of a sudden, like spirits."
"Farmer Ledlow's first?"
"Farmer Ledlow's first; the rest as usual."
"And, Voss," said the tranter terminatively, "you keep house here till
about half-past two; then heat the metheglin and cider in the warmer
you'll find turned up upon the copper; and bring it wi' the victuals to
church-hatch, as th'st know."
* * * * *
Just before the clock struck twelve they lighted the lanterns and
started. The moon, in her third quarter, had risen since the snowstorm;
but the dense accumulation of snow-cloud weakened her power to a faint
twilight, which was rather pervasive of the landscape than traceable to
the sky. The breeze had gone down, and the rustle of their feet and
tones of their speech echoed with an alert rebound from every post,
boundary-stone, and ancient wall they passed, even where the distance of
the echo's origin was less than a few yards. Beyond their own slight
noises nothing was to be heard, save the occasional bark of foxes in the
direction of Yalbury Wood, or the brush of a rabbit among the grass now
and then, as it scampered out of their way.
Most of the outlying homesteads and hamlets had been visited by about two
o'clock; they then passed across the outskirts of a wooded park toward
the main village, nobody being at home at the Manor. Pursuing no
recognized track, great care was necessary in walking lest their faces
should come in contact with the low-hanging boughs of the old lime-trees,
which in many spots formed dense over-growths of interlaced branches.
"Times have changed from the times they used to be," said Mail, regarding
nobody can tell what interesting old panoramas with an inward eye, and
letting his outward glance rest on the ground, because it was as
convenient a position as any. "People don't care much about us now! I've
been thinking we must be almost the last left in the county of the old
string players? Barrel-organs, and the things next door to 'em that you
blow wi' your foot, have come in terribly of late years."
"Ay!" said Bowman, shaking his head; and old William, on seeing him, did
the same thing.
"More's the pity," replied another. "Time was - long and merry ago
now! - when not one of the varmits was to be heard of; but it served some
of the quires right. They should have stuck to strings as we did, and
kept out clarinets, and done away with serpents. If you'd thrive in
musical religion, stick to strings, says I."
"Strings be safe soul-lifters, as far as that do go," said Mr. Spinks.
"Yet there's worse things than serpents," said Mr. Penny. "Old things
pass away, 'tis true; but a serpent was a good old note: a deep rich note
was the serpent."
"Clar'nets, however, be bad at all times," said Michael Mail. "One
Christmas - years agone now, years - I went the rounds wi' the Weatherbury
quire. 'Twas a hard frosty night, and the keys of all the clar'nets
froze - ah, they did freeze! - so that 'twas like drawing a cork every time
a key was opened; and the players o' 'em had to go into a
hedger-and-ditcher's chimley-corner, and thaw their clar'nets every now
and then. An icicle o' spet hung down from the end of every man's
clar'net a span long; and as to fingers - well, there, if ye'll believe
me, we had no fingers at all, to our knowing."
"I can well bring back to my mind," said Mr. Penny, "what I said to poor
Joseph Ryme (who took the treble part in Chalk-Newton Church for two-and-
forty year) when they thought of having clar'nets there. 'Joseph,' I
said, says I, 'depend upon't, if so be you have them tooting clar'nets
you'll spoil the whole set-out. Clar'nets were not made for the service
of the Lard; you can see it by looking at 'em,' I said. And what came
o't? Why, souls, the parson set up a barrel-organ on his own account
within two years o' the time I spoke, and the old quire went to nothing."
"As far as look is concerned," said the tranter, "I don't for my part see
that a fiddle is much nearer heaven than a clar'net. 'Tis further off.
There's always a rakish, scampish twist about a fiddle's looks that seems
to say the Wicked One had a hand in making o'en; while angels be supposed
to play clar'nets in heaven, or som'at like 'em, if ye may believe
picters."
"Robert Penny, you was in the right," broke in the eldest Dewy. "They
should ha' stuck to strings. Your brass-man is a rafting dog - well and
good; your reed-man is a dab at stirring ye - well and good; your drum-man
is a rare bowel-shaker - good again. But I don't care who hears me say
it, nothing will spak to your heart wi' the sweetness o' the man of
strings!"
"Strings for ever!" said little Jimmy.
