h, in his _Dictionary of the Sussex Dialect_, tells
of a friend of his who had been remonstrating with one of his
parishioners for abusing the parish clerk beyond the bounds of
neighbourly expression, and who received the following answer: "You be
quite right, sir; you be quite right. I'd no ought to have said what I
did; but I doeant mind telling you to your head what I've said so many
times behind your back. We've got a good shepherd, I says, an excellent
shepherd, but he's got an unaccountable bad dog."

* * * * *

Some seventy or eighty years ago at Thame Church, Buckinghamshire, the
old-fashioned clerk had a much-worn Prayer Book, and the parson and he
made a duet of the responses, the congregation not considering it
necessary or even proper to interfere. When the clerk happened to come
to a verse of the Psalms with words missing he said "riven out"
(pronounced oot), and the parson finished the verse; this was taken
quite as a matter of course by the congregation.

* * * * *

In a Lancashire church, when the rector was about to publish the banns
of marriage, the book was not in its usual place. However, he began: "I
publish the banns of marriage ... I publish ... the banns"--when the
clerk looked up from the lowest box of the "three-decker," and said in a
tone not _sotto voce_, "'Twixt th' cushion and th' desk, sur."

* * * * *

Prayer Book words are sometimes a puzzle to illiterate clerks. At the
present time in a Berkshire church the clerk always speaks of
"Athanasian's Creed," and of "the Anthony-Communion hymn."

* * * * *

His views of art are occasionally curious. An odd specimen of his race
was showing to some strangers a stained-glass window recently erected in
memory of a gentleman and lady who had just died. It was a two-light
window with figures of Moses and Aaron. "There they be, sir, but they
don't much feature the old couple," said the clerk, who regarded them as
likenesses of the deceased.

A clergyman on one occasion had some trouble with his dog. This dog
emulated the achievements of Newton's "Fido," and tore and devoured some
leaves of the parson's sermon. The parson was taking the duty of a
neighbour, and feared lest his mutilated discourse would be too short
for the edification of the congregation. So after the service he
consulted the clerk. "Was my sermon too lo