by Thomas Hardy
PART II: 2. A Meeting Of The Quire
It was the evening of a fine spring day. The descending sun appeared as a nebulous blaze of amber light, its outline being lost in cloudy masses hanging round it, like wild locks of hair.
The chief members of Mellstock parish choir were standing in a group in front of Mr.
Penny's workshop in the lower village. They were all brightly illuminated, and each was backed up by a shadow as long as a steeple the lowness of the source of light rendering the brims of their hats of no use at all as a protection to the eyes.
Mr. Penny's was the last house in that part of the parish, and stood in a hollow by the roadside so that cart-wheels and horses' legs were about level with the sill of his shop-window. This was low and wide, and was open from morning till evening, Mr. Penny himself being invariably seen working inside, like a framed portrait of a shoemaker by some modern Moroni. He sat facing the road, with a boot on his knees and the awl in his hand, only looking up for a moment as he stretched out his arms and bent forward at the pull, when his spectacles flashed in the passer's face with a shine of flat whiteness, and then returned again to the boot as usual. Rows of lasts, small and large, stout and slender, covered the wall which formed the background, in the extreme shadow of which a kind of dummy was seen sitting, in the shape of an apprentice with a string tied round his hair (probably to keep it out of his eyes). He smiled at remarks that floated in from without, but was never known to answer them in Mr. Penny's presence. Outside the window the upper-leather of a Wellington-boot was usually hung, pegged to a board as if to dry. No sign was over his door; in fact--as with old banks and mercantile houses--advertising in any shape was scorned, and it would have been felt as beneath his dignity to paint up, for the benefit of strangers, the name of an establishment whose trade came solely by connection based on personal respect.
His visitors now came and stood on the outside of his window, sometimes leaning against the sill, sometimes moving a pace or two backwards and forwards in front of it. They talked with deliberate gesticulations to Mr. Penny, enthroned in the shadow of the interior.
"I do like a man to stick to men who be in the same line o' life--o' Sundays, anyway--that I do so."
"'Tis like all the doings of folk who don't know what a day's work is, that's what I say."
"My belief is the man's not to blame; 'tis SHE--she's the bitter weed!"
"No, not altogether. He's a poor gawk-hammer. Look at his sermon yesterday."
"His sermon was well enough, a very good guessable sermon, only he couldn't put it into words and speak it. That's all was the matter wi' the sermon. He hadn't been able to get it past his pen."
"Well--ay, the sermon might have been good; for, 'tis true, the sermon of Old Eccl'iastes himself lay in Eccl'iastes's ink-bottle afore he got it out."
Mr. Penny, being in the act of drawing the last stitch tight, could afford time to look up and throw in a word at this point.
"He's no spouter--that must be said, 'a b'lieve."
"'Tis a terrible muddle sometimes with the man, as far as spout do go," said Spinks.
"Well, we'll say nothing about that," the tranter answered; "for I don't believe 'twill make a penneth o' difference to we poor martels here or hereafter whether his sermons be good or bad, my sonnies."
Mr. Penny made another hole with his awl, pushed in the thread, and looked up and spoke again at the extension of arms.
"'Tis his goings-on, souls, that's what it is." He clenched his features for an Herculean addition to the ordinary pull, and continued, "The first thing he done when he came here was to be hot and strong about church business."
"True," said Spinks; "that was the very first thing he done."
Mr. Penny, having now been offered the ear of the assembly, accepted it, ceased stitching, swallowed an unimportant quantity of air as if it were a pill, and continued:
"The next thing he do do is to think about altering the church, until he found 'twould be a matter o' cost and what not, and then not to think no more about it."
"True: that was the next thing he done."
"And the next thing was to tell the young chaps that they were not on no account to put their hats in the christening font during service."
"True."
"And then 'twas this, and then 'twas that, and now 'tis--"
Words were not forcible enough to conclude the sentence, and Mr. Penny gave a huge pull to signify the concluding word.
