“Do you know, my lady,” he asked Arctura, “how the aeolian harp is placed for the wind to wake it?”
“The only one I have seen,” she answered, “was made to fit into a window; the lower sash was opened just wide enough to let it in, so that the wind entering must pass across the strings.”
Then Donal was all but certain.
“Of course,” he said, after describing what he had seen, “we cannot be absolutely sure without having been here with the music, and having experimented by covering and uncovering the opening; and for that we must wait a south-easterly wind.”
CHAPTER XLII.
COMMUNISM.
But Donal did not feel that even then would he have exhausted the likelihood of discovery. That the source of the music that had so long haunted the house was an aeolian harp in a chimney that had never or scarcely been used, might be enough to satisfy some, but he wanted to know as well why, if this was a chimney, it neither had been nor was used, and to what room it was a chimney. For the question had come to him—might not the music hold some relation with the legend of the lost room?
Inquiry after legendary lore had drawn nearer and nearer, and the talk about such as belonged to the castle had naturally increased. In this talk was not seldom mentioned a ghost, as yet seen at times about the place. This Donal attributed to glimpses of the earl in his restless night-walks; but by the domestics, both such as had seen something and such as had not, the apparition was naturally associated with the lost chamber, as the place whence the spectre issued, and whither he returned.
Donal’s spare hours were now much given to his friend Andrew Comin. The good man had so far recovered as to think himself able to work again; but he soon found it was little he could do. His strength was gone, and the exertion necessary to the lightest labour caused him pain. It was sad to watch him on his stool, now putting in a stitch, now stopping because of the cough which so sorely haunted his thin, wind-blown tent. His face had grown white and thin, and he had nearly lost his merriment, though not his cheerfulness; he never looked other than content. He had made up his mind he was not going to get better, but to go home through a lingering illness. He was ready to go and ready to linger, as God pleased.
There was nothing wonderful in this; but to some good people even it did appear wonderful that he showed no uneasiness as to how Doory would fare when he was gone. The house was indeed their own, but there was no money in it—not even enough to pay the taxes; and if she sold it, the price would not be enough to live upon. The neighbours were severe on Andrew’s imagined indifference to his wife’s future, and it was in their eyes a shame to be so cheerful on the brink of the grave. Not one of them had done more than peep into the world of faith in which Andrew lived. Not one of them could have understood that for Andrew to allow the least danger of evil to his Doory, would have been to behold the universe rocking on the slippery shoulders of Chance.
A little moan escaping her as she looked one evening into her money-teapot, made Donal ask her a question or two. She confessed that she had but sixpence left. Now Donal had spent next to nothing since he came, and had therefore a few pounds in hand. His father and mother had sent back what he sent them, as being in need of nothing: sir Gibbie was such a good son to them that they were living in what they counted luxury: Robert doubted whether he was not ministering to the flesh in allowing Janet to provide beef-brose for him twice in the week! So Donal was free to spend for his next neighbours—just what his people, who were grand about money, would have had him do. Never in their cottage had a penny been wasted; never one refused where was need.