"Strings alone would have held their ground against all the new comers in
creation." ("True, true!" said Bowman.) "But clarinets was death."
("Death they was!" said Mr. Penny.) "And harmonions," William continued
in a louder voice, and getting excited by these signs of approval,
"harmonions and barrel-organs" ("Ah!" and groans from Spinks) "be
miserable - what shall I call 'em? - miserable - "
"Sinners," suggested Jimmy, who made large strides like the men, and did
not lag behind like the other little boys.
"Miserable dumbledores!"
"Right, William, and so they be - miserable dumbledores!" said the choir
with unanimity.
By this time they were crossing to a gate in the direction of the school,
which, standing on a slight eminence at the junction of three ways, now
rose in unvarying and dark flatness against the sky. The instruments
were retuned, and all the band entered the school enclosure, enjoined by
old William to keep upon the grass.
"Number seventy-eight," he softly gave out as they formed round in a
semicircle, the boys opening the lanterns to get a clearer light, and
directing their rays on the books.
Then passed forth into the quiet night an ancient and time-worn hymn,
embodying a quaint Christianity in words orally transmitted from father
to son through several generations down to the present characters, who
sang them out right earnestly:
"Remember Adam's fall,
O thou Man:
Remember Adam's fall
From Heaven to Hell.
Remember Adam's fall;
How he hath condemn'd all
In Hell perpetual
There for to dwell.
Remember God's goodnesse,
O thou Man:
Remember God's goodnesse,
His promise made.
Remember God's goodnesse;
He sent His Son sinlesse
Our ails for to redress;
Be not afraid!
In Bethlehem He was born,
O thou Man:
In Bethlehem He was born,
For mankind's sake.
In Bethlehem He was born,
Christmas-day i' the morn:
Our Saviour thought no scorn
Our faults to take.
Give thanks to God alway,
O thou Man:
Give thanks to God alway
With heart-most joy.
Give thanks to God alway
On this our joyful day:
Let all men sing and say,
Holy, Holy!"
Having concluded the last note, they listened for a minute or two, but
found that no sound issued from the schoolhouse.
"Four breaths, and then, 'O, what unbounded goodness!' number
fifty-nine," said William.
This was duly gone through, and no notice whatever seemed to be taken of
the performance.
"Good guide us, surely 'tisn't a' empty house, as befell us in the year
thirty-nine and forty-three!" said old Dewy.
"Perhaps she's jist come from some musical city, and sneers at our
doings?" the tranter whispered.
"'Od rabbit her!" said Mr. Penny, with an annihilating look at a corner
of the school chimney, "I don't quite stomach her, if this is it. Your
plain music well done is as worthy as your other sort done bad, a'
b'lieve, souls; so say I."
"Four breaths, and then the last," said the leader authoritatively.
"'Rejoice, ye Tenants of the Earth,' number sixty-four."
At the close, waiting yet another minute, he said in a clear loud voice,
as he had said in the village at that hour and season for the previous
forty years - "A merry Christmas to ye!"
CHAPTER V: THE LISTENERS
When the expectant stillness consequent upon the exclamation had nearly
died out of them all, an increasing light made itself visible in one of
the windows of the upper floor. It came so close to the blind that the
exact position of the flame could be perceived from the outside.
Remaining steady for an instant, the blind went upward from before it,
revealing to thirty concentrated eyes a young girl, framed as a picture
by the window architrave, and unconsciously illuminating her countenance
to a vivid brightness by a candle she held in her left hand, close to her
face, her right hand being extended to the side of the window. She was
wrapped in a white robe of some kind, whilst down her shoulders fell a
twining profusion of marvellously rich hair, in a wild disorder which
proclaimed it to be only during the invisible hours of the night that
such a condition was discoverable. Her bright eyes were looking into the
grey world outside with an uncertain expression, oscillating between
courage and shyness, which, as she recognized the semicircular group of
dark forms gathered before her, transformed itself into pleasant
resolution.
Opening the window, she said lightly and warmly - "Thank you, singers,
thank you!"
Together went the window quickly and quietly, and the blind started
downward on its return to its place. Her fair forehead and eyes
vanished; her little mouth; her neck and shoulders; all of her. Then the
spot of candlelight shone nebulously as before; then it moved away.
"How pretty!" exclaimed Dick Dewy.