"Now 'tis to turn us out of the quire neck and crop," said the tranter after an interval of half a minute, not by way of explaining the pause and pull, which had been quite understood, but as a means of keeping the subject well before the meeting.
Mrs. Penny came to the door at this point in the discussion. Like all good wives, however much she was inclined to play the Tory to her husband's Whiggism, and vice versa, in times of peace, she coalesced with him heartily enough in time of war.
"It must be owned he's not all there," she replied in a general way to the fragments of talk she had heard from indoors. "Far below poor Mr. Grinham" (the late vicar).
"Ay, there was this to be said for he, that you were quite sure he'd never come mumbudgeting to see ye, just as you were in the middle of your work, and put you out with his fuss and trouble about ye."
"Never. But as for this new Mr. Maybold, though he mid be a very well-intending party in that respect, he's unbearable; for as to sifting your cinders, scrubbing your floors, or emptying your slops, why, you can't do it. I assure you I've not been able to empt them for several days, unless I throw 'em up the chimley or out of winder; for as sure as the sun you meet him at the door, coming to ask how you are, and 'tis such a confusing thing to meet a gentleman at the door when ye are in the mess o' washing."
"'Tis only for want of knowing better, poor gentleman," said the tranter. "His meaning's good enough. Ay, your pa'son comes by fate: 'tis heads or tails, like pitch-halfpenny, and no choosing; so we must take en as he is, my sonnies, and thank God he's no worse, I suppose."
"I fancy I've seen him look across at Miss Day in a warmer way than Christianity asked for," said Mrs. Penny musingly; "but I don't quite like to say it."
"O no; there's nothing in that," said grandfather William.
"If there's nothing, we shall see nothing," Mrs. Penny replied, in the tone of a woman who might possibly have private opinions still.
"Ah, Mr. Grinham was the man!" said Bowman. "Why, he never troubled us wi' a visit from year's end to year's end. You might go anywhere, do anything: you'd be sure never to see him."
"Yes, he was a right sensible pa'son," said Michael. "He never entered our door but once in his life, and that was to tell my poor wife--ay, poor soul, dead and gone now, as we all shall I--that as she was such a' old aged person, and lived so far from the church, he didn't at all expect her to come any more to the service."
"And 'a was a very jinerous gentleman about choosing the psalms and hymns o' Sundays.
'Confound ye,' says he, 'blare and scrape what ye will, but don't bother me!'"
"And he was a very honourable man in not wanting any of us to come and hear him if we were all on-end for a jaunt or spree, or to bring the babies to be christened if they were inclined to squalling. There's good in a man's not putting a parish to unnecessary trouble."
"And there's this here man never letting us have a bit o' peace; but keeping on about being good and upright till 'tis carried to such a pitch as I never see the like afore nor since!"
"No sooner had he got here than he found the font wouldn't hold water, as it hadn't for years off and on; and when I told him that Mr. Grinham never minded it, but used to spet upon his vinger and christen 'em just as well, 'a said, 'Good Heavens! Send for a workman immediate. What place have I come to!' Which was no compliment to us, come to that."
"Still, for my part," said old William, "though he's arrayed against us, I like the hearty borussnorus ways of the new pa'son."
"You, ready to die for the qui
re," said Bowman reproachfully, "to stick up for the quire's enemy, William!"
"Nobody will feel the loss of our church-work so much as I," said the old man firmly;
"that you d'all know. I've a-been in the quire man and boy ever since I was a chiel of eleven. But for all that 'tisn't in me to call the man a bad man, because I truly and sincerely believe en to be a good young feller."
Some of the youthful sparkle that used to reside there animated William's eye as he uttered the words, and a certain nobility of aspect was also imparted to him by the setting sun, which gave him a Titanic shadow at least thirty feet in length, stretching away to the east in outlines of imposing magnitude, his head finally terminating upon the trunk of a grand old oak-tree.
