'Twas a hard frosty night, and the keys of all the clar'nets froze--ah, they did freeze!--so that 'twas like drawing a cork every time a key was opened; and the players o' 'em had to go into a hedger-and-ditcher's chimley-corner, and thaw their clar'nets every now and then.

An icicle o' spet hung down from the end of every man's clar'net a span long; and as to fingers--well, there, if ye'll believe me, we had no fingers at all, to our knowing." "I can well bring back to my mind," said Mr.Penny, "what I said to poor Joseph Ryme (who took the treble part in Chalk-Newton Church for two-and- forty year) when they thought of having clar'nets there.

'Joseph,' I said, says I, 'depend upon't, if so be you have them tooting clar'nets you'll spoil the whole set-out.

Clar'nets were not made for the service of the Lard; you can see it by looking at 'em,' I said.

And what came o't?
Why, souls, the parson set up a barrel-organ on his own account within two years o' the time I spoke, and the old quire went to nothing." "As far as look is concerned," said the tranter, "I don't for my part see that a fiddle is much nearer heaven than a clar'net.