Mr. Macey, tailor and parish-clerk, the latter of which functions rheumatism had of late obliged him to share with a small-featured young man who sat opposite him, held his white head on one side, and twirled his thumbs with an air of complacency, slightly seasoned with criticism. He smiled pityingly, in answer to the landlord’s appeal, and said—
“Ay, ay; I know, I know; but I let other folks talk. I’ve laid by now, and gev up to the young uns. Ask them as have been to school at Tarley: they’ve learnt pernouncing; that’s come up since my day.”
“If you’re pointing at me, Mr. Macey,” said the deputy-clerk, with an air of anxious propriety, “I’m nowise a man to speak out of my place. As the psalm says—
‘I know what’s right, nor only so,
But also practise what I know.’”
“Well, then, I wish you’d keep hold o’ the tune, when it’s set for you; if you’re for practising, I wish you’d practise that,” said a large, jocose-looking man, an excellent wheelwright in his week-day capacity, but on Sundays leader of the choir. He winked, as he spoke, at two of the company, who were known officially as the “bassoon” and the “key-bugle,” in the confidence that he was expressing the sense of the musical profession in Raveloe.
Mr. Tookey, the deputy-clerk, who shared the unpopularity common to deputies, turned very red, but replied, with careful moderation: “Mr. Winthrop, if you’ll bring me any proof as I’m in the wrong, I’m not the man to say I won’t alter. But there’s people set up their own ears for a standard, and expect the whole choir to follow ’em. There may be two opinions, I hope.”
“Ay, ay,” said Mr. Macey, who felt very well satisfied with this attack on youthful presumption; “you’re right there, Tookey: there’s allays two ’pinions; there’s the ’pinion a man has of himsen, and there’s the ’pinion other folks have on him. There’d be two ’pinions about a cracked bell, if the bell could hear itself.”
“Well, Mr. Macey,” said poor Tookey, serious amidst the general laughter, “I undertook to partially fill up the office of parish-clerk by Mr. Crackenthorp’s desire, whenever your infirmities should make you unfitting; and it’s one of the rights thereof to sing, in the choir—else why have you done the same yourself?”
“Ah! but the old gentleman and you are two folks,” said Ben Winthrop. “The old gentleman’s got a gift. Why, the Squire used to invite him to take a glass, only to hear him sing the ‘Red Rovier’; didn’t he, Mr. Macey? It’s a nat’ral gift. There’s my little lad Aaron, he’s got a gift—he can sing a tune off straight, like a throstle. But as for you, Master Tookey, you’d better stick to your ‘Amens’: your voice is well enough when you keep it up in your nose. It’s your inside as isn’t right made for music: it’s no better nor a hollow stalk.”
This kind of unflinching frankness was the most piquant form of joke to the company at the Rainbow, and Ben Winthrop’s insult was felt by everybody to have capped Mr. Macey’s epigram.
“I see what it is plain enough,” said Mr. Tookey, unable to keep cool any longer. “There’s a consperacy to turn me out o’ the choir, as I shouldn’t share the Christmas money—that’s where it is. But I shall speak to Mr. Crackenthorp; I’ll not be put upon by no man.”
“Nay, nay, Tookey,” said Ben Winthrop. “We’ll pay you your share to keep out of it—that’s what we’ll do. There’s things folks ’ud pay to be rid on, besides varmin.”
“Come, come,” said the landlord, who felt that paying people for their absence was a principle dangerous to society; “a joke’s a joke. We’re all good friends here, I hope. We must give and take. You’re both right and you’re both wrong, as I say. I agree wi’ Mr. Macey here, as there’s two opinions; and if mine was asked, I should say they’re both right. Tookey’s right and Winthrop’s right, and they’ve only got to split the difference and make themselves even.”
The farrier was puffing his pipe rather fiercely, in some contempt at this trivial discussion. He had no ear for music himself, and never went to church, as being of the medical profession, and likely to be in requisition for delicate cows. But the butcher, having music in his soul, had listened with a divided desire for Tookey’s defeat, and for the preservation of the peace.
“To be sure,” he said, following up the landlord’s conciliatory view, “we’re fond of our old clerk; it’s nat’ral, and him used to be such a singer, and got a brother as is known for the first fiddler in this country-side. Eh, it’s a pity but what Solomon lived in our village, and could give us a tune when we liked; eh, Mr. Macey? I’d keep him in liver and lights for nothing—that I would.”
“Ay, ay,” said Mr. Macey, in the height of complacency; “our family’s been known for musicianers as far back as anybody can tell. But them things are dying out, as I tell Solomon every time he comes round; there’s no voices like what there used to be, and there’s nobody remembers what we remember, if it isn’t the old crows.”
“Ay, you remember when first Mr. Lammeter’s father come into these parts, don’t you, Mr. Macey?” said the landlord.
“I should think I did,” said the old man, who had now gone through that complimentary process necessary to bring him up to the point of narration; “and a fine old gentleman he was—as fine, and finer nor the Mr. Lammeter as now is. He came from a bit north’ard, so far as I could ever make out. But there’s nobody rightly knows about those parts: only it couldn’t be far north’ard, nor much different from this country, for he brought a fine breed o’ sheep with him, so there must be pastures there, and everything reasonable. We heared tell as he’d sold his own land to come and take the Warrens, and that seemed odd for a man as had land of his own, to come and rent a farm in a strange place. But they said it was along of his wife’s dying; though there’s reasons in things as nobody knows on—that’s pretty much what I’ve made out; yet some folks are so wise, they’ll find you fifty reasons straight off, and all the while the real reason’s winking at ’em in the corner, and they niver see’t. Howsomever, it was soon seen as we’d got a new parish’ner as know’d the rights and customs o’ things, and kep’ a good house, and was well looked on by everybody. And the young man—that’s the Mr. Lammeter as now is, for he’d niver a sister—soon began to court Miss Osgood, that’s the sister o’ the Mr. Osgood as now is, and a fine handsome lass she was—eh, you can’t think—they pretend this young lass is like her, but that’s the way wi’ people as don’t know what come before ’em. I should know, for I helped the old rector, Mr. Drumlow as was, I helped him marry ’em.”
Here Mr. Macey paused; he always gave his narrative in instalments, expecting to be questioned according to precedent.
“Ay, and a partic’lar thing happened, didn’t it, Mr. Macey, so as you were likely to remember that marriage?” said the landlord, in a congratulatory tone.
“I should think there did—a very partic’lar thing,” said Mr. Macey, nodding sideways. “For Mr. Drumlow—poor old gentleman, I was fond on him, though he’d got a bit confused in his head, what wi’ age and wi’ taking a drop o’ summat warm when the service come of a cold morning. And young Mr. Lammeter, he’d have no way but he must be married in Janiwary, which, to be sure, ’s a unreasonable time to be married in, for it isn’t like a christening or a burying, as you can’t help; and so Mr. Drumlow—poor old gentleman, I was fond on him—but when he come to put the questions, he put ’em by the rule o’ contrairy, like, and he says, ‘Wilt thou have this man to thy wedded wife?’ says he, and then he says, ‘Wilt thou have this woman to thy wedded husband?’ says he. But the partic’larest thing of all is, as nobody took any notice on it but me, and they answered straight off ‘yes,’ like as if it had been me saying ‘Amen’ i’ the right place, without listening to what went before.”
“But