Christian fiction; Neighborhoods -- Scotland -- Fiction
"No. I am not sure of it," I answered. For of all things my soul
recoiled from, any professional pretence of knowing more than I did
know seemed to me the most repugnant to the spirit and mind of the
Master, whose servants we are, or but the servants of mere priestly
delusion and self-seeking. "But if he does," I went on to say, "it must
be that we may see what it is like, and therefore not like it."
Then, unwilling all at once to plunge with her into such an abyss as
the question opened, I turned the conversation to an object on which my
eyes had been for some time resting half-unconsciously. It was the sort
of stool or bench on which my guide had been sitting. I now thought it
was some kind of box or chest. It was curiously carved in old oak, very
much like the ends of the benches and book-boards.
"What is that you were sitting on?" I asked. "A chest or what?"
"It be there when we come to this place, and that be nigh fifty years
agone, sir. But what it be, you'll be better able to tell than I be,
sir."
"Perhaps a chest for holding the communion-plate in old time," I said.
"But how should it then come to be banished to the tower?"
"No, sir; it can't be that. It be some sort of ancient musical piano, I
be thinking."
I stooped and saw that its lid was shaped like the cover of an organ.
With some difficulty I opened it; and there, to be sure, was a row of
huge keys, fit for the fingers of a Cyclops. I pressed upon them, one
after another, but no sound followed. They were stiff to the touch; and
once down, so they mostly remained until lifted again. I looked if
there was any sign of a bellows, thinking it must have been some
primitive kind of reed-instrument, like what we call a seraphine or
harmonium now-a-days. But there was no hole through which there could
have been any communication with or from a bellows, although there
might have been a small one inside. There were, however, a dozen little
round holes in the fixed part of the top, which might afford some clue
to the mystery of its former life. I could not find any way of reaching
the inside of it, so strongly was it put together; therefore I was
left, I thought, to the efforts of my imagination alone for any hope of
discovery with regard to the instrument, seeing further observation was
impossible. But here I found that I was mistaken in two important
conclusions, the latter of which depended on the former. The first of
these was that it was an instrument: it was only one end of an
instrument; therefore, secondly, there might be room for observation
still. But I found this out by accident, which has had a share in most
discoveries, and which, meaning a something that falls into our hands
unlocked for, is so far an unobjectionable word even to the man who
does not believe in chance. I had for the time given up the question as
insoluble, and was gazing about the place, when, glancing up at the
holes in the ceiling through which the bell-ropes went, I spied two or
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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