enormous seal-ring which enriched one of his fingers, and which had
the look of a family relic. But he was evidently most solicitous about
the musical part of the service, keeping his eye fixed intently on the
choir, and beating time with much gesticulation and emphasis.

[Illustration: "The orchestra was in a small gallery, and presented a
most whimsical grouping of heads."--PAGE 97.]

[Illustration]

The orchestra was in a small gallery, and presented a most whimsical
grouping of heads, piled one above the other, among which I
particularly noticed that of the village tailor, a pale fellow with a
retreating forehead and chin, who played on the clarionet, and seemed to
have blown his face to a point; and there was another, a short pursy
man, stooping and labouring at a bass viol, so as to show nothing but
the top of a round bald head, like the egg of an ostrich. There were two
or three pretty faces among the female singers, to which the keen air
of a frosty morning had given a bright rosy tint; but the gentlemen
choristers had evidently been chosen, like old Cremona fiddles, more for
tone than looks; and as several had to sing from the same book, there
were clusterings of odd physiognomies, not unlike those groups of
cherubs we sometimes see on country tombstones.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

The usual services of the choir were managed tolerably well, the vocal
parts generally lagging a little behind the instrumental, and some
loitering fiddler now and then making up for lost time by travelling
over a passage with prodigious celerity, and clearing more bars than the
keenest fox-hunter, to be in at the death. But the great trial was an
anthem that had been prepared and arranged by Master Simon, and on which
he had founded great expectation. Unluckily there was a blunder at the
very outset; the musicians became flurried; Master Simon was in a fever,
everything went on lamely and irregularly until they came to a chorus
beginning "Now let us sing with one accord," which seemed to be a signal
for parting company: all became discord and confusion; each shifted for
himself, and got to the end as well, or rather as soon, as he could,
excepting one old chorister in a pair of horn spectacles bestriding and
pinching a long sonorous nose; who, happening to stand a little apart,
and being wrapped up in his own melody, kept on a quavering course,
wriggling his head, ogling his book, and winding all up by a nasal solo
of