Read Ebook: The Residuary Legatee; Or The Posthumous Jest of the Late John Austin by Stimson Frederic Jesup

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Ebook has 468 lines and 29954 words, and 10 pages

"A good Christmas to thee and thy babes, Mother Magdalis! Thy son is born indeed with a golden spoon in his mouth," croaked old Hans in his hoarse, guttural voice.

The words grated on Magdalis. Crooked Hans' jokes were apt to be as crooked as his temper and his poor limbs, and to give much dissatisfaction, hitting on just the sore points no one wanted to be touched.

She felt tempted to answer sharply, but the sweet Christmas music had got into her heart, and she only said, with tears starting to her eyes:

"If he was, neighbor, all the gold was lost and buried long ago."

"Not a bit of it!" rejoined Hans. "Didn't I hear the gold ring this very instant? The lad has gold in his mouth, I say! Give him to me, and you shall see it before night."

She looked up reproachfully, the tears fairly falling at what she thought such a cruel mockery from Hans, who knew her poverty, and had never had from her or hers the rough words he was too used to from every one.

"The golden days are over for me," was all she said.

"Nay! They have yet to begin," he replied. "Your Berthold left more debtors than you know, Frau Magdalis. And old Hans is one of them. And Hans never forgets a debt, black or white. Let the lad come with me, I say. I know the choir-master at the cathedral. And I know he wants a fine high treble just such as thy Gottlieb's, and will give anything for it. For if he does not find one, the Cistercians at the new convent will draw away all the people, and we shall have no money for the new organ. They have a young Italian, who sings like an angel, there; and the young archduchess is an Italian, and is wild about music, and lavishes her gifts wherever she finds it good."

Magdalis looked perplexed and troubled.

"To sell the child's voice seems like selling part of himself, neighbor," she said at length; "and to sell God's praises seems like selling one's own soul."

"Well, well! Those are thy proud burgher notions," said Hans, a little nettled. "If the Heavenly Father pleases to give thee and the little ones a few crumbs for singing His matins and evensong, it is no more than He does for the robins, or, for that matter, for the very ravens, such as me, that croak to Him with the best voice they have."

At these words, Gottlieb, who had been listening very attentively, gently set little Lenichen down, and, drawing close to Hans, put his little hand confidingly in his.

"I will go with neighbor Hans, mother!" he said, decisively. "The dear Lord himself has sent him."

"Thou speakest like a prophet," said the mother, smiling tenderly at his oracular manner, "a prophet and a king in one. Hast thou had a vision? Is thy will indeed the law of the land?"

"Yes, mother," he said, coloring, "the dear Lord Jesus has made it quite plain. I asked Him, if we were not good enough for Him to send us an angel, to send us one of His ravens, and He has sent us Hans!"

Hans laughed, but not the grim, hoarse laugh which was habitual to him, and which people compared to the croaking of a raven; it was a hearty, open laugh, like a child's, and he said:

"Let God's raven lead thee, then, my lad, and the mother shall see if we don't bring back the bread and meat."

"I did not ask for meat," said Gottlieb, gravely, "only for bread."

"The good God is wont to give more than we either desire or deserve," croaked Hans, "when He sets about giving at all."

There was no time to be lost.

The services of the day would soon begin, and Hans had set his heart on Gottlieb's singing that very day in the cathedral.

The choir-master's eyes sparkled as he listened to the boy; but he was an austere man, and would not utter a word to make the child think himself of value.

"Not bad raw material," he said, "but very raw. I suppose thou hast never before sung a note to any one who understood music?"

"Only for the mother and the little sister," the child replied in a low, humbled tone, beginning to fear the raven would bring no bread after all, "and sometimes in the litanies and the processions."

"Sing no more for babes and nurses, and still less among the beggars in the street-processions," pronounced the master, severely. "It strains and vulgarizes the tone. And, with training, I don't know but that, after all, we might make something of thee--in time, in time."

Gottlieb's anxiety mastered his timidity, and he ventured to say:

"Gracious lord! if it is a long time, how can we all wait? I thought it would be to-day! The mother wants the bread to-day."

Something in the child's earnest face touched the master, and he said, more gently:

And at once he set about the first lesson, scolding and growling about the child setting his teeth like a dog, and mincing his words like a fine lady, till poor Gottlieb's hopes more than once sank very low.

But, at the end of a quarter of an hour's practice, the artist in the choir-master entirely overcame the diplomatist.

He behaved like a madman. He took the child in his arms and hugged him, like a friendly bear; he set him on the table and made him sing one phrase again and again, walking round and round him, and rubbing his hands and laughing with delight; and, finally, he seized him and bore him in triumph to the kitchen, and said to his housekeeper:

"Ursula, bring out the finest goose and the best preserves and puddings you have. We must feast the whole choir, and, may be, the dean and chapter. The archduke and the young archduchess will be here at Easter. But we shall be ready for them. Those beggarly Cistercians haven't a chance. The lad has the voice of an angel, and the ear--the ear--well, an ear as good as my own."

"The child may well have the voice of an angel," scolded old Ursula; "he is like to be among the angels soon enough."

For the hope, and the fear, and the joy had quite overcome the child, enfeebled as he was by meager fare; his lips were quite pale, and his cheeks.

Moreover, the last order of the choir-master had not been quite re-assuring to him. The fat goose and the puddings were good, indeed; but he would have preferred his mother and Lenichen being feasted in his honor, rather than the choir and the chapter.

And besides, though little more than seven years old, he was too much of a boy quite to enjoy his position on the master's shoulder. He felt it too babyish to be altogether honorable to the protector of Lenichen and incipient bread-winner of the family. And, therefore, he was relieved when he found himself once more safely on the ground.

But when Ursula set before him a huge plate of bread and meat, his manly composure all but gave way. It was more of an approach to a feast than any meal he had ever participated in, and he was nearly choked with repressed tears of gratitude.

At first, as the child sat mute and wondering before the repast, with a beautiful look of joy and prayer in his blue eyes, Ursula thought he was saying his grace, and respected his devotion. But as the moments passed on, and still he did not attempt to eat, she became impatient.

"There is a time for everything," she murmured, at length. "That will do for thy grace! Now quick to the food! Thou canst finish the grace, if thou wilt, in music, in the church by and by."

But then the child took courage, and said:

"The ravens--that is, the good God--surely do not mean all this for me. Dear, gracious lady, let me run with the plate to the mother and Lenichen; and I will be back again in two minutes, and sing all day, if the master likes."

Ursula was much moved at the child's filial love, and also at his politeness.

"The little one has discrimination," she said to herself. "One can see he is of a good stock. He recognizes that I am no peasant, but the daughter of a good burgher house."

And, in spite of the remonstrances of her master, she insisted on giving the lad his way.

"I will accompany him, myself," said she.

And, without further delay or parley, she walked off, under the very eyes of the master, with the boy, and also with a considerable portion of his own dinner, in addition to the plate she had already set before Gottlieb.

A very joyful and miraculous intervention it seemed to Mother Magdalis when Gottlieb re-entered the hermit's cell, under the stately convoy of the choir-master's housekeeper, and with food enough to feed the frugal little household for a week.

The two women greeted each other ceremoniously and courteously, as became two German housewives of good burgher stock.

"The little lad has manners worthy of a burgomaster," said Ursula. "We shall see him with the gold chain and the fur robes yet,--his mother a proud woman."

With which somewhat worldly benediction, she left the little family to themselves, conjuring Gottlieb to return in less than an hour, for the master was not always as manageable as this morning.

And when they were alone, Gottlieb was not ashamed to hide his tears on his mother's heart.

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