My brother partly undressed himself in his bedroom, which adjoined, and
then returning to his sitting-room, pulled the large wicker chair in
front of the fire, and sat there looking at the glowing coals, and
thinking perhaps of Miss Constance Temple. The night promised to be very
cold, and the wind whistled down the chimney, increasing the comfortable
sensation of the clear fire. He sat watching the ruddy reflection of the
firelight dancing on the panelled wall, when he noticed that a picture
placed where the end of the bookcase formerly stood was not truly hung,
and needed adjustment. A picture hung askew was particularly offensive
to his eyes, and he got up at once to alter it. He remembered as he went
up to it that at this precise spot four months ago he had lost sight
of the man's figure which he saw rise from the wicker chair, and at
the memory felt an involuntary shudder. This reminiscence probably
influenced his fancy also in another direction; for it seemed to him
that very faintly, as though played far off, and with the _sordino_,
he could hear the air of the _Gagliarda_. He put one hand behind the
picture to steady it, and as he did so his finger struck a very slight
projection in the wall. He pulled the picture a little to one side, and
saw that what he had touched was the back of a small hinge sunk in the
wall, and almost obliterated with many coats of paint. His curiosity
was excited, and he took a candle from the table and examined the wall
carefully. Inspection soon showed him another hinge a little further up,
and by degrees he perceived that one of the panels had been made at some
time in the past to open, and serve probably as the door of a cupboard. At this point he assured me that a feverish anxiety to re-open this
cupboard door took possession of him, and that the intense excitement
filled his mind which we experience on the eve of a discovery which
we fancy may produce important results. He loosened the paint in the
cracks with a penknife, and attempted to press open the door; but his
instrument was not adequate to such a purpose, and all his efforts
remained ineffective. His excitement had now reached an overmastering
pitch; for he anticipated, though he knew not why, some strange
discovery to be made in this sealed cupboard. He looked round the room
for some weapon with which to force the door, and at length with his
penknife cut away sufficient wood at the joint to enable him to insert
the end of the poker in the hole. The clock in the New College Tower
struck one at the exact moment when with a sharp effort he thus forced
open the door. It appeared never to have had a fastening, but merely to
have been stuck fast by the accumulation of paint. As he bent it slowly
back upon the rusted hinges his heart beat so fast that he could
scarcely catch his breath, though he was conscious all the while of a
ludicrous aspect of his position, knowing that it was most probable
that the cavity within would be found empty. The cupboard was small but
very deep, and in the obscure light seemed at first to contain nothing
except a small heap of dust and cobwebs. His sense of disappointment was
keen as he thrust his hand into it, but changed again in a moment to
breathless interest on feeling something solid in what he had imagined
to be only an accumulation of mould and dirt. He snatched up a candle,
and holding this in one hand, with the other pulled out an object from
the cupboard and put it on the table, covered as it was with the curious
drapery of black and clinging cobwebs which I have seen adhering to
bottles of old wine. It lay there between the dish of medlars and the
decanter, veiled indeed with thick dust as with a mantle, but revealing
beneath it the shape and contour of a violin. CHAPTER VII

John was excited at his discovery, and felt his thoughts confused in a
manner that I have often experienced myself on the unexpected receipt of
news interesting me deeply, whether for pleasure or pain. Yet at the
same time he was half amused at his own excitement, feeling that it
was childish to be moved over an event so simple as the finding of a
violin in an old cupboard. He soon collected himself and took up the
instrument, using great care, as he feared lest age should have rendered
the wood brittle or rotten. With some vigorous puffs of breath and a
little dusting with a handkerchief he removed the heavy outer coating
of cobwebs, and began to see more clearly the delicate curves of the
body and of the scroll. A few minutes' more gentle handling left the
instrument sufficiently clean to enable him to appreciate its chief
points. Its seclusion from the outer world, which the heavy accumulation
of dust proved to have been for many years, did not seem to have damaged
it in the least; and the fact of a chimney-flue passing through the wall
at no great distance had no doubt conduced to maintain the air in the
cupboard at an equable temperature. So far as he was able to judge, the
wood was as sound as when it left the maker's hands; but the strings
were of course broken, and curled up in little tangled knots. The body
was of a light-red colour, with a varnish of peculiar lustre and
softness. The neck seemed rather longer than ordinary, and the scroll
was remarkably bold and free. The violin which my brother was in the habit of using was a fine
_Pressenda_, given to him on his fifteenth birthday by Mr. Thoresby, his
guardian. It was of that maker's later and best period, and a copy of
the Stradivarius model. John took this from its case and laid it side by
side with his new discovery, meaning to compare them for size and form. He perceived at once that while the model of both was identical, the
superiority of the older violin in every detail was so marked as to
convince him that it was undoubtedly an instrument of exceptional value. The extreme beauty of its varnish impressed him vividly, and though he
had never seen a genuine Stradivarius, he felt a conviction gradually
gaining on him that he stood in the presence of a masterpiece of that
great maker. On looking into the interior he found that surprisingly
little dust had penetrated into it, and by blowing through the
sound-holes he soon cleared it sufficiently to enable him to discern a
label. He put the candle close to him, and held the violin up so that
a little patch of light fell through the sound-hole on to the label. His heart leapt with a violent pulsation as he read the characters,
"_Antonius Stradiuarius Cremonensis faciebat_, 1704." Under ordinary
circumstances it would naturally be concluded that such a label was
a forgery, but the conditions were entirely altered in the case of a
violin found in a forgotten cupboard, with proof so evident of its
having remained there for a very long period. He was not at that time as familiar with the history of the fiddles of
the great maker as he, and indeed I also, afterwards became.