CHAPTER VI.

CHRISTMAS MORNING

The choir at last reached their beds, and slept like the rest of the

parish. Dick’s slumbers, through the three or four hours remaining for

rest, were disturbed and slight; an exhaustive variation upon the

incidents that had passed that night in connection with the

school-window going on in his brain every moment of the time.

In the morning, do what he would—go upstairs, downstairs, out of doors,

speak of the wind and weather, or what not—he could not refrain from an

unceasing renewal, in imagination, of that interesting enactment.

Tilted on the edge of one foot he stood beside the fireplace, watching

his mother grilling rashers; but there was nothing in grilling, he

thought, unless the Vision grilled. The limp rasher hung down between

the bars of the gridiron like a cat in a child’s arms; but there was

nothing in similes, unless She uttered them. He looked at the daylight

shadows of a yellow hue, dancing with the firelight shadows in blue on

the whitewashed chimney corner, but there was nothing in shadows.

“Perhaps the new young wom—sch—Miss Fancy Day will sing in church with

us this morning,” he said.

The tranter looked a long time before he replied, “I fancy she will;

and yet I fancy she won’t.”

Dick implied that such a remark was rather to be tolerated than

admired; though deliberateness in speech was known to have, as a rule,

more to do with the machinery of the tranter’s throat than with the

matter enunciated.

They made preparations for going to church as usual; Dick with extreme

alacrity, though he would not definitely consider why he was so

religious. His wonderful nicety in brushing and cleaning his best light

boots had features which elevated it to the rank of an art. Every

particle and speck of last week’s mud was scraped and brushed from toe

and heel; new blacking from the packet was carefully mixed and made use

of, regardless of expense. A coat was laid on and polished; then

another coat for increased blackness; and lastly a third, to give the

perfect and mirror-like jet which the hoped-for rencounter demanded.

It being Christmas-day, the tranter prepared himself with Sunday

particularity. Loud sousing and snorting noises were heard to proceed

from a tub in the back quarters of the dwelling, proclaiming that he

was there performing his great Sunday wash, lasting half-an-hour, to

which his washings on working-day mornings were mere flashes in the

pan. Vanishing into the outhouse with a large brown towel, and the

above-named bubblings and snortings being carried on for about twenty

minutes, the tranter would appear round the edge of the door, smelling

like a summer fog, and looking as if he had just narrowly escaped a

watery grave with the loss of much of his clothes, having since been

weeping bitterly till his eyes were red; a crystal drop of water

hanging ornamentally at the bottom of each ear, one at the tip of his

nose, and others in the form of spangles about his hair.

After a great deal of crunching upon the sanded stone floor by the feet

of father, son, and grandson as they moved to and fro in these

preparations, the bass-viol and fiddles were taken from their nook, and

the strings examined and screwed a little above concert-pitch, that

they might keep their tone when the service began, to obviate the

awkward contingency of having to retune them at the back of the gallery

during a cough, sneeze, or amen—an inconvenience which had been known

to arise in damp wintry weather.

The three left the door and paced down Mellstock-lane and across the

ewe-lease, bearing under their arms the instruments in faded

green-baize bags, and old brown music-books in their hands; Dick

continually finding himself in advance of the other two, and the

tranter moving on with toes turned outwards to an enormous angle.

At the foot of an incline the church became visible through the north

gate, or ‘church hatch,’ as it was called here. Seven agile figures in

a clump were observable beyond, which proved to be the choristers

waiting; sitting on an altar-tomb to pass the time, and letting their

heels dangle against it. The musicians being now in sight, the youthful

party scampered off and rattled up the old wooden stairs of the gallery

like a regiment of cavalry; the other boys of the parish waiting

outside and observing birds, cats, and other creatures till the vicar

entered, when they suddenly subsided into sober church-goers, and

passed down the aisle with echoing heels.

The gallery of Mellstock Church had a status and sentiment of its own.

A stranger there was regarded with a feeling altogether differing from

that of the congregation below towards him. Banished from the nave as

an intruder whom no originality could make interesting, he was received

above as a curiosity that no unfitness could render dull. The gallery,

too, looked down upon and knew the habits of the nave to its remotest

peculiarity, and had an extensive stock of exclusive information about

it; whilst the nave knew nothing of the gallery folk, as gallery folk,

beyond their loud-sounding minims and chest notes. Such topics as that

the clerk was always chewing tobacco except at the moment of crying

amen; that he had a dust-hole in his pew; that during the sermon

certain young daughters of the village had left off caring to read

anything so mild as the marriage service for some years, and now

regularly studied the one which chronologically follows it; that a pair

of lovers touched fingers through a knot-hole between their pews in the

manner ordained by their great exemplars, Pyramus and Thisbe; that Mrs.

Ledlow, the farmer’s wife, counted her money and reckoned her week’s

marketing expenses during the first lesson—all news to those below—were

stale subjects here.

Old William sat in the centre of the front row, his violoncello between

his knees and two singers on each hand. Behind him, on the left, came

the treble singers and Dick; and on the right the tranter and the

tenors. Farther back was old Mail with the altos and supernumeraries.

But before they had taken their places, and whilst they were standing

in a circle at the back of the gallery practising a psalm or two, Dick

cast his eyes over his grandfather’s shoulder, and saw the vision of

the past night enter the porch-door as methodically as if she had never

been a vision at all. A new atmosphere seemed suddenly to be puffed

into the ancient edifice by her movement, which made Dick’s body and

soul tingle with novel sensations. Directed by Shiner, the

churchwarden, she proceeded to the small aisle on the north side of the

chancel, a spot now allotted to a throng of Sunday-school girls, and

distinctly visible from the gallery-front by looking under the curve of

the furthermost arch on that side.

Before this moment the church had seemed comparatively empty—now it was

thronged; and as Miss Fancy rose from her knees and looked around her

for a permanent place in which to deposit herself—finally choosing the

remotest corner—Dick began to breathe more freely the warm new air she

had brought with her; to feel rushings of blood, and to have

impressions that there was a tie between her and himself visible to all

the congregation.

Ever afterwards the young man could recollect individually each part of

the service of that bright Christmas morning, and the trifling

occurrences which took place as its minutes slowly drew along; the

duties of that day dividing themselves by a complete line from the

services of other times. The tunes they that morning essayed remained

with him for years, apart from all others; also the text; also the

appearance of the layer of dust upon the capitals of the piers; that

the holly-bough in the chancel archway was hung a little out of the

centre—all the ideas, in short, that creep into the mind when reason is

only exercising its lowest activity through the eye.

By chance or by fate, another young man who attended Mellstock Church

on that Christmas morning had towards the end of the service the same

instinctive perception of an interesting presence, in the shape of the

same bright maiden, though his emotion reached a far less developed

stage. And there was this difference, too, that the person in question

was surprised at his condition, and sedulously endeavoured to reduce

himself to his normal state of mind. He was the young vicar, Mr.

Maybold.

The music on Christmas mornings was frequently below the standard of

church-performances at other times. The boys were sleepy from the heavy

exertions of the night; the men were slightly wearied; and now, in

addition to these constant reasons, there was a dampness in the

atmosphere that still further aggravated the evil. Their strings, from

the recent long exposure to the night air, rose whole semitones, and

snapped with a loud twang at the 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.