“Just so. And now he has resigned in a huff. Mr. Holland called yesterday morning to ask if I would help them at the pinch by taking the organ for a Sunday or two, until matters were smoothed with Richards, or some fresh organist was found; and I promised him I would. In the evening, this accident happened to my finger. So you must take it in my place, Johnny.”
“And if I break down?”
“Not you. Why should you?”
“I am out of practice.”
“There’s plenty of time to get up your practice between now and Sunday. Don’t make objections, my dear. We should all do what little we can to help others in a time of need.”
I said no more. As she observed, there was plenty of time between now and Sunday. And, not to lose time, I went off there and then.
The church stood in a lonely spot, as I think you know, and I took the way across the fields to it. Whistling softly, I went along, fixing in my mind upon the chants and hymns. Ours was rather a primitive service. The organ repertoire included only about a dozen chants and double that number of hymns. It had this advantage—that they were all familiar to the congregation, who could join in the singing at will, and the singers had no need to practise. Mr. Richards had lately introduced a different style of music, and it was not liked.
“Let me see: I’ll make it just the opposite of Richards’s. For the morning we will have the thirty-seventh psalm, ‘Depend on God:’ there’s real music in that; and ‘Jerusalem the Golden.’ And for the afternoon, ‘Abide with me,’ and the Evening Hymn. Mornington’s Chant; and the Grand Chant; and the—— Halloa, Fred! Is it you?”
A lithe, straight-limbed young fellow was turning out of the little valley: on his way (as I guessed) from the Parsonage. It was Fred Westerbrook: old Westerbrook’s nephew at the Narrow Dyke Farm—or, as we abbreviated it, the N. D. Farm.
“How are you, Johnny?”