ntly it
changed to the louder, more passionate strains, suggestive more of storm
and tempest than serene moonlight. It ceased; and one thing gave place
to another; Quasimodo's moods seemed as wild and eccentric as they were
uncertain but ever charming. For two whole hours he kept us spell-bound.
We never thought of the night; of the passing of time; of the necessity
for rest. We were in a new world. The moonbeams travelled onwards and
downwards.

Midnight struck. Twelve slow strokes fell upon the air. The ghosts came
out to listen; it was their hour. We were persuaded that the aisles and
arches were full of them. We saw faint shadows thrown upon the
moonbeams, as they passed to and fro. It is useless to say ghosts do not
throw shadows: that night we distinctly saw them. The wonderful moonlit
building seemed full of sighs and subdued sobbings. H. C. declared it
was nothing but the vibrations of the organ: we knew better. The ghosts
were sighing and sobbing at the wonderful music. There could not be a
more ghostly time or place; and they would not often have such harmonies
to listen to.

The moments passed. One o'clock struck; solitary, melancholy sound; more
suggestive of ghosts and death and the long journey we must all take
before we become ghosts ourselves, than the twelve drawn-out strokes of
midnight which bear each other company.

Into those two hours Quasimodo seemed to have crowded an eternity of
music. Every vein, from the mournful to the triumphant, from the
faintest whisper to a crashing torrent, possessed him. He passed into
Wagner, and the sweetest strains from Lohengrin, the most impassioned
from Tannhaeuser, thrilled the darkness. He slided into Handel's airs,
and with the aid of a wonderful voix celeste, that loveliest of
melodies, _I know that my Redeemer liveth_, stole through the moonlit
aisles with such pathos that our eyes wept involuntary tears, and the
Divine drama of nearly two thousand years ago passed in detail before
our mental vision.

Quasimodo seemed to have power to raise emotion, to play upon every
nerve, and he appeared to delight in using that power.

He went on in all his varying moods, until again there came a pause, and
once more Schumann's Traeumerei in soft, sweet strains went stealing
through the aisles. With this he had begun, with this he would end: as
one who had taken a long journey, and would bring us safely back to
haven.

A journey indeed; a flight into fairyland; sp