ood a little outside the fishing village.

Musgrave said, "Now, Thomas, come in, and I'll find you a pew," and the
two entered a low room. The congregation was already collected. There
were fierce faces, bronzed by wind and sun. There were quiet faces that
bore the marks of thought and the memories of toil. The men were all
rudely dressed, and the women wore the primitive clothing which for
three hundred years past has served for the simple tastes of the
villagers. After a pause of a few minutes, Walter Musgrave's tall figure
loomed in the shadowy corner where the pulpit stood. A simple hymn was
dictated and sung in strong nasal tones. The old man who led the singing
prided himself upon the volume of sound which he could at any instant
propel through his nose. Strangers were sometimes a little disconcerted
by this feat, for it seemed as if some wholly new description of trumpet
had been suddenly invented. This man of the trumpet voice was wont to
close his eyes and turn his face towards the ceiling. When once the
preliminary blast had been blown from his nostrils, no power on earth
could stay the flood of song. He became oblivious of time and space and
the congregation. Considerations as to harmony did not enter into his
scheme of the universe. If he got flagrantly wrong, he simply coughed
and took up the thread of the musical narrative where he left off. The
congregation had a great notion of his powers. They considered that the
terrific drone with which he opened a hymn could not be equalled in any
church or in any chapel for twenty miles round.

Musgrave suffered a good deal under the storm of harmony, but he always
bore it bravely, and, when possible, lent the aid of his own high, sweet
tenor, to the nasal clamour. After the hymn came a short prayer,
delivered as though the speaker really believed that his God was at
hand, and would instantly listen to any petition humbly proffered by
frail creatures. At the end of a short pause, Walter Musgrave stood up
to speak. He broadened his chest and straightened himself,
unconsciously hinting at his physical power. He then read his text in a
low voice: _"Why is life given to a man whose way is hid, and whom God
hath hedged in?"_ Musgrave was an uneducated man, with strong logical
instincts. Perhaps, had he been educated thoroughly, the poetic vein,
which gave the chief charm to his mind and conversation, would have been
destroyed. As it was, he invariably confined himself to