finish the epitaph on a stone which was to be in readiness for removal
before Sunday. Arrived at the church, where he had his workshop, he set
down his lantern and lighted his other candle, which was set in a
primitive candlestick formed out of a potato. The church clock struck
eleven, and still some letters remained unfinished, when he heard a
strange sound, which seemed to say "Hiss!" "Hush!" He resumes his work
undaunted. Again that awful voice breaks in once more. He lights his
lantern and searches for its cause. In vain his efforts. He resolves to
leave the church, but again remembers his promise and returns to his
work. The mystic hour of midnight strikes. He has nearly finished, and
bends down to examine the letters on the stone. Again he hears a louder
"Hiss!" He now stands appalled. Terror seizes him. He has profaned the
Sabbath, and the sentence of death has gone forth. With tottering steps
Peter finds his way home and goes to bed. Sleep forsakes him. His wife
ministers to him in vain. As morning dawns the good woman notices
Peter's wig suspended on the great chair. "Oh, Peter," she cries, "what
hast thou been doing to burn all t' hair off one side of thy wig?" "Ah!
bless thee," says the clerk, "thou hast cured me with that word." The
mysterious "hiss" and "hush" were sounds from the frizzling of Peter's
wig by the flame of the candle, which to his imperfect sense of hearing
imported things horrible and awful. Such is the story which a writer in
Hone's _Year Book_ tells, and which is said to have afforded Peter
Priestly and the good people of merry Wakefield many a joke.

The _Year Book_ is always full of interest, and in the same volume I
find an account of a most worthy representative of the profession, one
John Kent, the parish clerk of St. Albans, who died in 1798, aged eighty
years. He was a very venerable and intelligent man, who did service in
the old abbey church, long before the days when its beauties were
desecrated by Grimthorpian restoration, or when it was exalted to