"God knows I don't want this beastly life. But it's a good thing I've got it to turn to. Most on 'em has nowt but their trades, and them's the ones as has to starve. But me and my mate here happens to be moosical. Used to sing in St. ---- Church in Leeds. Leading bass, I was--a bit irregular, I'll own, and that's why they wouldn't keep me on. My mate plays the cornet. He used to be in the band of the ---- Fusiliers. Served in South Africa, he did, and got a sock in the face from a shell; yer can see the 'ole under his eye. Good thing it didn't 'it him in the ma-outh, or he wouldn't ha' been able to play the cornet any more. Know Yorkshire, mister?" I replied that I did. "Well, if yer knows Yorkshire, yer knows there's plenty of music up there. They can tell music, when they hear it, in Yorkshire, _that_ they can! But these caownties down here, why, the people knows no more about music nor pigs. They can't tell the difference between a man what really _can_ sing and one of these 'ere 'owlin' 'umbugs that goes draggin' little children up and daown t' streets. That sort makes more money than we does. And I tell you, him 'ere"--indicating Banquo--"is a good cornet player. 'Ere, Banquo, fetch it out o' your pocket, lad, and play the gentleman a toon." As far as I could judge, Banquo's pocket was situated somewhere in the middle of his back, for it was from a region in that quarter, where I had already felt a hard excrescence, due as I might have thought to an unextracted cannon-ball received in South Africa, that the cornet was produced. "Play the gentleman 'The Merry Widder,'" said Macbeth, "and wait till the thunder's stopped rolling before you begin." The "Merry Widder" was well and duly played, and fully bore out Macbeth's eulogy of the player. It was followed by something from _Maritana_, and other things which I forget. Though the mouth of the trumpet was only a few inches from the drum of my ear, yet the din of the rain on the roof was such that the effect was not unpleasant--at all events, it was a welcome relief from the frightful strains on the olfactory organ. The man, I say, was a good player, and I remember wishing, as I listened to him, that there was anything in life that I could do half as well. As he finished one of his selections, the gloom deepened, it became almost as dark as night, the rain ceased for a moment, and there was silence; and then there shot in upon us a blast of fire and a bolt of thunder, so near and so overwhelming that I verily believe it was a narrow escape from death. "That's something to put the fear of God into a man," said Macbeth, as the volley rolled into distance. "My crikey! But I've heard say, mister, that the thunder is the voice of the wrath of God." "I'm sure it is," I replied.