Very simple indeed were the tunes to which Mottram’s art and the limitations of the piano could give effect, but the men listened with pleasure, and in the pauses talked all together of what they had seen or heard when they were last at home.  A dense dust-storm sprung up outside, and swept roaring over the house, enveloping it in the choking darkness of midnight, but Mottram continued unheeding, and the crazy tinkle reached the ears of the listeners above the flapping of the tattered ceiling-cloth.

In the silence after the storm he glided from the more directly personal songs of Scotland, half humming them as he played, into the Evening Hymn.

‘Sunday,’ said he, nodding his head.

‘Go on.  Don’t apologise for it,’ said Spurstow.

Hummil laughed long and riotously.  ’Play it, by all means.  You’re full of surprises to-day.  I didn’t know you had such a gift of finished sarcasm.  How does that thing go?’

Mottram took up the tune.

‘Too slow by half.  You miss the note of gratitude,’ said Hummil.  ’It ought to go to the “Grasshopper’s Polka,”—­this way.’  And he chanted, prestissimo,—­

’Glory to thee, my God, this night.  For all the blessings of the light.

That shows we really feel our blessings.  How does it go on?—­

’If in the night I sleepless lie, My soul with sacred thoughts supply; May no ill dreams disturb my rest.’—­

Quicker, Mottram!—­

‘Or powers of darkness me molest!’

‘Bah! what an old hypocrite you are!’

‘Don’t be an ass,’ said Lowndes.  ’You are at full liberty to make fun of anything else you like, but leave that hymn alone.  It’s associated in my mind with the most sacred recollections——­’

’Summer evenings in the country,—­stained-glass window,—­light going out, and you and she jamming your heads together over one hymn-book,’ said Mottram.

’Yes, and a fat old cockchafer hitting you in the eye when you walked home.  Smell of hay, and a moon as big as a bandbox sitting on the top of a haycock; bats,—­roses,—­milk and midges,’ said Lowndes.

’Also mothers.  I can just recollect my mother singing me to sleep with that when I was a little chap,’ said Spurstow.

The darkness had fallen on the room.  They could hear Hummil squirming in his chair.

‘Consequently,’ said he testily, ’you sing it when you are seven fathom deep in Hell!  It’s an insult to the intelligence of the Deity to pretend we’re anything but tortured rebels.’

‘Take two pills,’ said Spurstow; ‘that’s tortured liver.’

’The usually placid Hummil is in a vile bad temper.  I’m sorry for his coolies to-morrow,’ said Lowndes, as the servants brought in the lights and prepared the table for dinner.

As they were settling into their places about the miserable goat-chops, and the smoked tapioca pudding, Spurstow took occasion to whisper to Mottram, ‘Well done, David!’