Part 8

Tonin worked with the others, and when the sculptured nymphs were brought to view, his delight knew no bounds. Taking up his position before the last erected one, he stood with folded arms, silently, wonderingly drinking in the beauties which Toretto's chisel had effected. He was wholly lost to time and place and was quite unaware that the servants had removed all traces of packing and litter, and that a bevy of maids were now seated in the gallery, weaving garlands at Pasino's order, for the festooning of the unfinished pedestals. He was so absorbed in the snowy goddess before him that he was deaf to everything until old Vittori's voice suddenly rent the gallery's stillness with something between a groan and a shriek.

"Where is the aquarium? Who's seen my gold-fish? Answer, somebody, or I'll throw you all out of the window! Oh, I shall be disgraced and discharged and maybe half killed! Where is it? Why don't you speak?"

The seneschal's appearance, as well as his words, indicated unusual excitement, for his scarlet robe was thrown open at the throat, his frosty locks were rumpled, his uplifted hands were shaking, and his lips were twitching uncannily.

"What's the matter? What's wrong?" demanded a dozen voices, but Tonin darted across to the old man's side with the announcement--

"Giuseppe carried it away this afternoon as a present to his cousin David."

"My-o! My-o! I am lost, I am done, I am dead!" ejaculated the seneschal, wringing his hands.

"What's the trouble, Vittori?" asked Pasino, laying a quieting hand upon the shoulder of his agitated friend.

"It is this," returned the seneschal hoarsely; "the duke ordered me to send to the table a fresh ornamental centrepiece with each course, making every one handsomer than the one used before it. I did so, and all has now been served but the dessert, and that will be due in about fifteen minutes. For this fancy piece I have filled a great tray with Parma violets on snow, thousands of them--and in the midst of the flowers I planned to set the aquarium of goldfish for a bit of color and life. My-o! My-o! What shall I do?" and once again the seneschal fell to moaning.

"Build a column of fruit in the centre of the tray," suggested Pasino.

"Impossible! I used a pyramid of apricots and nectarines for the second course."

"Wouldn't a lighted candle or lamp do?" inquired Pasino, earnestly endeavoring to find relief for the seneschal.

"No! No!" wailed Vittori; "lighted things would melt the snow."

"To be sure," agreed Pasino sympathetically.

"I know something that might be pretty," ventured Tonin timidly.

"What is it?" Vittori demanded.

For answer the boy turned from the seneschal and his fellow-retainers, and whispered to Pasino apart. The old man's face brightened as he received the boy's confidence.

"I don't know," he commented; "but it ought to be good--yes, yes, it would be, it would indeed!"

"Then let him put it through," shouted the seneschal desperately. "I can't wait to hear what it is, for I'm late now. Do as he says, everybody, for I've got to trust my reputation to this stripling whether I like it or not. Saints help him, for if the work is a failure, woe to poor Vittori! Have your ornament ready in the lower rear passage, lad, when the tray goes through to the banquet-room. Everything else shall be taken in first, so that you may have as much time as possible."

Off went the harassed seneschal, and Tonin, beset with misgivings lest he had been both rash and bold in his offer of assistance, addressed the grooms with outward composure.

"Bring me a firkin of butter, a pail of the coldest spring water, and a big china platter."

His orders were swiftly obeyed, and all looked on with expectant interest while he directed a servant to dig from the cask as much butter as could be heaped on the platter. Next he rolled back his sleeves and plunged his hands into the water-pail, holding them there until they were sufficiently cooled for his purpose, then attacking the butter with his dripping fingers, he rolled and patted it into a goodly loaf, with motions so quick and decisive that the spectators fairly blinked. Seizing a small chisel and a pointed wooden blade from Pasino's tool-chest, Tonin began to convert the meaningless dairy lump into a form familiar to all beholders.

With the touch of his nimble instruments, attended by occasional taps and pressures from his lithe brown fingers, the loaf vanished, and in its place appeared a noble lion, quite as though Tonin's chisel had been a magic wand which had freed the king of the forest from a stifling and hideous disguise.

The tawny beast, with his bushy head, slender body, powerful limbs, and graceful tail, brought a torrent of babbling admiration from the on-lookers; but Tonin, heedless of their chatter, sought out his grandfather with questioning glance. He received a quiet nod from Pasino, and drying his hands on a corner of his hempen apron, he caught up the platter and carried it to the appointed place below stairs, followed by Pasino and a train of chuckling servants.

He had gauged the time exactly, for as he stepped into the low-ceiled passage, six flower-maidens, bearing the debatable centrepiece, entered from the opposite doorway. The seneschal joined them immediately, and without a word set Tonin's lion in the centre of the snowy field, enclosed on every side by drifts of Parma violets. Vittori then abruptly directed the maidens to enter the banquet-hall with their ornament.

That the seneschal was alarmed lest the duke would not be pleased with this hastily contrived decoration, Tonin read at a glance; and impulsively he threw himself before the carriers to stay their progress.

"Don't send it in if it isn't right, Master Vittori! Try something else, please!" he implored.

