He would look what mystery lay within.
A push opened it. He discovered only a little chamber lined with
wood. In the centre stood something--a bench-like piece of
furniture, plain and worn. He advanced a step; peered over the top
of it; saw keys, white and black; saw pedals below: it was an organ!
Two strides brought him in front of it. A wooden stool, polished
and hollowed with centuries of use, was before it. But where was
the bellows? That might be down hundreds of steps below, for he was
half-way only to the ground. He seated himself musingly, and
struck, as he thought, a dumb chord. Responded, up in the air, far
overhead, a mighty booming clang. Startled, almost frightened, even
as if Mary St. John had said she loved him, Robert sprung from the
stool, and, without knowing why, moved only by the chastity of
delight, flung the door to the post. It banged and clicked. Almost
mad with the joy of the titanic instrument, he seated himself again
at the keys, and plunged into a tempest of clanging harmony. One
hundred bells hang in that tower of wonder, an instrument for a
city, nay, for a kingdom. Often had Robert dreamed that he was the
galvanic centre of a thunder-cloud of harmony, flashing off from
every finger the willed lightning tone: such was the unexpected
scale of this instrument--so far aloft in the sunny air rang the
responsive notes, that his dream appeared almost realized. The
music, like a fountain bursting upwards, drew him up and bore him
aloft.
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