'
Ericson looked at Robert with admiration mingled with something akin
to merriment.
'One would think it was your grandfather holding forth, Robert,' he
said. 'How came you to think of such things at your age?'
'I'm thinkin',' answered Robert, 'ye warna muckle aulder nor mysel'
whan ye took to sic things, Mr. Ericson. But, 'deed, maybe my
luckie-daddie (grandfather) pat them i' my heid, for I had a heap
ado wi' his fiddle for a while. She's deid noo.'
Not understanding him, Ericson began to question, and out came the
story of the violins. They talked on till the last of their coals
was burnt out, and then they went to bed.
Shargar had undertaken to rouse them early, that they might set out
on their long walk with a long day before them. But Robert was
awake before Shargar. The all but soulless light of the dreary
season awoke him, and he rose and looked out. Aurora, as aged now
as her loved Tithonus, peered, gray-haired and desolate, over the
edge of the tossing sea, with hardly enough of light in her dim eyes
to show the broken crests of the waves that rushed shorewards before
the wind of her rising. Such an east wind was the right breath to
issue from such a pale mouth of hopeless revelation as that which
opened with dead lips across the troubled sea on the far horizon.
While he gazed, the east darkened; a cloud of hail rushed against
the window; and Robert retreated to his bed. But ere he had fallen
asleep, Ericson was beside him; and before he was dressed, Ericson
appeared again, with his stick in his hand.
Pages:
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424
425
426
427