Then came a chance.
In the cathedral city the “Messiah” was to be performed, and the choir of the minster were to take part, also sundry amateurs, and Formes and Albani were to sing.
I gave myself a treat. I went up, and took the plumber with me.
I do not think that Drewe had any conception of what massive chorus singing could be, or what cultured voices could effect in solos. Remember, he never had heard good music in his own village; only direful failures to achieve something that was supposed to be music. His only—I really believe his only previous acquaintance with good singing was his hearing my mother sing.
As to describing how Doble looked through that concert, I cannot. He was as one not himself, rigid, rapt, not of this earth, with the great tears rolling down his thin, worn cheeks; he sat with his hands folded between his knees and never moved—no more than had he been of stone.
Nor did Doble speak much after it; he went back to his lodging as in a dream.
And as we returned by coach next day he was reticent. I knew what was passing within the man, and did not tease him with questions, but as he left the coach at his door, he squeezed my hand and said: “Sir, I shall live on that all the rest of my days.”
In after years I have often pondered over Doble. It has seemed to me one of those unfathomable mysteries of life that there should be in a poor little country village a man created by God, endowed by God with high-strung musical faculties, yet absolutely incapacitated by position and circumstances for making any use of his great gift, for deriving any enjoyment from it. Why was not Doble placed somewhere else? Why was Doble given a faculty he could not use?
Many years passed, and I was cast into a far distant portion of England, yet I may say that this problem continually troubled me.