ition to a
working man of his time. He did not live in the days of the
three-and-sixpenny marvel, or of the half-crown wonder, now to be found
in the pocket of almost every schoolboy. Dixon's watch was of the kind
worn by the well-known Captain Cuttle, which Dickens describes as being
"a silver watch, which was so big and so tight in the pocket that it
came out like a bung" when its owner drew it from the depths to see the
time. It must, consequently, have cost many half-crowns, but yet as
timekeeper it was somewhat of a failure. In this, too, it resembled that
of the famous captain of which its proud possessor, as everybody knows,
used to say, "Put you back half-an-hour every morning, and about another
quarter towards the afternoon, and you've a watch that can be equalled
by a few and excelled by none." Dixon, therefore, when asked the time of
day, was usually obliged to go through an arithmetical calculation
before he could reply.

On Sunday, however, all was different; he then had no hesitation
whatever in at once declaring the correct time. For every Sunday morning
he put his watch by the rector's clock, and it mattered not how far the
rector's clock might be fast or slow, what that clock said was the true
time for Dixon. And though the remonstrances of the parishioners might
be loud and long, they were all in vain, for according to the rector's
clock he rang the church bells, and so the services commenced. He loved
the rector, therefore the rector's clock could not be wrong. Evidently
Dixon was capable of strong affection, a quality of no mean moral order.

Before the enclosure of parishes was common, and their various fields
separated by hedges or other fences; before, too, the ordnance survey
with its many calculations was an accomplished fact, much more measuring
of land in connection with work done each year was required than at
present. It was a necessity, therefore, that each village should have in
or near it a man skilled in the science of calculation. Consequently,
the acquirement of figures was fostered, and so in the earlier part of
the nineteenth century almost every parish could produce a man supposed
to be, and who probably was, great in arithmetic. Catwick's calculator
was Dixon, and he was generally thought by his co-villagers to be as
learned a one as any other, if not more so.

He had, however, a great rival at Long Riston. This was one Richard
Fewson, who, like Dixon, was clerk of his parish; bu