No account of Danby Church would be
complete without mention of the Dog Whipper (locally
called Dog 'Norper') whose duty it was to expel any
dog which was a nuisance. The following is an
extract from Forty Years in a Moorland Parish
by Canon J C Atkinson, 2nd Ed. Macmillan,
1891. Canon Atkinson was the first priest who
could officially be called 'Vicar'. He filled
that position for 53 years, from 1847 to 1900.
Poor old Willy, the first dog-whipper of
my acquaintance, was a little man of about five foot
four, with legs that were hardly a pair, and which it
would have been slander to call straight or well-shapen;
and, as was natural perhaps, he shambled in his gait . .
.
On Sundays, and days when a 'burying' was
to be - for Willy was Sexton also, and kept the depth
of his graves religiously to under three feet - the
short handle of the whip he bore reposed in the
right-hand pocket, but the lainder and lash hung
outside; the latter, inasmuch as the bearer's stature
was not great, trailing on the ground. Willy
was valorous in the execution of his duty, although he
may sometimes have seen occasion for the exercise of a
wise discretion. I knew of two such
instances. In one, the intrusive dog was made
slowly to recede before the duly-armed official, who was
fairly well able to command the whole inter-space
between the pews which runs the whole length of the
Church; but when it came to turning round the
corner and backing towards the door, the dog did not
see the expediency of the desired course quite so
clearly as Willy did; and so, having more room in the
crossing in which to attain the necessary impetus, he
made a bolt for it, aiming at the archway presented by
the dog-whipper's bow-legs. But the archway
proved to be less than the dog had assumed it to
be; and, in consequence, after riding backwards
for a pace or two, poor old Willy came backwards to
the pavement, and to grief besides.
The dog on the other occasion was more
resolute, or less accommodating, for he met all
Willy's advances with a steady refusal to budge an
inch in a backward direction. Willy
persevered; the dog growled; and the teeth having a
more persuasive about them than the whip, the man gave
way and the dog did not.
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