Unfinished Portraits Part 3

II

"Sh-h! It is Heinrich! Listen to him--to Heinrich!" There were nods and smiles and soft thudding of mugs, and turning of broad faces toward the other end of the enclosure, as a small figure mounted the platform.

He was a tiny man, unlike the others; but he carried himself with a gentle pomposity, and he faced the gathering with a proud gesture, holding up his hand to enjoin silence. After a few muttering rumbles they subsided.

Sebastian, sitting between his father and a fat Bach, gulped with joy.

It was the great Heinrich--who composed chorals and fugues and gavottes and--hus.h.!.+ Could it be that he was rebuking the Bachs--the great Bachs!... Sebastian's ears cracked with the strain. He looked helplessly at his father, who sat smiling into his empty beer-mug, and at the fat Bach on the other side, who was gaping with open mouth at the great Heinrich.

Sebastian looked back to the platform.

Heinrich's finger was uplifted at them sternly.... "It was Reinken who said it. He of the Katherinenkirche has said it, in open festival, that there is not a Bach in Germany that can play as he can play. Do you hear that!" The little man stamped impatiently with his foot on the platform.

"He has called us flutists and lutists and 'cellists--" He stopped and held up a small instrument that he carried in his hand--"Do you know what this is?"

A response of grunts and cheers came from the crowd.

Sebastian stretched his neck to see. It was a kind of viol, small and battered and torn. Worn ribbons fluttered from the handle.

The small man on the platform lifted it reverently to his chin. He ran his fingers lightly along the broken strings. "You know the man who played it," he said significantly, "old Veit Bach--" Cheers broke from the crowd. He stopped them sternly. "Do you think if he were alive--if Veit Bach were alive, would Reinken, of Hamburg, dare challenge him in open festival?"

Cries of "Nein, nein!" and "Ja, ja!" came back from the benches.

"Ja, ja! Nein, nein!" snarled back the little man. "You know that he would not. He had only this--" He held up the lute again. "Only this and his mill. But he made the greatest music of his time. While you--thirty of you this day at the best organs in Germany.... And Reinken defies you.... Reinken!" His lighted eye ran along the crowd. "Before the next festival, shall there be one who will meet him?" There was no response.

The Bachs looked into their beer-mugs. The great Heinrich swept them with his eagle glance. "Is there not one," he went on slowly, "who dares promise, in the presence of the Bachs that before Reinken dies he will meet him and outplay him?"

The Bachs were silent. They knew Reinken.

Sebastian, wedged between his father and the fat Bach, gulped mightily.

He struggled to get to his feet. But a hand at his coat-tails held him fast. He looked up imploringly into his father's face--but the hand at his coat-tails restrained him. "I will promise," he whispered, "I want to promise."

"Ja, ja, little son," whispered the father; and he and the fat Bach exchanged smiles across the round head.

Heinrich's glance swept the crowd once more.... "You will not promise?

Then let me tell you--" He raised his small hand impressively.

"There shall come of the Bachs one so great that all others shall fade.

He only shall be known as Bach--he and his sons; and before him the name of Reinken shall be as dust!" With a hiss upon the last word, he threw open his arms. "Come!" he said, "take your instrument and play."

Then fell upon the a.s.sembly a series of squeaks and gruntings and tunings and twinges and groans and wails such as was never heard outside a Bach festival. And little Sebastian, tugging at his violin, tuned and squeaked and grunted with the rest, oblivious to the taps that fell on his small head from surrounding bows. And when at last the tuning was done and there burst forth the wonderful new melody of the choral, Sebastian's heart went dizzy with the joy of it. And Uncle Heinrich on the platform, strutting proudly back and forth, conducting the choral--his own choral--forgot his anger and forgot Reinken, and forgot everything except the Bachs playing there before him--playing as only the Bachs, the united Bachs, could play--in all Germany or in all the world.

III

The two boys had come to a turn in the road, and stood looking back over the way they had come. The younger of the two looked up wistfully to the cherry-blossomed trees overhead. "It is hot, Sebastian!--Let us rest."

With a smile the other boy threw himself on the gra.s.s. The large, flat book that he carried under his arm fell to the ground beside him, and his hand stole out and touched it. He had a wide, quiet face, with blue eyes and a short nose, and lips that smiled dreamily to themselves. As he lay looking up into the white blossoms that swayed and waited against the clear blue of the sky, the lips curved in gentle content.

His companion, who had thrown himself on the cool gra.s.s beside him, watched him admiringly. His glance s.h.i.+fted and rested on the book that lay on the gra.s.s. "What is it?--What is it, Sebastian?" he asked timidly. He put out an inquisitive finger toward the book.

Sebastian turned it quietly aside. "Let be," he said.

The boy flushed. "I was not going to touch it."

The other smiled, with his slow, generous eyes fixed on the boy's face.

"Thou art a good boy, Erdman!" ... "It is only thy fingers that itch to know things." He patted them gently, where they lay on the gra.s.s beside him.

Erdman was still looking at the book. "Was it your brother's?" he asked in a half whisper.

"Christoph's?" Sebastian shook his head. "No, it is mine--my own."

The soft wind was among the blossoms overhead--they fell in petals, one by one, upon the quiet figures.

"Want to know 'bout it?" asked Sebastian, half turning to meet his companion's eye.

The boy nodded.

"It's mine. I copied it, every note--six months it took me--from Christoph's book."

"Did he let you?"

Sebastian shook his head, a grim, sweet smile curving the big mouth.

"Let me?--Christoph!"

The boy crept nearer to him. "How did you do it?"

"I stole it--carried it up to my room while the others were asleep--and did it by the moon."

"The moon?"

The boy nodded, laughing. "Didst never hear of the moon, brave boy!"

Erdman smiled pettishly. "There isn't a moon--always," he said, after a moment.

"And that also is true," quoth the boy gravely. "But some time, late or early, one gets a glimpse of her--if one lies awake to see," he added softly.

The other glanced again at the book. "Let me look at it," he pleaded.

Sebastian smiled and reached over a hand to the book. "Don't touch. I'll show it thee." He untied the strings and spread it on the ground, throwing himself in front of it and resting his chin in his hands.

"Come," he said, "I'll show it thee."

Erdman threw off his heavy cap and bent toward the book, with a little gesture of wonder. "I heard about Christoph's book--a good many times,"

he said softly.... "I didn't ever think I'd see it." He reached out his hand and touched the open page.

"n.o.body ever saw it," said Sebastian absently. He was humming to himself. "Listen to this!" he said eagerly. He hummed a few bars.