"'Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
To cease upon the midnight with no pain.'
—It's the Passing Bell.—What are they ringing it for?—He's not dead—he'll come back again when he's ready.—Stop 'em ringing that bell!
"'Forlorn! the very word is like a bell
To toll me back from thee to my sole self.'
All right—he's comin' back.—Nightingales!—Who wants to hear about a lot o' bloomin' nightingales. I don't. I'm all right—get me a cup o' tea.—It's Tom Barter who's drunk, not me!
"'Where beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
Or new love pine at them beyond to-morrow.'
The mail goes o' Fridays—K Battery, Peshawur, Punjaub—O my God, let Bill tell him!—Shut up, you blasted old fool, or I'll knock yer silly head off! You'll never get there!—What do you know about nightingales? I heard 'em singin' for hundreds and thousands of years before you were born:
"'Thou was not born for death, immortal bird,
No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I heard this passing night was heard
In ancient days, by Emperor and clown:
Perhaps the self-same voice that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn,
The same that ofttimes hath
Charmed magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.'"
The whole of this verse was a reproduction of Mrs. Abel's rendering, spoken in a voice not unlike hers, and with scarcely the falter of a syllable. It was followed by a few seconds of incoherent babble, at the end of which tremors again broke out over Snarley's body; he swayed to and fro, and his head fell forward on his chest. "Catch hold of him, or he'll fall," cried somebody. Then a medley of voices—"Give him a drop of brandy!" "No, don't you see he's dead drunk a'ready?" "Drunk! not 'im. Do you think he could imitate Mrs. Abel like that if he was drunk?" "Take them gels out o' the barn as quick as you can!" "If she don't stop shriekin' when you get 'er home, throw a bucket o' cold water over her. It's only 'isterics." "Well, I've seed a lot o' queer things in my time, and I've knowed Snarley to do some rum tricks, but I never seed nowt like that." "Oh dear, sir, I never felt so upset in all my life. It isn't right! Somebody ought to ha' stopped 'im. I wonder Mr. Abel didn't interfere." "That there poem o' Mrs. Abel's was a'most too much for me. But to think o' him gettin' up like that! It must be Satan that's got into him." "It's a awful thing to 'ave a man like that livin' in the next cottage to your own. I'll be frightened out o' my wits when my master's not at 'ome." "They ought to do something to 'im—I've said so many a time."
And then the voice of Snarley's wife as she chafed her husband's hands: "No, sir, don't you believe 'em when they say he's drunk. He's only had two glasses of cider and half a glass o' beer. You can see the other half in his glass now. I counted 'em myself. And it takes quarts to make 'im tipsy. It's a sort of trance, sir, as he's had. I've knowed him like this two or three times before. He was just like it after he'd been to hear Sir Robert Ball on the stars, sir—worse, if anythin'. He's gettin' better now; but I'm afraid he'll be terrible upset."
Snarley had opened his eyes, and was looking vacantly and sleepily round him. "I'll go home," was all he said. He got up and walked rather shakily, but without assistance, out of the barn.