Читать книгу The Little Schoolmaster Mark - J. H. Shorthouse - Страница 7

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A few days after this conversation there was a melancholy procession down the village street. The Court Chaplain and the schoolmaster walked first; the boy was crying bitterly. Then followed all the children of the school, all weeping, and many peasant women, and two or three old men. The Rector stood in a corner of the churchyard under a great walnut tree and looked on. He did not weep. The Court Chaplain looked ashamed, for all the people took this misfortune to be of his causing.

When they had gone some way out of the village the children stopped, and, collecting into a little crowd, they wept more than ever. The Chaplain turned round and waved his hand, but the little schoolmaster was too troubled to take any farewell. He covered his face with his hands and went on, weeping bitterly. At last they passed away out of sight.

When they had gone on some distance, the boy became calmer; he took his hands from his face, and looked up at the Chaplain through his tears.

"What am I to do when I come to the Prince, your Reverence?" he said.

"Thou must make a bow as best thou canst," said the other; "thou must not speak till the Prince speaks to thee, and thou must say 'Highness' sometimes, but not too often."

"How am I to tell when to say 'Highness' and when to forbear?" said the boy.

"Ah! that I cannot tell thee. Thou must trust in God; He will show thee when to say 'Highness' and when not."

They went forward in this way across the meadows, and through the scattered forest for two leagues or more, in the mid-day heat. The boy was not used to labour, and he grew very tired and unhappy. It seemed to him that he was leaving behind all that was fair and true and beautiful, and going to that which was false and garish and unkind. At last they came to an open drive, or avenue of the forest, where great oaks were growing. Some distance up the avenue they saw a high park pale stretching away on either hand, and in the centre of the drive were iron gates covered with gilt scrolls and letters. The Court Chaplain pushed the gates open, and they went in.

Inside, the forest drive was planted with young trees in triple rows. After walking for some distance they reached another gate, similar to the first, but provided with "loges," or guardrooms, on either side. One or two soldiers were standing listlessly about, but they took no heed. Here the drive entered the palace gardens, laid out in grass plots and stone terraces, and crossed by lofty hedges which shut out the view. They approached the long façade of a house with pointed roofs and green shutter blinds to all the windows. Here the Chaplain left the path, and conducted his companion to a remote side entrance; and, after passing through many passages and small rooms, at last left him to the tender mercies of the court tailor and some domestics, at whose hands the little schoolmaster suffered what appeared to him to be unspeakable indignities. He was washed from head to foot, his hair was cut, curled, and frizzled, and he was finally arrayed in a plain suit of black silk, with silk stockings, and delicate shoes with silver buckles, and plain linen bands like a clergyman. The worn homespun suit that had become dear to him was ruthlessly thrown upon a dust-heap, and a message was sent to Herr Chaplain that his protégé was now fit to be presented to the Prince.

The boy could scarcely restrain his tears; he felt as though he were wandering through the paths of a miserable dream. Ah! could he only awake and find himself again in the old schoolhouse, narrating the adventures of the Fair Melusina to the attentive little ones.

The Chaplain led him up some back stairs, and through corridors and anterooms, all full of wonderful things, which the boy passed bewildered, till they reached a small room where were two boys apparently of his own age. They appeared to have been just engaged in punching each other's heads, for their hair was disordered, their faces red, and one was in tears. They regarded the Chaplain with a sullen suspicion, and the schoolmaster with undisguised contempt. The door at the farther side of the room was partly open, the Chaplain scratched upon it, and, receiving some answer, they went in.

