‘Still, you can’t alter a old-established note that’s A or B by nater,’ rejoined Haymoss, with yet deeper conviction that Mr. Torkingham was getting off his head. ‘Now sound A, neighbour Sammy, and let’s have a slap at Christen sojers again, and show the Pa’son the true way!’
Sammy produced a private tuning-fork, black and grimy, which, being about seventy years of age, and wrought before pianoforte builders had sent up the pitch to make their instruments brilliant, was nearly a note flatter than the parson’s. While an argument as to the true pitch was in progress, there came a knocking without.
‘Somebody’s at the door!’ said a little treble girl.
‘Thought I heard a knock before!’ said the relieved choir.
The latch was lifted, and a man asked from the darkness, ‘Is Mr. Torkingham here?’
‘Yes, Mills. What do you want?’
It was the parson’s man.
‘Oh, if you please,’ said Mills, showing an advanced margin of himself round the door, ‘Lady Constantine wants to see you very particular, sir, and could you call on her after dinner, if you ben’t engaged with poor fokes? She’s just had a letter,—so they say,—and it’s about that, I believe.’
Finding, on looking at his watch, that it was necessary to start at once if he meant to see her that night, the parson cut short the practising, and, naming another night for meeting, he withdrew. All the singers assisted him on to his cob, and watched him till he disappeared over the edge of the Bottom.