He
entertained us very kindly, and showed us the old church register, in
which were the births, marriages, and burials of our ancestors for two
hundred years, as early as his book began. His wife, a good-natured,
chatty old lady (granddaughter of the famous Archdeacon Palmer, who
formerly had that parish and lived there), remembered a great deal
about the family; carried us out into the church-yard and showed us
several of their grave-stones, which were so covered with moss that we
could not read the letters till she ordered a hard brush and a basin
of water, with which Peter scoured them clean, and then Billy copied
them. She entertained and diverted us highly with stories of Thomas
Franklin, Mrs. Fisher's father, who was a conveyancer, something of a
lawyer, clerk of the county courts, and clerk to the archdeacon in his
visitations; a very leading man in all county affairs, and much
employed in public business. He set on foot a subscription for
erecting chimes in their steeple and completed it, and we heard them
play. He found out an easy method of saving their village meadows from
being drowned, as they used to be sometimes by the river, which method
is still in being; but, when first proposed, nobody could conceive how
it could be, 'but, however,' they said, 'if Franklin says he knows how
to do it, it will be done.
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