude the anecdotes about vergers. The Bishop's dislike of ostentation was well known. He caused much amusement on one occasion when living in London, by frustrating the designs of a pompous verger. It had been this man's custom to meet the Bishop at the door of the church, and precede him up the centre aisle en route for the vestry, thus making a little extra procession of his own. One day the Bishop, after handing this verger his bag, let him go on his way up the centre of the church, and himself slipped off up a side aisle, and gained the vestry unobserved, while the verger marched up in a solemn procession of one!
The other story occurs in the note-book, and runs as follows:
On my first visit to Almondbury to preach, the verger came to me in the vestry, and said, "A've put a platform in t' pulpit for ye; you'll excuse me, but a little man looks as if he was in a toob." (N.B. To prevent undue inferences I am five feet nine inches in height.)