During service Master Simon stood up in the pew and repeated the
responses very audibly, evincing that kind of ceremonious
devotion punctually observed by a gentleman of the old school and
a man of old family connections. I observed too that he turned
over the leaves of a folio prayer-book with something of a
flourish; possibly to show off an enormous seal-ring which
enriched one of his fingers and which had the look of a family
relic. But he was evidently most solicitous about the musical
part of the service, keeping his eye fixed intently on the choir,
and beating time with much gesticulation and emphasis.
The orchestra was in a small gallery, and presented a most
whimsical grouping of heads piled one above the other, among
which I particularly noticed that of the village tailor, a pale
fellow with a retreating forehead and chin, who played on the
clarinet, and seemed to have blown his face to a point; and there
was another, a short pursy man, stooping and laboring at a
bass-viol, so as to show nothing but the top of a round bald
head, like the egg of an ostrich. There were two or three pretty
faces among the female singers, to which the keen air of a frosty
morning had given a bright rosy tint; but the gentlemen
choristers had evidently been chosen, like old Cremona fiddles,
more for tone than looks; and as several had to sing from the
same book, there were clusterings of odd physiognomies not unlike
those groups of cherubs we sometimes see on country tombstones.
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