“That explains everything,” observed the violoncello.
“I begin to see daylight,” remarked the hautboy.
At that moment, in rushed the first violin, waving the score above his head.
“I’ve got it!” he said. “Nothing easier. It wasn’t no fault o’ Puddicombe, he said it were our stoopidity. ‘What does largo molto con affettuoso caprizio mean?’ he asked. ‘Largo molto, turn the score upside down, con affettuoso caprizio, and go ahead like blazes!’”
CHAPTER XLVI
A TRIUMPH
The fumes of the punch had been dissipated, not only from the room of the Lamb and Flag, but also from the brain of the orchestra.
The bassoon’s scruples revived; he was still grateful for the punch, but resentful for the headache it had produced.
The several points brought out by the clarionet, that provoking advocate for Pasco, who asked awkward questions and propounded awkward suggestions, stood twinkling like sparks in tinder. The bassoon thought that punch, good thing though it might be, did but momentarily overflow, and did not drown, doubts. It darkened the burning questions, but did not quench them. The disappearance of Quarm was not satisfactorily explained. The coincidence of the voiding of the Cellars conveniently for the fire, was not explained. The contradiction between the statements made by the uncle and the niece was unsifted. The bassoon grunted in his bed a grunt of dissatisfaction with himself for having yielded his opinions, a grunt of resentment against Pasco for having obfuscated his clear judgment, a grunt of resolve never again to allow his opinions to give way before punch. Conscience, that capricious factor, which had pricked him in one direction last night, pricked him in another this morning.
The hautboy, also, was out of tune. On review of the events of the past night, he considered that the entry of Pasco was an unwarrantable intrusion. The rule was well known that during a practice of the orchestra no one should be admitted. Pepperill had entered uninvited, had forced himself into their society, and he must have done that for a purpose. For what purpose but to cajole, to hoodwink them?
In vain is the net spread in the sight of any bird. The hautboy was a very wideawake and watchful bird, and he saw the meshes clearly. In vain is the hook cast in clear water; and the medium was so transparent that the hautboy plainly saw the hook. He resolved to maintain an independent, observant attitude, to form his own opinion, not accept ready-made views served up to him with punch. When before had the churchwarden favoured the village orchestra with punch? Never’since Pasco had been churchwarden. Never when in a private capacity. Only when popular feeling became suspicious or hostile, did he show himself free-handed. His present liberality told against him.