back to any one the old tune, the old
sounds, the old sights of the whitewashed Church, and old John Green in
the gallery, singing with his bass voice, with all his might, his
eyebrows moving as he sung? And then the Commandments and Ante-Communion
read not from the Altar, but the desk; the surplice taken off in the desk
instead of the Vestry; Master Oxford's announcements shouted out from his
place, generally after the Second Lesson--"I hereby give notice that a
Vestry Meeting will be held on Tuesday, at twelve o'clock, to make a new
rate for the relief of the poo-oor." "I hereby give notice that Evening
Service will be at half-past two as long as the winter days are short."
Well, we should think these things odd now, and we have much to be
thankful for in the changes; but there were holy and faithful ones then,
and Master Oxford was one of them.

In the days here described, from 1820 to 1827, few small villages had
anything but dame schools, and Otterbourne children, such as had any
schooling at all, were sent to Mrs. Yates's school on the hill, where she
sat, the very picture of the old-fashioned mistress, in her black silk
bonnet, with the children on benches before her, and her rod at hand.

Several families, however, did not send the children to school at all,
and there were many who could not read, many more who could not write,
and there was very little religious teaching, except that in the Sunday
afternoons in Lent, the catechism was said in Church by the best
instructed children, but without any explanation.

About the year 1819 Mrs. Bargus and her daughter came to live at
Otterbourne, and in 1822 Miss Bargus married William Crawley Yonge, who
had retired from the army, after serving in the Peninsula and at
Waterloo. Both Mr. and Mrs. Yonge had clergymen for their fathers, and
were used to think much of the welfare of their neighbours. It was not,
however, till 1823 that Mrs. Yonge saw her way to beginning a little
Sunday School for girls, teaching it all by herself, in a room by what is
now Mr. J. Misselbrook's house. While there was still only one Service
on Sundays, she kept the school on the vacant half of the day, reading
the Psalms and Lessons to the children, who were mostly biggish girls.
This was when Archdeacon Heathcote was the Vicar of Hursley and
Otterbourne, and the Rev. Robert Shuckburgh was his Curate. Archdeacon
and Mrs. Heathcote, who were most kind and liberal, gave every help and
a