Chapter Three.

Coming Events cast their Shadows before.

The wail on one string went on, and naturally sounded louder as Roy Royland opened a door to stand gazing in at the quaint octagonal room, lit by windows splayed to admit more light to the snug quarters hung with old tapestry, and made cosy with thick carpet and easy-chair, and intellectual with dwarf book-cases filled with choice works. These had overflowed upon the floor, others being piled upon the tops of chairs and stacked in corners wherever room could be found, while some were even ranged upon the narrow steps of the corkscrew stone staircase which led to the floor above, occupied by Master Palgrave Pawson for a bedchamber, the staircase being continued up to the leads, where it ended in a tiny turret.

“I wonder what father will say, my fine fellow, when he finds what a lot of his books you’ve brought up out of the library,” said Roy to himself, as he stood watching the plump, smooth-faced youngish man, who, with an oblong music-book open before him on the table, was seated upon a stool, with a ’cello between his legs, gravely sawing away at the strings, and frowning severely whenever, through bad stopping with his fingers—and that was pretty often—he produced notes “out of tune and harsh.” The musician was dressed, according to the fashion of the day, in dark velvet with a lace collar, and wore his hair long, so that it inconvenienced him; the oily curls, hanging down on either side of his fat face like the valance over an old-fashioned four-post bedstead, swaying to and fro with the motion of the man’s body, and needing, from time to time, a vigorous shake to force them back when they encroached too far forward and interfered with his view of the music.

The slow, solemn, dirge-like air went on, but the player did not turn his head, playing away with grave importance, and giving himself a gentle inclination now and then to make up for the sharp twitches caused by the tickling hair.

“You saw me,” said Roy, speaking to himself, but at the musician, “for one of your eyes turned this way; but you won’t speak till you’ve got to the end of that bit of noise. Oh, how I should like to shear off those long greasy curls! They make you look worse even than you do when they’re all twisted up in pieces of paper. It doesn’t suit your round, fat face. You don’t look a bit like a cavalier, Master P.P.; but I suppose you’re a very good sort of fellow, or else father would not have had you here.”

Just then the music ended with an awkwardly performed run up an octave and four scrapes across the first and second strings.

“Come in, boy,” said the player, taking up a piece of resin to apply to the hair of the bow, “and shut the door.”

He spoke in a highly-pitched girlish voice, which somehow always tickled Roy and made him inclined to laugh, and the desire increased upon this occasion as he said, solemnly—

“Saraband.”

“Oh! Who’s she?” said the boy, wonderingly.

The secretary threw his head back, shaking his curls over his broad turn-down collar, and smiled pityingly.

“Ah,” he said, “now this is another proof of your folly, Roy, in preferring the society of the servants to that of the noble works with which your father has stored his library. What ignorance! A saraband is a piece of dance music, Italian in origin; and that was a very beautiful composition.”

“Dance?” cried the boy. “People couldn’t dance to a tune like that. I thought it was an old dirge.”

“Want of taste and appreciation, boy. But I see you would prefer something light and sparkling. I will—sit down—play you a coranto.”

It was on Roy’s lips to say, “Oh, please don’t,” but he contented himself with crossing the room, lifting some books off an oaken window-seat, his tutor watching him keenly the while, and putting them on the floor; while, with his head still thrown back on one side, Master Palgrave Pawson slowly turned over the leaves of his music-book with the point of his bow.

Roy seated himself, with a sigh, after a glance down through the open window at the glistening moat dotted with the great silver blossoms and dark flat leaves of the water-lilies, seeing even from there the shadowy forms of the great fish which glided slowly among the slimy stalks.

“Ready?” said the musician, giving his hand a flourish.

“Yes, sir,” said Roy, aloud; and then to himself, “Oh, what an awful fib.” Then he wrinkled up his brows dismally, and began to think of old Ben polishing the armour and swords; but the next moment his face smoothed out stiffly, and he grew red in his efforts to keep from laughing aloud, for Master Pawson commenced jerking and snatching from the strings a remarkable series of notes, which followed one another in a jigging kind of fairly rapid sequence, running up and down the gamut and in and out, as if the notes of the composer had suddenly become animated, and, like some kind of tiny, big-headed, long-tailed goblins, were chasing one another in and out of the five lines of the stave, leaping from bar to bar, never stopping for a rest, making fun of the flats and sharps, and finally pausing, breathless and tired, as the player now finally laid down the bow, took out a fine laced handkerchief, and began to wipe his fingers and mop his brow.

“There,” he said, smiling; “you like that bright, sparkling composition better?”

“No,” said Roy, decisively; “no, I don’t think I do.”

“I am glad of it; very glad of it. I was afraid that you preferred the light and trivial coranto to the graceful saraband.”

“But, I say. Master Pawson, the Italians surely don’t dance to such music as that?”

“I have never been in Italy, my dear pupil, but I believe they do. Going?”

Roy had risen from his chair.

“Yes, sir; I thought, as you were practising, you would not want me to stop and read to-day, and you are writing a letter, too.”

“Letter?” said the secretary, hurriedly reaching towards an open sheet upon the table and turning it over with the point of his bow. “Oh, that? Yes, some notes—some notes. Well, it is a fine day, and exercise is good, and perhaps I shall run through a few more compositions. So you can go, and we will study a little in the evening, for we must not neglect our work, Roy, my dear pupil; we must not neglect our work.”

“No, sir. Thank you, sir,” said the boy; and, for fear of a change of decision, he hurried from the room and made his way out upon the old ramparts, to begin walking leisurely round the enclosed garden, and looking outward from the eminence upon which the castle was built across the moat at the foot, and away over the sunny forest towards the village and little church, whose spire rose about two miles away.

“I wish he wouldn’t always call me ‘my dear pupil,’ and smile at me as if he looked down from ever so high up. I don’t know how it is, but I always feel as if I don’t like him. I suppose it’s because he’s so plump and smooth.

“Seems hard,” mused the boy, seating himself in one of the