From the resounding cone of bells overhead he no longer
heard their tones proceed, but saw level-winged forms of light
speeding off with a message to the nations. It was only his roused
phantasy; but a sweet tone is nevertheless a messenger of God; and a
right harmony and sequence of such tones is a little gospel.
At length he found himself following, till that moment
unconsciously, the chain of tunes he well remembered having played
on his violin the night he went first with Ericson to see Mysie,
ending with his strange chant about the witch lady and the dead
man's hand.
Ere he had finished the last, his passion had begun to fold its
wings, and he grew dimly aware of a beating at the door of the
solitary chamber in which he sat. He knew nothing of the enormity
of which he was guilty--presenting unsought the city of Antwerp with
a glorious phantasia. He did not know that only upon grand, solemn,
world-wide occasions, such as a king's birthday or a ball at the
H?tel de Ville, was such music on the card. When he flung the door
to, it had closed with a spring lock, and for the last quarter of an
hour three gens-d'arme, commanded by the sacristan of the tower, had
been thundering thereat. He waited only to finish the last notes of
the wild Orcadian chant, and opened the door. He was seized by the
collar, dragged down the stair into the street, and through a crowd
of wondering faces--poor unconscious dreamer! it will not do to
think on the house-top even, and you had been dreaming very loud
indeed in the church spire--away to the bureau of the police.
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