Armorel of Lyonesse

almost into an act of praise and worship. Some men, he remembered, were now walking in the direction of the club: some were dressing: some were making for restaurants: some had already begun. One na

dow with Armorel: he had gone back to Tregarthen's and returned with his portmanteau and his painting gear: fortunately he had also taken an a

re window while she went about some household duties. In the quiet room the solemn clock told the moments, and there was light enough left to discern the ghostly figure of the ancient dame sleeping in her chair. The place was so quiet and so strange that the visitor presently felt as if he was sitting among ghosts. It is at twilight, in fact, that the spirits of the past make themselves most readily felt, if not seen. Now, it was exactly as if he had been in the place before. He knew, now, why he had been so suddenly and strangely attracted to Samson. He had been there before-when, or under what conditions, he knew n

who had become suddenly grumpy on learning his resolution to stay, might be right. Well, he would sketch and paint; he would be very careful; not a word should be said that might disturb the child's tranquillity. No-Dick was a fool. He was g

dventure. What young man, besides, sallying forth upon a simple holiday, looks to find himsel

hat he would before long know a good deal. Local knowledge is always interesting; but it does not, except to novelists, possess a marketable value. One cannot, for instance, at a dinner-party, turn the conversation on the respective families of St. Agnes and St. Martin's. He made a mental note that he would pr

puffins and the dottrells, she was wondering, for her part, what manner of man this was-how he lived, and what he did, and what he thought. For when man

g to her feet, as one who hath a serious duty

re had sunk low, but by its light she was dimly visible. She pushed back the table; sh

f the old lady as an ancestor. The descendants of the ancient people of Lyonesse no doubt bow down to the sun and dance to the moon, and pass the child

ne it, twanging the strings and drawing the bow across in the mann

en,' said the young man

of things quite new and wholly unexpect

her sleep at the twanging of the strings, and her fingers clu

ossed himself. As he was not, he only started and murmured, 'As I thought. The worship of the ancestor! These are the ghosts of the grandfa

owed by an old man, also grey-headed and grey-bearded, wrinkled of face, his shoulders bent and twisted with rheumatism, his fingers gnarled and twisted. These two took the chairs set for them by Armorel. The third in the procession was a woman

boy, for nearly seventy years, and now managed it altogether, was Justinian Tryeth. The old woman was Dorcas, his wife. The

mulated the coals into a flame, which he continually nursed and maintained with new fuel. There was neither lamp nor candle in the room; the ruddy firelight, rising and falling, played about the room, warming the drab panels into crimson, sinking int

ith the spinning-wheel, the old serving-people with their mistress, without lamp or candle, so they sat in the generations long gone by. And again that curious feeling fe

e commanded with the au

t is your misfortune. For there was a noble freedom in the handling of his bow, and the interpretation of his melodies was bold and original. He poured into the music all the spirit it was capable of containing, and drew out of his hearers every emotion that each particular tune was able to

this old fiddler, standing up to

II. knew it; Tom D'Urfey wrote words to it, I believe, but I have not yet found them in his collection; Rochester must certainly have danced to it. Armorel played it; first cheerfully and loudly, as if to arouse the spirits of those who listened, to remind them that legs may be shaken to this tune, and that ladies may be, and should be, when this tune

is arms and worked his fingers as if they held the fiddle and the bow. And he threw back his head and thrust out his leg an

r ever cracks his fingers or shows any external signs of joyful emotion. As for the two serving-women, they reminded the spectator of the supers on the stage who march when they are told to march, sit down to feast when they are ordered, and swell a procession for a funeral or a festival, all with unmoved

r fingers; and then she began to talk; but-and this added to the strangeness of the whole business-nobody seemed to regard what she said. It was much as if the Oracle of Delphi were pouring out the most valuable prophecies and none of her attendants paid any heed. 'If,' thought the young man, 'I were to take down her words, they would be a Message.' And what with the voice of the Oracle, the spirited fiddling, the firelight dancing about the room, the old man snapping his fingers, and perhaps some physical exhaustio

rel held it down, and lo

id. 'A moving piece. Now,

or a battle-piece, and you shall hear between the bars the charge of the horse and the clashing of the steel. Or, it may be played as a triumphal march after victory; or, again, as a country dance, in which a stately dignity takes t

