Antony was understood to say 'Hurrah!' but the sound was drowned in an extra blast of the storm-wind which was now tearing through the camp with more than hurricane force.
'And I,' he said, when it lulled for a few moments, 'have among my stores, Mary, two unopened bottles of wine of the Highlands, which, before we get out of this we may be glad to dispense to keepers.'
It brightened a little after this, and Antony took advantage of the change to rush out and put up the shutters on both the caravans. He returned to the 'Silver Queen' almost immediately after, and glad enough was he to get inside, for the blizzard appeared to be now at its very height; and, curiously enough, the thermometer as well as the barometer had gone down with a run, and the former now stood at three degrees below zero, and the cold was intense.
'Shall I light the lamp, sir?'
The lamp, by the way, hung on gimbals, like that on board a ship.
'Oh, not for a while; I have banked my own fire in the 'Gipsy Queen,' and Wallace and pussy are lying snugly on the rug; but by your fire, if you will let me sit a short time, I think it will be ever so much more cosy without the lamp.'
The firelight in the pretty wee grate was certainly far more romantic, for it flickered and flared on their faces as they sat around it, while at their backs it was all shadows Rembrandtesque. Antony would fain have conversed, or even told stories, but the noise was every now and then so terrific that it was impossible to do so with any amount of profit.
But to sit and look at each other's faces, or the play of the light thereon, grew a little irksome at last; then quietly, and without being told, Lotty took down her violin-case and opened it almost with a species of reverence, for no little girl ever looked half so well after her doll as she took care of her beautiful instrument. There was a soft silk handkerchief over it, visible when the case was opened, and this carefully lifted off revealed the violin itself, its breast between the f-holes white with the powdered resin from bow and strings. That bow itself was worth more than many a good violin would fetch in the market.
The child smiled when she took this baby of hers out of its velvet-lined bassinet. She looked for a moment at her left-hand finger-tips as if to make sure the nails were correctly trimmed, then glanced at the fire as if fearful that a piece of coal might tumble out and dust arise. And now with exquisite tenderness she drew the bow across the strings before adjusting them to tune. Every string that Lotty possessed was well stretched before being tried, so that there was seldom much to do in the tuning way. Fastidious, indeed, would he have been who could not listen to-night with pleasure to the music this infant prodigy elicited from her favourite instrument.
But part of Lotty's power to please lay in the fact that she never played much on any evening, having apparently a latent dread of tiring an audience. To-night, at all events, Antony was not tired; in fact, he could have sat and listened to the sweet strains until long past midnight. And, oh! methinks that if harps are twanged as angels sing in heaven, the violin itself must lead. But the music, weird and dreamy, ceased at last, and Lotty put the child of her heart back again into its cosy case.