"That's right!" said Colonel Ferrers, with gruff heartiness. "Now go into the house and find your great-aunt, and tell her to give you some jam. Do you like jam?" The boy nodded with all the rapture of seven years. "Give you some jam, and a picture-book, and make up a bed in the little red room. Can you remember all that?"
"Yes, Mr. Saul!" cried Hugh, dancing about a little. "Nice Mr. Saul! Shall I bring you some jam? What kind of jam shall I say?"
"What kind do you like best?"
"Damson."
"Damson it is! Off with you now!"
When the boy was gone, the Colonel walked up and down for a few moments, frowning heavily, his hands holding his stick behind him. Then he said quietly, "Jack!"
Jack came forward and stood before him, looking half-proud, half-sheepish, with his fiddle under his arm.
The Colonel contemplated him for a moment in silence. Then, "Why in the name of all that is cacophonous, didn't you play me a tune at first, instead of an infernal German exercise? Hey?"
Jack blushed and stammered. He had played for his uncle once only, a fugue by Hummel, of which his mind had happened to be full; he felt that it had not been a judicious choice.
"Can you play 'The Harp of Tara'?" demanded the Colonel; and Jack played, with exquisite feeling, the lovely old tune, the Colonel listening with bent head, and marking the time with his stick. "Harry Monmouth!" he said, when it was over. "Because a man doesn't like to attend the violent ward of a cats' lunatic asylum, it doesn't follow that he doesn't care for music. Music, sir, is melody, that's what it is!"