CHAPTER V: THE LISTENERS
When the expectant stillness consequent upon the exclamation had nearlydied out of them all, an increasing light made itself visible in one ofthe windows of the upper floor. It came so close to the blind that theexact position of the flame could be perceived from the outside.Remaining steady for an instant, the blind went upward from before it,revealing to thirty concentrated eyes a young girl, framed as a pictureby the window architrave, and unconsciously illuminating her countenanceto a vivid brightness by a candle she held in her left hand, close to herface, her right hand being extended to the side of the window. She waswrapped in a white robe of some kind, whilst down her shoulders fell atwining profusion of marvellously rich hair, in a wild disorder whichproclaimed it to be only during the invisible hours of the night thatsuch a condition was discoverable. Her bright eyes were looking into thegrey world outside with an uncertain expression, oscillating betweencourage and shyness, which, as she recognized the semicircular group ofdark forms gathered before her, transformed itself into pleasantresolution.
Opening the window, she said lightly and warmly--"Thank you, singers,thank you!"
Together went the window quickly and quietly, and the blind starteddownward on its return to its place. Her fair forehead and eyesvanished; her little mouth; her neck and shoulders; all of her. Then thespot of candlelight shone nebulously as before; then it moved away.
"How pretty!" exclaimed Dick Dewy.
"If she'd been rale wexwork she couldn't ha' been comelier," said MichaelMail.
"As near a thing to a spiritual vision as ever I wish to see!" saidtranter Dewy.
"O, sich I never, never see!" said Leaf fervently.
All the rest, after clearing their throats and adjusting their hats,agreed that such a sight was worth singing for.
"Now to Farmer Shiner's, and then replenish our insides, father?" saidthe tranter.
"Wi' all my heart," said old William, shouldering his bass-viol.
Farmer Shiner's was a queer lump of a house, standing at the corner of alane that ran into the principal thoroughfare. The upper windows weremuch wider than they were high, and this feature, together with a broadbay-window where the door might have been expected, gave it by day theaspect of a human countenance turned askance, and wearing a sly andwicked leer. To-night nothing was visible but the outline of the roofupon the sky.
The front of this building was reached, and the preliminaries arranged asusual.
"Four breaths, and number thirty-two, 'Behold the Morning Star,'" saidold William.
They had reached the end of the second verse, and the fiddlers were doingthe up bow-stroke previously to pouring forth the opening chord of thethird verse, when, without a light appearing or any signal being given, aroaring voice exclaimed--
"Shut up, woll 'ee! Don't make your blaring row here! A feller wi' aheadache enough to split his skull likes a quiet night!"
Slam went the window.
"Hullo, that's a' ugly blow for we!" said the tranter, in a keenlyappreciative voice, and turning to his companions.
"Finish the carrel, all who be friends of harmony!" commanded oldWilliam; and they continued to the end.
"Four breaths, and number nineteen!" said William firmly. "Give it himwell; the quire can't be insulted in this manner!"
A light now flashed into existence, the window opened, and the farmerstood revealed as one in a terrific passion.
"Drown en!--drown en!" the tranter cried, fiddling frantically. "Playfortissimy, and drown his spaking!"
"Fortissimy!" said Michael Mail, and the music and singing waxed so loudthat it was impossible to know what Mr. Shiner had said, was saying, orwas about to say; but wildly flinging his arms and body about in theforms of capital Xs and Ys, he appeared to utter enough invectives toconsign the whole parish to perdition.
"Very onseemly--very!" said old William, as they retired. "Never such adreadful scene in the whole round o' my carrel practice--never! And he achurchwarden!"
"Only a drap o' drink got into his head," said the tranter. "Man's wellenough when he's in his religious frame. He's in his worldly frame now.Must ask en to our bit of a party to-morrow night, I suppose, and so puten in humour again. We bear no mortal man ill-will."
They now crossed Mellstock Bridge, and went along an embowered pathbeside the Froom towards the church and vicarage, meeting Voss with thehot mead and bread-and-cheese as they were approaching the churchyard.This determined them to eat and drink before proceeding further, and theyentered the church and ascended to the gallery. The lanterns wereopened, and the whole body sat round against the walls on benches andwhatever else was available, and made a hearty meal. In the pauses ofconversation there could be heard through the floor overhead a littleworld of undertones and creaks from the halting clockwork, which neverspread further than the tower they were born in, and raised in the moremeditative minds a fancy that here lay the direct pathway of Time.
Having done eating and drinking, they again tuned the instruments, andonce more the party emerged into the night air.
"Where's Dick?" said old Dewy.
Every man looked round upon every other man, as if Dick might have beentransmuted into one or the other; and then they said they didn't know.
