ch music question. From time immemorial, at
least ever since the gallery at the west end had been built, the
village psalmody had been in the hands of the occupiers of that
Protestant structure. In the middle of the front row sat the
musicians, three in number, who played respectively a bass-viol,
a fiddle, and a clarionet. On one side of them were two or three
young women, who sang treble--shrill, ear-piercing treble--with a
strong nasal Berkshire drawl in it. On the other side of the
musicians sat the blacksmith, the wheelwright, and other
tradesmen of the place. Tradesmen means in that part of the
country what we mean by artisan, and these were naturally allied
with the laborers, and consorted with them. So far as
church-going was concerned, they formed a sort of independent
opposition, sitting in the gallery, instead of in the nave, where
the farmers and the two or three principal shopkeepers--the great
landed and commercial interests--regularly sat and slept, and
where the two publicans occupied pews, but seldom made even the
pretence of worshipping.

The rest of the gallery was filled by the able-bodied male
peasantry. The old worn-out men generally sat below in the free
seats; the women also, and some few boys. But the hearts of these
latter were in the gallery--a seat on the back benches of which
was a sign that they had indued the _toga virilis_, and were
thenceforth free from maternal and pastoral tutelage in the
matter of church-going. The gallery thus constituted had
gradually usurped the psalmody as their particular and special
portion of the service; they left the clerk and the school
children, aided by such of the aristocracy below as cared to
join, to do the responses; but, when singing time came, they
reigned supreme. The slate on which the Psalms were announced was
hung out from before the centre of the gallery, and the clerk,
leaving his place under the reading-desk, marched up there to
give them out. He took this method of preserving his
constitutional connection with the singing, knowing that
otherwise he could not have maintained the rightful position of
his office in this matter. So matters had stood until shortly
before the time of our story.

The present curate, however, backed by Miss Winter, had tried a
reform. He was a quiet man, with a wife and several children, and
small means. He had served in the diocese ever since he had been
ordained, in a hum-drum sort of way, going where he was s