"If she'd been rale wexwork she couldn't ha' been comelier," said Michael
Mail.
"As near a thing to a spiritual vision as ever I wish to see!" said
tranter Dewy.
"O, sich I never, never see!" said Leaf fervently.
All the rest, after clearing their throats and adjusting their hats,
agreed that such a sight was worth singing for.
"Now to Farmer Shiner's, and then replenish our insides, father?" said
the tranter.
"Wi' all my heart," said old William, shouldering his bass-viol.
Farmer Shiner's was a queer lump of a house, standing at the corner of a
lane that ran into the principal thoroughfare. The upper windows were
much wider than they were high, and this feature, together with a broad
bay-window where the door might have been expected, gave it by day the
aspect of a human countenance turned askance, and wearing a sly and
wicked leer. To-night nothing was visible but the outline of the roof
upon the sky.
The front of this building was reached, and the preliminaries arranged as
usual.
"Four breaths, and number thirty-two, 'Behold the Morning Star,'" said
old William.
They had reached the end of the second verse, and the fiddlers were doing
the up bow-stroke previously to pouring forth the opening chord of the
third verse, when, without a light appearing or any signal being given, a
roaring voice exclaimed -
"Shut up, woll 'ee! Don't make your blaring row here! A feller wi' a
headache enough to split his skull likes a quiet night!"
Slam went the window.
"Hullo, that's a' ugly blow for we!" said the tranter, in a keenly
appreciative voice, and turning to his companions.
"Finish the carrel, all who be friends of harmony!" commanded old
William; and they continued to the end.
"Four breaths, and number nineteen!" said William firmly. "Give it him
well; the quire can't be insulted in this manner!"
A light now flashed into existence, the window opened, and the farmer
stood revealed as one in a terrific passion.
"Drown en! - drown en!" the tranter cried, fiddling frantically. "Play
fortissimy, and drown his spaking!"
"Fortissimy!" said Michael Mail, and the music and singing waxed so loud
that it was impossible to know what Mr. Shiner had said, was saying, or
was about to say; but wildly flinging his arms and body about in the
forms of capital Xs and Ys, he appeared to utter enough invectives to
consign the whole parish to perdition.
"Very onseemly - very!" said old William, as they retired. "Never such a
dreadful scene in the whole round o' my carrel practice - never! And he a
churchwarden!"
"Only a drap o' drink got into his head," said the tranter. "Man's well
enough when he's in his religious frame. He's in his worldly frame now.
Must ask en to our bit of a party to-morrow night, I suppose, and so put
en in humour again. We bear no mortal man ill-will."
They now crossed Mellstock Bridge, and went along an embowered path
beside the Froom towards the church and vicarage, meeting Voss with the
hot mead and bread-and-cheese as they were approaching the churchyard.
This determined them to eat and drink before proceeding further, and they
entered the church and ascended to the gallery. The lanterns were
opened, and the whole body sat round against the walls on benches and
whatever else was available, and made a hearty meal. In the pauses of
conversation there could be heard through the floor overhead a little
world of undertones and creaks from the halting clockwork, which never
spread further than the tower they were born in, and raised in the more
meditative minds a fancy that here lay the direct pathway of Time.
Having done eating and drinking, they again tuned the instruments, and
once more the party emerged into the night air.
"Where's Dick?" said old Dewy.
Every man looked round upon every other man, as if Dick might have been
transmuted into one or the other; and then they said they didn't know.
"Well now, that's what I call very nasty of Master Dicky, that I do,"
said Michael Mail.
"He've clinked off home-along, depend upon't," another suggested, though
not quite believing that he had.
"Dick!" exclaimed the tranter, and his voice rolled sonorously forth
among the yews.
He suspended his muscles rigid as stone whilst listening for an answer,
and finding he listened in vain, turned to the assemblage.
"The treble man too! Now if he'd been a tenor or counter chap, we might
ha' contrived the rest o't without en, you see. But for a quire to lose
the treble, why, my sonnies, you may so well lose your . . . " The
tranter paused, unable to mention an image vast enough for the occasion.
"Your head at once," suggested Mr. Penny.
The tranter moved a pace, as if it were puerile of people to complete
sentences when there were more pressing things to be done.
"Was ever heard such a thing as a young man leaving his work half done
and turning tail like this!"