The little schoolmaster dared scarcely breathe when he got into the room, so surprising was all he saw. To the left of the door, as they came in, was placed a harpsichord, before which was standing, with her back towards them, a young girl whose face they could not see; by her side, at the harpsichord, was seated an elderly man upon whom the boy gazed with wonder, so different was he from anything that he had ever seen before; opposite to them, in the window, hung a canary in a cage, and the boy perceived, even in the surprise of the moment, that the bird was agitated and troubled. But the next moment all his attention was absorbed by the figure of the Prince, who was seated on a couch to the right of the room, and almost facing them. To say that this was the most wonderful sight that the little schoolmaster had ever seen would be to speak foolishly, for he had seen no wonderful sights, but it surpassed the wildest imagination of his dreams. The Prince was a very handsome man of about thirty-five, of a slight and delicate figure, and of foreign manners and pose. He was dressed in a suit of what seemed to the boy a wonderful white cloth, of a soft material, embroidered in silk, with flowers of the most lovely tints. The coat was sparingly ornamented in this manner, but the waistcoat, which was only partly seen, was a mass of these exquisite flowers. At his throat and wrists were masses of costly lace, and his hair was frizzled, and slightly powdered, which increased the delicate expression of his features, which were perfectly cut. He lay back on the couch, caressing, with his right hand, a small monkey, also gorgeously dressed, and armed with a toy sword, who sat on the arm of the sofa cracking nuts, and throwing the shells upon the carpet.

The Prince looked up as the two came in, and waved his disengaged hand for them to stand back, and the next moment the strange phantasmagoria, into which the boy's life was turned, took another phase, and he again lost all perception of what he had seen before; for there burst into the little room the most wonderful voice, which not only he and the Chaplain, but even the Maestro and the Prince, had well-nigh ever heard.

The girl, who was taking her music lesson, had been discovered in Italy by the old Maestro, who managed the music of the private theatre which the Prince had formed. He had heard her, a poor untaught girl, in a coffee-house in Venice, and she afterwards became, in the opinion of some, the most pathetic female actress and singer of the century.

The first chord of her voice penetrated into the boy's nature as nothing had ever done before; he had never heard any singing save that of the peasants at church, and of the boys and girls who sang hymns round the cottage hearths in the winter nights.

The solemn tramp of the Lutheran measures, where the deep basses of the men drown the women's soft voices, and the shrill unshaded singing of the children, could hardly belong to this art, which he heard now for the first time. These sudden runs and trills, so fantastic and difficult, these chords and harmonies, so quaint and full of colour, were messages from a world of sound, as yet an unknown country to the boy. He stood gazing upon the singer with open mouth. The Prince moved his jewelled hand slightly in unison with the notes; the monkey, apparently rather scared, left off cracking his nuts, and, creeping close to his master, nestled against his beautiful coat close to the star upon his breast.

Then suddenly, in this world of wonders, a still more wonderful thing occurred. There entered into this bewitching, this entrancing voice, a strange, almost a discordant, note. Through the fantasied gaiety of the theme, to which the sustained whirr of the harpsichord was like the sigh of the wind through the long grass, there was perceptible a strain, a tremor of sadness, almost of sobs. It was as if, in the midst of festival, some hidden grief, known beforetime of all, but forgotten or suppressed, should at once and in a moment well up in the hearts of all, turning the dance-measures into funeral chants, the love-songs into the loveliest of chorales. The Maestro faltered in his accompaniment; the Prince left off marking the time, he swept the monkey from him with a movement of his hand, and leaned forward eagerly in his seat: the discarded favourite slunk into a corner, where it leaned disconsolately against the wall. The pathetic strain went on, growing more tremulous and more intense, when suddenly the singing stopped, the girl buried her face in her hands and sank upon the floor in a passion of tears; the boy sprang forward, he forgot where he was, he forgot the Prince—

"It is the bird," he cried, "the bird!"

The canary, whose dying struggles the singer had been watching through her song, gave a final shudder and fell lifeless from its perch.

The Prince rose: he lifted the singer from her knees, and, taking her hands from the wet face, he turned to the others with a smile.

"Ah, Herr Chaplain," he said, "you come in a good hour. This then is the angel-child. They will console each other."

And, picking up the monkey as he passed, he left the room by another door.