“Them? Whom? Are you going to raise spirits from the vasty deep?” asked Philip.
“Oh, no; though I fancy it would not be so difficult. No, what I am going to show you, if you care to see it—it may take ten minutes—is a thing that requires no confederates. It is not the least exciting either. Only if you wish to see what I have done, as you call it, though personally I should say what I have become, I can give you an example probably. Oh, yes, more than probably, I am sure I can. But please sit still.”
The night was very windless and silent. In the woods below a nightingale was singing, but the little wind which had stirred before among the garden beds had completely dropped.
“Have you begun?” asked Evelyn. “Or is that all? Is it that you have been silent for a year?”
“Ah, don’t interrupt,” said the other.
Again there was silence, except for the bubbling of the nightingale. Four notes it sang, four notes of white sound as pure as flame; then it broke into a liquid bubble of melodious water, all transparent, translucent, the apotheosis of song. Then a thrill of ecstasy possessed it, and cadence followed indescribable cadence, as if the unheard voice of all nature was incarnated. Then quite suddenly the song ceased altogether.
There was a long pause; both Evelyn and Philip sat in absolute silence, waiting. Tom Merivale had always been so sober and literal a fellow that they took his suggestion with the same faith that they took the statements of an almanack—it was sure to be the day that the almanack said it was. But for what they waited—what day it was—neither knew nor guessed.
Then the air was divided by fluttering wings; Tom held his hand out, and on the forefinger there perched a little brown bird.
“Sing, dear,” said he.
The bird threw its head back, for nightingales sing with the open throat. And from close at hand they all three heard the authentic love song of the nightingale. The unpremeditated rapture poured from it, wings quivering, throat throbbing, the whole little brown body was alert with melody, instinctive, untaught, the melody of happiness, of love made audible. Then, tired, it stopped.