"He is going to sing his tale to us," said Branksome, rather bored with
the whole proceeding.
"He is quite mad," answered Mrs. Dearmer, "but I fancy Abbot John is
somewhat afraid of him."
The little sequence of notes made Barbara Lanison start, she had heard
it so often. When she was a child Martin had told her fairy tales, and
he constantly finished the story by playing just these notes, a sort of
musical comment to the end of a tale in which prince and princess lived
happily ever afterwards. When he had been thinking out some difficult
point he would play this cadenza as a sign that he had come to a
decision. Once when Barbara had been ill, and got well again, he had
played it two or three times in rapid succession. If he declared he was
busy when Barbara wanted to go to him, he would tell her she might come
when she heard his fiddle laugh, and these notes were the laugh, always
the same notes. They had evidently some meaning for him, and they had
come to have a meaning for Barbara. They were a link between her and
this strange mad friend of hers. When she heard them she always felt
that Martin had something to tell her, or could help her in any
difficulty she was in at the moment.
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