City and town life -- Fiction; Urban poor -- Fiction
No; Jared's was no common organ, as would be declared by any one who had
seen the great pipes towering up into the gloom of the roof, and their
gilding shedding a rich sunset hue into the farthest corners of the old
church. People came miles to hear that organ as soon as Jared became
its ruling spirit, and Mrs Nimmer grew hot on Sunday mornings in her
endeavours to find sittings for the strangers who flocked in. But the
old vicar, the Rev. John Grey, used to chuckle, and think that all was
due to his sermons, and wonder whether there could ever be a second St
Chrysostom, the golden-mouthed.
Purkis, the beadle, used to wink--that is to say, he would draw a heavy
lid over one of his lobster eyes--and say, "I know!" For Jared, in
spite of his poverty and large family, had commenced his musical reign
by a "donus" of three half-crowns to the beadle, who would boast that he
(the beadle) could give people a better service than they could get in
any other church in London; and "as to the orgin, why they'd better come
and see, that's all."
And truly it seemed that Jared could make that instrument thrill beneath
his touch, till every passion of the human heart had its representative
amongst those notes. You might hear it sob, and wail, and moan in the
most piteous manner, whisper and die away in sweet sighing melodies
amongst the old pillars, or far up in the carven corners of the chancel,
where the notes made the glass to tremble in the lead as they seemed
striving to pass through the painted windows. Hear it thunder too, like
a young earthquake, and rage, and roar, and growl, till the very pew
doors rattled and chattered; and however thick and soft your cushion,
you could feel the deep-toned diapasons shuddering up and down your
spine. There were love sighs, joy, rage, contending armies, the warring
elements, with the rolling billow and crashing thunder, all to be heard
from those organ-pipes when Jared Pellet touched the keys; and matters
grew to such a pitch, that, partly out of pity for Ichabod Gunnis, and
partly because people would not be played out, Mr Timson limited Jared's
voluntaries to a duration of ten minutes.
Mr Purkis's dinner grew cold; but he did not mind it, for he loved
music, and would sit with mouth open and eyes upturned, swallowing the
sweet sounds which floated in the air; but Mrs Nimmer, who was not
musical, and who, alternately with Mr Purkis, locked up the church, did
mind. Hints were of no use; the people would stop, while Ichabod Gunnis
heartily wished that he might do the same, for it was a close and
confined space where he laboured at the handle of his wind pump, until
Jared's afflatus had been dispersed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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