XV 



OF CATCH-SINGING IN HIGH PLACES 



UP on the downs the skylarks are not having it 

 all their own way this summer. 



I know three catches. One of these my wife 

 knew previously to our marriage. 



The other two I have taught to her. These we 

 sing as we walk the hills of Wiltshire. 



To the musically untutored there is something 

 peculiarly intoxicating in the sound of their own 

 voices. This characteristic of humanity has caused 

 many good men who live in the vicinity of fre- 

 quented high roads to blaspheme on their pillows. 

 I am not a good man, but I have blasphemed like 

 the best of them, and for the same reason, while 

 the Lower Orders have been returning home of a 

 Saturday or a Sunday night. I have often wished 

 for a snipping instrument large enough to sever 

 at one operation the vocal chords of all the 

 musically untutored, forgetting that I am one of 

 them. I am glad now that the opportunity was 

 not granted to my impious prayer. For I should 

 have done it, and I should now have been unable 



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