"Never," replied Bowman, in a tone signifying that he was the last man in
the world to wish to withhold the formal finish required of him.
"I hope no fatal tragedy has overtook the lad!" said his grandfather.
"O no," replied tranter Dewy placidly. "Wonder where he's put that there
fiddle of his. Why that fiddle cost thirty shillings, and good words
besides. Somewhere in the damp, without doubt; that instrument will be
unglued and spoilt in ten minutes - ten! ay, two."
"What in the name o' righteousness can have happened?" said old William,
more uneasily. "Perhaps he's drownded!"
Leaving their lanterns and instruments in the belfry they retraced their
steps along the waterside track. "A strapping lad like Dick d'know
better than let anything happen onawares," Reuben remarked. "There's
sure to be some poor little scram reason for't staring us in the face all
the while." He lowered his voice to a mysterious tone: "Neighbours, have
ye noticed any sign of a scornful woman in his head, or suchlike?"
"Not a glimmer of such a body. He's as clear as water yet."
"And Dicky said he should never marry," cried Jimmy, "but live at home
always along wi' mother and we!"
"Ay, ay, my sonny; every lad has said that in his time."
They had now again reached the precincts of Mr. Shiner's, but hearing
nobody in that direction, one or two went across to the schoolhouse. A
light was still burning in the bedroom, and though the blind was down,
the window had been slightly opened, as if to admit the distant notes of
the carollers to the ears of the occupant of the room.
Opposite the window, leaning motionless against a beech tree, was the
lost man, his arms folded, his head thrown back, his eyes fixed upon the
illuminated lattice.
"Why, Dick, is that thee? What b'st doing here?"
Dick's body instantly flew into a more rational attitude, and his head
was seen to turn east and west in the gloom, as if endeavouring to
discern some proper answer to that question; and at last he said in
rather feeble accents - "Nothing, father."
"Th'st take long enough time about it then, upon my body," said the
tranter, as they all turned anew towards the vicarage.
"I thought you hadn't done having snap in the gallery," said Dick.
"Why, we've been traypsing and rambling about, looking everywhere, and
thinking you'd done fifty deathly things, and here have you been at
nothing at all!"
"The stupidness lies in that point of it being nothing at all," murmured
Mr. Spinks.
The vicarage front was their next field of operation, and Mr. Maybold,
the lately-arrived incumbent, duly received his share of the night's
harmonies. It was hoped that by reason of his profession he would have
been led to open the window, and an extra carol in quick time was added
to draw him forth. But Mr. Maybold made no stir.
"A bad sign!" said old William, shaking his head.
However, at that same instant a musical voice was heard exclaiming from
inner depths of bedclothes - "Thanks, villagers!"
"What did he say?" asked Bowman, who was rather dull of hearing. Bowman's
voice, being therefore loud, had been heard by the vicar within.
"I said, 'Thanks, villagers!'" cried the vicar again.
"Oh, we didn't hear 'ee the first time!" cried Bowman.
"Now don't for heaven's sake spoil the young man's temper by answering
like that!" said the tranter.
"You won't do that, my friends!" the vicar shouted.
"Well to be sure, what ears!" said Mr. Penny in a whisper. "Beats any
horse or dog in the parish, and depend upon't, that's a sign he's a
proper clever chap."
"We shall see that in time," said the tranter.
Old William, in his gratitude for such thanks from a comparatively new
inhabitant, was anxious to play all the tunes over again; but renounced
his desire on being reminded by Reuben that it would be best to leave
well alone.
"Now putting two and two together," the tranter continued, as they went
their way over the hill, and across to the last remaining houses; "that
is, in the form of that young female vision we zeed just now, and this
young tenor-voiced parson, my belief is she'll wind en round her finger,
and twist the pore young feller about like the figure of 8 - that she will
so, my sonnies."
CHAPTER VI: CHRISTMAS MORNING
The choir at last reached their beds, and slept like the rest of the
parish. Dick's slumbers, through the three or four hours remaining for
rest, were disturbed and slight; an exhaustive variation upon the
incidents that had passed that night in connection with the school-window
going on in his brain every moment of the time.
