noons
And with increasing knowledge came increasing tranquillity ; as when he found that the hideous cry , startling him at every dawn , was the signal not for massacre , but buffalo-milk . Then , too , came the mild excitement of moving into his own house , the Portuguese nunnery . Through its desolate , lime-coated spaces , his meagre belongings were scattered all too easily ; but the new servants , their words and ways , not only kept his hands full , but gave strange food for thought . The silent evenings , timed by the plash of a frog in a pool , a cry from the river , or the sing-song of a `` boy '' improvising some endless ballad below-stairs ; drowsy noons above the little courtyard , bare and peaceful as a jail ; homesick moments at the window , when beyond the stunted orangery , at sunset , the river was struck amazingly from bronze to indigo , or at dawn flashed from pearl-gray to flowing brass ; -- all these , and nights between sleep and waking , when fancy peopled the echoing chambers with the visionary lives , now ended , of meek , brown sisters from Goa or Macao , gave to Rudolph intimations , vague , profound , and gravely happy , as of some former existence almost recaptured . Once more he felt himself a householder in the Arabian tales . And yet , when his life was growing all but placid , across it shot some tremor of disquieting knowledge . One evening , after a busy day among his piece-goods , he had walked afield with Heywood , and back by an aimless circuit through the twilight .