Chapter II The Village Musician
It was already far past midnight, and still the dance in the salle in the upper inn had not ceased. Never had the dancers been more indefatigable at their hardest work than they were now, as they panted for breath, and glowed with heat. More and more wearied became the musicians, as they wetted their parched throats alternately with beer and brandy.
“Let us have the grandfather’s dance for a finish!” cried the boldest dancer—one who was always last at work, and therefore last at the dance—to the young girls, who were preparing to go away. “Holloa! you fiddlers, play us something sprightly, and don’t spare either your breadth or your bones. The grandfather’s dance! do you hear?” and seizing the hand of his partner, he began to sing in a loud voice,
“When our grandsire took our granddame home,
The lady was bride, and he bridegroom.”
The player of the clarionet blew until his thin cheeks were puffed out like a drum, and his eyes almost started out of their sockets. The violin-player showed equal zeal in the use of his bow; while the violincello sounded mightily; and the tones of the flute pierced through bones and marrow. When the dance was finished, its hero, wiping the dew from his forehead, addressed his companions in amusement, saying, “All’s well that ends well;” and drinking a glass of cold beer, he left the inn, accompanied by the whole party, who went shouting and laughing through the silent village, disturbing the quiet of its inhabitants.
“Young blood is warm,” said the landlord, as he heard the noise, and was extinguishing the lights in the salle.
A traveller, who had been prevented by the uproar of the dancers and the sound of music from going to bed, heard the remark of the landlord, and replied, with asperity, “Certainly a noble way of exercising youthful spirits to destroy the night’s rest of industrious peasants, to waste the earnings of honest parents, and to ruin their own health. Such a dancing-room is a chapel of Satan, and the landlord and the musicians are the priests.”
Had the speaker been a common person, assuredly the landlord would have poured out his wrath on him. He contented himself, however, by saying to the musicians, when the stranger had left, “That fellow must surely be a Methodist, a Quaker, or a Herrnhuter! Were all the world of his way of thinking, we should soon be ruined.”
The musicians nodded their assent to this remark; and after dividing their gains, they likewise left the house.
It was quite dark, therefore no wonder that the tired and not perfectly sober band had great difficulty in finding their way down the flight of steps which led from the house to the street. The violincellist missed his footing, and rolled from the top to the bottom of the stairs. A crashing noise announced his arrival on the ground, and also the fate of the instrument.
“So the violincello is in the mud!” cried the clarionet-player, with the utmost stoical indifference, from the top of the stairs.
“Not at all; quite the reverse!” replied the prostrate fiddler, with equal calmness; “the mud is in the violincello.” He raised himself up from the instrument, which had so broken his fall, that he felt not much the worse of it; and amidst jokes and laughter, the damage done to the violincello was examined, and was found to be considerable, as the back part of it was entirely broken to pieces.
“I have heard my father say,” began the flute-player, in a tone of condolence, “that the more a violincello was glued together, the finer were its tones.”
At this moment sounds were heard, not exactly like the tones of a violin, but rather resembling those of an oboe. The artists, amazed, looked round for their invisible companion, but saw nothing. Again the sound was heard, and more distinctly. It was the voice of a crying child, that seemed to come from a manger close beside them. As soon as the musicians had satisfied themselves, by seeing as well as hearing, with the exception of the bassist, they all took to flight.
“I have children enough to feed,” thought the flute-player.
“And I, I have scarcely bread for myself,” said the player on the clarionet.
“My wife would scratch out my eyes,” ejaculated the violin-player, “were I to bring a foundling into the house.”
Kummas, the violincellist, who had fallen down the stairs, felt a spark of pity for the poor child, whose bitter cries broke the stillness of the night. He went up the steps again, in order to acquaint the landlord with what had been found, and to induce him to take the infant under his care.
But he found the house-door firmly locked, and all his knocking and calling remained unanswered. This deafness, however, of the master of the inn had nothing to do with hard-heartedness, as he knew not of the poor child, whose cold cradle was becoming every moment more uncomfortable.
Sunk in profound meditation, the village musician now stood before the screaming infant. A complete revolution seemed to be taking place in his mind,—one of those sudden, incomprehensible, and unlooked for changes which sometimes passes over the spirit of man. He had seen, with utter indifference, hundreds of young blooming creatures led into much evil by the wild excess of dancing; indeed, helped them on by his music, without his conscience ever having reproached him. Beer and brandy were his gods. Them he had worshipped; and his memory could not call up a single action that he had done in accordance with the will of his Creator. But the hard crust of his heart now gave way. Feelings came over him like those with which, as a child, he had regarded pictures of the manger where his Saviour lay cradled, given him by his pious parents at the good Christmas time, to keep him in remembrance of the sacred event. Now there lay before him, in such a manger, a helpless infant, stretching out its little arms towards him. Kummas remembered the long forgotten words of the Lord Jesus, “Whoso shall receive one such little child in my name, receiveth me.” He took up the infant, pressed it tenderly to his heart, spoke to it caressingly, silently promising never to leave it, or forsake it. Already he received the reward of his first good deed. An undescribable joy, such as the most intoxicating draught had never caused, filled his whole soul, and made everything appear brighter in his eyes. Softer blew the night air on his burning face. More beautiful shone the silver stars; and even the voice of the village watchman appeared melodious, as he greeted the coming day with the words,
“Jesus’ goodness has no end,
It is every morning new!”
The foundling appeared to be neither bad tempered, nor accustomed to very careful nursing. Quicker than Kummas hoped, it became quiet, and fell asleep. He remembered his broken violincello, and, gently as possible, he laid the little sleeper in the musical cradle, carried it carefully, and began in this fashion his pilgrimage to the next village, and to his miserable cottage, into which he brought his little clarionet, as he sportingly called the child, in safety. Only once had he found it necessary, before day-break, to set the new-fashioned cradle in motion, and to sing, “Hush! hush!”