Fresh logs were fed to the fire. The resin hissed and sizzled, filling the air with its pine fragrance. The candles added to the firelight glow and ruddy faces gleamed, warmed by the blaze and by generous measures of hot punch, completing the comfort of the evening. The memory of an hour spent in the draughty vastness of St Enoch's choir stalls had all but faded.
‘Ah, now that's better,’ Cornelius Bond took a swig from his mug, warming his hands on its sides, sniffing the spiced liquor within„ ‘That warms the cockles.’
'Them choir stalls is mighty cold this time of year, Corny,’ Frank winked at him across the fire.
'Only two people not freezing their nethers off in church tonight, Frank,' Cornelius replied with a grin.
'Two?’ said Andrew Shawcross.
'Aye, well one 'ud be thee Vicar,' said Peter Shawcross, smiling at his brother and glancing at the Reverend Roger Thornton, ‘All that bobbing and bowing and a healthy climb to the pulpit to call down fire and brimstone on us poor sinners, no offence, Vicar.’
'None taken, Peter,' said the vicar benignly. ‘I must hope that my bobbing and bowing is enough to spare you the fires that are hotter than that which presently warms your toes.'
'You said two, Corny, who'd t' other be?’ Andrew asked.
'That would be David Hudson, pumpin' away on that there organ, said Cornelius. 'There was a time when singing hymns warmed a few more than one young lad on the bellows.’
'Aye, those were the days,’ Frank sighed. ‘The village band provided all the music for services in them days. There weren't no organ. Five of us there were. Corny and me on fiddles, old Joshua Corning, God rest his soul, on bass viol and your Da, Peter, on flute. His brother Andrew, your namesake, played upon a serpent that hangs in the church to this day.'
'Ephraim Thackray stopped that though.'
'Aye, Thackray finished it.'
Andrew leaned across to his brother and smiled.
‘Here we go,’ he whispered.
‘You hold your peace, young Andy,’ cried Frank.
‘Let us hear the story, Master Bond,’ murmured the vicar. ‘Thackray was the next but one incumbent before me I believe. A very learned man, I understand.’
'That he were, Vicar; Ephraim Thackray was learned alright and not loath to share his wisdom with his parishioners of a Sunday morning. Learned he might be but not really a musical man, you might say.'
'Not a musical bone in his body,’ Frank muttered.
'But you had a five-piece band,’ said the vicar.
'Yes, and more for high days and holidays. We had upward of fifteen choristers too. Not bad for a parish of this size. That was George Wenford's doing’. George lived for music. He came alive of a Friday night for choir practice and then for services on the Sabbath. He were a different man midweek if there weren't no service. George tried to get the band playing at as many services as possible. The vicar tried to keep George out. Seems like the vicar thought the band was too seclur or something.'
'Secular,' said the vicar. 'I understand the bands of those days played in every aspect of village life and some clerics believed their music was too 'earthy' for the Sabbath.’
'That's as may be, Vicar, but we've played and sung a good many Christian souls into the joy of married life and a good few more into the life hereafter and we were holding our own and all until George upped and died.'
'Aye, that did it,' added Frank.
'You see, many's the time at the end of a funeral service that George would say to us, ‘Well lads, we played another good soul to his rest and I hope when the time comes, if you're still around and it would not be too much trouble, that you'd be so kind as to do the same for me.’ And we agreed among ourselves that that small service that we gave to our fellow man would be gratefully received by ourselves when the time came and the more so for George who was our leader in all things musical.
So, when God saw fit to call George I went to call on the vicar to arrange it as usual but the vicar would have none of it. No, he said, it were too cold. This time of year, it were, too cold to be standing around the grave for such a time as a musical service would take. Such an old-fashioned service would be too chilling.
So, we had a read service and I do believe it was one of the shortest services ever conducted by the Reverend Ephraim Thackray. Ere the first clod hit the coffin lid, that vicar flew from the graveside like some white bird, his vestments flapping behind him.
'Well we weren't leavin' it like that, were we Corny?’ said Frank, sipping from his mug and wiping his mouth with the back of a gnarled hand.
'No, we weren’t, so the next night, being Friday, as it happened, after a rather gloomy choir practice, led by Frank here, who will admit is not a patch on George Wenford.’
'So, admitted,’ declared Frank.
'As I say, after choir practice we adjourned to the vestry and donned our surplices as it were a Sunday. Then we quietly gathered around that fresh brown mound in the frosty churchyard and we gave that gentle soul what he had craved. We gave him Mount Ephraim, his favourite, and a couple of our favourites too, cold as it were. Then we went home with chill fingers and toes but warm hearts.’
‘And did the vicar see?’ Peter asked, wide eyed.
'Oh, he saw. I saw the curtain of that man's study twitching. He saw, and unless he were deaf, he couldn't help but hear. So, we gave George a good send off and the vicar gave us an organ.
'Not gave, Corny, said Frank.
'No, you' re right, Frank. It weren't no more than a month later that the vicar convinced the parish council that what we needed were one of they new-fangled organs. So that was what we got, that and a note telling us that the band would no longer be required for services in the church.
A year later the Reverend Ephraim Thackray moved to a better living, leaving us the fancy new organ and the debt that came with it.’
'Well, that explains what has puzzled me since I came to the living of St Enoch's,’ said the Reverend Roger, ‘It explains why the band plays at the graveside of a bandsman and chorister but for no-one else.’
'Yes sir,' said Cornelius, ‘we send our own on their way to glory and will do so as long as bandsmen and choristers have breath in their bodies.'
'Well, gentles all, I will bid you goodnight.' The vicar rose and donned his great cloak.
'So, you'll be coming to our concert next week Vicar?’ said Frank with a smile.
'I wouldn't miss it for the world, Frank, especially as it's in aid of the church.'
'Aye, Vicar,' said Cornelius, ‘another couple more and we'll have paid for that bloody organ.
