The Ravens and the Angels Part 4

And after the evening meal, and a game with Lenichen, the boy crept out to the Cathedral to say his prayers in one of the little chapels, and to thank G.o.d.

He knelt in the Lady chapel before the image of the Infant Christ on the mother's knees.

And as he knelt there, it came into his heart that all the next week was Pa.s.sion week, "the still week," and would be silent; and the tears filled his eyes as he remembered how little he had enjoyed singing that day.

"How glad the little children of Jerusalem must have been," he thought, "that they sang to Jesus when they could. I suppose they never could again; for the next Friday He was dead. Oh, suppose He never let me sing to Him again!"

And tears and repressed sobs came fast at the thought, and he murmured aloud, thinking no one was near,--

"Dear Saviour, only let me sing once more here in church to you, and I will think of no one but you; not of the boys who laugh at me, nor the people who praise me, nor the Cistercians, nor the archd.u.c.h.ess, nor even the dear choir-master, but only of you, of you, and perhaps of mother and Lenichen. I could not help that, and you would not mind it. You and they love me so much more than any one, and I love you really so much more than all besides. Only believe it, and try me once more."

As he finished, in his earnestness the child spoke quite loud, and from a dark corner in the shadow of a pillar suddenly arose a very old man in a black monk's robe, with snow-white hair, and drew close to him, and laid his hand on his shoulder, and said,--

"Fear not, my son. I have a message for thee."

At first, Gottlieb was much frightened; and then, when he heard the kind, tremulous old voice, and saw the lovely, tender smile on the wrinkled, pallid old face, he thought G.o.d must really have sent him an angel at last, though certainly not because he was good.

"Look around on these lofty arches, and cl.u.s.tered columns, and the long aisles, and the shrines of saints, and the carved wreaths of flowers and fruits, and the glorious altar! Are these wonderful to thee? Couldst thou have thought of them, or built them?"

"I could as easily have made the stars, or the forests!" said the child.

"Then look at me," the old man said, with a gentle smile on his venerable face, "a poor worn-out old man, whom no one knows. This beautiful house was in my heart before a stone of it was reared. G.o.d put it in my heart. I planned it all. I remember this place a heap of poor cottages as small as thine; and now it is a glorious house of G.o.d. And I was what they called the master-builder. Yet no man knows me, or says, 'Look at him!' They look at the Cathedral, G.o.d's house; and that makes me glad in my inmost soul. I prayed that I might be nothing, and all the glory be His; and He has granted my prayer. And I am as little and as free in this house which I built as in His own forests, or under His own stars; for it is His only, as they are His. And I am nothing but His own little child, as thou art. And He has my hand and thine in His, and will not let us go."

The child looked up, nearly certain now that it must be an angel. To have lived longer than the Cathedral seemed like living when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of G.o.d shouted for joy.

"Then G.o.d will let me sing here next Easter!" he said, looking confidingly in the old man's face.

"Thou shalt sing, and I shall see, and I shall hear thee, but thou wilt not hear or see me!" said the old man, taking both the dimpled hands in one of his. "And the blessed Lord will listen, as to the little children in Jerusalem of old. And we shall be His dear, happy children for evermore."

Gottlieb went home and told his mother. And they both agreed, that if not an angel, the old man was as good as an angel, and was certainly a messenger of G.o.d.

To have been the master-builder of the Cathedral of which it was Magdalis's glory and pride that her husband had carved a few of the stones!

The master-builder of the Cathedral, yet finding his joy and glory in being a little child of G.o.d!

VI.

The "silent week" that followed was a solemn time to the mother and the boy.

Every day, whatever time could be spared from the practice with the choir, and from helping in the little house and with his mother's wood-carving, or from playing with Lenichen in the fields, Gottlieb spent in the silent Cathedral, draped as it was in funereal black for the Sacred Life given up to G.o.d for man.

"How glad," he thought again and again, "the little children of Jerusalem must have been that they sang when they could to the blessed Jesus! They little knew how soon the kind hands that blessed them would be stretched on the cross, and the kind voice that would not let their singing be stopped would be moaning 'I thirst.'"

