It made a picture quaint and pretty to see them dancing there. The smoky light, stealing in through the narrow casements over the woodwork dark with age, dropped in little yellow chequers upon old chests of oak, of walnut, and of strange, purple-black wood from foreign lands, giving a weird life to the griffins and twisted traceries carved upon their sides. High-backed, narrow chairs stood along the wall, with cushioned stools inlaid with shell. Twinklings of light glinted from the brass candlesticks. On the wall above the wainscot the faded hangings wavered in the draught, crusted thickly with strange embroidered flowers. And dancing there together in the semi-gloom, the children seemed quaint little figures stepped down from the tapestry at the touch of a magic wand. And so the time went slipping by, very pleasantly upon the whole, and Nick’s young heart grew stout again within his breast; for he was strong and well, and in those days the very air was full of hope, and no man knew what might betide with the rising of to-morrow’s sun. Every day, from two till three o’clock, he was at Master Gyles’s private singing-room at the old cathedral school, learning to read music at first sight, and to sing offhand the second, third, and fourth parts of queer intermingled fugues or wonderfully constructed canons. At first his head felt stuffed like a feasted glutton with all the learning that the old precentor poured into it; but by and by he found it plain enough, and no very difficult thing to follow up the prickings in the paper with his voice, and to sing parts written at fifths and fourths and thirds with other voices as easily as to carry a song alone. But still he sang best his own unpointed songs, the call and challenge of the throstle and the merle, the morning glory of the lark, songs that were impossible to write. And those were the songs that the precentor was at the greatest pains to have him sing in perfect tones, making him open his mouth like a little round and let the music float out of itself. Like the master-player, nothing short of perfection pleased old Nathaniel Gyles, and Nick’s voice often wavered with sheer weariness as he ran his endless scales and sang absurd fa-la-la-las while his teacher beat the time in the air with his lean forefinger like a grim automaton. The old man, too, was chary of his praise, though Nick tried hard to please him, and it was only by little things he told his satisfaction. He touzed the ears of the other boys, and sometimes smartly thumped their crowns; but with Nick he only nipped his ruddy cheek between his thumb and finger, or laid his hand upon his shoulder when the hard day’s work was done, saying, “_Satis cantorum_—it is enough. Now be off to thy nest, sir; and do not forget to wash thy throat with good cold water every day.” * * * * *