He carried her in a green baize bag. A strange place to stow away a wife in, it must be admitted.
"Have you brought Mrs. M'Vayne?"
"Yes," said the hermit, "and here she is!"
As he spoke he opened the green baize bag, and pulled out his Cremona fiddle.
He smiled, but he sighed as well. "Och hey!" he said; "this is the only wife I have now!"
But sweet was the music he brought from that old fiddle. Sweet and plaintive at first. Then he sang over it,—grand old sea-songs in which his listeners could fancy they heard the "coo" and the "moan" of the waves, as they dashed along the quarter of some gallant ship, far, far at sea.
Then looking up, and thinking he was making the young folks a trifle triste or sad, he burst into such a rattling cheery sailor's hornpipe, that the children laughed aloud in spite of themselves, while Polly danced for joy on her perch, uttering every now and then that real Irish "whoop!" which used to be heard at Donnybrook Fair.
* * * * * * * * * * *
That evening, as all sat in a wide circle around the fire-peats and wood, and after a momentary lull in the conversation, Mrs. Nugent addressed the hermit.
"Mr. M'Vayne," she said, "I noticed that you sighed deeply when you took your violin from its bag. Now, I know yours may be a sad story, but will you not tell it to us?"