there was no choir and the
singers sat in the gallery. He was very happy in this office, moving
about on felt shoes that he might make no noise, and most reverently
keeping the Church clean and watching over it in every way. He also
continued in the post of schoolmaster, which at first he had only taken
temporarily, giving up part of his business to his nephew. But he still
sat up at night baking, and he also had other troubles: there was
insanity in his family, and he was much harassed.

His kindness and simplicity were sometimes abused. He never had the
heart to refuse to lend money, or to deny bread on credit to hopeless
debtors; and altogether debts, distress, baking all night, and school
keeping all day, were too much for him. The first hint of an examination
of his school completed the mischief, and he died insane. It is a sad
story, but many of us will remember with affectionate regard the good,
kind, quaint, and most excellent little man. By that time our
schoolmistress was Mrs. Durndell, the policeman's wife, a severe woman,
but she certainly made the girls do thoroughly whatever she taught,
especially repetition and needlework.

The examiner on religious subjects, Mr. Allen, afterwards an Archdeacon,
reported that the girls had an unusual knowledge of the text of
Scripture, but that he did not think them equally intelligent as to the
meaning.

Daily Service had been commenced when the new Church was opened, and the
children of the schools attended it. There was also a much larger
congregation of old men than have ever come in later years. At one time
there were nine constantly there. One of these, named Passingham, who
used to ring the bell for matins and evensong, was said to have been the
strongest man in the parish, and to have carried two sacks of corn over
the common on the top of the hill in his youth. He was still a hearty
old man at eighty-six, when after ringing the bell one morning as usual,
he dropped down on the hill in a fit and died in a few seconds.

There was not much change for a good many years. In 1846, the Parsonage
House was built and given to the living by Mr. Keble. The stained glass
of the south window of the Church was given by the Reverend John Yonge,
of Puslinch, Rector of Newton Ferrers, in Devonshire, in memory of his
youngest son, Edmund Charles, who died at Otterbourne House in 1847.
Thirteen years previously, in 1834, the eldest son, James Yonge, had
likewise di