But he felt that he, Gottlieb, ought to have known; and if ever he was allowed to sing his Hosannas in the choir again, it would feel like the face of the blessed Lord himself smiling on him, and His voice saying, "Suffer this little one to come unto Me. I have forgiven him."

He hoped also to see the master-builder again; but nevermore did the slight, aged form appear in the sunshine of the stained windows, or in the shadows of the arches he had planned.

And so the still Pa.s.sion week wore on.

Until once more the joy-bells pealed out on the blessed Easter morning.

The city was full of festivals. The rich were in their richest holiday raiment, and few of the poor were so poor as not to have some sign of festivity in their humble dress and on their frugal tables.

Mother Magdalis was surprised by finding at her bedside a new dress such as befitted a good burgher's daughter, sent secretly the night before from Ursula by Hans and Gottlieb, with a pair of enchanting new crimson shoes for little Lenichen, which all but over-balanced the little maiden altogether with the new sense of possessing something which must be a wonder and a delight to all beholders.

The archduke and the beautiful Italian archd.u.c.h.ess had arrived the night before, and were to go in stately procession to the Cathedral. And Gottlieb was to sing in the choir, and afterwards, on the Monday, to sing an Easter greeting for the archd.u.c.h.ess at the banquet in the great town-hall.

The mother's heart trembled with some anxiety for the child.

But the boy's was only trembling with the great longing to be allowed to sing once more his Hosannas to the blessed Saviour, among the children.

It was given him.

At first the eager voice trembled for joy, in the verse he had to sing alone, and the choir-master's brows were knitted with anxiety. But it cleared and steadied in a moment, and soared with a fulness and freedom none had ever heard in it before, filling the arches of the Cathedral and the hearts of all.

And the beautiful archd.u.c.h.ess bent over to see the child, and her soft, dark eyes were fixed on his face, as he sang, until they filled with tears; and, afterwards, she asked who the mother of that little angel was.

But the child's eyes were fixed on nothing earthly, and his heart was listening for another voice--the Voice all who listen for it shall surely hear.

And it said in the heart of the child, that day, "Suffer the little one to come unto Me. Go in peace. Thy sins are forgiven."

A happy, sacred evening they spent that Easter in the hermit's cell, the mother and the two children, the boy singing his best for the little nest, as before for the King of kings.

Still, a little anxiety lingered in the mother's heart about the pomp of the next day.

But she need not have feared.

When the archd.u.c.h.ess had asked for the mother of the little chorister with the heavenly voice, the choir-master had told her what touched her much about the widowed Magdalis and her two children; and old Ursula and the master between them contrived that Mother Magdalis should be at the banquet, hidden behind the tapestry.

And when Gottlieb, robed in white, with blue feathery wings, to represent a little angel, came close to the great lady, and sang her the Easter greeting, she bent down and folded him in her arms, and kissed him.

And then once more she asked for his mother, and, to Gottlieb's surprise and her own, the mother was led forward, and knelt before the archd.u.c.h.ess.

Then the beautiful lady beamed on the mother and the child, and, taking a chain and jewel from her neck, she clasped it round the boy's neck, and said, in musical German with a foreign accent,--

"Remember, this is not so much a gift, as a token and sign that I will not forget thee and thy mother, and that I look to see thee and hear thee again, and to be thy friend."

And as she smiled on him, the whole banqueting-hall--indeed, the whole world--seemed illuminated to the child.

And he said to his mother as they went home,--

"Mother, surely G.o.d has sent us an angel at last. But, even for the angels, we will never forget His dear ravens. Won't old Hans be glad?"

And the mother was glad; for she knew that G.o.d who giveth grace to the lowly had indeed blessed the lad, because all his gifts and honours were transformed, as always in the lowly heart, not into pride, but into love.

But when the boy ran eagerly to find old Hans, to show him the jewel and tell him of the princely promises, Hans was nowhere to be found; not in the hermit's house, where he was to have met them and shared their little festive meal, nor at his own stall, nor in the hut in which he slept.

Gottlieb's heart began to sink.