In the morning, do what he would - go upstairs, downstairs, out of doors,
speak of the wind and weather, or what not - he could not refrain from an
unceasing renewal, in imagination, of that interesting enactment. Tilted
on the edge of one foot he stood beside the fireplace, watching his
mother grilling rashers; but there was nothing in grilling, he thought,
unless the Vision grilled. The limp rasher hung down between the bars of
the gridiron like a cat in a child's arms; but there was nothing in
similes, unless She uttered them. He looked at the daylight shadows of a
yellow hue, dancing with the firelight shadows in blue on the whitewashed
chimney corner, but there was nothing in shadows. "Perhaps the new young
wom - sch - Miss Fancy Day will sing in church with us this morning," he
said.
The tranter looked a long time before he replied, "I fancy she will; and
yet I fancy she won't."
Dick implied that such a remark was rather to be tolerated than admired;
though deliberateness in speech was known to have, as a rule, more to do
with the machinery of the tranter's throat than with the matter
enunciated.
They made preparations for going to church as usual; Dick with extreme
alacrity, though he would not definitely consider why he was so
religious. His wonderful nicety in brushing and cleaning his best light
boots had features which elevated it to the rank of an art. Every
particle and speck of last week's mud was scraped and brushed from toe
and heel; new blacking from the packet was carefully mixed and made use
of, regardless of expense. A coat was laid on and polished; then another
coat for increased blackness; and lastly a third, to give the perfect and
mirror-like jet which the hoped-for rencounter demanded.
It being Christmas-day, the tranter prepared himself with Sunday
particularity. Loud sousing and snorting noises were heard to proceed
from a tub in the back quarters of the dwelling, proclaiming that he was
there performing his great Sunday wash, lasting half-an-hour, to which
his washings on working-day mornings were mere flashes in the pan.
Vanishing into the outhouse with a large brown towel, and the above-named
bubblings and snortings being carried on for about twenty minutes, the
tranter would appear round the edge of the door, smelling like a summer
fog, and looking as if he had just narrowly escaped a watery grave with
the loss of much of his clothes, having since been weeping bitterly till
his eyes were red; a crystal drop of water hanging ornamentally at the
bottom of each ear, one at the tip of his nose, and others in the form of
spangles about his hair.
After a great deal of crunching upon the sanded stone floor by the feet
of father, son, and grandson as they moved to and fro in these
preparations, the bass-viol and fiddles were taken from their nook, and
the strings examined and screwed a little above concert-pitch, that they
might keep their tone when the service began, to obviate the awkward
contingency of having to retune them at the back of the gallery during a
cough, sneeze, or amen - an inconvenience which had been known to arise in
damp wintry weather.
The three left the door and paced down Mellstock-lane and across the ewe-
lease, bearing under their arms the instruments in faded green-baize
bags, and old brown music-books in their hands; Dick continually finding
himself in advance of the other two, and the tranter moving on with toes
turned outwards to an enormous angle.
At the foot of an incline the church became visible through the north
gate, or 'church hatch,' as it was called here. Seven agile figures in a
clump were observable beyond, which proved to be the choristers waiting;
sitting on an altar-tomb to pass the time, and letting their heels dangle
against it. The musicians being now in sight, the youthful party
scampered off and rattled up the old wooden stairs of the gallery like a
regiment of cavalry; the other boys of the parish waiting outside and
observing birds, cats, and other creatures till the vicar entered, when
they suddenly subsided into sober church-goers, and passed down the aisle
with echoing heels.
The gallery of Mellstock Church had a status and sentiment of its own. A
stranger there was regarded with a feeling altogether differing from that
of the congregation below towards him. Banished from the nave as an
intruder whom no originality could make interesting, he was received
above as a curiosity that no unfitness could render dull. The gallery,
too, looked down upon and knew the habits of the nave to its remotest
peculiarity, and had an extensive stock of exclusive information about
it; whilst the nave knew nothing of the gallery folk, as gallery folk,
beyond their loud-sounding minims and chest notes. Such topics as that
the clerk was always chewing tobacco except at the moment of crying amen;
that he had a dust-hole in his pew; that during the sermon certain young
daughters of the village had left off caring to read anything so mild as
the marriage service for some years, and now regularly studied the one
which chronologically follows it; that a pair of lovers touched fingers
through a knot-hole between their pews in the manner ordained by their
great exemplars, Pyramus and Thisbe; that Mrs. Ledlow, the farmer's wife,
counted her money and reckoned her week's marketing expenses during the
first lesson - all news to those below - were stale subjects here.
