Life's Little Ironies by Thomas Hardy (most popular novels of all time TXT) 📖

‘“I can’t see her no lower down than her arm-pits, sir.”

‘“Well—how do her face look?”

‘“It do look mighty white!”

‘“Well, we must know the worst!  Dear me, how the small of my back do ache from that ride yesterday! . . . But to more godly business!”

‘They went on into the church, and unlocked the tower stairs, and immediately poor Jane and Andrey busted out like starved mice from a cupboard, Andrey limp and sober enough now, and his bride pale and cold, but otherwise as usual.

‘“What,” says the pa’son, with a great breath of relief, “you haven’t been here ever since?”

‘“Yes, we have, sir!” says the bride, sinking down upon a seat in her weakness.  “Not a morsel, wet or dry, have we had since!  It was impossible to get out without help, and here we’ve stayed!”

‘“But why didn’t you shout, good souls?” said the pa’son.

‘“She wouldn’t let me,” says Andrey.

‘“Because we were so ashamed at what had led to it,” sobs Jane.  “We felt that if it were noised abroad it would cling to us all our lives!  Once or twice Andrey had a good mind to toll the bell, but then he said: “No; I’ll starve first.  I won’t bring disgrace on my name and yours, my dear.”  And so we waited and waited, and walked round and round; but never did you come till now!”

‘“To my regret!” says the parson.  “Now, then, we will soon get it over.”

‘“I—I should like some victuals,” said Andrey, “’twould gie me courage if it is only a crust o’ bread and a’ onion; for I am that leery that I can feel my stomach rubbing against my backbone.”

‘“I think we had better get it done,” said the bride, a bit anxious in manner; “since we are all here convenient, too!”

‘Andrey gave way about the victuals, and the clerk called in a second witness who wouldn’t be likely to gossip about it, and soon the knot was tied, and the bride looked smiling and calm forthwith, and Andrey limper than ever.

‘“Now,” said Pa’son Toogood, “you two must come to my house, and have a good lining put to your insides before you go a step further.”

‘They were very glad of the offer, and went out of the churchyard by one path while the pa’son and clerk went out by the other, and so did not attract notice, it being still early.  They entered the rectory as if they’d just come back from their trip to Port Bredy; and then they knocked in the victuals and drink till they could hold no more.

‘It was a long while before the story of what they had gone through was known, but it was talked of in time, and they themselves laugh over it now; though what Jane got for her pains was no great bargain after all.  ’Tis true she saved her name.’

* * * * *

‘Was that the same Andrey who went to the squire’s house as one of the Christmas fiddlers?’ asked the seedsman.

‘No, no,’ replied Mr. Profitt, the schoolmaster.  ‘It was his father did that.  Ay, it was all owing to his being such a man for eating and drinking.’  Finding that he had the ear of the audience, the schoolmaster continued without delay:—

‘I was one of the choir-boys at that time, and we and the players were to appear at the manor-house as usual that Christmas week, to play and sing in the hall to the squire’s people and visitors (among ’em being the archdeacon, Lord and Lady Baxby, and I don’t know who); afterwards going, as we always did, to have a good supper in the servants’ hall.  Andrew knew this was the custom, and meeting us when we were starting to go, he said to us: “Lord, how I should like to join in that meal of beef, and turkey, and plum-pudding, and ale, that you happy ones be going to just now!  One more or less will make no difference to the squire.  I am too old to pass as a singing boy, and too bearded to pass as a singing girl; can ye lend me a fiddle, neighbours, that I may come with ye as a bandsman?”

‘Well, we didn’t like to be hard upon him, and lent him an old one, though Andrew knew no more of music than the Cerne Giant; and armed with the instrument he walked up to the squire’s house with the others of us at the time appointed, and went in boldly, his fiddle under his arm.  He made himself as natural as he could in opening the music-books and moving the candles to the best points for throwing light upon the notes; and all went well till we had played and sung “While shepherds watch,” and “Star, arise,” and “Hark the glad sound.”  Then the squire’s mother, a tall gruff old lady, who was much interested in church-music, said quite unexpectedly to Andrew: “My man, I see you don’t play your instrument with the rest.  How is that?”

‘Every one of the choir was ready to sink into the earth with concern at the fix Andrew was in.  We could see that he had fallen into a cold sweat, and how he would get out of it we did not know.

‘“I’ve had a misfortune, mem,” he says, bowing as meek as a child.  “Coming along the road I fell down and broke my bow.”

‘“Oh, I am sorry to hear that,” says she.  “Can’t it be mended?”

‘“Oh no, mem,” says Andrew.  “’Twas broke all to splinters.”

‘“I’ll see what I can do for you,” says she.

‘And then it seemed all over, and we played “Rejoice, ye drowsy mortals all,” in D and two sharps.  But no sooner had we got through it than she says to Andrew,

‘“I’ve sent up into the attic, where we have some old musical instruments, and found a bow for you.”  And she hands the bow to poor wretched Andrew, who didn’t even know which end to take hold of.  “Now we shall have the full accompaniment,” says she.

