Page:O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories for 1919.pdf/52

30 he lifted it from the case he had a moment of feeling very odd at the pit of his stomach. Sitting in his underthings on the edge of the bed, he held the wine-coloured creature in the crook of his arm for a long time, the look in his round eyes, half eagerness, half pain, of one pursuing the shadow of some ghostly and elusive memory.

He touched the C-string by and by with an adventuring thumb. I have heard “Ugo” sing, myself, and I know what Christopher meant when he said that the sound did not come out of the instrument, but that it came in to it, sweeping home from all the walls and corners of the chamber, a slow, rich, concentric wind of tone. He felt it about him, murmurous, pulsating, like the sound of surf borne from some far-off coast.

And then it was like drums, still farther off. And then it was the feet of marching men, massive, dark, grave men with luminous eyes, and the stamp on their faces of an imperishable youth.

He sat there so lost and rapt that he heard nothing of his mother’s footsteps hurrying in the hall; knew nothing till he saw her face in the open doorway. She had forgotten herself this time; that fragile defense of gentility was down. For a moment they stared at each other across a gulf of silence, and little by little the boy’s cheeks grew as white as hers, his hands as cold, his lungs as empty of breath.

“What is it, Mother?”

“Oh, Christopher, Christopher Go to bed, dear.”

He did not know why, but of a sudden he felt ashamed and a little frightened, and, blowing out the candle, he crept under the covers.

The afternoon was bright with a rare sun and the world was quiet. Christopher lay full-spread on the turf, listening idly to the “clip-clip ” of Nelson’s shears as the old man trimmed the hedge.

“And was my father very strong?” he asked with a drowsy pride.

“No, not so very.” Nelson stopped clipping and was immediately lost in the past.

“Only when he was that way five strong men couldn’t