I know a parish in quite another part of England where the attendance at church was very thin, till the incumbent was one day accidentally, I believe, overtaken with drink, and was had up before the magistrates. After that his church filled, he became a popular man--he had come down to the level of his people. But, as already said, it is of the bad parsons, as of the bad squires, that stories are told, and told from generation to generation; whereas those of spotless life--the vast bulk of them are such--drop year by year out of existence, and at the same time out of memory. In the parish in which I live there was a rector, about seventy years ago, who in his old age went to the neighbouring town, nine miles off, to live, and when asked by the Bishop why he was non-resident, said that there was no barber nearer who could curl his wig. That man held the living for a long term of years; he may have done good,--that he did evil I do not think, because the only thing remembered against him is, that he did not live in a place where his wig could not be curled. But is it not sad!--a long life's labour spent among the poor, preaching God's word, ministering to the sick and afflicted and broken-hearted, and all passing away without leaving the smallest trace, indeed the only reminiscence of the man being, that he hurt the _amour propre_ of the parish by telling the Bishop there was no one in it competent to curl his wig. [Illustration: Old Chained Bibles.] FOOTNOTE: [7] From _Songs of the West: Traditional Songs and Ballads of the West of England._ Collected by S. Baring Gould and H. Fleetwood Sheppard. London: Methuen & Co. 1889. CHAPTER VII. COUNTRY DANCES. [Illustration] Clisthenes, tyrant of Sicyon, says Herodotus, had a beautiful daughter whom he resolved to marry to the most accomplished of the Greeks. Accordingly all the eligible young men of Greece resorted to the court of Sicyon to offer for the hand of the lovely Agarista. Among these, the most distinguished was Hippoclides, and the king decided to take him as his son-in-law. [Illustration: Hippoclides before Clisthenes.] Clisthenes had already invited the guests to the nuptial feast, and had slaughtered one hundred oxen to the gods to obtain a blessing on the union, when Hippoclides offered to exhibit the crown and climax of his many accomplishments. He ordered a flute-player to play a dance tune, and when the musician obeyed, he (Hippoclides) began to dance before the king and court and guests, and danced to his own supreme satisfaction. After the first bout, and he had rested awhile and recovered breath, he ordered a table to be introduced, and he danced figures on it, and finally set his head on the table and gesticulated with his legs. When the applause had ceased, Clisthenes said--as the young man had reverted to his feet and stood expectantly before him--"You have danced very well, but I don't want a dancing son-in-law."