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
L3 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.

[Illustration: THE CHURCH OF ST. MARGARET, WESTMINSTER]

Insobriety was the normal condition of Fewson after school hours. It was
his invariable custom to visit t