kept out clarinets, and done away with serpents. If you'd thrive in
musical religion, stick to strings, says I."

"Strings be safe soul-lifters, as far as that do go," said Mr. Spinks.

"Yet there's worse things than serpents," said Mr. Penny. "Old things
pass away, 'tis true; but a serpent was a good old note: a deep rich note
was the serpent."

"Clar'nets, however, be bad at all times," said Michael Mail. "One
Christmas--years agone now, years--I went the rounds wi' the Weatherbury
quire. 'Twas a hard frosty night, and the keys of all the clar'nets
froze--ah, they did freeze!--so that 'twas like drawing a cork every time
a key was opened; and the players o' 'em had to go into a
hedger-and-ditcher's chimley-corner, and thaw their clar'nets every now
and then. An icicle o' spet hung down from the end of every man's
clar'net a span long; and as to fingers--well, there, if ye'll believe
me, we had no fingers at all, to our knowing."

"I can well bring back to my mind," said Mr. Penny, "what I said to poor
Joseph Ryme (who took the treble part in Chalk-Newton Church for two-and-
forty year) when they thought of having clar'nets there. 'Joseph,' I
said, says I, 'depend upon't, if so be you have them tooting clar'nets
you'll spoil the whole set-out. Clar'nets were not made for the service
of the Lard; you can see it by looking at 'em,' I said. And what came
o't? Why, souls, the parson set up a barrel-organ on his own account
within two years o' the time I spoke, and the old quire went to nothing."

"As far as look is concerned," said the tranter, "I don't for my part see
that a fiddle is much nearer heaven than a clar'net. 'Tis further off.