he accepted it in somnolent indifference, and immediately took off his coat and sat down in cotton shirt-sleeves. Then he pulled out a red handkerchief and his tobacco-box, and set them on the table. Big James motioned to Edwin.
“Evening, Mr Peake,” said Big James, crossing the floor, “and here’s a young gent wishful for two words with you.”
Mr Peake stared vacantly.
“Young Mr Clayhanger,” explained Big James.
“It’s about this card,” Edwin began, in a whisper, drawing the wedding-card sheepishly from his pocket. “Father had to go to Manchester,” he added, when he had finished.
Mr Enoch Peake seized the card in both hands, and examined it; and Edwin could hear his heavy breathing.
Mrs Louisa Loggerheads, a comfortable, smiling administrative woman of fifty, showed herself at the service-door, and nodded with dignity to a few of the habitues.
“Missis is at door,” said Big James to Mr Peake.
“Is her?” muttered Mr Peake, not interrupting his examination of the card.
One of the serving-women, having removed Mr Peake’s coat, brought a new church warden, filled it, and carefully directed the tip towards his tight little mouth: the lips closed on it. Then she lighted a spill and applied it to the distant bowl, and the mouth puffed; and then the woman deposited the bowl cautiously on the bench. Lastly, she came with a small glass of sloe gin. Mr Peake did not move.
At length Mr Peake withdrew the pipe from his mouth, and after an interval said—
“Aye!”
He continued to stare at the card, now held in one hand.
“And is it to be printed in silver?” Edwin asked.
Mr Peake took a few more puffs.
“Aye!”
When he had stared further for a long time at the card, his hand moved slowly with it towards Edwin, and Edwin resumed possession of it.
Mrs Louisa Loggerheads had now vanished.
“Missis has gone,” said Big James.
“Has her?” muttered Mr Peake.
Edwin rose to leave, though unwillingly; but Big James asked him in polite reproach whether he should not stay for the first song. He nodded, encouraged; and sat down. He did not know that the uppermost idea in Big James’s mind for an hour past had been that Edwin would hear him sing.
Mr Peake lifted his glass, held it from him, approached his lips towards it, and emptied it at a draught. He then glanced round and said thickly—
“Gentlemen all, Mester Smallrice, Mester Harracles, Mester Rampick, and Mester Yarlett will now oblige with one o’ th’ ould favourites.”
There was some applause, a few coats were removed, and Mr Peake fixed himself in a contemplative attitude.
Three.
Messrs. Arthur Smallrice, Abraham Harracles, Jos Rawnpike, and James Yarlett rose, stepped heavily on to the little platform, and stood in a line with their hands in their pockets. “As a bird is known by its note—” was hidden by the rampart of their shoulders. They had no music. They knew the music; they had sung it a thousand times. They knew precisely the effects which they wished to produce, and the means of production. They worked together like an inspired machine. Mr Arthur Smallrice gave a rapid glance into a corner, and from that corner a concertina spoke—one short note. Then began, with no hesitating shuffling preliminaries nor mute consultations, the singing of that classic quartet, justly celebrated from Hull to Wigan and from Northallerton to Lichfield, “Loud Ocean’s Roar.” The thing was performed with absolute assurance and perfection. Mr Arthur Smallrice did the yapping of the short waves on the foam-veiled rocks, and Big James in fullest grandeur did the long and mighty rolling of the deep. It was majestic, terrific, and overwhelming. Many bars before the close Edwin was thrilled, as by an exquisite and vast revelation. He tingled from head to foot. He had never heard any singing like it, or any singing in any way comparable to it. He had never guessed that song held such possibilities of emotion. The pure and fine essential qualities of the voices, the dizzying harmonies, the fugal calls and responses, the strange relief of the unisons, and above all the free, natural mien of the singers, proudly aware that they were producing something beautiful that could not be produced more beautifully, conscious of unchallenged supremacy,—all this enfevered him to an unprecedented and self-astonished enthusiasm.
He murmured under his breath, as “Loud Ocean’s Roar” died away and the little voices of the street supervened: “By Gad! By Gad!”
The applause was generous. Edwin stamped and clapped with childlike violence and fury. Mr Peake slowly and regularly thumped one fist on the bench, puffing the while. Glasses and mugs could be seen, but not heard, dancing. Mr Arthur Smallrice, Mr Abraham Harracles, Mr Jos Rawnpike, and Mr James Yarlett, entirely inattentive to the acclamations, stepped heavily from the platform and sat down. When Edwin caught Big James’s eye he clapped again, reanimating the general approval, and Big James gazed at him with bland satisfaction. Mr Enoch Peake was now, save for the rise and fall of his great chest, as immobile and brooding as an Indian god.
Four.
Edwin did not depart. He reflected that, even if his father should come home earlier than the last train and prove curious, it would be impossible for him to know the exact moment at which his son had been able to have speech with Mr Enoch Peake on the important matter of business. For aught his father could ever guess he might have been prevented from obtaining the attention of the chairman of the proceedings until, say, eleven o’clock. Also, he meant to present his conduct to his father in the light of an enterprising and fearless action showing a marked aptitude for affairs. Mr Enoch Peake, whom his father was anxious to flatter, had desired his father’s company at the Dragon, and, to save the situation, Edwin had courageously gone instead: that was it.
Besides, he would have stayed in any case. His mind was elevated above the fear of consequences.
There was some concertina-playing, with a realistic imitation of church bells borne on the wind from a distance; and then the Bursley Prize Handbell Ringers (or Campanologists) produced a whole family of real bells from under a form, and the ostler and the two women arranged a special table, and the campanologists fixed their bells on it and themselves round it, and performed a selection of Scotch and Irish airs, without once deceiving themselves as to the precise note which a chosen bell would emit when duly shaken.
Singular as was this feat, it was far less so than a young man’s performance of the ophicleide, a serpentine instrument that coiled round and about its player, and when breathed into persuasively gave forth prodigious brassy sounds that resembled the night-noises of beasts of prey. This item roused the Indian god from his umbilical contemplations, and as the young ophicleide player, somewhat breathless, passed down the room with his brazen creature in his arms, Mr Enoch Peake pulled him by the jacket-tail.
“Eh!” said Mr Enoch Peake. “Is that the ophicleide as thy father used to play at th’ owd church?”
“Yes, Mr Peake,” said the young man, with bright respect.
Mr
