"Like what, my boy?"
"I can't say it," said Basil, "but it's like as if the music didn't belong to here at all. Like as if it came out of the air someway, without notes or anything. I think if I was an awfully clever man I could say things out of a fiddle, far better than write them in books."
His mother smiled at him.
"But you mustn't call it a fiddle, Basil. A violin is the right name."
"Violin," repeated Basil thoughtfully. And a few minutes later, when they were in the carriage on their way home, "Mother," he said, "do you think I might learn to play the violin?"
"I should like it very much," said his mother. "But I fear there is no teacher at Tarnworth. I will inquire, however. Only, Basil, there is one thing. The violin is difficult, and you don't like difficulties."
Basil opened his eyes.
"Difficult," he said, and as he spoke he put up his left arm as he had seen the violinist do, sawing the air backwards and forwards with an imaginary bow in his right—"difficult! I can't fancy it would be difficult. But any way, I'd awfully like to learn it."
This had been two or three months ago. Lady Iltyd had not forgotten Basil's wish; and, indeed, if she had been inclined to do so, I don't think Basil would have let her. For at least two or three times a week he asked her if she had found a violin teacher yet, and whether it wouldn't be a good plan to write to London for a violin. For, at the bottom of his heart, Basil had an idea which he did not quite like to express, in the face of what his mother had said as to the difficulty of violin playing, namely, that teaching at all would be unnecessary!
"If I only had a violin in my arms," he used to say to himself as he fiddled away with his invisible bow, "I am sure I could make it sing out whatever I wanted."