We rode up the village till we came to the church, and the Manor House beside it. Alas! the house itself was closed, which had formerly stood open to all. There was no smoke from its chimneys, and the grass grew in the courtyard. We dismounted and opened the door, which was not locked. We went into the house: all was cold, and empty, and deserted. The twilight falling outside made the rooms dark. Beside the fireplace stood Sir Christopher's great chair, empty! his tankard was on the table and his tobacco-pipe, and—strange!—there lay, forgotten, the unhappy Duke's Proclamation.
Then a truly wonderful thing happened. Barnaby says that I must have dreamed it, for he saw nothing. Suddenly Sir Christopher himself appeared sitting in the chair; on his knees lay the Bible open. Beside him stood, with upraised forefinger, as if commenting on some knotty point, the Rev. Dr. Comfort Eykin. I declare that I saw them plainly, as plainly as I now behold the paper on which I write. They were but as shadows in the dark shadows of the empty room, and they appeared but for a moment, and then vanished, and I saw them no more.
'Come to the Rectory,' said Robin; 'it chokes us to be here.'
'Listen,' said Alice, outside the house.
From the Rectory there came the sound of a violoncello. Then was the good Rector himself there, comforting his soul.
We opened the garden-gate and walked softly across the lawn and looked in at the window ('twas made after the foreign fashion, to open upon the lawn). Beside the fire sat Madam, her hands clasped, thin, pale, and prematurely aged. Thus had she sat for three long years, still waiting for news of her son.
The Rector laid down his bow, crossed the room and sat down to the spinnet (on which he played prettily, but not with such command as he possessed over the other instrument). He played—I caught Alice's hand—an air of my own making to which I had set certain words, also of my own.
Then, while he played, we began to sing outside the window, Alice singing treble, or first, I the second part, and Robin the bass, as I had taught him in Providence Island the words of that little song. We sang it piano, or softly, at first, and then crescendo, or louder:—
As rides the moon in azure skies The twinkling stars beside; As when in splendour she doth rise, Their lesser lights they hide. So beside Celia, when her face we see, All unregarded other maidens be.
When we began, softly as I said, the Rector looked round him, playing still and listening. He thought the voices were in his own brain—echoes or memories of the past. Madam heard them too, and sat up listening as one who listens in a dream. When we sang louder Madam sprang to her feet, and held out her arms—but the Rector played the verse quite through. Then he opened the window for us.