The Master's Violin Part 11

"We are getting very serious," observed Lynn. "For my part, I take each day just as it comes."

"One day," repeated the Master. "How many possible things there are in it! What was it the poet said of Herr Columbus? Yes, I have it now. 'One day with life and hope and heart is time enough to find a world.'"

"That is the beauty of it," put in the Doctor. "One day is surely enough. An old lady who had fallen and hurt herself badly said to me once: 'Doctor, how long must I lie here?' 'Have patience, my dear madam,' said I. 'You have only one day at a time to live. Get all the content you can out of it, and let the rest wait, like a bud, till the sun of to-morrow shows you the rose.'"

"Did she get well?" asked Lynn.

"Of course--why not?"

"His sick ones always get well," said Fraulein Fredrika, timidly. "Mine brudder's friend possesses great skill."

She was laying the table for the simple Sunday night tea, and Lynn said that he must go.

"No, no," objected the Master, "you must stay."

"It would be of a niceness," the Fraulein a.s.sured him, very politely.

"We should enjoy it," said the Doctor.

"You are all very kind," returned Lynn, "but they will look for me at home, and I must not disappoint them."

"Then," continued the Doctor, "may I not hope that you will play for me before you go?"

"Certainly, if I have Herr Kaufmann's permission, and if I may borrow one of his violins."

"Of a surety." The Master clattered down the uncarpeted stairs and returned with an instrument of his own make. Without accompaniment, Lynn played, and the Doctor nodded his enthusiastic approval. Herr Kaufmann looked out of the window and paid not the slightest attention to the performance.

"Very fine," said the Doctor. "We have enjoyed it."

"I am glad," replied Lynn, modestly. Then, flushed with the praise, and his own pleasure in his achievement, he turned to the Master. "How am I getting on?" he asked, anxiously. "Don't you think I am improving?"

"Yes," returned the Master, dryly; "by next week you will be one Paganini."

Stung by the sarcasm, Lynn went home, and after tea the group resolved itself into its original elements. Herr Kaufmann and the Doctor sat in their respective easy-chairs, conversing with each other by means of silences, with here and there a word of comment, and Fraulein Fredrika was in the corner, silent, too, and yet overcome with admiration.

"That boy," said the Doctor, at length, "he has genius."

The crescent moon gleamed faintly against the sunset, and a wayworn robin, with slow-beating wings, circled toward his nest in one of the maples on the other side of the valley. The fragrant dusk sheltered the little house, which all day had borne the heat of the sun.

"Possibly," said the Master, "but no heart, no feeling. He is all technique."

There was another long pause. "His mother," observed the Doctor, "do you know her?"

"No. I meet no women but mine sister."

"She is a lovely lady."

"So?"

It was evident that the Master had no interest in Margaret Irving, but the Doctor still brooded upon the vision. She was different from anyone else in East Lancaster, and he admired her very much.

"That boy," said the Doctor, again, "he has her eyes."

"Whose?"

"His mother's."

"So?"

The interval lengthened into an hour, and presently the kitchen clock struck ten. "I shall go now," remarked the Doctor, rising.

"Not yet," said the Master. "Come!"

They went downstairs together, into the shop. It had happened before, though rarely, and the Doctor suspected that he was about to receive the greatest possible kindness from his friend's hands. Herr Kaufmann disappeared into his bedroom and was gone a long time.

The room was dark, and the Doctor did not dare to move for fear of stepping upon some of the wood destined for violins. A cricket in the corner sang cheerily and ceased suddenly in the middle of a chirp when the Master came back with a lighted candle.

"One moment, Herr Doctor."

He whisked off again and presently returned, holding under his arm something that was wrapped in many pieces of ragged silk. One by one these were removed, and at last the treasure was revealed.

He held it off at arm's length, where the light might s.h.i.+ne upon its beauty, and well out of reach of a random touch. The Doctor said the expected thing, but it fell upon deaf ears. The Master's fine face was alight with more than earthly joy, and he stroked the brown b.r.e.a.s.t.s lovingly.

"Mine Cremona!" he breathed. "Mine--all mine!"

VIII

A Bit of Human Driftwood

"Present company excepted," remarked Lynn, "this village is full of fossils."

"At what age does one get to be a 'fossil,'" asked Aunt Peace, her eyes twinkling. "Seventy-five?"

"That isn't fair," Lynn answered, resentfully. "You're younger than any of us, Aunt Peace,--you're seventy-five years young."

"So I am," she responded, good humouredly. She was upon excellent terms with this tall, straight young fellow who had brought new life into her household. A March wind, suddenly sweeping through her rooms, would have had much the same effect.

"Am I a fossil?" asked Margaret, who had overheard the conversation.

"You're nothing but a kid, mother. You've never grown up. I can do what I please with you." He picked her up, bodily, and carried her, flushed and protesting, to her favourite chair, and dumped her into it. "Aunt Peace, is there any place in the house where you might care to go?"

"Thank you, no. I'll stay where I am, if I may. I'm very comfortable."

Lynn paced back and forth with a heavy tread which resounded upon the polished floor. Iris happened to be pa.s.sing the door and looked in, anxiously, for signs of damage.