them clear and distinct, and as she talked the firelight fell up

wrecked, better that she should strike on British rocks and cast her cargo ashore for the king's subjects. Better the rocks of Scilly than the rocks of France. What the sea casts up belongs to the people who find it. That is just. But you must not rob the living. No. That is a great crime. 'Twas in the year '13. When Emanuel Rosevean, my father-in-law, rescued the passenger who was lying senseless lashed to a spar, he should not have taken the bag that was hanging round his neck. That was not well done. He should have given the man his bag ag

mall variations and additions. But Rola

stoppe

g Love,"' sa

that tune

seemed to see, standing before the fire, his hair powdered, and in black silk stockings and shoes with steel buckles, the man who had been saved and robbed shak

he bag and walked through all England looking for him until I had found him. Yes-if it took me fifty years. But I knew nothing. I thought our happiness would last for ever. Five-and-twenty years after, my son, Emanuel

ncluding bars of 'Dissembling Love,' which Armo

n gave her no rest. '"Blue

again

so long ago. Nowhere now can one find an old lady who will tell of h

mmissary. They will drink my health. But they shall not have me for partner. My boy will be there-my own boy-the handsomest man on all the islands, though he is so black. That's the Spaniard in him. His mother was a Mureno-Honor Mureno, the last of the Murenos. He has got the old Spaniard

on talking o

and looked aga

ng of the La

to emotion; the composer called it 'The Chirping of the Lark' because he wanted a title: it resembl

ort wine and the finest French brandy, which they run over for themselves: the merchantmen put into the road, and the sailors spend their money at the port. Why shouldn't we go on fighting the French until they h

ountenance. Then another memory sei

on-one can remember. He would be very old now-yes-very old. Sometimes I see him still. But he has not grown old where he is staying. That is bad for me, because he liked young women

and the old lady stopped talking at the same moment. Her

out of the room to her bedroom behind. And the old man arose, an

. 'Chessun will take in her broth and

his performanc

alk; but in the evening, when we sit around the fire just as they used to sit in the old days, without candles-because my peo

is rather

lay-oh! he could pla

well a

ers became stiff with rheumatism, and, as he had put off teac

rfully well. Do you pla

ong which I heard the lady sing last year-I don't

ll of life and spirit, of tenderness and fond mem

e really wonderful. You are

and layed do

to-night. Do you really like to hea

listen all night. But if there is to b

such noble dimensions, and of generosity so unbounded in the matter of tallow. There was no moon; but the sky was clear and the

ng man

ieve all these things? How do you contrive your sorceries? Are you an enchantress? Confess-you cannot, in sober truth, play those tunes; the old

witches left on the Scilly Islands. Formerly there were many. D

al, after all. It is only s

be a fine day with a gentle breeze. We

perfume. What is it? Su

on-verbena tree-see, here i

e! Night after night

never cease. Listen-it is a calm night. Bu

d had no dinner. There was cold roast fowl and ham; there was a lettuce-salad and a goodly cheese. And there was the unexpected and grateful sight of a

sides, you are our visitor, and it is a pleasure to carve for you. Will you have a wing or a leg? Do you like your ham thin? Not too thin? Oh,

with flakes of hop floating in it like the bee's-wing in port. 'This is splendid beer,' he said. 'I do not remember that I ever tasted such

oud of his h

r all the needs of the islanders? This beer is the beer of Sams

Samson. We bake our own bread: we brew our own beer

lly by her Christian name. You could not call such a girl '

he fireside, and, by permi

d his way. That is to say, he encouraged the girl to talk about herself. He led her on: h

self in the way which delights young men. But she told him all he asked: her simple lonely life-how she arose early

ver draw?'

raw, but there was

you

er looked at them. As for the old lady and Dorcas, they had never learned to read. She h

apers-do you e

em. She knew noth

ntly, had none to tell. She lived in the present; it was joy enough for her to wander in the soft warm air of her island home, upon the

ambitions and her dreams of the future had no shape: they were vague and misty-she was only aware of their exist

ld, but already on the threshold of womanhood. With blushing cheek and beating heart she remembered that for an hour and more she had been