There were two or three pretty faces among the female
singers, to which the keen air of a frosty morning had given a
bright rosy tint; but the gentlemen choristers had evidently been
chosen, like old Cremona fiddles, more for tone than looks; and as
several had to sing from the same book, there were clusterings of
odd physiognomies, not unlike those groups of cherubs we sometimes see
on country tombstones.
The usual services of the choir were managed tolerably well, the
vocal parts generally lagging a little behind the instrumental, and
some loitering fiddler now and then making up for lost time by
travelling over a passage with prodigious celerity, and clearing
more bars than the keenest fox-hunter to be in at the death. But the
great trial was an anthem that had been prepared and arranged by
Master Simon, and on which he had founded great expectation. Unluckily
there was a blunder at the very outset; the musicians became flurried;
Master Simon was in a fever; every thing went on lamely and
irregularly until they came to a chorus beginning "Now let us sing
with one accord," which seemed to be a signal for parting company: all
became discord and confusion; each shifted for himself, and got to the
end as well, or, rather, as soon as he could, excepting one old
chorister in a pair of horn spectacles, bestriding and pinching a long
sonorous nose; who happened to stand a little apart, and, being
wrapped up in his own melody, kept on a quavering course, wriggling
his head, ogling his book, and winding all up by a nasal solo of at
least three bars' duration.
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