The last of the sunlight was departing, and a large full moon was growing through the fog on the horizon.The sky was almost clear of clouds, and the air was cold and penetrating.Robert drew Eric's plaid closer over his chest.Eric thanked him lightly, but his voice sounded eager; and it was with a long hasty stride that he went up the hill through the gathering of the light frosty mist.He stopped at the stair upon which Robert had found him that memorable night.They went up.The door had been left on the latch for their entrance.They went up more steps between rocky walls.When in after years he read the Purgatorio, as often as he came to one of its ascents, Robert saw this stair with his inward eye.At the top of the stair was the garden, still ascending, and at the top of the garden shone the glow of Mr.Lindsay's parlour through the red-curtained window.To Robert it shone a refuge for Ericson from the night air; to Ericson it shone the casket of the richest jewel of the universe.Well might the ruddy glow stream forth to meet him! Only in glowing red could such beauty be rightly closed.With trembling hand he knocked at the door.
They were shown at once into the parlour.Mysie was putting away her book as they entered, and her back was towards them.When she turned, it seemed even to Robert as if all the light in the room came only from her eyes.But that light had been all gathered out of the novel she had just laid down.She held out her hand to Eric, and her sweet voice was yet more gentle than wont, for he had been ill.His face flushed at the tone.But although she spoke kindly, he could hardly have fancied that she showed him special favour.
Robert stood with his violin under his arm, feeling as awkward as if he had never handled anything more delicate than a pitchfork.But Mysie sat down to the table, and began to pour out the tea, and he came to himself again.Presently her father entered.His greeting was warm and mild and sleepy.He had come from poring over Spotiswood, in search of some Will o' the wisp or other, and had grown stupid from want of success.But he revived after a cup of tea, and began to talk about northern genealogies; and Ericson did his best to listen.Robert wondered at the knowledge he displayed:
he had been tutor the foregoing summer in one of the oldest and poorest, and therefore proudest families in Caithness.But all the time his host talked Ericson's eyes hovered about Mysie, who sat gazing before her with look distraught, with wide eyes and scarce-moving eyelids, beholding something neither on sea or shore;and Mr.Lindsay would now and then correct Ericson in some egregious blunder; while Mysie would now and then start awake and ask Robert or Ericson to take another cup of tea.Before the sentence was finished, however, she would let it die away, speaking the last words mechanically, as her consciousness relapsed into dreamland.
Had not Robert been with Ericson, he would have found it wearisome enough; and except things took a turn, Ericson could hardly be satisfied with the pleasure of the evening.Things did take a turn.
'Robert has brought his fiddle,' said Ericson, as the tea was removed.
'I hope he will be kind enough to play something,' said Mr.Lindsay.
'I'll do that,' answered Robert, with alacrity.'But ye maunna expec' ower muckle, for I'm but a prentice-han',' he added, as he got the instrument ready.
Before he had drawn the bow once across it, attention awoke in Mysie's eyes; and before he had finished playing, Ericson must have had quite as much of the 'beauty born of murmuring sound' as was good for him.Little did Mysie think of the sky of love, alive with silent thoughts, that arched over her.The earth teems with love that is unloved.The universe itself is one sea of infinite love, from whose consort of harmonies if a stray note steal across the sense, it starts bewildered.
Robert played better than usual.His touch grew intense, and put on all its delicacy, till it was like that of the spider, which, as Pope so admirably says,Feels at each thread, and lives along the line.
And while Ericson watched its shadows, the music must have taken hold of him too; for when Robert ceased, he sang a wild ballad of the northern sea, to a tune strange as itself.It was the only time Robert ever heard him sing.Mysie's eyes grew wider and wider as she listened.When it was over,'Did ye write that sang yersel', Mr.Ericson?' asked Robert.
'No,' answered Ericson.'An old shepherd up in our parts used to say it to me when I was a boy.'
'Didna he sing 't?' Robert questioned further.
'No, he didn't.But I heard an old woman crooning it to a child in a solitary cottage on the shore of Stroma, near the Swalchie whirlpool, and that was the tune she sang it to, if singing it could be called.'
'I don't quite understand it, Mr.Ericson,' said Mysie.'What does it mean?'