"Mayble's a hearty feller enough," the tranter replied, "and will spak to you be you dirty or be you clane. The first time I met en was in a drong, and though 'a didn't know me no more than the dead, 'a passed the time of day. 'D'ye do?' he said, says he, nodding his head. 'A fine day.' Then the second time I met en was full-buff in town street, when my breeches were tore into a long strent by getting through a copse of thorns and brimbles for a short cut home- along; and not wanting to disgrace the man by spaking in that state, I fixed my eye on the weathercock to let en pass me as a stranger. But no: 'How d'ye do, Reuben?' says he, right hearty, and shook my hand. If I'd been dressed in silver spangles from top to toe, the man couldn't have been civiller."
At this moment Dick was seen coming up the village-street, and they turned and watched him.
PART II: 3. A Turn In The Discussion
"I'm afraid Dick's a lost man," said the tranter.
"What?--no!" said Mail, implying by his manner that it was a far commoner thing for his ears to report what was not said than that his judgment should be at fault.
"Ay," said the tranter, still gazing at Dick's unconscious advance. "I don't at all like what I see! There's too many o' them looks out of the winder without noticing anything; too much shining of boots; too much peeping round corners; too much looking at the clock; telling about clever things SHE did till you be sick of it; and then upon a hint to that effect a horrible silence about her. I've walked the path once in my life and know the country, neighbours; and Dick's a lost man!" The tranter turned a quarter round and smiled a smile of miserable satire at the setting new moon, which happened to catch his eye.
The others became far too serious at this announcement to allow them to speak; and they still regarded Dick in the distance.
"'Twas his mother's fault," the tranter continued, "in asking the young woman to our party last Christmas. When I eyed the blue frock and light heels o' the maid, I had my thoughts directly. 'God bless thee, Dicky my sonny,' I said to myself; 'there's a delusion for thee!'"
"They seemed to be rather distant in manner last Sunday, I thought?" Mail tentatively observed, as became one who was not a member of the family.
"Ay, that's a part of the zickness. Distance belongs to it, slyness belongs to it, queerest things on earth belongs to it! There, 'tmay as well come early as late s'far as I know. The sooner begun, the sooner over; for come it will."
"The question I ask is," said Mr. Spinks, connecting into one thread the two subjects of discourse, as became a man learned in rhetoric, and beating with his hand in a way which signified that the manner rather than the matter of his speech was to be observed, "how did Mr. Maybold know she could play the organ? You know we had it from her own lips, as far as hips go, that she has never, first or last, breathed such a thing to him; much less that she ever would play."
In the midst of this puzzle Dick joined the party, and the news which had caused such a convulsion among the ancient musicians was unfolded to him. "Well," he said, blushing at the allusion to Miss Day, "I know by some words of hers that she has a particular wish not to play, because she is a friend of ours; and how the alteration comes, I don't know."
"Now, this is my plan," said the tranter, reviving the spirit of the discussion by the infusion of new ideas, as was his custom--"this is my plan; if you don't like it, no harm's done. We all know one another very well, don't we, neighbours?"
That they knew one another very well was received as a statement which, though familiar, should not be omitted in introductory speeches.
"Then I say this"--and the tranter in his emphasis slapped down his hand on Mr. Spinks's shoulder with a momentum of several pounds, upon which Mr. Spinks tried to look not in the least startled--"I say that we all move down-along straight as a line to Pa'son Mayble's when the clock has gone six to-morrow night. There we one and all stand in the passage, then one or two of us go in and spak to en, man and man; and say, 'Pa'son Mayble, every tradesman d'like to have his own way in his workshop, and Mellstock Church is yours.
Instead of turning us out neck and crop, let us stay on till Christmas, and we'll gie way to the young woman, Mr. Mayble, and make no more ado about it. And we shall always be quite willing to touch our hats when we meet ye, Mr. Mayble, just as before.' That sounds very well? Hey?"
"Proper well, in faith, Reuben Dewy."
"And we won't sit down in his house; 'twould be looking too familiar when only just reconciled?"
"No need at all to sit down. Just do our duty man and man, turn round, and march out--
he'll think all the more of us for it."
