That night the Tenor's restlessness grew to a head. He was engaged upon a piece of work he wished to finish, but he could not settle to it; and after making an ineffectual effort to concentrate his attention upon it, he took up his hat and strolled out.
It was a lovely moonlight night. The line of trees in the Close were in flower, and their sweetness was overpowering. He did not stay there, however, but wandered out into the city, with his hat pushed back from his forehead, and his hands in his pockets. The gas was not lighted in the streets as the moon was near the full; and beneath her rays, all common objects, however obtrusively vulgar by daylight, were refined into beauty for the moment.
"Pater de coelis Deus, miserere nobis;
Fili Redemptor mundi Deus, miserere nobis,
Spiritus sancte Deus, miserere nobis;
Sancte Trinitas unus Deus, miserere nobis"—
the Tenor sang softly to himself as he slowly pursued his way.
He had some sort of a vague idea that he would like to go and look at the quaint old market-place by moonlight; and when he reached it, he stopped at the corner, interrupting his song to gaze in artistic appreciation at the silent scene before him, at the heavy masses of shade interspersed with intervals of mellow moonlight, and the angles of roof and spire and ornament cut clean as cameos against "the dark and radiant clarity of the beautiful night sky."
The market-place was an irregular square, picturesquely enclosed by tall houses of different heights and most original construction, among them the east end of a church and part of a public building of ancient date were crowded in; without incongruous effect, however, the moonlight, crisp, cool, and clear, having melted hue and form of all alike into one harmonious whole, to the charm of which even the covered stalls, used in the day's dealings and now packed in the middle of the square, and the deserted footways added something.
A tall, slender lad of sixteen or seventeen was standing on the edge of the pathway, just in front of the Tenor. He was the only other person about, and on that account the Tenor had looked at him a second time. As he did so, a young woman came suddenly round the corner, and accosted the boy.
"Qu'il est beau!" she exclaimed, laying her hand on his arm, and smiling up into his face admiringly.
The Boy stepped back to avoid her, with an unmistakable gesture of disgust, and in doing so, he accidentally stumbled up against the Tenor.
He turned round, and apologised confusedly.