166 MASTER SKYLARK

Gyles’s private singing-room at the old cathedral school,
learning to read music at first sight, and to sing offhand
the second, third, and fourth parts of queer intermingled
fugues or wonderfully constructed canons.

At first his head felt stuffed like a feasted glutton with
all the learning that the old precentor poured into it; but
by and by he found it plain enough, and no very difficult
thing to follow up the prickings in the paper with his
voice, and to sing parts written at fifths and fourths and
thirds with other voices as easily as to carry a song alone.
But still he sang best his own unpointed songs, the call
and challenge of the throstle and the merle, the morning
glory of the lark, songs that were impossible to write.
And those were the songs that the precentor was at the
greatest pains to have him sing in perfect tones, making
him open his mouth like a little round O and let the music
float out of itself.

Like the master-player, nothing short of perfection
pleased old Nathaniel Gyles, and Nick’s voice often wavered
with sheer weariness as he ran his endless scales and sang
absurd fa-la-la-las while his teacher beat the time in the
air with his lean forefinger like a grim automaton.

The old man, too, was chary of his praise, though Nick
tried hard to please him, and it was only by little things
he told his satisfaction. He touzed the ears of the other
boys, and sometimes smartly thumped their crowns; but
with Nick he only nipped his ruddy cheek between his
thumb and finger, or laid his hand upon his shoulder when
the hard day’s work was done, saying, “ Satis cantorwm—it