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
