For when winter came, and the church was cold, I had the practices in the house, with piano accompaniment. The bright log fire—firewood is the one thing we have always been extravagant in, on principle—and the much-pillowed amateur sofa, and the chairs collected from the general stock and grouped invitingly, made the homely drawing-room a good, thawing sort of place for the storm-buffeted to come to and to sing in. Most carefully were wet wraps and umbrellas left outside, and boots rubbed and scrubbed on door-mats; and never did an evening-party show itself better bred. For that is what the choir practice came to—a "musical evening" once a week. We fell into the habit of clearing off the chants and hymns rather hastily, and devoting the bulk of our ever-extending time to experiments in the higher forms of part-singing. We were not experts, any of us, but we made up in enthusiasm what we lacked in knowledge, and ended by so distinguishing ourselves that the fame of our performances has not died out in the district yet. For although on pleasure bent, we kept an eye to business, and selected music with the secondary view of getting anthems out of it eventually. Our great achievement was Mozart's Twelfth Mass. It took us a long time, but we fumbled through it from beginning to end. And then we astonished the congregation with "Glorious is Thy Name," and "Praise the Lord, for He is Gracious," and other classic gems, as we got them perfectly.
It was my first attempt at choir-leading and—which I am sure is a very good thing for my reputation—the last. Thenceforth the parson wielded the baton. The choir that now is, which could sing the Twelfth Mass straight off as easily as look at it, if it had never seen the thing before, would feel insulted at any comparison between their work and ours; but often, when I am listening to the evening anthem, the notes of those old voices, so fervid and sincere, float back upon the tide of memory from those old days, with a heart-melting power that these finished performances will never possess, for me.
A year or two ago G. was escorting me to my seat in the cathedral through a crowd pressing into the building to some special function—I forget what—and he was accosted by a fine-looking grey-bearded gentleman, with a lady on his arm. "You don't know who that is," said G., turning to me. I looked, and knew—one of those men who used to walk so far o' nights to attend choir practice, after working at his mine all day—seven-or eight-and-twenty years before. We clasped hands with some emotion and looked at each other, and the question that sprang to our eyes was, "Do you remember the Twelfth Mass?" It was as plain as print to both of us. Then we were swept apart before I could learn where he was living, or anything about him, except that the lady on his arm was his daughter.
I hope many more have survived and prospered, and that they will read these words so as to know how I remember them.
CHAPTER VIII[ToC]
THE MURRAY JOURNEY
This parish, although sparsely populated, was enormous in size; it stretched out in one direction more than a hundred miles as the crow flies. And when G. went that way he rode with a fat valise on the saddle and did not return under a fortnight, during which time we were unable to communicate with each other. It was the nearest thing to being a missionary that he ever came to. There are roads and thriving townships along that route now; in our time it was the wildest Bush-track, about which lay the homesteads of the pioneer squatters, at a day's journey one from another. These good men used to welcome warmly the infrequent parson, round up their hands for service in dining-room or wool-shed, fetch in the babies born since the last visitation, and any candidates for matrimony anxious to seize a golden chance. In the case of the latter it was not unusual for the whole process of proposal, engagement, and marriage to take place during the few hours that the clergyman was available.