Under the Greenwood Tree; Or, The Mellstock Quire

“Now, you see exactly how it is,” Reuben continued, appealing to Mr. Maybold’s sense of justice by looking sideways into his eyes. The vicar seemed to see how it was so well that the gratified tranter walked up to him again with even vehement eagerness, so that his waistcoat-buttons almost rubbed against the vicar’s as he continued: “As to father, if you or I, or any man or woman of the present generation, at the time music is a-playing, was to shake your fist in father’s face, as may be this way, and say, ‘Don’t you be delighted with that music!’” – the tranter went back to where Leaf was sitting, and held his fist so close to Leaf’s face that the latter pressed his head back against the wall: “All right, Leaf, my sonny, I won’t hurt you; ’tis just to show my meaning to Mr. Mayble. – As I was saying, if you or I, or any man, was to shake your fist in father’s face this way, and say, ‘William, your life or your music!’ he’d say, ‘My life!’ Now that’s father’s nature all over; and you see, sir, it must hurt the feelings of a man of that kind for him and his bass-viol to be done away wi’ neck and crop.”

The tranter went back to the vicar’s front and again looked earnestly at his face.

“True, true, Dewy,” Mr. Maybold answered, trying to withdraw his head and shoulders without moving his feet; but finding this impracticable, edging back another inch. These frequent retreats had at last jammed Mr. Maybold between his easy-chair and the edge of the table.

And at the moment of the announcement of the choir, Mr. Maybold had just re-dipped the pen he was using; at their entry, instead of wiping it, he had laid it on the table with the nib overhanging. At the last retreat his coat-tails came in contact with the pen, and down it rolled, first against the back of the chair, thence turning a summersault into the seat, thence falling to the floor with a rattle.

The vicar stooped for his pen, and the tranter, wishing to show that, however great their ecclesiastical differences, his mind was not so small as to let this affect his social feelings, stooped also.

“And have you anything else you want to explain to me, Dewy?” said Mr. Maybold from under the table.

“Nothing, sir. And, Mr. Mayble, you be not offended? I hope you see our desire is reason?” said the tranter from under the chair.

“Quite, quite; and I shouldn’t think of refusing to listen to such a reasonable request,” the vicar replied. Seeing that Reuben had secured the pen, he resumed his vertical position, and added, “You know, Dewy, it is often said how difficult a matter it is to act up to our convictions and please all parties. It may be said with equal truth, that it is difficult for a man of any appreciativeness to have convictions at all. Now in my case, I see right in you, and right in Shiner. I see that violins are good, and that an organ is good; and when we introduce the organ, it will not be that fiddles were bad, but that an organ was better. That you’ll clearly understand, Dewy?”

“I will; and thank you very much for such feelings, sir. Piph-h-h-h! How the blood do get into my head, to be sure, whenever I quat down like that!” said Reuben, who having also risen to his feet stuck the pen vertically in the inkstand and almost through the bottom, that it might not roll down again under any circumstances whatever.

Now the ancient body of minstrels in the passage felt their curiosity surging higher and higher as the minutes passed. Dick, not having much affection for this errand, soon grew tired, and went away in the direction of the school. Yet their sense of propriety would probably have restrained them from any attempt to discover what was going on in the study had not the vicar’s pen fallen to the floor. The conviction that the movement of chairs, etc., necessitated by the search, could only have been caused by the catastrophe of a bloody fight beginning, overpowered all other considerations; and they advanced to the door, which had only just fallen to. Thus, when Mr. Maybold raised his eyes after the stooping he beheld glaring through the door Mr. Penny in full-length portraiture, Mail’s face and shoulders above Mr. Penny’s head, Spinks’s forehead and eyes over Mail’s crown, and a fractional part of Bowman’s countenance under Spinks’s arm – crescent-shaped portions of other heads and faces being visible behind these – the whole dozen and odd eyes bristling with eager inquiry.

Mr. Penny, as is the case with excitable boot-makers and men, seeing the vicar look at him and hearing no word spoken, thought it incumbent upon himself to say something of any kind. Nothing suggested itself till he had looked for about half a minute at the vicar.

“You’ll excuse my naming of it, sir,” he said, regarding with much commiseration the mere surface of the vicar’s face; “but perhaps you don’t know that your chin have bust out a-bleeding where you cut yourself a-shaving this morning, sir.”

“Now, that was the stooping, depend upon’t,” the tranter suggested, also looking with much interest at the vicar’s chin. “Blood always will bust out again if you hang down the member that’s been bleeding.”

Old William raised his eyes and watched the vicar’s bleeding chin likewise; and Leaf advanced two or three paces from the bookcase, absorbed in the contemplation of the same phenomenon, with parted lips and delighted eyes.

“Dear me, dear me!” said Mr. Maybold hastily, looking very red, and brushing his chin with his hand, then taking out his handkerchief and wiping the place.

“That’s it, sir; all right again now, ’a b’lieve – a mere nothing,” said Mr. Penny. “A little bit of fur off your hat will stop it in a minute if it should bust out again.”

