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