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A little later Jock-at-a-Venture abandoned barbering and took up music, for which he had always shown a mighty gift. He was really musical and performed on both the piano and the cornet, not merely with his hands and mouth, but with the whole of his agile expressive body.
Jock-at-a-Venture was certainly dashed by this information. "The more reason," said he, obstinately, "for saving her!... And all hers!" The two ministers did not want her to be saved. They liked to think of the theatre as being beyond the pale.
The coal-dust was a positive aid to them, for it gave them a most useful resemblance to the devil. Jock-at-a-Venture sprang up as though launched from a catapult. "Is it thou, Jock?" cried the collier, astounded. "Ay, lad!" said Jock, briefly. And caught the collier a blow under the chin that sent him flying into the obscurity of the night. Other voices sounded in the road.
The notion of trying to rescue them from merited perdition was too fantastic to be seriously entertained by serious Christians. Finally, the suggested connection between Jesus Christ and a stage-play was really too appalling! None but Jock-at-a-Venture would have been capable of such an idea. "I think, my friend " began the second remaining minister.
Jock-at-a-Venture interrupted the sentence with his daring fist, which seemed to lift Jabez from the ground by his chin, and then to let him fall in a heap, as though his clothes had been a sack containing loose bones. "A good-day to ye, Brother Brett," said Jock, reaching for his hat, and departing with a slam of the vestry door.
Even now a little band of ragged children had wandered after him, and, undeterred by the presence of the parsons, were repeating among themselves, in a low audacious monotone: "Jock-at-a-Venture! Jock-at-a-Venture!" He was the youngest of fourteen children, and when he was a month old his mother took him to church to be christened.
"It is me as is going to preach," he answered loudly and proudly. "And I'll preach agen any man in this town for a dollar!" Jock was forgetting himself: an accident which often happened to him. The Bethesda was crowded on Sunday morning; partly because it was Martinmas Sunday, and partly because the preacher was Jock-at-a-Venture. At the hands of the larger public his reception was sure.
And yer soul, as is mine to save?" "But that business o' yours at Bursley?" "Here's my bundle," he said, "and here's my best hat. And I've money and a pistol in my pocket. The only thing I've clean forgot is my cornet; but I'll send for it and I'll play it at my wedding. I'm Jock-at-a-Venture."
And then there was another sound, which Mrs Clowes did not notice until it had been repeated several times; the cry of a human voice out on the road: "Missis!" She opened wide the doors of the van and looked prudently forth. Naturally, inevitably, Jock-at-a-Venture was trudging alongside, level with the horse's tail!
Jock-at-a-Venture felt deeply all the influences of the scene and of the woman. He was one of your romantic creatures; and for him the woman was magnificent. Her magnificence thrilled. "And what are you going to say?" she quizzed him. "Sitting on my pail!" Now to quiz Jock was to challenge him.
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