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,
