The Rev. George Hustler, M.F.H. 25 



until a quarter to three in the afternoon waiting for my kmcheon, 

 growing hungrier and hungrier, until it turned to feeling as if 

 I never wished to eat again. It did not seem to strike any of 

 the family that it was inconvenient. I suppose their own in- 

 sides got accustomed to it, and therefore felt no vacuum. Mr. 

 Hustler was a very small eater himself, almost a teetotaler, and a 

 non-smoker, but could not sit down for five minutes without 

 falling asleep. At intervals he would awake with a smile and 

 look round in an amused way, as much as to say, " Have I been 

 to sleep really ? " then make some quite irrelevant remark and 

 fall asleep again with an angelic smile upon his face. 



Like most generous, good-natured people, he was consider- 

 ably imposed upon at times ; people with woeful faces and long 

 stories used to take him in. I told him so once, when I saw 

 through an old woman who was robbing him. His reply was 

 characteristic : " Possibly, but I would rather run the risk than 

 feel that perhaps I had refused help to someone in need." 



He was very sympathetic to young people. Once when I 

 was staying at Acklam he was taking a large omnibus-load of 

 young folk to a ball in the neighbourhood, when suddenly the 

 light at the end of the omnibus went out and we were all in 

 darkness. There ensued a good deal of laughter and skirmish- 

 ing. Later in the evening Mr. Hustler told me he was respon- 

 sible for this episode, saying, " I knew the young people would 

 like it." I think they did ! 



Acklam has passed now to the son of George Hustler's sister. 

 He has taken the name of Hustler, and has made great improve- 

 ments to the place and done away with the dangerous sunk fence. 

 He was much attached to his Uncle George, who was a man who 

 should have been always heaped with this world's goods, for he 

 would have spent it royally in giving pleasure to all within his 

 reach, and being happy himself into the bargain. 



His charities were unostentatious and unbounded. He 

 hunted out all the most remote cottages where help was needed, 

 both in his own parish and often in his neighbours' as well. An 

 old chimney-sweep, who used to be called Dick Turpin, and who 

 was not generally liked, sent many miles when he was dying to 

 ask Parson Hustler to come and see him, because " he had always 

 spoken kind " to him. Mr. Hustler stayed with him until he 

 passed through the gate into the Great Silence. 



