"Who do you know there?" I demanded.
"All on 'em. Granny, Granf'er, Lessie. They's my folks."
So her name was Lessie.
"Your folks! What do you mean?"
"Granny's my aunt."
That would make the Dryad and the Satyr cousins! Heavens! Could this be true? I sank back on my elbow, and slowly dragged the pipe stem over my lower lip into my mouth. Somehow I did not relish this news.
"Then you are some sort of cousin to Lessie," I murmured, confusedly, and I doubt if he heard. At least, he did not reply, and I lay and looked at the sky and the somber bulk of the forest below, pondering this strange news which I could not comprehend. Was it possible that bright creature's blood could flow in the veins of this derelict? The idea did not suit me, and yet I had no reason to doubt it. My interest flagged; I no longer felt the inclination to question, and a long silence fell. I could not order my guest away, especially after he had broken my bread, but I would not be sorry when he went. The minutes passed; the fire sank low. My pipe burned out: I could feel it cooling under my hand. A drowsiness stole over me. I must have been on the borderland of sleep when I became dreamily conscious of a strange, pervading harmony. Ethereal echoes seemed to wake within my brain, and the hushed night was suddenly tuned for a fairies' dance.
In stupefied amazement I swung my head around, and my mouth fell ajar and my brows knit when I saw from whence these heavenly strains proceeded. Jeff Angel was back against the stump. His knees were sticking up like the broken frame of a bicycle, and he had a violin under his chin. The goat-tuft was spread thinly out over the tail of the instrument. His peaked slouch hat was a dirt-colored cone on the ground at his side, and by it lay a crumpled piece of oilcloth. His eyes were closed, and there was an expression of deep peace upon his homely countenance. His long, big-knuckled, claw-like fingers moved over the strings with the apparent aimlessness of a daddy-long-legs in its perambulations, and they thrilled to the caress of his frayed bow as the lips of a chaste lover to the lips of his beloved. I did not speak, nor move, for I was dumfounded, and the night had been transformed into an elfin carnival of dulcet sounds. My imagination was aroused, and I could almost see nymphs and naiads uprising from the dense growth all around, crooning as they came of woodland delights, and chanting the stories the low wind told them when the world was asleep. The quiet ravine was peopled with a ghostly company which made sad, eerie, but entrancingly sweet music, such as might have been heard in heaven when the morning stars sang together. The notes were liquid, living, colorful. Sometimes there were brief silences between them, which were filled with palpitating echoes. Suddenly a trembling flood of impassioned sound rushed forth on swallow wings into the star-filled night, and I sat up with a gasp.
"Jeff Angel!"
A downward crash of the bow which set all the strings to jangling horribly; then silence.