The Kirk Spook and more

Before many years have passed it will be hard to find a person who has
ever seen a parish clerk.

The parish clerk is all but extinct. Our grandfathers knew him well--
an oldish, clean-shaven man, who looked as if he had never been young,
who dressed in rusty black, bestowed upon him, as often as not, by the
rector, and who usually wore a white tie on Sundays, out of respect
for the seriousness of his office. He it was who laid out the rector's
robes, and helped him to put them on; who found the pl...