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When he entered Roger's room, humming a tune to himself, he neither looked like a man who had returned from a funeral or from an altercation in the drawing-room. In five minutes he was in possession of most of what had taken place during his absence of Roger's cold, of the painting-lessons, of Tom's reminiscences of Christy's Minstrels, and most of all of Hodder's tribulation.
I think I never heard so many old played-out jokes strung together in my life. He was worse than the minstrels, worse than the clown in the circus. It seemed peculiarly sad to sit here, thirteen hundred years before I was born, and listen again to poor, flat, worm-eaten jokes that had given me the dry gripes when I was a boy thirteen hundred years afterwards.
The minstrel's sound good sense was certainly somewhat surprised at the inconsistencies sometimes displayed by his companion, as he was carried off by the willingness to make show of his newly-discovered faculty on the one hand, and, on the other, to call to mind the prejudices which he had nourished during his whole life against minstrels, who, with the train of legends and fables, were the more likely to be false, as being generally derived from the "North Countrie."
Indeed, if he would only have a white cloth tucked round his neck, and sit back in that chair that stands over his pond, he would look very respectably human and he certainly wants a shave. Toby is a low-comedy sea-lion all over. When I set about organizing the Zoo Nigger Minstrels, Toby shall be corner-man, and do the big-boot dance. He does it now, capitally.
Whether we look up towards the dais as we enter from under the Minstrels' Gallery, or whether standing on the dais raised but a few inches from the general level of the hall we look back towards the Minstrels' Gallery and the blue west window above it it is a grand and pleasing view that we get.
There were sixteen more verses, touching on their ruler's prowess in the realms of sport and war, but they were not destined to be sung on that circuit. King Merolchazzar jumped like a stung bullock, lifted his head, and missed the globe for the twenty-sixth time. He spun round on the minstrels, who were working pluckily through their song of praise: "Oh, may his triumphs never cease!
Then he was led forth from the church, amidst the cheers and acclamations of all the population of the district, with whom the action which hastened his knighthood had won him popularity. Alms to the poor, largesse to the harpers and minstrels: all had to be given; and the reader may guess whose liberality supplied the gifts. Then the banquet was spread in the castle hall.
The guests went in and sat down as they were bidden, and over the choice meats and good wine, drunk to the full, they parted from their weariness. Friends and strangers were entreated with equal honour. Albeit they ceased not from tilting all the day, the mummers and the minstrels took no rest, but sang for gold and got it; wherefore they praised the land of Siegmund.
For daily entertainment, every castle of any pretension had its own minstrel or minstrels, whilst in the smaller castles a wandering singer was warmly welcomed. Sometimes the lady gave audience to a poet, who read his latest idyll, a minstrel, to the accompaniment of his viol, singing the interspersed lyrics.
The gracious Duchess requested the lord of Frussasco to invite all the gentlemen who had taken part in the tournament to supper. After supper the hautboys sounded, and the minstrels began to tune up in the gallery, but before the dancing began, it was decided to award the prize to him who had gained it.
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