Away went the organ, which was played by the vicar’s eldest daughter—away went the vicar’s second daughter, who “led the singing” from the vicarage pew with a voice like a bird—away went the choir, which, in spite of surplices, could not be cured of waiting half a beat for her—and away went the congregation—young men and maidens, old men and children—in one broad tide of somewhat irregular harmony. Isaac did not know the words as well as I did, so I lent him my hymn-book; one result of which was, that the print being small, and the sense of a hymn being in his view a far more important
matter than the sound of it, he preached rather than sang—in an unequal cadence which was perturbing to my more musical ear—the familiar lines,
“Still let each awful truth our thoughts engage,
That shines revealed on inspiration’s page;
Nor those blest hours in vain amusement waste
Which all who lavish shall lament at last.”
During the next verse my devotions were a little distracted by the gradual approach of a churchwarden for my threepenny-bit, which was hot with three verses of expectant fingering. Then, to my relief, he took it, and the bee-master’s contribution, and I felt calmer, and listened to the little prelude which it was always the custom for the organist to play before the final verse of a hymn. It was also the custom to sing the last verse as loudly as possible, though this is by no means invariably appropriate. It fitted the present occasion fairly enough. From where I stood I could see the bellows-blower (the magnetic current of enthusiasm flowed even to the back of the organ) nerve himself to prodigious pumping—Charlie’s sister drew out all the stops—the vicar passed from the prayer-desk to the pulpit with the rapt look of a man who walks in a prophetic dream—we pulled ourselves together, Master Isaac brought the hymn book close to his glasses, and when the tantalizing prelude was past we burst forth with a volume which merged all
discrepancies. As far as I am able to judge of my own performance, I fear I bawled (I’m sure the boy behind me did),
“Father of Heaven, in Whom our hopes confide,
Whose power defends us, and Whose precepts guide,
In life our Guardian, and in death our Friend,
Glory supreme be Thine till time shall end!”
The sermon was short, and when the service was over Master Isaac and I spent a delightful afternoon with his bees among the heather. The “evening star” had come out when we had some tea in the village inn, and we walked home by moonlight. There was neither wind nor sun, but the air was almost oppressively pure. The moonshine had taken the colour out of the sandy road and the heather, and had painted black shadows by every boulder, and most things looked asleep except the rill that went on running. Only we and the rabbits, and the night moths and the beetles, seemed to be stirring. An occasional bat appeared and vanished like a spectral illusion, and I saw one owl flap across the moor with level wings against the moon.
“Oh, I have enjoyed it!” was all I could say when I parted from the bee-master.
“And so have I, Master Jack,” was his reply, and he hesitated as if he had something more to say, and then he said it. “I never enjoyed it as much, and
you can thank your mother, sir, with old Isaac’s duty, for sending us to church. I’m sure I don’t know why I never went before when I was up yonder, for I always took notice of the bells. I reckon I thought I hadn’t time, but you can say, with my respects, sir, that please God I shan’t miss again.”