DOI Artikel:
Dowie, Ménie Muriel: My Note-Book in the Weald
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.25498#0056
52
My Note-Book in the Weald
my choking to death, announced the heretofore unsuspected
arrival of the big drum. The rest of the brass was not slow to
follow, and about half-an-hour of preliminary pints intervened
before the performers took up their position upon the triangle of
grass below the sign of “The Merry Hedgehog.” To their
credit, be it said, they were not yet complete, the oboe lingered.
(I gleamed this intelligence from the boy’s continual references to
“ George ; ” there seemed even to be a question as to whether
“ George ” would come.) At length there appeared a saturnine
person who bore an oboe in a bag. He took no beer, he nodded
sullenly to the circle, or rather, he threw a nod in front of him,
and such of the circle as cared to, caught it. He was drawing
out a small thumb-browned piece of written music when the
drum, who had command of the performers, no doubt because he
made most noise, looked inquiringly round and thundered out a
preludial boom-boom-boom-boom, which had the effect of drawing
certain hesitating cat-calls from the brass. I had heard the drum
whisper “ the new march,” in a tone which was meant to reach
his co-musicians, and not the crowd ; the crowd was not intended
to know that a new march had been sedulously studied in view of
the present occasion. George had his eye upon his oboe, and
after the boom he spat meditatively beside his shoulder and
chirped to his instrument, which responded instantly with a florid
growl, lasting about half a minute. The others were too interested
in “ getting away ” and “ getting a good place,” to notice this
observation on the part of George’s oboe, but I noticed it, and a
dreadful suspicion fell upon me.
Still, the hilarity of the occasion augmented from moment to
moment. The church bells had rung out a complimentary peal
or two, and only desisted because a woman was to be buried at
five o’clock ; the bellringers, all save the man who attended to
the
My Note-Book in the Weald
my choking to death, announced the heretofore unsuspected
arrival of the big drum. The rest of the brass was not slow to
follow, and about half-an-hour of preliminary pints intervened
before the performers took up their position upon the triangle of
grass below the sign of “The Merry Hedgehog.” To their
credit, be it said, they were not yet complete, the oboe lingered.
(I gleamed this intelligence from the boy’s continual references to
“ George ; ” there seemed even to be a question as to whether
“ George ” would come.) At length there appeared a saturnine
person who bore an oboe in a bag. He took no beer, he nodded
sullenly to the circle, or rather, he threw a nod in front of him,
and such of the circle as cared to, caught it. He was drawing
out a small thumb-browned piece of written music when the
drum, who had command of the performers, no doubt because he
made most noise, looked inquiringly round and thundered out a
preludial boom-boom-boom-boom, which had the effect of drawing
certain hesitating cat-calls from the brass. I had heard the drum
whisper “ the new march,” in a tone which was meant to reach
his co-musicians, and not the crowd ; the crowd was not intended
to know that a new march had been sedulously studied in view of
the present occasion. George had his eye upon his oboe, and
after the boom he spat meditatively beside his shoulder and
chirped to his instrument, which responded instantly with a florid
growl, lasting about half a minute. The others were too interested
in “ getting away ” and “ getting a good place,” to notice this
observation on the part of George’s oboe, but I noticed it, and a
dreadful suspicion fell upon me.
Still, the hilarity of the occasion augmented from moment to
moment. The church bells had rung out a complimentary peal
or two, and only desisted because a woman was to be buried at
five o’clock ; the bellringers, all save the man who attended to
the