“Certainly, to sing, Mr. Dean.”
“Because I have been watching ’um for four days now, and I’ve come to the conclusion that there’s an organised conspiracy among ’um. In the Psalms, for instance, ye’ll see ’um taking it in turns; one side singing a verse, and then resting, while the other side sings; so that half of ’um are idle all the time. It’s an organised conspiracy; nothing else.”
The precentor explained the antiphonal method, and the canon, who was present, rather staggered the dean by assuring him that this method was practised by the early Christians in the days of Trajan.[29]
After this the dean was quiet for some weeks: then he broke out again on the precentor: “I’ve been looking a good deal lately at your list of Services, and I notice that ye give us too much in the same key. There’s Kempton in B flat, and King in B flat, and Boyce in B flat, and so on. Couldn’t ye give us a little more variety?”
“By all means, Mr. Dean,” said the precentor: “glad to see that you take so much interest in the music.”
He withdrew, and revised the list for the coming week: there were four Services (out of fourteen) in the objectionable key, and in each case he erased B flat and substituted A sharp. Thus amended, the list was printed and submitted to the dean, who was pleased to express his gratitude that his suggestion had been adopted.
“Your precentor, I presume, didn’t explain that an organ has only one note to represent A sharp and B flat,” said I, anxious to let my host know that I saw the point of his story.
“Not he: he was a man who enjoyed a joke, and sometimes made one, when he would have done better to hold his tongue till he got outside. I remember one day, an old canon had died; he had always been in money difficulties, and had left a family very poorly provided for. The precentor came in just before service with a hymn-book, and suggested that the canon in residence should choose a hymn suitable to the melancholy occasion.
“‘To be sure,’ said the canon pensively, turning over the leaves in a vague way: ‘there’s a beautiful hymn beginning:
‘O let him whose sorrow
No relief can find—’