“A Spanish muleteer’s song, but I expect the air was known in the desert before the Moors conquered Spain and the singers were vagabond Bedouin. The people who built Netherhall and planted the oaks would not have much use for music like that.”
“I expect that is so,” Mrs. Carson agreed, and added meaningly: “Your business is to build ships.”
“Oh, well,” said Kit, “the strongest ships we build are soon out of date, but Netherhall has stood for three hundred years. In the morning the Bedouin strikes his tent and drives his camels to another well. The muleteer loads up his wine-skins and takes the road. He has no house; I dare say the mules are a moneylender’s, and all he owns he wears. All the same, he sings and sometimes he dances....” He signed his sister. “Let’s try the Sevillana.”
Agatha touched the piano and Kit began to play. He plucked the strings, and when he used the bow the double stops rang like harmonized guitars. Evelyn felt moved to dance and calm was rather hard. The music was exotic and marked by a touch of melancholy, but it fired her blood. As a rule, she hated to be moved, and she wanted Kit to stop. By and by he did so and carried his violin to the drawing-room.
“Thank you, Agatha; they have had enough,” he said, and laughed a careless laugh. “I don’t know about my playing, but the bow I bought is good. A straight stick and a fine spring; the old Frenchman knew his job.”
Agatha Carson came down the iron steps. She was tall and went quietly, but she was sister at a famous hospital, and her calm carried a hint of command.
“Your composer’s mood is strange, Kit,” she said.
“I expect his mood was his ancestors’ mood and they were romantic vagabonds. You get a sense of a sombre background, but it did not bother them. They owned nothing; so long as they could sing and dance, they did not want much. Perhaps their philosophy was sound.”
“It is not our philosophy, and poverty is not a joke,” Mrs. Haigh remarked.
“To see the joke implies some pluck,” Kit agreed. “Spaniards and Moors are fatalists; but I expect you feel one ought to be resigned. One ought to fight for all one can get?”