The usual services of the choir were managed tolerably well, the
vocal parts generally lagging a little behind the instrumental,
and some loitering fiddler now and then making up for lost time
by travelling over a passage with prodigious celerity and
clearing more bars than the keenest fox-hunter to be in at the
death. But the great trial was an anthem that had been prepared
and arranged by Master Simon, and on which he had founded great
expectation. Unluckily, there was a blunder at the very outset:
the musicians became flurried; Master Simon was in a fever;
everything went on lamely and irregularly until they came to a
chorus beginning, "Now let us sing with one accord," which seemed
to be a signal for parting company: all became discord and
confusion: each shifted for himself, and got to the end as
well--or, rather, as soon--as he could, excepting one old
chorister in a pair of horn spectacles bestriding and pinching a
long sonorous nose, who happened to stand a little apart, and,
being wrapped up in his own melody, kept on a quavering course,
wriggling his head, ogling his book, and winding all up by a
nasal solo of at least three bars' duration.
The parson gave us a most erudite sermon on the rites and
ceremonies of Christmas, and the propriety of observing it not
merely as a day of thanksgiving but of rejoicing, supporting the
correctness of his opinions by the earliest usages of the Church,
and enforcing them by the authorities of Theophilus of Caesarea,
St.
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