The secretary threw his head back, shaking his curls over his broad turn-down collar, and smiled pityingly.
“Ah,” he said, “now this is another proof of your folly, Roy, in preferring the society of the servants to that of the noble works with which your father has stored his library. What ignorance! A saraband is a piece of dance music, Italian in origin; and that was a very beautiful composition.”
“Dance?” cried the boy. “People couldn’t dance to a tune like that. I thought it was an old dirge.”
“Want of taste and appreciation, boy. But I see you would prefer something light and sparkling. I will—sit down—play you a coranto.”
It was on Roy’s lips to say, “Oh, please don’t,” but he contented himself with crossing the room, lifting some books off an oaken window-seat, his tutor watching him keenly the while, and putting them on the floor; while, with his head still thrown back on one side, Master Palgrave Pawson slowly turned over the leaves of his music-book with the point of his bow.
Roy seated himself, with a sigh, after a glance down through the open window at the glistening moat dotted with the great silver blossoms and dark flat leaves of the water-lilies, seeing even from there the shadowy forms of the great fish which glided slowly among the slimy stalks.
“Ready?” said the musician, giving his hand a flourish.
“Yes, sir,” said Roy, aloud; and then to himself, “Oh, what an awful fib.” Then he wrinkled up his brows dismally, and began to think of old Ben polishing the armour and swords; but the next moment his face smoothed out stiffly, and he grew red in his efforts to keep from laughing aloud, for Master Pawson commenced jerking and snatching from the strings a remarkable series of notes, which followed one another in a jigging kind of fairly rapid sequence, running up and down the gamut and in and out, as if the notes of the composer had suddenly become animated, and, like some kind of tiny, big-headed, long-tailed goblins, were chasing one another in and out of the five lines of the stave, leaping from bar to bar, never stopping for a rest, making fun of the flats and sharps, and finally pausing, breathless and tired, as the player now finally laid down the bow, took out a fine laced handkerchief, and began to wipe his fingers and mop his brow.
“There,” he said, smiling; “you like that bright, sparkling composition better?”
“No,” said Roy, decisively; “no, I don’t think I do.”