Margaret Calderwood gazed at her with a
sorrowful, motherly look, and, parting the
fringing hair on her forehead, kissed her.
Lisa, staring at her in wonder, returned the
caress with ardour. Margaret's large fair
shoulders, Madonna face, and yellow braided
hair, excited a rapture within her. But when
food was brought her she flew to it and ate.

"It is better than I have ever eaten at
home!" she said, gratefully. And Margaret
Calderwood murmured, "She is physically
healthy, at least."

"And now, Lisa," said Margaret Calderwood,
"come and tell me the whole history of
the grand signor who sent you to England to
play the organ."

Then Lisa crept in behind a chair, and her
eyes began to burn and her fingers to thrum,
and she repeated word for word her story as she
had told it at Hurly Burly.

When she had finished, Margaret Calderwood
began to pace up and down the floor with a
very troubled face. Lisa watched her,
fascinated, and, when she bade her to listen to a story
which she would relate to her, folded her
restless hands together meekly, and listened.

"Twenty years ago, Lisa, Mr. and Mrs.
Hurly had a son. He was handsome, like that
portrait you saw in the gallery, and he had
brilliant talents. He was idolised by his father
and mother, and all who knew him felt obliged
to love him. I was then a happy girl of twenty.
I was an orphan, and Mrs. Hurly, who had
been my mother's friend, was like a mother to
me. I, too, was petted and caressed by all my
friends, and I was very wealthy; but I only
valued admiration, riches—every good gift that
fell to my share—just in proportion as they
seemed of worth in the eyes of Lewis Hurly.
I was his affianced wife, and I loved him well.

"All the fondness and pride that were lavished
on him could not keep him from falling into
evil ways, nor from becoming rapidly more
and more abandoned to wickedness, till even
those who loved him best despaired of seeing
his reformation. I prayed him with tears, for
my sake, if not for that of his grieving mother,
to save himself before it was too late. But to
my horror I found that my power was gone, my
words did not even move him, he loved me no
more. I tried to think that this was some fit
of madness that would pass, and still clung to
hope. At last his own mother forbade me to
see him."

Here Margaret Calderwood paused,
seemingly in bitter thought, but resumed:

"He and a party of his boon companions,
named by themselves the 'Devil's Club,' were
in the habit of practising all kinds of unholy
pranks in the country. They had midnight
carousings on the tombstones in the village
grave-yard; they carried away helpless old men
and children, whom they tortured by making
believe to bury them alive; they raised the dead
and placed them sitting round the tombstones
at a mock feast. On one occasion there was a
very sad funeral from the village; the corpse
was carried into the church, and prayers were
read over the coffin, the chief mourner, the
aged father of the dead man, standing weeping
by. In the midst of this solemn scene the
organ suddenly pealed forth a profane tune, and
a number of voices shouted a drinking chorus.
A groan of execration burst from the crowd,
the clergyman turned pale and closed his book,
and the old man, the father of the dead, climbed
the altar steps, and, raising his arms above his
head, uttered a terrible curse. He cursed Lewis
Hurly to all eternity, he cursed the organ he
played, that it might be dumb henceforth,
except under the fingers that had now profaned
it, which, he prayed, might be forced to labour
upon it till they stiffened in death. And the
curse seemed to work, for the organ stood dumb
in the church from that day, except when
touched by Lewis Hurly.

"For a bravado he had the organ taken down
and conveyed to his father's house, where he
had it put up in the chamber where it now
stands. It was also for a bravado that he
played on it every day. But, by-and-by, the
amount of time which he spent at it daily began
to increase rapidly. We wondered long at this
whim, as we called it, and his poor mother
thanked God that he had set his heart upon an
occupation which would keep him out of harm's
way. I was the first to suspect that it was not
his own will that kept him hammering at the
organ so many laborious hours while his boon
companions tried vainly to draw him away. He
used to lock himself up in the room with the
organ, but one day I hid myself among the
curtains, and saw him writhing on his seat, and
heard him groaning as he strove to wrench his
hands from the keys, to which they flew back
like a needle to a magnet. It was soon plainly
to be seen that he was an involuntary slave to
the organ; but whether through a madness that
had grown within himself, or by some
supernatural doom, having its cause in the old man's
curse, we did not dare to say. By-and-by there
came a time when we were wakened out of our
sleep at nights by the rolling of the organ. He
wrought now night and day. Food and rest
were denied him. His face got haggard, his
beard grew long, his eyes started from their
sockets. His body became wasted, and his
cramped fingers like the claws of a bird. He
groaned piteously as he stooped over his cruel
toil. All save his mother and I were afraid to
go near him. She, poor, tender woman, tried
to put wine and food between his lips while the
tortured fingers crawled over the keys, but he
only gnashed his teeth at her with curses, and
she retreated from him in terror, to pray. At
last, one dreadful hour, we found him a ghastly
corpse on the ground before the organ.

"From that hour the organ was  dumb to the
touch of all human fingers. Many, unwilling
to believe the story, made persevering
endeavours to draw sound from it, but in vain. But
when the darkened empty room was locked up
and left, we heard as loud as ever the well-known
sounds humming and rolling through the walls.