His first two sermons had impassioned the congregations,
though there were critics to accuse him of theatricality. Accidents
happened to him sometimes. On this very afternoon of the Friday before
Martinmas an accident had happened to him. He had been playing the piano
at the rehearsal of the Grand Annual Evening Concert of the Bursley Male
Glee-Singers. The Bursley Male Glee-Singers, determined to beat records,
had got a soprano with a foreign name down from Manchester. On seeing
the shabby perky little man who was to accompany her songs the soprano
had had a moment of terrible misgiving. But as soon as Jock, with a
careful-careless glance at the music, which he had never seen before,
had played the first chords (with a "How's that for time, missis?"), she
was reassured. At the end of the song her enthusiasm for the musical
gifts of the local artist was such that she had sprung from the platform
and simply but cordially kissed him. She was a stout, feverish lady. He
liked a lady to be stout; and the kiss was pleasant and the compliment
enormous. But what a calamity for a local preacher with a naughty past
to be kissed in full rehearsal by a soprano from Manchester! He knew
that he had to live that kiss down, and to live down also the charge of
theatricality.
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