After a bit I pulled myself together and hailed. The music ceased abruptly. Cospatric's head appeared through the hatch, and Cospatric's voice inquired with a good deal of impatience what I wanted.
I told him about the bear, and then added a few words in praise of the music. "Why ever didn't you let me hear your concert before?" I asked. "Did you think it was a case of pearls and pigs?"
"That's exactly the reason! I didn't know you cared for anything more advanced than those ballad affairs. However, if that's a wrong idea, I'm very glad. We'll have some tunes together after this, and perhaps Haigh and I may knock out an item or two that's fresh to you. But for the present, as you suggest—bjorn. I'll be with you on the sand there in nine seconds."
As for the bear, of course he didn't turn up, and we three and Se spent a particularly cold night in the open, with absolutely nothing to show far it. In this there was nothing surprising. It was quite in the ordinary way of business. Only Cospatric, who is at heart no sportsman, murmured, "Small potatoes."
It was not till a couple of days afterwards that we got on the subject of music again. We came at it this way: the cutter was going to work south and west again, and it was proposed that I should join her. "Don't go down in one of those beastly coasting steamers," said Cospatric. "They'll give you five sorts of cheese for breakfast, and poison you at all other meals. You'll live in an atmosphere of dried fish and engine-room oil, and you'll be driven half-mad by children who squall, and other children who rattle the saloon domino-box all through the watches. You'd much better come with me. I'll drop you at a steamer's port in the Channel somewhere some time. You aren't in a hurry. Come, and hear Haigh play again."
I said I preferred duets.
"All right, you shall hear the humble combined effort," said he; and then, after a good deal of pumping, I got more out of him as to whence sprang his powers.
"The thing's simple enough," he said. "I was fond of fiddling, and I stuck to it. I used to scrape at Cambridge, if you remember, as probably you don't, and had some goodish lessons there. Afterwards, when I got on the wander and took to pawning things, my spare shirt went frequently, but I always managed to stick to that little black box somehow. And I played on forecastle heads and on beaches and in sailors' lodgings ashore, and occasionally I got a week or so's lessons from a good man ashore; and then I heard concerts and good orchestras all up and down. And so, you see, I picked it up that way.... No, I don't play from paper much, but Haigh's a bit of a kindred spirit, and between us we evolve things. And now let's talk of something else—say, the ptarmigan prospects for next year; you'll be good on that."
Now I am fond of music—ordinary music, that is—and I can appreciate a good song or well-performed operas such as Carmen and the Yeomen of the Guard, or even a classical concert if it is not too long. In fact, I had always plumed myself on being what one calls "very tolerably musical." But these two were streets in advance of such mediocrity. To begin with, they had a strong contempt for most vocal efforts, considering them as merely a sop for the outside public. Orchestral music was their formula for the highest form of the art, and orchestral music they accordingly played, that queer creature Haigh blinking over the upright grand, and Cospatric behind him bringing sounds out of his violin such as I never heard amateur produce before, with a combined result that was always marvellous, and sometimes verged upon that abstract goal, perfection.