Now and then Chapman caught up a long
switch and dashed out at some obstreperous child to give an audible
whack; and towards the close of the litany he stumped out--we heard
his tramp the whole length of the church, and by and by his voice
issued from an unknown height, proclaiming--'Let us sing to the
praise and glory in an anthem taken from the 42d chapter of
Genesis.'
There was an outburst of bassoon, clarionet, and fiddle, and the
performance that followed was the most marvellous we had ever heard,
especially when the big butcher--fiddling all the time--declared in
a mighty solo, 'I am Jo--Jo--Jo--Joseph!' and having reiterated this
information four or five times, inquired with equal pertinacity,
'Doth--doth my fa-a-u-ther yet live?' Poor Emily was fairly
'convulsed;' she stuffed her handkerchief into her mouth, and grew
so crimson that my mother was quite frightened, and very near
putting her out at the little door of excommunication. To our last
hour we shall never forget the shock of that first anthem.
The Commandments were read from the desk, Chapman's solitary
response coming from the gallery; and while the second singing--four
verses from Tate and Brady--was going on, we beheld the surplice
stripped off,--like the slough of a May-fly, as Griff said,--when a
rusty black gown was revealed, in which the curate ascended the
pulpit and was lost to our view before the concluding verse of the
psalm, which we had reason to believe was selected in compliment to
us, as well as to Earlscombe, -
'My lot is fall'n in that blest land
Where God is truly know,
He fills my cup with liberal hand;
'Tis He--'tis He--'tis He--supports my throne.
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