‘Andrew’s face looked as if it were made of rotten apple as he stood in the circle of players in front of his book; for if there was one person in the parish that everybody was afraid of, ’twas this hook-nosed old lady.  However, by keeping a little behind the next man he managed to make pretence of beginning, sawing away with his bow without letting it touch the strings, so that it looked as if he were driving into the tune with heart and soul.  ’Tis a question if he wouldn’t have got through all right if one of the squire’s visitors (no other than the archdeacon) hadn’t noticed that he held the fiddle upside down, the nut under his chin, and the tail-piece in his hand; and they began to crowd round him, thinking ’twas some new way of performing.

‘This revealed everything; the squire’s mother had Andrew turned out of the house as a vile impostor, and there was great interruption to the harmony of the proceedings, the squire declaring he should have notice to leave his cottage that day fortnight.  However, when we got to the servants’ hall there sat Andrew, who had been let in at the back door by the orders of the squire’s wife, after being turned out at the front by the orders of the squire, and nothing more was heard about his leaving his cottage.  But Andrew never performed in public as a musician after that night; and now he’s dead and gone, poor man, as we all shall be!’

* * * * *

‘I had quite forgotten the old choir, with their fiddles and bass-viols,’ said the home-comer, musingly.  ‘Are they still going on the same as of old?’

‘Bless the man!’ said Christopher Twink, the master-thatcher; ‘why, they’ve been done away with these twenty year.  A young teetotaler plays the organ in church now, and plays it very well; though ’tis not quite such good music as in old times, because the organ is one of them that go with a winch, and the young teetotaler says he can’t always throw the proper feeling into the tune without wellnigh working his arms off.’

‘Why did they make the change, then?’

‘Well, partly because of fashion, partly because the old musicians got into a sort of scrape.  A terrible scrape ’twas too—wasn’t it, John?  I shall never forget it—never!  They lost their character as officers of the church as complete as if they’d never had any character at all.’

‘That was very bad for them.’

‘Yes.’  The master-thatcher attentively regarded past times as if they lay about a mile off, and went on:—

‘It happened on Sunday after Christmas—the last Sunday ever they played in Longpuddle church gallery, as it turned out, though they didn’t know it then.  As you may know, sir, the players formed a very good band—almost as good as the Mellstock parish players that were led by the Dewys; and that’s saying a great deal.  There was Nicholas Puddingcome, the leader, with the first fiddle; there was Timothy Thomas, the bass-viol man; John Biles, the tenor fiddler; Dan’l Hornhead, with the serpent; Robert Dowdle, with the clarionet; and Mr. Nicks, with the oboe—all sound and powerful musicians, and strong-winded men—they that blowed.  For that reason they were very much in demand Christmas week for little reels and dancing parties; for they could turn a jig or a hornpipe out of hand as well as ever they could turn out a psalm, and perhaps better, not to speak irreverent.  In short, one half-hour they could be playing a Christmas carol in the squire’s hall to the ladies and gentlemen, and drinking tea and coffee with ’em as modest as saints; and the next, at The Tinker’s Arms, blazing away like wild horses with the “Dashing White Sergeant” to nine couple of dancers and more, and swallowing rum-and-cider hot as flame.

‘Well, this Christmas they’d been out to one rattling randy after another every night, and had got next to no sleep at all.  Then came the Sunday after Christmas, their fatal day.  ’Twas so mortal cold that year that they could hardly sit in the gallery; for though the congregation down in the body of the church had a stove to keep off the frost, the players in the gallery had nothing at all.  So Nicholas said at morning service, when ’twas freezing an inch an hour, “Please the Lord I won’t stand this numbing weather no longer: this afternoon we’ll have something in our insides to make us warm, if it cost a king’s ransom.”

‘So he brought a gallon of hot brandy and beer, ready mixed, to church with him in the afternoon, and by keeping the jar well wrapped up in Timothy Thomas’s bass-viol bag it kept drinkably warm till they wanted it, which was just a thimbleful in the Absolution, and another after the Creed, and the remainder at the beginning o’ the sermon.  When they’d had the last pull they felt quite comfortable and warm, and as the sermon went on—most unfortunately for ’em it was a long one that afternoon—they fell asleep, every man jack of ’em; and there they slept on as sound as rocks.

‘’Twas a very dark afternoon, and by the end of the sermon all you could see of the inside of the church were the pa’son’s two candles alongside of him in the pulpit, and his spaking face behind ’em.  The sermon being ended at last, the pa’son gie’d out the Evening Hymn.  But no choir set about sounding up the tune, and the people began to turn their heads to learn the reason why, and then Levi Limpet, a boy who sat in the gallery, nudged Timothy and Nicholas, and said, “Begin! begin!”

‘“Hey? what?” says Nicholas, starting up; and the church being so dark and his head so muddled he thought he was