Ch. 3 - The Gift Reversed

Night was still heavy in the sky. On open plains, from hill-tops,
and from the decks of solitary ships at sea, a distant low-lying
line, that promised by-and-by to change to light, was visible in
the dim horizon; but its promise was remote and doubtful, and the
moon was striving with the night-clouds busily.

The shadows upon Redlaw's mind succeeded thick and fast to one
another, and obscured its light as the night-clouds hovered between
the moon and earth, and kept the latter veiled in darkness. Fitful
and uncertain as the shadows which the night-clouds cast, were
their concealments from him, and imperfect revelations to him; and,
like the night-clouds still, if the clear light broke forth for a
moment, it was only that they might sweep over it, and make the
darkness deeper than before.

Without, there was a profound and solemn hush upon the ancient pile
of building, and its buttresses and angles made dark shapes of
mystery upon the ground, which now seemed to retire into the smooth
white snow and now seemed to come out of it, as the moon's path was
more or less beset. Within, the Chemist's room was indistinct and
murky, by the light of the expiring lamp; a ghostly silence had
succeeded to the knocking and the voice outside; nothing was
audible but, now and then, a low sound among the whitened ashes of
the fire, as of its yielding up its last breath. Before it on the
ground the boy lay fast asleep. In his chair, the Chemist sat, as
he had sat there since the calling at his door had ceased--like a
man turned to stone.

At such a time, the Christmas music he had heard before, began to
play. He listened to it at first, as he had listened in the
church-yard; but presently--it playing still, and being borne
towards him on the night air, in a low, sweet, melancholy strain--
he rose, and stood stretching his hands about him, as if there were
some friend approaching within his reach, on whom his desolate
touch might rest, yet do no harm. As he did this, his face became
less fixed and wondering; a gentle trembling came upon him; and at
last his eyes filled with tears, and he put his hands before them,
and bowed down his head.

His memory of sorrow, wrong, and trouble, had not come back to him;
he knew that it was not restored; he had no passing belief or hope
that it was. But some dumb stir within him made him capable,
again, of being moved by what was hidden, afar off, in the music.
If it were only that it told him sorrowfully the value of what he
had lost, he thanked Heaven for it with a fervent gratitude.

As the last chord died upon his ear, he raised his head to listen
to its lingering vibration. Beyond the boy, so that his sleeping
figure lay at its feet, the Phantom stood,