“I’ll let ’ee have a bit off mine,” said Reuben, to show his good feeling; “my hat isn’t so new as yours, sir, and ’twon’t hurt mine a bit.”

“No, no; thank you, thank you,” Mr. Maybold again nervously replied.

“’Twas rather a deep cut seemingly?” said Reuben, feeling these to be the kindest and best remarks he could make.

“O, no; not particularly.”

“Well, sir, your hand will shake sometimes a-shaving, and just when it comes into your head that you may cut yourself, there’s the blood.”

“I have been revolving in my mind that question of the time at which we make the change,” said Mr. Maybold, “and I know you’ll meet me half-way. I think Christmas-day as much too late for me as the present time is too early for you. I suggest Michaelmas or thereabout as a convenient time for both parties; for I think your objection to a Sunday which has no name is not one of any real weight.”

“Very good, sir. I suppose mortal men mustn’t expect their own way entirely; and I express in all our names that we’ll make shift and be satisfied with what you say.” The tranter touched the brim of his imaginary hat again, and all the choir did the same. “About Michaelmas, then, as far as you are concerned, sir, and then we make room for the next generation.”

“About Michaelmas,” said the vicar.

CHAPTER V: RETURNING HOME WARD

“‘A took it very well, then?” said Mail, as they all walked up the hill.

“He behaved like a man, ’a did so,” said the tranter. “And I’m glad we’ve let en know our minds. And though, beyond that, we ha’n’t got much by going, ’twas worth while. He won’t forget it. Yes, he took it very well. Supposing this tree here was Pa’son Mayble, and I standing here, and thik gr’t stone is father sitting in the easy-chair. ‘Dewy,’ says he, ‘I don’t wish to change the church music in a forcible way.’”

“That was very nice o’ the man, even though words be wind.”

“Proper nice – out and out nice. The fact is,” said Reuben confidentially, “’tis how you take a man. Everybody must be managed. Queens must be managed: kings must be managed; for men want managing almost as much as women, and that’s saying a good deal.”

“’Tis truly!” murmured the husbands.

“Pa’son Mayble and I were as good friends all through it as if we’d been sworn brothers. Ay, the man’s well enough; ’tis what’s put in his head that spoils him, and that’s why we’ve got to go.”

“There’s really no believing half you hear about people nowadays.”

“Bless ye, my sonnies! ’tisn’t the pa’son’s move at all. That gentleman over there” (the tranter nodded in the direction of Shiner’s farm) “is at the root of the mischty.”

“What! Shiner?”

“Ay; and I see what the pa’son don’t see. Why, Shiner is for putting forward that young woman that only last night I was saying was our Dick’s sweet-heart, but I suppose can’t be, and making much of her in the sight of the congregation, and thinking he’ll win her by showing her off. Well, perhaps ’a woll.”

“Then the music is second to the woman, the other churchwarden is second to Shiner, the pa’son is second to the churchwardens, and God A’mighty is nowhere at all.”

“That’s true; and you see,” continued Reuben, “at the very beginning it put me in a stud as to how to quarrel wi’ en. In short, to save my soul, I couldn’t quarrel wi’ such a civil man without belying my conscience. Says he to father there, in a voice as quiet as a lamb’s, ‘William, you are a’ old aged man, as all shall be, so sit down in my easy-chair, and rest yourself.’ And down father zot. I could fain ha’ laughed at thee, father; for thou’st take it so unconcerned at first, and then looked so frightened when the chair-bottom sunk in.”

“You see,” said old William, hastening to explain, “I was scared to find the bottom gie way – what should I know o’ spring bottoms? – and thought I had broke it down: and of course as to breaking down a man’s chair, I didn’t wish any such thing.”

“And, neighbours, when a feller, ever so much up for a miff, d’see his own father sitting in his enemy’s easy-chair, and a poor chap like Leaf made the best of, as if he almost had brains – why, it knocks all the wind out of his sail at once: it did out of mine.”

“If that young figure of fun – Fance Day, I mean,” said Bowman, “hadn’t been so mighty forward wi’ showing herself off to Shiner and Dick and the rest, ’tis my belief we should never ha’ left the gallery.”

“’Tis my belief that though Shiner fired the bullets, the parson made ’em,” said Mr. Penny. “My wife sticks to it that he’s in love wi’ her.”

“That’s a thing we shall never know. I can’t onriddle her, nohow.”

“Thou’st ought to be able to onriddle such a little chiel as she,” the tranter observed.

“The littler the maid, the bigger the riddle, to my mind. And coming of such a stock, too, she may well be a twister.”

“Yes; Geoffrey Day is a clever man if ever there was one. Never says anything: not he.”

“Never.”

“You might live wi’ that man, my sonnies, a hundred years, and never know there was anything in him.”

“Ay; one o’ these up-country London ink-bottle chaps would call Geoffrey a fool.”

“Ye never find out what’s in that man: never,” said Spinks. “Close? ah, he is close! He can hold his tongue well. That man’s dumbness is wonderful to listen to.”

“There’s so much sense in it. Every moment of it is brimmen over wi’ sound understanding.”