Anne's House of Dreams - L. M. Montgomery [47]
The hours bloomed into mirth around the driftwood fire. Captain Jim told tales, and Marshall Elliott sang old Scotch ballads in a fine tenor voice; finally Captain Jim took down his old brown fiddle from the wall and began to play. He had a tolerable knack of fiddling, which all appreciated save the First Mate, who sprang from the sofa as if he had been shot, emitted a shriek of protest, and fled wildly up the stairs.
‘Can’t cultivate an ear for music in that cat nohow,’ said Captain Jim. ‘He won’t stay long enough to learn to like it. When we got the organ up at the Glen church old Elder Richards bounced up from his seat the minute the organist began to play and scuttled down the aisle and out of the church at the rate of no-man’s-business. It reminded me so strong of the First Mate tearing loose as soon as I begin to fiddle that I come nearer to laughing out loud in church than I ever did before or since.’
There was something so infectious in the rollicking tunes which Captain Jim played that very soon Marshall Elliott’s feet began to twitch. He had been a noted dancer in his youth. Presently he started up and held out his hands to Leslie. Instantly she responded. Round and round the firelit room they circled with a rhythmic grace that was wonderful. Leslie danced like one inspired; the wild, sweet abandon of the music seemed to have entered into and possessed her. Anne watched her in fascinated admiration. She had never seen her like this. All the innate richness and colour and charm of her nature seemed to have broken loose and overflowed in crimson cheek and glowing eye and grace of motion. Even the aspect of Marshall Elliott, with his long beard and hair, could not spoil the picture. On the contrary, it seemed to enhance it. Marshall Elliott looked like a Viking of elder days, dancing with one of the blue-eyed, golden-haired daughters of the Northland.
‘The purtiest dancing I ever saw, and I’ve seen some in my time,’ declared Captain Jim, when at last the bow fell from his tired hand. Leslie dropped into her chair, laughing breathless.
‘I love dancing,’ she said apart to Anne. ‘I haven’t danced since I was sixteen – but I love it. The music seems to run through my veins like quicksilver and I forget everything – everything – except the delight of keeping time to it. There isn’t any floor beneath me, or walls about me, or roof over me – I’m floating amid the stars.’
Captain Jim hung his fiddle up in its place, beside a large frame enclosing several banknotes.
‘Is there anybody else of your acquaintance who can afford to hang his walls with banknotes for pictures?’ he asked. ‘There’s twenty ten-dollar notes there, not worth the glass over them. They’re old Bank of P.E. Island notes. Had them by me when the bank failed, and I had ’em framed and hung up, partly as a reminder not to put your trust in banks, and partly to give me a real luxurious, millionairy feeling. Hullo, Matey, don’t be scared. You can come back now. The music and revelry is over for tonight. The old year has just another hour to stay with us. I’ve seen seventy-six New Years come in over that gulf yonder, Mistress Blythe.’
‘You’ll see a hundred,’ said Marshall Elliott.
Captain Jim shook his head.
‘No; and I don’t want to – at least, I think I don’t. Death grows friendlier as we grow older. Not that one of us really wants to die though, Marshall. Tennyson spoke the truth when he said that. There’s old Mrs Wallace up at the Glen. She’s had heaps of trouble all her life, poor soul, and she’s lost almost everyone she cared about. She’s always saying that she’ll be glad when her time comes, and she doesn’t want to sojourn any longer in this vale of tears. But when she takes a sick spell there’s a fuss! Doctors from town, and a trained nurse, and enough medicine to kill a dog. Life may be a vale of tears, all right, but there are some folks who enjoy weeping, I reckon.’
They