Old William sat in the centre of the front row, his violoncello between
his knees and two singers on each hand. Behind him, on the left, came
the treble singers and Dick; and on the right the tranter and the tenors.
Farther back was old Mail with the altos and supernumeraries.
But before they had taken their places, and whilst they were standing in
a circle at the back of the gallery practising a psalm or two, Dick cast
his eyes over his grandfather's shoulder, and saw the vision of the past
night enter the porch-door as methodically as if she had never been a
vision at all. A new atmosphere seemed suddenly to be puffed into the
ancient edifice by her movement, which made Dick's body and soul tingle
with novel sensations. Directed by Shiner, the churchwarden, she
proceeded to the small aisle on the north side of the chancel, a spot now
allotted to a throng of Sunday-school girls, and distinctly visible from
the gallery-front by looking under the curve of the furthermost arch on
that side.
Before this moment the church had seemed comparatively empty - now it was
thronged; and as Miss Fancy rose from her knees and looked around her for
a permanent place in which to deposit herself - finally choosing the
remotest corner - Dick began to breathe more freely the warm new air she
had brought with her; to feel rushings of blood, and to have impressions
that there was a tie between her and himself visible to all the
congregation.
Ever afterwards the young man could recollect individually each part of
the service of that bright Christmas morning, and the trifling
occurrences which took place as its minutes slowly drew along; the duties
of that day dividing themselves by a complete line from the services of
other times. The tunes they that morning essayed remained with him for
years, apart from all others; also the text; also the appearance of the
layer of dust upon the capitals of the piers; that the holly-bough in the
chancel archway was hung a little out of the centre - all the ideas, in
short, that creep into the mind when reason is only exercising its lowest
activity through the eye.
By chance or by fate, another young man who attended Mellstock Church on
that Christmas morning had towards the end of the service the same
instinctive perception of an interesting presence, in the shape of the
same bright maiden, though his emotion reached a far less developed
stage. And there was this difference, too, that the person in question
was surprised at his condition, and sedulously endeavoured to reduce
himself to his normal state of mind. He was the young vicar, Mr.
Maybold.
The music on Christmas mornings was frequently below the standard of
church-performances at other times. The boys were sleepy from the heavy
exertions of the night; the men were slightly wearied; and now, in
addition to these constant reasons, there was a dampness in the
atmosphere that still further aggravated the evil. Their strings, from
the recent long exposure to the night air, rose whole semitones, and
snapped with a loud twang at the most silent moment; which necessitated
more retiring than ever to the back of the gallery, and made the gallery
throats quite husky with the quantity of coughing and hemming required
for tuning in. The vicar looked cross.
When the singing was in progress there was suddenly discovered to be a
strong and shrill reinforcement from some point, ultimately found to be
the school-girls' aisle. At every attempt it grew bolder and more
distinct. At the third time of singing, these intrusive feminine voices
were as mighty as those of the regular singers; in fact, the flood of
sound from this quarter assumed such an individuality, that it had a
time, a key, almost a tune of its own, surging upwards when the gallery
plunged downwards, and the reverse.
Now this had never happened before within the memory of man. The girls,
like the rest of the congregation, had always been humble and respectful
followers of the gallery; singing at sixes and sevens if without gallery
leaders; never interfering with the ordinances of these practised
artists - having no will, union, power, or proclivity except it was given
them from the established choir enthroned above them.
A good deal of desperation became noticeable in the gallery throats and
strings, which continued throughout the musical portion of the service.
Directly the fiddles were laid down, Mr. Penny's spectacles put in their
sheath, and the text had been given out, an indignant whispering began.
"Did ye hear that, souls?" Mr. Penny said, in a groaning breath.
"Brazen-faced hussies!" said Bowman.
"True; why, they were every note as loud as we, fiddles and all, if not
louder!"
"Fiddles and all!" echoed Bowman bitterly.
"Shall anything saucier be found than united 'ooman?" Mr. Spinks
murmured.
"What I want to know is," said the tranter (as if he knew already, but
that civilization required the form of words), "what business people have
to tell maidens to sing like that when they don't sit in a gallery, and
never have entered one in their lives? That's the question, my sonnies."
