Page:The Yellow Book - 12.djvu/59

Rh the toll had come into the bar, had their beer (carefully paying for it), and formed up among the crowd near the blacksmith s to listen to the band. Outlying labourers who had left their work began to slouch up with that peculiar report which corduroys will make when the spare material flaps together in walking, the grocer's and baker's carts began to come in from their rounds, and the men hurried their tired horses into the stables, with a shake of hay and no wisp down, the sooner to join the crowd.

All this while "the new march," with an afflicting element of discord from the oboe, blared tunelessly below the sign. A cart had appeared mysteriously, the brewer, passing his mottled hand through his shock of beard and hair (all the colour of "four-ale"), was loading up certain barrels, with the assistance of Frank; then it dawned upon me what "four eighteens" might mean; four times eighteen gallons The third of my abstruse calculations brought this out at seventy-two gallons; seventy-two gallons of free beer up on the cricket-ground!

While the band sought among its leaflets for a light waltz, which all the village whistled carelessly in advance, and a boy tucked two black bottles labelled "Scottish Nectar" securely into his armpits, I observed a short colloquy to take place between George and the flute, who was old and bearded and of a neutral temper; it resulted in blacker scowls than ever from the oboe, and the bitter tapping of his finger upon a band-part. When, finally, they all formed into line in front of Mr. Brewer Quarpitt, the cart, and the four eighteens, for an adjournment to the cricket-ground, I saw the oboe step moodily into the bar. He had refused to play any more—musical people are notably touchy—owing to some quarrel between him and the drum: he had blown steadily through the Wedding March first of all—which the drum had reserved to take them up the village to the cricket-field.