The Master's Violin Part 17

That night, just at the turn of dawn, Margaret was awakened by a hot hand upon her face. "Dearie," said Aunt Peace, weakly, "will you come?

I'm almost burning up with fever."

XI

"Sunset and Evening Star"

Doctor Brinkerhoff came in the morning, but afterward, when Margaret questioned him, he shook his head sadly. "I will do the best I can," he said, "and none of us can do more." He went down the path, bent and old.

He seemed to have aged since the previous night.

On Friday, Lynn went to Herr Kaufmann's as usual, but he played carelessly. "Young man," said the Master, "why is it that you study the violin?"

"Why?" repeated Lynn. "Well, why not?"

"It is all the same," returned the Master, frankly. "I can teach you nothing. You have the technique and the good wrist, you read quickly, but you play like one parrot. When I say 'fortissimo,' you play fortissimo; when I say 'allegro,' you play allegro. You are one obedient pupil," he continued, making no effort to conceal his scorn.

"What else should I be?" asked Lynn.

"Do not misunderstand," said the Master, more kindly. "You can play the music as it is written. If that satisfies you, well and good, but the great ones have something more. They make the music to talk from one to another, but you express nothing. It is a possibility that you have nothing to express."

Lynn walked back and forth with his hands behind his back, vaguely troubled.

"One moment," the Master went on, "have you ever felt sorry?"

"Sorry for what?"

"Anything."

"Of course--I am often sorry."

"Well," sighed the Master, instantly comprehending, "you are young, and it may yet come, but the sorrows of youth are more sharp than those of age, and there is not much chance. The violin is the most n.o.ble of instruments. It is for those who have been sorry to play to those who are. You have nothing to give, but it is one pity to lose your fine technique. Since you wish to amuse, change your instrument, and study the banjo, or perhaps the concertina."

Lynn understood no more than if Herr Kaufmann had spoken in a foreign tongue. "I may have to stop for a little while," he said, "for my aunt is ill, and I can't practise."

"Practise here," returned the Master, indifferently. "Fredrika will not care. Or go to the office of mine friend, the Herr Doctor. He will not mind. A fine gentleman, but he has no ear, no taste. Until you acquire the concertina, you may keep on with the violin."

"My mother," began Lynn. "She wants me to be an artist."

"An artist!" repeated the Master, with a bitter laugh. "Your mother--"

here he paused and looked keenly into Lynn's eyes. Something was stirred; some far-off memory. "She believes in you, is it not so?"

"Yes, she does--she has always believed in me."

"Well," said the Master, with an indefinable shrug, "we must not disappoint her. You work on like one faithful parrot, and I continue with your instruction. It is good that mothers are so easy to please."

"Herr Kaufmann," pleaded the boy, "tell me. Shall I ever be an artist?"

"Yes, I think so."

"When?"

"When the river flows up hill and the sun rises in the west."

Suddenly, Lynn's face turned white. "I will!" he cried, pa.s.sionately; "I will! I will be an artist! I tell you, I will!"

"Perhaps," returned the Master. He was apparently unmoved, but afterward, when Lynn had gone, he regretted his harshness. "I may be mistaken," he admitted to himself, grudgingly. "There may be something in the boy, after all. He is young yet, and his mother, she believes in him. Well, we shall see!"

Lynn went home by a long, circuitous route. Far beyond East Lancaster was a stretch of woodland which he had not as yet explored. Herr Kaufmann's words still rang in his ears, and for the first time he doubted himself. He sat down on a rock to think it over. "He said I had the technique," mused Lynn, "but why should I feel sorry?"

After long study, he concluded that the Master was eccentric, as genius is popularly supposed to be, and determined to think no more of it.

Still, it was not so easily put wholly aside. "You play like one parrot,"--that single sentence, like a barbed shaft, had pierced the armour of his self-esteem.

He went on through the woods, and stopped at a pile of rocks near a spring. It might have been an altar erected to the deity of the wood, but for one symbol. On the topmost stone was chiselled a cross.

"Wonder who did it," said Lynn, to himself, "and what for." He found some wild berries, made a cup of leaves, and filled it with the fragrant fruit, planning to take it to Aunt Peace.

But when he reached home Aunt Peace was far beyond the thought of berries. She was delirious, and her ravings were pitiful. Iris was as white as a ghost, and Margaret was sorely troubled.

"Lynn," she said, "don't go away. I need you. Where have you been?"

"To my lesson, and then for a walk. Herr Kaufmann says I may practise there sometimes. He also suggested Doctor Brinkerhoff's."

"That was kind, and I am sure the Doctor will be willing. How does he think you are getting along?"

She asked the question idly, and scarcely expected an answer, but Lynn turned his face away and refused to meet her eyes. "Not very well," he said, in a low tone.

"Why not, dear? You practise enough, don't you?"

"Yes, I think so. He says I have the technique and the good wrist, but I play like a parrot, and can only amuse. He told me to take up the concertina."

Margaret smiled. "That is his way. Just go on, dear, and do the very best you can."

"But I don't want to disappoint you, mother--I want to be an artist."

"Lynn, dear, you will never disappoint me. You have been a comfort to me since the day you were born. What should I have done without you in all these years that I have been alone!"

She drew his tall head down and kissed him, but Lynn, boy-like, evaded the sentiment and turned it into a joke. "That's very Irish, mother--'what would you have done without me in all the time you've been alone?' How is the invalid?"

"The fever is high," sighed Margaret, "and Doctor Brinkerhoff looks very grave."

"I hope she isn't going to die," said Lynn, conventionally. "Can I do anything?"

"No, nothing but wait. Sometimes I think that waiting is the very hardest thing in the world."

That day was like the others. Weeks went by, and still Aunt Peace fought gallantly with her enemy. Doctor Brinkerhoff took up his abode in the great spare chamber and was absent from the house only when there was urgent need of his services elsewhere. He even gave up his Sunday afternoons at Herr Kaufmann's, and Fraulein Fredrika was secretly distressed.