"'Tis the gallery have got to sing, all the world knows," said Mr. Penny.
"Why, souls, what's the use o' the ancients spending scores of pounds to
build galleries if people down in the lowest depths of the church sing
like that at a moment's notice?"
"Really, I think we useless ones had better march out of church, fiddles
and all!" said Mr. Spinks, with a laugh which, to a stranger, would have
sounded mild and real. Only the initiated body of men he addressed could
understand the horrible bitterness of irony that lurked under the quiet
words 'useless ones,' and the ghastliness of the laughter apparently so
natural.
"Never mind! Let 'em sing too - 'twill make it all the louder - hee, hee!"
said Leaf.
"Thomas Leaf, Thomas Leaf! Where have you lived all your life?" said
grandfather William sternly.
The quailing Leaf tried to look as if he had lived nowhere at all.
"When all's said and done, my sonnies," Reuben said, "there'd have been
no real harm in their singing if they had let nobody hear 'em, and only
jined in now and then."
"None at all," said Mr. Penny. "But though I don't wish to accuse people
wrongfully, I'd say before my lord judge that I could hear every note o'
that last psalm come from 'em as much as from us - every note as if 'twas
their own."
"Know it! ah, I should think I did know it!" Mr. Spinks was heard to
observe at this moment, without reference to his fellow players - shaking
his head at some idea he seemed to see floating before him, and smiling
as if he were attending a funeral at the time. "Ah, do I or don't I know
it!"
No one said "Know what?" because all were aware from experience that what
he knew would declare itself in process of time.
"I could fancy last night that we should have some trouble wi' that young
man," said the tranter, pending the continuance of Spinks's speech, and
looking towards the unconscious Mr. Maybold in the pulpit.
"I fancy," said old William, rather severely, "I fancy there's too much
whispering going on to be of any spiritual use to gentle or simple." Then
folding his lips and concentrating his glance on the vicar, he implied
that none but the ignorant would speak again; and accordingly there was
silence in the gallery, Mr. Spinks's telling speech remaining for ever
unspoken.
Dick had said nothing, and the tranter little, on this episode of the
morning; for Mrs. Dewy at breakfast expressed it as her intention to
invite the youthful leader of the culprits to the small party it was
customary with them to have on Christmas night - a piece of knowledge
which had given a particular brightness to Dick's reflections since he
had received it. And in the tranter's slightly-cynical nature, party
feeling was weaker than in the other members of the choir, though
friendliness and faithful partnership still sustained in him a hearty
earnestness on their account.
CHAPTER VII: THE TRANTER'S PARTY
During the afternoon unusual activity was seen to prevail about the
precincts of tranter Dewy's house. The flagstone floor was swept of
dust, and a sprinkling of the finest yellow sand from the innermost
stratum of the adjoining sand-pit lightly scattered thereupon. Then were
produced large knives and forks, which had been shrouded in darkness and
grease since the last occasion of the kind, and bearing upon their sides,
"Shear-steel, warranted," in such emphatic letters of assurance, that the
warranter's name was not required as further proof, and not given. The
key was left in the tap of the cider-barrel, instead of being carried in
a pocket. And finally the tranter had to stand up in the room and let
his wife wheel him round like a turnstile, to see if anything
discreditable was visible in his appearance.
"Stand still till I've been for the scissors," said Mrs. Dewy.
The tranter stood as still as a sentinel at the challenge.
The only repairs necessary were a trimming of one or two whiskers that
had extended beyond the general contour of the mass; a like trimming of a
slightly-frayed edge visible on his shirt-collar; and a final tug at a
grey hair - to all of which operations he submitted in resigned silence,
except the last, which produced a mild "Come, come, Ann," by way of
expostulation.
"Really, Reuben, 'tis quite a disgrace to see such a man," said Mrs.
Dewy, with the severity justifiable in a long-tried companion, giving him
another turn round, and picking several of Smiler's hairs from the
shoulder of his coat. Reuben's thoughts seemed engaged elsewhere, and he
yawned. "And the collar of your coat is a shame to behold - so plastered
with dirt, or dust, or grease, or something. Why, wherever could you
have got it?"
"'Tis my warm nater in summer-time, I suppose. I always did get in such
a heat when I bustle about."
