the dark,
With a card-playing parson and a cock-fighting clerk.

Peter's father was clerk before him, and on a stone to his memory is
recorded as follows:

In memory of
John Collis Husband of
Eliz: Collis who liv'd in
Wedlock together 50 years
he served as Parish Clerk 41 years
And died June 19th 1781 aged 69 years

Him who covered up the Dead
Is himself laid in the same bed
Time with his crooked scythe hath made
Him lay his mattock down and spade
May he and we all rise again
To everlasting life AMEN.

The name Collis occurs amongst those who held the office of parish clerk
at West Haddon. The Rev. John T. Page, to whom I am indebted for the
above information[44], has gleaned the following particulars from the
parish registers and other sources. The clerk who reigned in 1903 was
Thomas Adams, who filled the position for eighteen years. He succeeded
his father-in-law, William Prestidge, who died 24 March, 1886, after
holding the office fifty-three years. His predecessor was Thomas Collis,
who died 30 January, 1833, after holding the office fifty-two years, and
succeeded John Colledge, who, according to an old weather-beaten stone
still standing in the churchyard, died 12 September, 1781. How long
Colledge held office cannot now be ascertained. Here are some remarkable
examples of long years of service, Collis and Prestidge having held the
office for 105 years.

[Footnote 44: cf. _Notes and Queries_, Tenth Series, ii., 10 September,
1904, p. 215.]

In Shenley churchyard the following remarkable epitaph appears to the
memory of Joseph Rogers, who was a bricklayer as well as parish clerk:

Silent in dust lies mouldering here
A Parish Clerk of voice most clear.
None Joseph Rogers could excel
In laying bricks or singing well;
Though snapp'd his line, laid by his rod,
We build for him our hopes in God.

A remarkable instance of longevity is recorded on a tombstone in Cromer
churchyard. The inscription runs:

Sacred to the memory of David Vial who departed this life the
26th of March, 1873, aged 94 years, for sixty years clerk of
this parish.

At the village church of Whittington, near Oswestry, there is a
well-known epitaph, which is worth recording:

March 13th 1766 died Thomas Evans, Parish Clerk, aged 72.

Old Sternhold's lines or "Vicar of Bray"