‘And that’s why I say,’ said Coachy Timms, ‘that there be parsons and parsons, just as there be harses and harses. And the same hand made ’em all didn’t a? And he’s his good days and his bad days same as any other journeyman. A quick worker too, as I telled Parson Croup. Seven days is no great time for to make a warld in. I hope, says Parson, you’re of the true faith, Coachy. Squire’s a good squire, says he, but dauntee be led into papistry, friend. There’s a tidy shatter of sin already in the Fee, says Parson. Ah, says I, but us can’t all be saints like yourself, Parson. Goddle Mighty took time and trouble over you. But us ornary folk, us be made out of the shavens left over. What kind of talk be this? cries Parson in a pet. Is this the way to speak of the Deity? And why not, Reverence? Ancient of Days they do call him, but he be not a day older than the first day, nor never will be, to my thinken. He be a lad still, and he made ut all in play, sun moon and stars a-plenty, like a five-year-old blowen soap-bubbles on washen-day. Look at ’em all a-shimper, says he. Look at ’em floaten in the sky, mother! And he clapped he’s hands and saw that ut was good, same as the Book do say.’
‘That’s queer doctrine indeed,’ said Mr Bailey. ‘That’s a doctrine I’ve never encountered in my reading. What said Parson to it?’
‘As to that, I dunnaw,’ answered Coachy. ‘For I din understand a word. But why,’ he added, complainingly, ‘why daun’t young Gipsy putt us in heart wi’ a song or two?’
Everyone welcomed the suggestion; and Noke, stepping forward, fixed his gaze on the floor, and coughed once or twice, and stroked his throat nervously.
‘Well, what shall ut be, neighbours?’
‘
‘Nay,’ said Tom Shellett,’ give us
‘The one I do know best,’ said Noke, bashfully, ‘be
They all applauded his choice, and the singer, as if communing with himself, tried over his tune in a kind of whisper. Then after a few tentative false starts, he found the right pitch and began, in a full baritone:
The applause was hearty. The singer’s face became creased with smiles. They cried him encore, and he stood with his eyes on the ceiling, waiting for the din to subside. Some ten yards below the soles of his boots lay the bones of Koor and Hasta and Nigh, untouched since their slaying; and in the veins of every man of this company, of this village, and of this country, ran the blood of Koor. From the great Pitt to the oafish Roger Peakod, they all had this ancestor in common.
‘Let’s have another,’ cried Coachy. ‘Give it rein, my coney.’
‘There be fi’ more varses,’ said Gipsy Noke, half diffident, half triumphant.
‘Let’s have ’em,’ said they all.
The singer opened and shut his mouth without sound, as though to make sure that his jaws were in working order. Then he opened it again: this time to sing:
But at that moment there came a sharp and peremptory tapping on the tavern door, and everybody turned in his seat to stare.