When Edwin, shyly, followed Big James into the assembly room of the Dragon, it already held a fair sprinkling of men, and newcomers continued to drop in. They were soberly and respectably clothed, though a few had knotted handkerchiefs round their necks instead of collars and ties. The occasion was a jollity of the Bursley Burial Club. This Club, a singular example of that dogged private co-operative enterprise which so sharply distinguishes English life from the corporate life of other European countries, had lustily survived from a period when men were far less sure of a decent burial than they were then, in the very prosperous early seventies. It had helped to maintain the barbaric fashion of ostentatiously expensive funerals, out of which undertakers and beer-sellers made vast sums; but it had also provided a basis of common endeavour and of fellowship. And its respectability was intense, and at the same time broad-minded. To be an established to the Burial Club was evidence of good character and of social spirit. The periodic jollities of this company of men whose aim was to bury each other, had a high reputation for . Up till a year they had always been held at the Duck, in Duck Square, opposite; but Mr Enoch Peake, Chairman of the Club, had by and chicane, triumphing over immense influences, changed their to the Dragon, whose , Mrs Louisa Loggerheads, he was then courting. (It must be stated that Mrs Louisa’s name contained no of ; it is merely the local word for a harmless plant, the knapweed.) He had now won Mrs Loggerheads, after being a thrice, and with her the second best ‘house’ in the town.
There were long benches down the room, with forms on either side of them. Big James, not without pomp, escorted a blushing Edwin to the end of one of these tables, near a small raised platform that occupied the of the room. Over this platform was printed a legend: “As a bird is known by its note—”; and over the legend was a full-rigged ship in a glass case, and a pair of antlers. The walls of the room were dark brown, the ceiling grey with of various sorts, and the floor tiled red-and-black and sanded. Smoke rose in spirals from about a score of churchwarden pipes and as many cutties, which were charged from tin , and lighted by spills of newspaper from the three double gas-jets that hung down over the benches. Two women, one in black and the other checked, served beer, porter, and in mugs, and gin in glasses, passing in and out through a side door. The company talked little, and it had not yet begun seriously to drink; but, about in attitudes of restful , it was smoking religiously, and the flat noise of solemn expectorations the minutes. Edwin was easily the youngest person present—the average age appeared to be about fifty—but nobody’s curiosity seemed to be much stirred by his odd arrival, and he ceased gradually to blush. When, however, one of the women paused before him in silent question, and he had to explain that he required no drink because he had only called for a moment about a matter of business, he blushed again vigorously.
Two.
Then Mr Enoch Peake appeared. He was a short, stout old man, with fat hands, a red, minutely wrinkled face, and very small eyes. Greeted with the respect due to the owner of Cocknage Gardens, a sporting resort where all the best foot-racing and rabbit-coursing took place, he accepted it in , and immediately took off his coat and sat down in cotton shirt-sleeves. Then he pulled out a red handkerchief and his tobacco-box, and set them on the table. Big James motioned to Edwin.
“Evening, Mr Peake,” said Big James, crossing the floor, “and here’s a young gent wishful for two words with you.”
Mr Peake stared vacantly.
“Young Mr Clayhanger,” explained Big James.
“It’s about this card,” Edwin began, in a whisper, drawing the wedding-card sheepishly from his pocket. “Father had to go to Manchester,” he added, when he had finished.
Mr Enoch Peake seized the card in both hands, and examined it; and Edwin could hear his heavy breathing.
Mrs Louisa Loggerheads, a comfortable, smiling woman of fifty, showed herself at the service-door, and nodded with dignity to a few of the habitués.
“Missis is at door,” said Big James to Mr Peake.
“Is her?” muttered Mr Peake, not interrupting his examination of the card.
One of the serving-women, having removed Mr Peake’s coat, brought a new church , filled it, and carefully directed the tip towards his tight little mouth: the lips closed on it. Then she lighted a spill and it to the distant bowl, and the mouth ; and then the woman deposited the bowl cautiously on the bench. Lastly, she came with a small glass of sloe gin. Mr Peake did not move.
At length Mr Peake withdrew the pipe from his mouth, and after an said—
“Aye!”
He continued to stare at the card, now held in one hand.
