Part 13 (1/2)

She smiled again.

”Yes,” she said, ”it is a wonderful picture. Quite as much a picture of the wind as of the sea.”

Gratian gazed at it with delight. The scene was on the coast, on what one might call a playfully stormy day. The waves came dancing in, their crests flas.h.i.+ng in the suns.h.i.+ne, pursued and tossed by the wind; and up above, the little clouds were scudding along quite as busy and eager about _their_ business, whatever it was, as the white-sailed fis.h.i.+ng-boats below.

”Do you like it so very much?” she asked.

”Yes,” the boy replied, ”that's like what I fancied pictures were. I've never seen the sea, but I can feel it must be like that.”

And after this he did not seem to care to see any others.

[Ill.u.s.tration: And when she sat down to play the light sparkled and glowed on her fair hair, making it look like gold.]

Fergus too was getting a little tired of lying alone while his mother and Gratian made the tour of the gallery. So Andrew was called to wheel him back again to the other door of the library, from whence he could best hear the organ. It stood at one side of the large hall, in a recess which had probably been made on purpose. It was dark in the recess even at mid-day, and now the dusk was fast increasing, so the lady lit the candles fixed at each side of the music-desk, and when she sat down to play the light sparkled and glowed on her fair hair, making it look like gold.

Gratian touched Fergus.

”Doesn't it look pretty?” he said, pointing to the little island of light in the gloomy hall.

Fergus nodded.

”I always think mother turns into an angel when she plays,” he said.

”Now, let's listen, Gratian, and afterwards you can tell me what pictures the music makes to you, and I'll tell you what it makes to me.”

The organ was old and rather out of repair, and Andrew was not very well used to blowing. That made it, I think, all the more wonderful that the lady could bring such music out of it. It was not so fine and perfect, doubtless, as what Gratian had heard from her in church on the Sunday afternoon, but still it was beautiful enough for him to think of nothing but his delight in listening. She played several pieces--some sad and plaintive, some joyful and triumphant, and then Gratian begged her to play the last he had heard at church.

”That is a good choice for our good-night one,” she said. ”It is a favourite of Fergus's too. He calls it his good-night hymn.”

Fergus did not speak--he was lying with his eyes shut, in quiet happiness, and as the last notes died away, ”Don't speak yet, Gratian,”

he said, ”you don't know what I am seeing--flocks of birds are slowly flying out of sight, the sun has set, and one hears a bell in the distance ringing very faintly; one by one the lights are going out in the cottages that I see at the foot of the hill, and the night is creeping up. That is what _I_ see when mother plays the good-night.

What do you see, Gratian?”

”The moor, I think,” said the boy, ”our own moor, up, far up, behind our house. It must be looking just as I see it now, at this very minute; only the music is coming from some place--a church, I think, _very_ far away. The wind is bringing it--the south wind, not the one from the sea.

And you know that when the music is being played in the church there are lots of people all kneeling so that you can't see their faces, and I think some are crying softly.”

”Yes,” said Fergus, ”that isn't so bad. I can see it too. You'll soon get into the way, Gratian,” he went on, with his funny little patronising tone, ”of making music-pictures if we practice it together.

That's the best of music, you see. It makes itself and pictures too. Now pictures never make you music.”

”But they give you feelings--like telling you stories--at least that one I like so much does. And I suppose there are many pictures like that--as beautiful as that?” he went on, as if asking the question from the lady, who had left the organ now and was standing by Fergus, listening to what they were saying.

”Yes,” she said, ”there are many pictures I should like you to see, and many places too. Places which make one wish one could paint them the moment one sees them. Perhaps it is pictures you are going to care most for, little Gratian? If so, they will be music and poetry and everything to you--they will be your voice.”

”_Poetry_,” repeated Fergus, ”that's the other thing--the thing I couldn't remember the name of, Gratian.”

Gratian looked rather puzzled.

”I don't know much about poetry,” he said. ”But I don't know about anything. I never saw pictures before. There are so many things to know about,” he added with a little sigh.

”Don't be discouraged,” said the lady smiling. ”Everybody has to find out and to learn and to work hard.”