Now, the one good thing still belonging to Mrs. Redmond is the remains of what must once have been a very beautiful voice. With this she possesses the power of imparting to others her own knowledge of music,—a rather rare gift. With her own children, of course, she can do nothing; they are veritable dead-letters in her hands,—she being one of those women who spend their lives admonishing and thrusting advice upon the world, yet find themselves unequal to the government of their own household. But with the village choir all is different; here she reigns supreme, and is made much of, for Pullingham is decidedly musical, and all its young men and all its young women either sing, or think they sing, or long after singing.
Tenors, sopranos, and basses are to be met with round every corner; the very air is thick with them. The Pullinghamites will sing, whether they can or not, with a go and a gusto that speaks well for their lungs, if a trifle trying to the listeners.
Vocal music being the thing held highest in favor in the Methodist chapel, where Mr. Leatham, the "Methody" parson, holds unorthodox services, many were the seceders from the parish church to join the choir in the whitewashed chapel and shout the hymns of Moody and Sankey, just at the commencement of this story.
Such secessions went nigh to breaking Mr. Redmond's heart. The organ had failed him; it had wheezed, indeed, valiantly to the last, as though determined to die game; but a day had come, as I said, when it breathed its last sigh and the ancient bellows refused to produce another note.
What was to be done? The villagers should and would have music at any cost, and they never could be brought to see the enormity of worshipping in the whitewashed edifice that was, and is, as the temple of Belial in the eyes of their vicar.
It would take some time to procure funds for another and more satisfactory organ. In the mean time, the whilom choir was falling to pieces. The late organist had accepted a fresh and more lucrative post: there was literally no head to keep the members together. What was to be done?
In desperation, the vicar asked himself this, whilst looking vainly round for some one to help him drag back his flock from the vicious influence of the "American songsters," as he most irreverently termed Messrs. M. and S. And it was then, when he was at his wits' end, that Mrs. Redmond most unexpectedly came to the rescue. It was the first and the last time in her life she ever rose to the occasion: but this one solitary time she did it perfectly, and coming boldly to the front, carried all before her.
She would undertake a singing-class; she would arrange, and teach, and keep together a choir that should reduce to insignificance the poor pretensions of a man like Leatham! The vicar, dazzled by all this unlooked-for energy, gave his consent to her scheme, and never afterwards repented it; for in three short months she had regulated and coached a singing-class that unmistakably outshone its Methodistical rivals.
And then came the question of the new organ.
"We have some money, but not enough money," said the vicar, one evening, to the partner of his joys; "and something should be done to bring the want of an organ before the public."