"Ay, the Dewys always were such a coarse-skinned family. There's your
brother Bob just as bad - as fat as a porpoise - wi' his low, mean, 'How'st
do, Ann?' whenever he meets me. I'd 'How'st do' him indeed! If the sun
only shines out a minute, there be you all streaming in the face - I never
see!"
"If I be hot week-days, I must be hot Sundays."
"If any of the girls should turn after their father 'twill be a bad look-
out for 'em, poor things! None of my family were sich vulgar sweaters,
not one of 'em. But, Lord-a-mercy, the Dewys! I don't know how ever I
cam' into such a family!"
"Your woman's weakness when I asked ye to jine us. That's how it was I
suppose." But the tranter appeared to have heard some such words from
his wife before, and hence his answer had not the energy it might have
shown if the inquiry had possessed the charm of novelty.
"You never did look so well in a pair o' trousers as in them," she
continued in the same unimpassioned voice, so that the unfriendly
criticism of the Dewy family seemed to have been more normal than
spontaneous. "Such a cheap pair as 'twas too. As big as any man could
wish to have, and lined inside, and double-lined in the lower parts, and
an extra piece of stiffening at the bottom. And 'tis a nice high cut
that comes up right under your armpits, and there's enough turned down
inside the seams to make half a pair more, besides a piece of cloth left
that will make an honest waistcoat - all by my contriving in buying the
stuff at a bargain, and having it made up under my eye. It only shows
what may be done by taking a little trouble, and not going straight to
the rascally tailors."
The discourse was cut short by the sudden appearance of Charley on the
scene, with a face and hands of hideous blackness, and a nose like a
guttering candle. Why, on that particularly cleanly afternoon, he should
have discovered that the chimney-crook and chain from which the hams were
suspended should have possessed more merits and general interest as
playthings than any other articles in the house, is a question for
nursing mothers to decide. However, the humour seemed to lie in the
result being, as has been seen, that any given player with these articles
was in the long-run daubed with soot. The last that was seen of Charley
by daylight after this piece of ingenuity was when in the act of
vanishing from his father's presence round the corner of the
house - looking back over his shoulder with an expression of great sin on
his face, like Cain as the Outcast in Bible pictures.
* * * * *
The guests had all assembled, and the tranter's party had reached that
degree of development which accords with ten o'clock P.M. in rural
assemblies. At that hour the sound of a fiddle in process of tuning was
heard from the inner pantry.
"That's Dick," said the tranter. "That lad's crazy for a jig."
"Dick! Now I cannot - really, I cannot have any dancing at all till
Christmas-day is out," said old William emphatically. "When the clock
ha' done striking twelve, dance as much as ye like."
"Well, I must say there's reason in that, William," said Mrs. Penny. "If
you do have a party on Christmas-night, 'tis only fair and honourable to
the sky-folk to have it a sit-still party. Jigging parties be all very
well on the Devil's holidays; but a jigging party looks suspicious now. O
yes; stop till the clock strikes, young folk - so say I."
It happened that some warm mead accidentally got into Mr. Spinks's head
about this time.
"Dancing," he said, "is a most strengthening, livening, and courting
movement, 'specially with a little beverage added! And dancing is good.
But why disturb what is ordained, Richard and Reuben, and the company
zhinerally? Why, I ask, as far as that do go?"
"Then nothing till after twelve," said William.
Though Reuben and his wife ruled on social points, religious questions
were mostly disposed of by the old man, whose firmness on this head quite
counterbalanced a certain weakness in his handling of domestic matters.
The hopes of the younger members of the household were therefore
relegated to a distance of one hour and three-quarters - a result that
took visible shape in them by a remote and listless look about the
eyes - the singing of songs being permitted in the interim.
At five minutes to twelve the soft tuning was again heard in the back
quarters; and when at length the clock had whizzed forth the last stroke,
Dick appeared ready primed, and the instruments were boldly handled; old
William very readily taking the bass-viol from its accustomed nail, and
touching the strings as irreligiously as could be desired.
The country-dance called the 'Triumph, or Follow my Lover,' was the
figure with which they opened. The tranter took for his partner Mrs.
Penny, and Mrs. Dewy was chosen by Mr. Penny, who made so much of his
limited height by a judicious carriage of the head, straightening of the