in the hollow of the shoulder, and the
bow executed a rapid prelude. The old man smiled as if satisfied with
the cunning of his hand, and well he might, for these simple touches
revealed the artist.

"What will you sing me to-night?" said Batoche looking lovingly at his
old brown instrument. "There has been strange thunder in the voice of
the Falls all the day, and I have felt very singular this evening. I do
not know what is abroad, but perhaps you will tell me."

So saying, he raised his violin to his shoulder again, and began to
play. At first there were slow broad notes drawn out with a long bow,
then a succession of rapid sounds rippling over one another. The
alternation was natural and pleasing, but as he warmed to his work, the
old musician indulged in a revelry of sounds--the crash of the tempest,
the murmur of the breeze, the sparkling clatter of rain drops, the
monotone of lapsing water. The left hand would lie immoveable on the
neck, and a grand unison issued from the strings like a solemn warning;
then the fingers would dance backwards and forwards to the bridge, and
the chords vibrated in a series of short, sharp echoes like the petulant
cries of children. A number of ravishing melodies glided and wove into
each other like the flowers of a nosegay, producing a harmonious whole
of charming effect, and sweetening the very atmosphere in which they
palpitated. Then the perverse old man would shatter them all by one fell
sweep of his arm, causing a terrific discord that almost made his cabin
lurch from its seat. For one full hour, standing there in the middle of
the room, with the flickering light of the fire falling upon his face,
Batoche played on without any notable interval of rest. At the end of
that time he stopped, tightened his keys, swung his bow-arm in a circle
two or three times as if to distend his muscles, and then attacked the
single E string. It was there that he expected the secret which he
sought. He rounded his shoulders, bent his ear close to the board,
peered with his grey eyes into the serpentine fissures of the
instrument, pressed his left-hand fingers nervously up and down, while
his bow caressed the string in an infinite series of mysterious
evolutions. The music produced was weird and preternatural. The demon
that lay crouched in the body of the instrument was speaking to Batoche.
Now loud as an explosion, then soft as a whisper; now shrill as the
scream of a night bird, then sweet as