"Well now, that's what I call very nasty of Master Dicky, that I do,"said Michael Mail.
"He've clinked off home-along, depend upon't," another suggested, thoughnot quite believing that he had.
"Dick!" exclaimed the tranter, and his voice rolled sonorously forthamong the yews.
He suspended his muscles rigid as stone whilst listening for an answer,and finding he listened in vain, turned to the assemblage.
"The treble man too! Now if he'd been a tenor or counter chap, we mightha' contrived the rest o't without en, you see. But for a quire to losethe treble, why, my sonnies, you may so well lose your . . . " Thetranter paused, unable to mention an image vast enough for the occasion.
"Your head at once," suggested Mr. Penny.
The tranter moved a pace, as if it were puerile of people to completesentences when there were more pressing things to be done.
"Was ever heard such a thing as a young man leaving his work half doneand turning tail like this!"
"Never," replied Bowman, in a tone signifying that he was the last man inthe world to wish to withhold the formal finish required of him.
"I hope no fatal tragedy has overtook the lad!" said his grandfather.
"O no," replied tranter Dewy placidly. "Wonder where he's put that therefiddle of his. Why that fiddle cost thirty shillings, and good wordsbesides. Somewhere in the damp, without doubt; that instrument will beunglued and spoilt in ten minutes--ten! ay, two."
"What in the name o' righteousness can have happened?" said old William,more uneasily. "Perhaps he's drownded!"
Leaving their lanterns and instruments in the belfry they retraced theirsteps along the waterside track. "A strapping lad like Dick d'knowbetter than let anything happen onawares," Reuben remarked. "There'ssure to be some poor little scram reason for't staring us in the face allthe while." He lowered his voice to a mysterious tone: "Neighbours, haveye noticed any sign of a scornful woman in his head, or suchlike?"
"Not a glimmer of such a body. He's as clear as water yet."
"And Dicky said he should never marry," cried Jimmy, "but live at homealways along wi' mother and we!"
"Ay, ay, my sonny; every lad has said that in his time."
They had now again reached the precincts of Mr. Shiner's, but hearingnobody in that direction, one or two went across to the schoolhouse. Alight was still burning in the bedroom, and though the blind was down,the window had been slightly opened, as if to admit the distant notes ofthe carollers to the ears of the occupant of the room.
Opposite the window, leaning motionless against a beech tree, was thelost man, his arms folded, his head thrown back, his eyes fixed upon theilluminated lattice.
"Why, Dick, is that thee? Wh
at b'st doing here?"
Dick's body instantly flew into a more rational attitude, and his headwas seen to turn east and west in the gloom, as if endeavouring todiscern some proper answer to that question and at last he said inrather feeble accents--"Nothing, father."
"Th'st take long enough time about it then, upon my body," said thetranter, as they all turned anew towards the vicarage.
"I thought you hadn't done having snap in the gallery," said Dick.
"Why, we've been traypsing and rambling about, looking everywhere, andthinking you'd done fifty deathly things, and here have you been atnothing at all!"
"The stupidness lies in that point of it being nothing at all," murmuredMr. Spinks.
The vicarage front was their next field of operation, and Mr. Maybold,the lately-arrived incumbent, duly received his share of the night'sharmonies. It was hoped that by reason of his profession he would havebeen led to open the window, and an extra carol in quick time was addedto draw him forth. But Mr. Maybold made no stir.
"A bad sign!" said old William, shaking his head.
However, at that same instant a musical voice was heard exclaiming frominner depths of bedclothes--"Thanks, villagers!"
"What did he say?" asked Bowman, who was rather dull of hearing. Bowman'svoice, being therefore loud, had been heard by the vicar within.
"I said, 'Thanks, villagers!'" cried the vicar again.
"Oh, we didn't hear 'ee the first time!" cried Bowman.
"Now don't for heaven's sake spoil the young man's temper by answeringlike that!" said the tranter.
"You won't do that, my friends!" the vicar shouted.
"Well to be sure, what ears!" said Mr. Penny in a whisper. "Beats anyhorse or dog in the parish, and depend upon't, that's a sign he's aproper clever chap."
"We shall see that in time," said the tranter.
Old William, in his gratitude for such thanks from a comparatively newinhabitant, was anxious to play all the tunes over again; but renouncedhis desire on being reminded by Reuben that it would be best to leavewell alone.
"Now putting two and two together," the tranter continued, as they wenttheir way over the hill, and across to the last remaining houses; "thatis, in the form of that young female vision we zeed just now, and thisyoung tenor-voiced parson, my belief is she'll wind en round her finger,and twist the pore young feller about like the figure of 8--that she willso, my sonnies."