The Cradlebow sat down, drew his bow across the strings with a full, quivering, premonitory touch, and, straightway, the fiddle began to talk to him as though they two were friends alone together in the room. How it played for him,--the fiddle--as though it were morning. How it shouted, laughed, ran with him in a world of sunshine and tossing blossoms! How it hoped for him, swelling out in grander strains, wild with exultation, tremulous with passion! How it mourned for him, with dying, sweet despair, until one almost saw the night fall on the water, and the lone sea-birds flying, and heard the desolate shrieking of the wind along the shore. I heard a real sob near me, and looking up saw the tears rolling down Harvey's rosy cheeks. It was in the midst of a simple melody,--I think it was the "Sweet By-and-By"--the player stopped and turned suddenly pale. "That was a new string, too!" he said; "and only half tight." Then he blushed violently, seeking to hide the irritation of his tone under a careless laugh. "Oh, I don't mind the string," he went on; "that's easy mended, but I happened to think it's a bad sign, that's all--to break down so in the middle of a tune." "Darn the sign!" exclaimed Harvey, "I wanted to hear that played through." "You remember Willie Reene?" Luther turned his eyes, still unnaturally bright with excitement, towards George Olver. "Ay, I remember," said George Olver. "I was goin' mackerellin' with ye myself that time, only I wrinched my wrist so." [Illustration: "Good Night"] "We was out on deck together," Luther continued. "I was lying down,--it was a strange, warmish sort of a night--and Willie played. He played a long time. It was just in the middle of a tune he was playin', that--snap! the string went in just that way. I never thought anything about it. I tried to laugh him out of it, and he laughed, but says he, 'It's a bad sign, Lute.' Likely it had nothin' to do with it, but I think of it sometimes, and then it seems as though I must go to that same place and look for him again. I never done anything harder than when I left him there." "You done the best you could," George Olver answered stoutly, "They said you dove for him long and long after it wasn't no use." "No use," Luther repeated, shaking his head sadly and abstractedly; "no use." "There's naught in a sign, anyway," George Olver affirmed. "They don't worry me much, you can depend"--the player looked up at length with a singularly bright and gentle smile. "But Grannie, she believes in 'em, truly. She's got a sign in a dream for everything, Grannie has so I hear lots of it." Harvey Dole had quite recovered by this time from his tearfully sentimental mood.