, that she would
sing to the Club-fellows on the night of their feast.

"I towl'd 'em they'd have a rare treat, miss," mumbled Jim, "and they're
all right mad for 't, that they be--bain't ye, boys?"

That they were! with not a few of the gesticulations of madness too.

Emilia said: "I promised I would sing to them. I remember it quite well.
Of course I will keep my promise."

A tumult of acclamation welcomed her words, and Jim looked immensely
delighted.

She was informed by several voices that they were the Yellow-and-Blues,
and not the Blues: that she must not go to the wrong set: and that their
booth was on Ipley Common: and that they, the Junction Club, only would
honour her rightly for the honour she was going to do them: all of which
Emilia said she would bear in mind.

Jim then retired hastily, having done something that stout morning ale
would alone have qualified him to perform. The drum, in the noble belief
that it was leading, announced the return march, and with three cheers
for Squire Pole, and a crowning one for the ladies, away trooped the
procession.

CHAPTER IX

Hardly had the last sound of the drum passed out of hearing, when the
elastic thunder of a fresh one claimed attention. The truth being, that
the Junction Club of Ipley and Hillford, whose colours were yellow and
blue, was a seceder from the old-established Hillford Club, on which it
had this day shamefully stolen a march by parading everywhere in the
place of it, and disputing not only its pasture-grounds but its identity.

There is no instrument the sound of which proclaims such a vast internal
satisfaction as the drum. I know not whether it be that the sense we have
of the corpulency of this instrument predisposes us to imagine it
supremely content: as when an alderman is heard snoring the world is
assured that it listens to the voice of its own exceeding gratulation. A
light heart in a fat body ravishes not only the world but the
philosopher. If monotonous, the one note of the drum is very correct.
Like the speaking of great Nature, what it means is implied by the
measure. When the drum beats to the measure of a common human pulsation
it has a conquering power: inspiring us neither to dance nor to trail the
members, but to march as life does, regularly, and in hearty good order,
and with a not exhaustive jollity. It is a sacred instrument.

Now the drum which is heard to play in this cheerful fashion, while at
the same time