murmured.

"What I want to know is," said the tranter (as if he knew already, but
that civilization required the form of words), "what business people have
to tell maidens to sing like that when they don't sit in a gallery, and
never have entered one in their lives? That's the question, my sonnies."

"'Tis the gallery have got to sing, all the world knows," said Mr. Penny.
"Why, souls, what's the use o' the ancients spending scores of pounds to
build galleries if people down in the lowest depths of the church sing
like that at a moment's notice?"

"Really, I think we useless ones had better march out of church, fiddles
and all!" said Mr. Spinks, with a laugh which, to a stranger, would have
sounded mild and real. Only the initiated body of men he addressed could
understand the horrible bitterness of irony that lurked under the quiet
words 'useless ones,' and the ghastliness of the laughter apparently so
natural.

"Never mind! Let 'em sing too--'twill make it all the louder--hee, hee!"
said Leaf.

"Thomas Leaf, Thomas Leaf! Where have you lived all your life?" said
grandfather William sternly.

The quailing Leaf tried to look as if he had lived nowhere at all.

"When all's said and done, my sonnies," Reuben said, "there'd have been
no real harm in their singing if they had let nobody hear 'em, and only
jined in now and then."