need o't.'

'It's bad reasoning, Nat, I fear. Now, perhaps we had better sol-fa the
tune. Eyes on your books, please. Sol-sol! fa-fa! mi--'

'I can't sing like that, not I!' said Sammy Blore, with condemnatory
astonishment. 'I can sing genuine music, like F and G; but not anything
so much out of the order of nater as that.'

'Perhaps you've brought the wrong book, sir?' chimed in Haymoss, kindly.
'I've knowed music early in life and late,--in short, ever since Luke
Sneap broke his new fiddle-bow in the wedding psalm, when Pa'son Wilton
brought home his bride (you can mind the time, Sammy?--when we sung "His
wife, like a fair fertile vine, her lovely fruit shall bring," when the
young woman turned as red as a rose, not knowing 'twas coming). I've
knowed music ever since then, I say, sir, and never heard the like o'
that. Every martel note had his name of A, B, C, at that time.'

'Yes, yes, men; but this is a more recent system!'

'Still, you can't alter a old-established note that's A or B by nater,'
rejoined Haymoss, with yet deeper conviction that Mr. Torkingham was
getting off his head. 'Now sound A, neighbour Sammy, and let's have a
slap at Christen sojers again, and show the Pa'son the true way!'

Sammy produced a private tuning-fork, black and grimy, which, being about
seventy years of age, and wrought before pianoforte builders had sent up
the pitch to make their instruments brilliant, was nearly a note flatter
than the parson's. While an argument as to the true pitch was in
progress, there came a knocking without.

'Somebody's at the door!' said a little treble girl.

'Thought I heard a knock before!' said the relieved choir.

The latch was lifted, and a man asked from the darkness, 'Is Mr.
Torkingham here?'

'Yes, Mills. What do you want?'

It was the parson's man.

'Oh, if you please,' said Mills, showing an advanced margin of himself
round the door, 'Lady Constantine wants to see you very particular, sir,
and could you call on her after dinner, if you ben't engaged with poor
fokes? She's just had a letter,--so they say,--and it's about that, I
believe.'

Finding, on looking at his watch, that it was necessary to start at once
if he meant to see her that night, the parson cut short the practising,
and, naming another night for meeting, he withdrew. All the singers
assisted him on to his cob, and watched him till he disappeared over the
edge of the Bottom.

III

Mr. Torkingham