Next day was Sunday. Little Joe forgot about the day, and forgot that
Miss Amory would probably be in church in the morning. She had asked to
see his fiddle, so in the morning he took it and went down with it to
the park. The church was within the grounds, and he had to pass it. As
he went by he heard the roll of the organ and the strains of the choir.
He stopped to hearken, then went up the steps of the churchyard,
listening. A desire came on him to catch the air on his improvised
violin, and he put it to his shoulder and drew his bow across the
slender cords. The sound was very faint, so faint as to be drowned by
the greater volume of the organ and the choir. Nevertheless he could
hear the feeble tones close to his ear, and his heart danced at the
pleasure of playing to an accompaniment, like Miss Amory. The choir, the
congregation, were singing the Advent hymn to Luther's tune--
"Great God, what do I see and hear?
The end of things created."
Little Joe, playing his inaudible instrument, came creeping up the
avenue, treading on the fallen yellow lime leaves, passing between the
tombstones, drawn on by the solemn, beautiful music. Presently he stood
in the porch, then he went on; he was unconscious of everything but the
music and the joy of playing with it; he walked on softly into the
church without even removing his ragged straw cap, though the squire and
the squire's wife, and the rector and the reverend the Mrs. Rector, and
the parish churchwarden and the rector's churchwarden, and the overseer
and the waywarden, and all the farmers and their wives were present. He
had forgotten about his broken cap in the delight that made the tears
fill his eyes and trickle over his pale cheeks.
Then when with a shock the parson and the churchwardens saw the ragged
urchin coming up the nave fiddling, with his hat on, regardless of the
sacredness of the place, and above all of the sacredness of the presence
of the squire, J.P. and D.L., the rector coughed very loud and looked
hard at his churchwarden, Farmer Eggins, who turned red as the sun in a
November fog, and rose. At the same instant the people's churchwarden
rose, and both advanced upon Joe Gander from opposite sides of the
church.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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