His  business  was  that  of  a  bucklemaker.  In  the  early  years  of
the  long  war,  when  taxes  were  heavy,  men  worked  from  five
o'clock  in  the  morning  until  nine  at  night — hours  which  would
drive  trades  unionists  mad  in  these  days.  Being  provident-
minded,  during  a  great  part  of  his  life  he  subscribed  to  a  society
from  which  special  provision  was  to  come  in  his  later  years  ;
but  when  the  time  came  the  society  broke  up,  as  was  the  way
of  societies  in  his  day.  In  my  youth  he  was  a  minor  dignitary
of  the  Established  Church — very  minor,  indeed,  being  a  beadle
of  St  Martin's  Church.  There  were  two  or  three  differing  in
degree,  but  whether  of  service  or  seniority  I  never  knew.  The
office  was  one  of  more  local  awe  than  emolument.  The  beadle's
staff  at  a  door  was  the  sign  of  a  funeral,  and  the  beadle  walking
before  the  humble  burial  party  gave  it,  in  the  eyes  of  the  poor,
the  character  of  a  sacred  procession.  I  used  to  look  with
wonder  at  my  grandfather's  fine  long  blue  coat,  red  collar,  brass
buttons,  and  his  tall  japanned  staff  with  gilt  nails.  When  a
boy  I  used  to  often  go  round  the  churchyard  with  him  to  see
that  the  gravestones  and  the  grass  were  all  in  order.  My  great
delight  was  to  accompany  him  to  his  garden  in  the  Bristol
Road,  which  seemed  to  me  a  paradise  of  fruit,  and  flowers,  and
vegetables.  He  would  go  in  the  summer  as  early  as  four
o'clock  in  the  morning.  He  used  to  allow  me  to  strike  him  a
light  with  steel  and  flint  struck  over  tinder " — lucifer  matches

•  Match-boict  bore  the  Oftme  of  «*  tioder-boiet."  Tbt  tindtr  briaf  mde
hf  boniing  old  Unco  which  tmAXtf  received  the  wffuk  frooi  the  flint.  Brim-
slooe-poiDted  natdiet  could  then  be  lighted  at  iu  The  old  pfocess  of  getti^
a  %ht  it  nnfamiiisf  to  this  generatioo.
