very finest quality in
colour and design, it presented a figure not exactly conformable to any
recognised ecclesiastical type; and it was clearly part of a series. On
my eager inquiry for the remainder, the old man replied that no more of
it was known, but added that the priest of a neighbouring village was
the possessor of an entire set of tapestries, apparently intended for
suspension in church, and designed to portray the whole subject of
which the figure in the stained glass was a portion.

Next afternoon accordingly I repaired to the priest's house, in reality
a little Gothic building, part perhaps of an ancient manor-house, close
to the village church. In the front garden, flower-garden and potager
in one, the bees were busy among the autumn growths--many-coloured
asters, bignonias, scarlet-beans, and the old-fashioned parsonage
flowers. The courteous owner readily showed me his tapestries, some of
which hung on the walls of his parlour and staircase by way of a
background for the display of the other curiosities of which he was a
collector. Certainly, those tapestries and the stained glass dealt with
the same theme. In both were the same musical instruments--pipes,
cymbals, long reed-like trumpets. The story, indeed, included the
building of an organ, just such an instrument, only on a larger scale,
as was standing in the old priest's library, though almost soundless
now, whereas in certain of the woven pictures the hearers appear as if
transported, some of them shouting rapturously to the organ music. A
sort of mad vehemence prevails, indeed, throughout the delicate
bewilderments of the whole series--giddy dances, wild animals leaping,
above all perpetual wreathings of the vine, connecting, like some mazy
arabesque, the various presentations of one oft-repeated figure,
translated here out of the clear-coloured glass into the sadder,
somewhat opaque and earthen hues of the silken threads. The figure was
that of the organ-builder himself, a flaxen and flowery creature,
sometimes wellnigh naked among the vine-leaves, sometimes muffled in
skins against the cold, sometimes in the dress of a monk, but always
with a strong impress of real character and incident from the veritable
streets of Auxerre. What is it? Certainly, notwithstanding its grace,
and wealth of graceful accessories, a suffering, tortured figure. With
all the regular beauty of a pagan god, he has suffered after a manner
of which we must suppose pagan