If you are all ready, produce your books. Hold them up. One – two – three! Three books for forty pupils? That will never do! We can’t sing to-night; well, never mind. You see that black board; I will give you a lesson to-night upon that. Who’s got a piece of chalk?”

A negative shake of the head from all. To me “Chalk’s scarce in these diggings.” To the boys: “What, nobody got a piece of chalk? That’s unlucky; a piece of charcoal out of the stove will do as well.”

“No ‘ar won’t,” roared out a boy with a very ragged coat. “They be both the same colour.”

“True, Jenkins, for you; go out and get a lump of snow. Its darnation strange if I can’t fix it somehow.”

“Now,” thought I, “what is this clever fellow going to do?”

The boys winked at each other, and a murmur of suppressed laughter ran through the old church. Jenkins ran out, and soon returned with a lump of snow.

Mr. Browne took a small piece, and squeezing it tight, stuck it upon the board. “Now, boys, that is Do, and that is Re, and that is Do again, and that is Mi, this Do, and that Fa; and that, boys, is a part of what we call a scale.” Then turning to a tall, thin, shabby-looking man, very much out at the elbows, whom I had not seen before, he said –“Mr. Smith, how is your base viol? Hav’nt you got it tuned up yet?”

“Well, squire, I guess it’s complete.”

“Hold on; let me see,” and taking a tuning-fork from his pocket, and giving it a sharp thump upon the stove, he cried out in a still louder key –”Now, that’s A; jist tune up to A.”

After Mr. Smith had succeeded in tuning his instrument, the teacher proceeded with his lucid explanations: –“Now, boys, start fair; give a grand chord. What sort of a noise do you call that? (giving a luckless boy a thump over the head with his fiddle-stick). You bray through your nose like a jackass. I tell you to quit; I don’t want discord.” The boy slunk out of the class, and stood blubbering behind the door.

“Tune up again, young shavers! Sing the notes as I have made them on the board, – Do, re-do, mi, do-fa. Now, when I count four commence. One – two – three – four. Sing! Hold on! – hold on! Don’t you see that all the notes are running off, and you can’t sing running notes yet.”

Here he was interrupted by the noise of some one forcing their way into the church, in a very strange and unceremonious manner, and

“The chorister’s song, that late was so strong,
    Grew a quaver of consternation.”

The door burst open, and a ghastly head was protruded through the aperture. “A ghost! – a ghost! “ shrieked out all the children in a breath; and jumping over the forms, they huddled around the stove, upsetting the solitary tallow candle, the desk, and the bass viol, in their flight. One lad sprang right upon the unfortunate instrument, which broke to pieces with a terrible crash. We were now left in the dark. The girls screamed, and clung round me for protection, while the ghastly apparition continued to stare upon us through the gloom, with its large, hollow eyes. I must confess that I felt rather queer; but I wisely kept my fears to myself, while I got as far from the door as I possibly could. Just as our terror had reached a climax, the grizzly phantom uttered a low, whining neigh.

“It’s the old mare! I’ll be darned if it isn’t!” cried one of the older boys, at the top of his voice. This restored confidence to the rest; and one rather bolder than his comrades at length ventured to relight the fallen candle at the stove, and holding it up, displayed to our view the old white mare, standing in the doorway. The poor beast had forced her way into the porch to protect herself from the cold; and she looked at her master, as much as to say, “I have a standing account against you.” No doubt she would have been highly tickled, could she have known that her sudden intrusion had been the means of shortening her term of probation by at least half an hour, and of bringing the singing-school to a close. She had been the innocent cause of disabling both the musical instruments, and Mr. Browne could not raise a correct note without them. Turning to his pupils, with a very rueful countenance, and speaking in a very unmusical voice, but very expressive withal, he said –”Chore (meaning choir), you are dismissed.