“And is it to be printed in silver?” Edwin asked.
Mr Peake took a few more .
“Aye!”
When he had stared further for a long time at the card, his hand moved slowly with it towards Edwin, and Edwin resumed possession of it.
Mrs Louisa Loggerheads had now vanished.
“Missis has gone,” said Big James.
“Has her?” muttered Mr Peake.
Edwin rose to leave, though ; but Big James asked him in polite reproach whether he should not stay for the first song. He nodded, encouraged; and sat down. He did not know that the uppermost idea in Big James’s mind for an hour past had been that Edwin would hear him sing.
Mr Peake lifted his glass, held it from him, approached his lips towards it, and emptied it at a . He then glanced round and said thickly—
“Gentlemen all, Mester Smallrice, Mester Harracles, Mester Rampick, and Mester Yarlett will now oblige with one o’ th’ ould favourites.”
There was some applause, a few coats were removed, and Mr Peake himself in a contemplative attitude.
Three.
Messrs Arthur Smallrice, Abraham Harracles, Jos Rawnpike, and James Yarlett rose, stepped heavily on to the little platform, and stood in a line with their hands in their pockets. “As a bird is known by its note—” was hidden by the rampart of their shoulders. They had no music. They knew the music; they had sung it a thousand times. They knew the effects which they wished to produce, and the means of production. They worked together like an inspired machine. Mr Arthur Smallrice gave a rapid glance into a corner, and from that corner a concertina spoke—one short note. Then began, with no hesitating preliminaries nor mute , the singing of that classic quartet, justly from to Wigan and from Northallerton to Lichfield, “Loud Ocean’s Roar.” The thing was performed with absolute assurance and perfection. Mr Arthur Smallrice did the yapping of the short waves on the foam-veiled rocks, and Big James in fullest did the long and rolling of the deep. It was , terrific, and overwhelming. Many bars before the close Edwin was thrilled, as by an and vast revelation. He from head to foot. He had never heard any singing like it, or any singing in any way comparable to it. He had never guessed that song held such possibilities of emotion. The pure and fine essential qualities of the voices, the dizzying harmonies, the fugal calls and responses, the strange relief of the unisons, and above all the free, natural of the singers, proudly aware that they were producing something beautiful that could not be produced more beautifully, conscious of unchallenged supremacy,—all this enfevered him to an and self-astonished enthusiasm.
He murmured under his breath, as “Loud Ocean’s Roar” died away and the little voices of the street supervened: “By ! By Gad!”
The applause was generous. Edwin stamped and clapped with childlike violence and fury. Mr Peake slowly and regularly one fist on the bench, the while. Glasses and mugs could be seen, but not heard, dancing. Mr Arthur Smallrice, Mr Abraham Harracles, Mr Jos Rawnpike, and Mr James Yarlett, inattentive to the acclamations, stepped heavily from the platform and sat down. When Edwin caught Big James’s eye he clapped again, reanimating the general approval, and Big James gazed at him with satisfaction. Mr Enoch Peake was now, save for the rise and fall of his great chest, as immobile and brooding as an Indian god.
Four.
Edwin did not depart. He reflected that, even if his father should come home earlier than the last train and prove curious, it would be impossible for him to know the exact moment at which his son had been able to have speech with Mr Enoch Peake on the important matter of business. For aught his father could ever guess he might have been prevented from obtaining the attention of the chairman of the until, say, eleven o’clock. Also, he meant to present his conduct to his father in the light of an enterprising and fearless action showing a marked for affairs. Mr Enoch Peake, whom his father was anxious to flatter, had desired his father’s company at the Dragon, and, to save the situation, Edwin had gone instead: that was it.
Besides, he would have stayed in any case. His mind was elevated above the fear of consequences.
There was some concertina-playing, with a realistic imitation of church bells borne on the wind from a distance; and then the Bursley Prize Handbell Ringers (or Campanologists) produced a whole family of real bells from under a form, and the ostler and the two women arranged a special table, and the campanologists fixed their bells on it and themselves round it, and performed a selection of 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 , it was far less so than a young man’s performance of the ophicleide, a instrument that coiled round and about its player, and when breathed into gave brassy sounds that resembled the ni............