special table, and the campanologists fixed their bells on it and
themselves round it, and performed a selection of Scotch and Irish airs,
without once deceiving themselves as to the precise note which a chosen
bell would emit when duly shaken.

Singular as was this feat, it was far less so than a young man's
performance of the ophicleide, a serpentine instrument that coiled round
and about its player, and when breathed into persuasively gave forth
prodigious brassy sounds that resembled the night-noises of beasts of
prey. This item roused the Indian god from his umbilical
contemplations, and as the young ophicleide player, somewhat breathless,
passed down the room with his brazen creature in his arms, Mr Enoch
Peake pulled him by the jacket-tail.

"Eh!" said Mr Enoch Peake. "Is that the ophicleide as thy father used
to play at th' owd church?"

"Yes, Mr Peake," said the young man, with bright respect.

Mr Peake dropped his eyes again, and when the young man had gone, he
murmured, to his stomach--

"I well knowed it were th' ophicleide as his father used to play at th'
owd church!" And suddenly starting up, he continued hoarsely,
"Gentlemen all, Mr James Yarlett will now kindly oblige with `The
Miller of the Dee.'" And one of the women relighted his pipe and served
him with beer.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

FIVE.

Big James's rendering of "The Miller of the Dee" had been renowned in
the Five Towns since 1852. It was classical, hallowed. It was the only
possible rendering of "The Miller of the Dee." If the greatest bass in
the world had come incognito to Bursley and sung "The Miller of the
Dee," people would have said, "Ah! But ye should hear Big James sing
it!" It suited Big James. The sentiments of the song were his
sentiments; he expressed them with natural simplicity; but at the same
time they underwent a certain refinement at his hands; for even when he
sang at his loudest Big James was refined, natty, and restrained. His
instinctive gentlemanliness was invincible and all-pervading. And the
real beauty and enormous power of his magnificent voice saved him by its
mere distinction from the charge of being finicking. The simple sound
of the voice gave pleasure. And the simple production of that sound was
Big James's deepest joy. Amid all the expected loud applause the giant
looked naively for Edwin's boyish mad enthusiasm, and felt it; and was
thri