At that moment Pasco Pepperill came up, puffing, looking about him half suspiciously, half defiantly. “How are ye, gents?” said he. “What! practising? I don’t mind if I sit a bit and listen to you. I’m fond of music, especially sacred music, as I’m churchwarden.”
CHAPTER XLV
DAYLIGHT
The musicians looked at each other. They could hardly continue to practise Puddicombe in F till the little awkwardness of the passage largo molto con affettuoso caprizio was set to rights. It would be half an hour before this was done. Meanwhile, the orchestra might as well work their tongues as well as their arms and fingers, and blow questions and puff opinions in place of musical notes. They had assembled that evening with a double intent: the excuse for their meeting was the rehearsal; the real object, the airing of their views on the fire at the Cellars, its probable origin, and what had become of Jason Quarm.
For the gathering of information on such matters, what was more fortunate than the presence in their midst of Pasco Pepperill, the man of all others best qualified to give information relative to the matters troubling all hearts? It was true that a good many’the bassoon and the ophicleide among the orchestra’entertained grave views relative to the conduct of Pepperill. Well! there the man was. They might prove him with keen questions, catch him off his guard with sly hits, entangle him in a net of incautious admissions into which they had lured him, and then sit in judgment on him and the whole case, after he had withdrawn.
“Gents and neighbours, and friends all,” said Pasco, seating himself, “as churchwarden, my place is among you, and allow me to stand treat of rum and water all round’no, better than that, a grand bowl of punch, and we’ll spoon it out with our good host’s whalebone ladle, and the Queen Anne shilling in the bottom. Landlord, don’t spare the rum; thanks to my uncle, I’m a man of means, and can pay my way.”
Marvellous as a solvent is punch. The mere mention of a bowl began to melt and break up prejudice and fixed opinions. The bassoon had been persistent in insisting on the criminality of Pepperill; he had urged every point against him, he had turned aside every argument that tended to exonerate him. As a man of strict integrity, he was now placed in a difficult position. Either he must hold to his opinion, rise, bow stiffly, and decline to drink out of the bowl, to wet his lips with the generous liquor the churchwarden provided, or else his judgment must undergo modifications, then a complete volte face.
The popping of a cork was heard. At once the bassoon acknowledged that he had been precipitate in forming his conclusions. A waft of rum and lemons entered the room. He began to see that there were weighty considerations which had escaped him hitherto, and which undermined his convictions. Then came the clink of the ladle in the bowl, as the bowl was being brought in. The bassoon’s preconceptions went down like a pack of cards. The whole room was redolent with a fragrant steam, as the great iron-stoneware bowl was planted on the table. The bassoon was converted into an ardent, enthusiastic believer in the churchwarden.
Wondrous is the power of conscience. It may lie asleep, it may remain for long inert, but a little something comes, unexpectedly touches it, and it springs up to full energy, and resolves amidst much self-reproach to make amends for the past. So was it in the interior of the bassoon. The sniff of punch was to his conscience what “Hey, rats!” is to the dozing dog. It was alive, it was stinging him, it had brought him metaphorically in penitence to his knees before Pasco Pepperill. He could not think, say, show himself, sufficiently convinced that that man who provided and paid for the punch was the embodiment of all virtues, with a character unstained as is the lily. He trampled on his own base self, he spurned at it, for having for a while thought evil of so admirable a man.
“Peter Squance bain’t here. ’Tis a pity’our first fiddle,” said the second violin. “He’ll be mazed when he comes back with the molto largo, and finds the punch all gone.”
“Gone?” exclaimed Pepperill. “Not a bit of it. When this bowl is done, we will have another.”