After one of these experiences, more real to him than the others, he came to himself. Surely that was the sound of music and dancing that came to him above the cry of the storm. He waited for a lull and listened, then followed the direction of the sound. As he drew nearer, he caught the thud of moccasined feet beating time upon a boarded floor, and snatches of the tune which the violin was playing. Something loomed up out of the darkness to meet him. He held out his hands to force it from him, and drove them against a door. Then he knew that he had arrived at God's Voice.
He was half inclined to knock; at least they would not threaten him and drive him away this time as they had done in the previous winter. What was more likely to happen was that the man who opened to him, recognising him, would seize him by the throat, drag him inside and quickly slam the door. He would push him before him across the square till he came to the room where the trappers were dancing, where, in all probability, the factor was. And Robert Pilgrim when he saw him, wagging his red beard at him, would shout, "Ha, so you heard me whistle, and have come like a dog!"
He drew himself upright and stepped back from the gateway. No, he could not endure that. Any death was preferable to the price that he would have to pay for such shelter.
He worked his way along the wall till he stood beneath the window where the fort was assembled. It was a comfort to him to hear again the sound of voices. He listened to the fiddling and recognised it as that of Sandy McQuean, the half-breed son of a famous Orkney man. He had learnt his art from his father. They were all Scotch airs that he played. He could sing, when he chose, with a Highland accent, and had caught the knack of imbuing what he sang with an intolerable pathos.
The stamping of feet had ceased, but the violinist wandered on. Presently a new melody began to emerge from the improvisations, and a man's voice rose above the storm. The words he sang were _The Flowers o' the Forest_:
"I've seen the smiling Of fortune beguiling; I've felt all its favours, and found its decay; Sweet was its blessing, Kind its caressing; But now 'tis fled--fled far away."
Granger shifted his feet uneasily as he listened, and half-turned to go.