WHEN I
        was a small boy
               at the beginning
                   of the century
         I remember an old man
           who wore knee-breeches
               and worsted stockings,
           and who
            used to hobble
                   about the street
                       of our village
                     with the help
                           of a stick.

    He must have been,
           getting on
               for eighty
             in the year 1807,
         earlier than which date
             I suppose
               I can hardly remember him,
           for I
            was born in 1802.

    A few white locks
           hung about his ears,
         his shoulders
            were bent
                   and his knees feeble,
         but he was still hale,
           and was much
              respected in
                   our little world of Paleham.

    His name was Pontifex.

    His wife
        was said
              to be his master;
        I have been told
             she brought
                   him a little money,
           but it
            cannot have been much.

    She was a tall,
           square-shouldered person
         (I have
              heard my father
                   call her a Gothic woman)
          who had insisted on
            being married to Mr. Pontifex
             when he
                was young and too good-natured
                      to say nay
                           to any woman
                 who wooed him.

    The pair
        had lived not unhappily together,
           for Mr. Pontifex's temper
            was easy and
             he soon learned to bow
            before his wife's
               more stormy moods.

    Mr. Pontifex
        was a carpenter by trade;
           he was also
               at one time parish clerk;
        when I remember him,
           however,
         he had so far
            risen in life as
              to be no longer
                  compelled to work
                       with his own hands.

    In his earlier days
         he had
              taught himself to draw.

    I do not say
         he drew well,
           but it was surprising
             he should
                  draw as well
                       as he did.

    My father,
           who took the living
               of Paleham
             about the year 1797,
         became possessed of a good
            many of old Mr. Pontifex's
                       drawings,
           which were
              always of local subjects,
         and so unaffectedly painstaking
             that they
                might have
                      passed for the work of
                           some good early master.

    I remember them as
          hanging up
           framed and glazed
               in the study
             at the Rectory,
           and tinted,
         as all else
               in the room
            was tinted,
           with the green
               reflected from the fringe
                   of ivy leaves
             that grew around the windows.

    I wonder
         how they
            will actually
                  cease and come
                       to an end
                     as drawings,
           and into
             what new phases of being
                 they will then enter.

    Not content with
        being an artist,
           Mr. Pontifex must
             needs also be a musician.

    He built the organ
           in the church
         with his own hands,
           and made a smaller
               one which
             he kept
                   in his own house.

    He could play
         as much as
             he could draw,
           not very well
              according to professional standards,
         but much better than
            could have been expected.

    I myself
          showed a taste
               for music
             at an early age,
           and old Mr. Pontifex
               on finding it out,
         as he soon did,
           became partial
               to me in consequence.

    It may be thought
         that with so many
            irons in the fire
         he could hardly
              be a very thriving man,
           but this
            was not the case.

    His father
        had been a day labourer,
           and he
            had himself begun life
                   with no other capital
                 than his good sense
                       and good constitution;
        now,
           however,
         there was a goodly show
               of timber
             about his yard,
           and a look
               of solid comfort
             over his whole establishment.

    Towards the close
           of the eighteenth century
         and not long
         before my father
            came to Paleham,
           he had
              taken a farm of
                   about ninety acres,
         thus making a considerable
              rise in life.