"I hardly think Leaf had better go wi' us?" said Michael, turning to Leaf and taking his measure from top to bottom by the eye. "He's so terrible silly that he might ruin the concern."
"He don't want to go much; do ye, Thomas Leaf?" said William.
"Hee-hee! no; I don't want to. Only a teeny bit!"
"I be mortal afeard, Leaf; that you'll never be able to tell how many cuts d'take to sharpen a spar," said Mail.
"I never had no head, never! that's how it happened to happen, hee- hee!"
They all assented to this, not with any sense of humiliating Leaf by disparaging him after an open confession, but because it was an accepted thing that Leaf didn't in the least mind having no head, that deficiency of his being an unimpassioned matter of parish history.
"But I can sing my treble!" continued Thomas Leaf; quite delighted at being called a fool in such a friendly way; "I can sing my treble as well as any maid, or married woman either, and better! And if Jim had lived, I should have had a clever brother! To-morrow is poor Jim's birthday. He'd ha' been twenty-six if he'd lived till to-morrow."
"You always seem very sorry for Jim," said old William musingly.
"Ah! I do. Such a stay to mother as he'd always ha' been! She'd never have had to work in her old age if he had continued strong, poor Jim!"
"What was his age when 'a died?"
"Four hours and twenty minutes, poor Jim. 'A was born as might be at night; and 'a didn't last as might be till the morning. No, 'a didn't last. Mother called en Jim on the day that would ha' been his christening day if he had lived; and she's always thinking about en.
You see he died so very young."
"Well, 'twas rather youthful," said Michael.
"Now to my mind that woman is very romantical on the matter o' children?" said the tranter, his eye sweeping his audience.
"Ah, well she mid be," said Leaf. "She had twelve regular one after another, and they all, except myself; died very young; either before they was born or just afterwards."
"Pore feller, too. I suppose th'st want to come wi' us?" the tranter murmured.
"Well, Leaf; you shall come wi' us as yours is such a melancholy family," said old William rather sadly.
"I never see such a melancholy family as that afore in my life," said Reuben. "There's Leaf's mother, poor woman! Every morning I see her eyes mooning out through the panes of glass like a pot-sick winder-flower; and as Leaf sings a very high treble, and we don't know what we should do without en for upper G, we'll let en come as a trate, poor feller."
"Ay, we'll let en come, 'a b'lieve," said Mr. Penny, looking up, as the pull happened to be at that moment.
"
Now," continued the tranter, dispersing by a new tone of voice these digressions about Leaf; "as to going to see the pa'son, one of us might call and ask en his meaning, and
'twould be just as well done; but it will add a bit of flourish to the cause if the quire waits on him as a body. Then the great thing to mind is, not for any of our fellers to be nervous; so before starting we'll one and all come to my house and have a rasher of bacon; then every man-jack het a pint of cider into his inside; then we'll warm up an extra drop wi'
some mead and a bit of ginger; every one take a thimbleful- -just a glimmer of a drop, mind ye, no more, to finish off his inner man--and march off to Pa'son Mayble. Why, sonnies, a man's not himself till he is fortified wi' a bit and a drop? We shall be able to look any gentleman in the face then without shrink or shame."
Mail recovered from a deep meditation and downward glance into the earth in time to give a cordial approval to this line of action, and the meeting adjourned.
PART II: 4. Interview With The Vicar
At six o'clock the next day, the whole body of men in the choir emerged from the tranter's door, and advanced with a firm step down the lane. This dignity of march gradually became obliterated as they went on, and by the time they reached the hill behind the vicarage a faint resemblance to a flock of sheep might have been discerned in the venerable party. A word from the tranter, however, set them right again; and as they descended the hill, the regular tramp, tramp, tramp of the united feet was clearly audible from the vicarage garden. At the opening of the gate there was another short interval of irregular shuffling, caused by a rather peculiar habit the gate had, when swung open quickly, of striking against the bank and slamming back into the opener's face.
"Now keep step again, will ye?" said the tranter. "It looks better, and more becomes the high class of arrant which has brought us here." Thus they advanced to the door.
