As they went down the garden, Ericson stopped. Robert thought he
was looking back to the house, and went on. When Ericson joined
him, he was pale as death.
'What is the maitter wi' ye, Mr. Ericson?' he asked in terror.
'Look there!' said Ericson, pointing, not to the house, but to the
sky.
Robert looked up. Close about the moon were a few white clouds.
Upon these white clouds, right over the moon, and near as the
eyebrow to an eye, hung part of an opalescent halo, bent into the
rude, but unavoidable suggestion of an eyebrow; while, close around
the edge of the moon, clung another, a pale storm-halo. To this
pale iris and faint-hued eyebrow the full moon itself formed the
white pupil: the whole was a perfect eye of ghastly death, staring
out of the winter heaven. The vision may never have been before,
may never have been again, but this Ericson and Robert saw that
night.
CHAPTER XV.
THE LAST OF THE COALS.
The next Sunday Robert went with Ericson to the episcopal chapel,
and for the first time in his life heard the epic music of the
organ. It was a new starting-point in his life. The worshipping
instrument flooded his soul with sound, and he stooped beneath it as
a bather on the shore stoops beneath the broad wave rushing up the
land. But I will not linger over this portion of his history. It
is enough to say that he sought the friendship of the organist, was
admitted to the instrument; touched, trembled, exulted; grew
dissatisfied, fastidious, despairing; gathered hope and tried again,
and yet again; till at last, with constantly-recurring fits of
self-despite, he could not leave the grand creature alone.
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