Rann, Joshua

Shoemaker and parish clerk in Hayslope--"a man in rusty spectacles, with stubbly hair, a large occuput, and a prominent crown." "Where that good shoemaker got his notion of reading from, remained a mystery even to his most intimate acquaintances. I believe, after all, he got it chiefly from Nature, who had poured some of her music into this honest conceited soul, as she had been known to do into other narrow souls before his. She had given him, at least, a fine bass voice and a musical ear; but I cannot positively say whether these alone had sufficed to inspire him with the rich chant in which he delivered the responses. The way he rolled from a rich deep forte into a melancholy cadence, subsiding, at the end of the last word, into a sort of faint resonance, like the lingering vibrations of a fine violoncello, I can compare to nothing for its strong calm melancholy but the rush and cadence of the wind among the autumn boughs." He is opposed to the " Methodisses " who will, he fears, get the upper hand in the parish if the Squire and rector are not more active against them, and is frequently at odds about the church service with Bartle Massey, the schoolmaster, who is his chief rival in the church choir.

<em>Adam Bede</em>

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