"Hist! Let them go, let them go! I have nothing else to send, so I must stand or fall by your butter-toy. Alas for me, and you, too, sirrah, if the duke be vexed!"

A strained silence fell upon the group in the rear passage as the flower-maidens crossed the main corridor and entered the banquet-hall. The grooms and maids exchanged significant nods and winks, old Vittori unconsciously pressed his keys tightly to his breast, Pasino withdrew into the shadow, and Tonin waited in acute suspense, wondering whether in his desire to relieve the seneschal's dilemma he had been guilty of a childish and ignorant blunder. As the seconds flew by, the boy's perplexity increased, and presently he was writhing with the fear that his offering would affront the duke, and perhaps even render him ridiculous before the lords and ladies who sat at the board.

Sounds of harps and violins greeted them from beyond the velvet-hung portal, but none in the rear passage regarded the melody.

Five minutes dragged by, and one of the flower-maidens stepped into the corridor. Each person in the rear passage started breathlessly forward to hear her message.

"His grace desires the seneschal to come to him."

"My-o! My-o!" groaned Vittori; "mercy knows what he'll do to me--and to you, too, Tonin Canova!"

Pausing just long enough to settle his scarlet robe and adjust his linen neckcloth, the seneschal concealed his distress as well as he could, and walked sedately into the banquet-hall.

Tonin locked his hands together in despair.

"What a dunce I was--I, Tonin Canova, who has never been off this mountain--to dare to set up my little work before grand persons like those! Oh, oh! and poor Vittori may be discharged on account of it!"

Suddenly the seneschal reappeared.

"Tonin, you are wanted at once! His grace has sent for you. Hurry! Go on!"

"Not in _there_!" gasped Tonin, retreating toward the stair door; "I should die of fright before those great folk."

"Hurry, hurry, you impudent monkey! Do you think you can keep the Duke d'Asolo waiting?"

To make an end of the argument, Vittori seized the boy by the arm, giving him a push that sent him into the banquet-room with a rush.

Tonin was half-blinded by the myriads of lights, and quite dazed by the grandeur of the spectacle. He dimly comprehended that the vast apartment was hung with vines and banked with flowers; that a table like a huge cross ran the entire length and nearly the breadth of the room; that the Duke d'Asolo sat at the upper end, and that hosts of ladies and gentlemen in gorgeous raiment turned about in their chairs and fixed their eyes upon the young visitor.

A scalding wave of shame rushed upward through Tonin's body, scorching his cheeks and dyeing his neck as he became conscious of his own workaday garb. He came to an abrupt stop, standing with downcast eyes before the Venetian company, a truly diverting figure with his loose blouse, rolled-up trousers and sleeves, bare arms, bare legs, and dripping apron.

"Come, my lad, and tell us something about yourself," said the duke in a tone surprisingly gentle for one who palpitated with wrath and vengeance.

Tonin made his way slowly up the room, pausing at the duke's elbow, and raising his eyes just far enough to get a glimpse of his yellow lion on the table, directly before Giovanni Falier.

"When did you do this?" inquired the master of the feast, indicating the ornament with his jewelled index finger.

"To-night," admitted Tonin feebly.

"Can you make other figures and objects?"

"Yes, signor."

"Where did you learn?"

"From grandfather, signor."

"I have been greatly surprised this evening, as also have been my guests, at sight of this--this decoration, and ahem--"

"Now it's coming," thought Tonin in a panic. "Perhaps he'll put me in a dungeon."

"I have sent it clear around the table so that every one might examine it closely, and we all agree about it. How should you like to make statues, lad,--nymphs, you know, and fairies--"

"And goddesses like that one upstairs?" cried Tonin, his face alight with this unexpected turn of the conversation.

"Yes."

"Oh, oh! I'd rather make a goddess like that than to be a king, or _go to the carnival_!"

A chorus of laughter greeted this outburst, and Tonin trembled with embarrassment and surprise.

"Then you shall," the duke declared with a smile like April sunshine. "You must have worked pretty hard, harder than most boys ever do, to be able to make this," pointing to the lion; "and if you are willing to keep on working, you may learn to do great things. You shall go to Toretto, the sculptor who did the four pieces upstairs, and he will teach you to make statues as good. Shall you like it, my boy?"

"Like it! Oh, signor, if I had a chance to learn anything so beautiful I'd work--I'd work--"

A vision of the glistening goddess and her wordless grace came before him, causing something to spring up in his throat that choked him. Twice he tried to finish his eager speech, but the words did not come. He gave a quick, eloquent gesture of entreaty, and down went his face into his hands before them all.

"A toast, a toast!" exclaimed the duke, springing to his feet with upraised glass. "We'll pledge in water, if you please, good people, for clear water and unspoiled childhood are the purest things of earth. Ladies and gentlemen, I offer you our little friend, Tonin Canova. May he work faithfully with his teacher day by day, and when he comes to manhood, may he be good and great and happy! God bless him!"

Clink, clink, went the glasses.

Tonin raised his head, and as he turned to withdraw, he whispered to the duke with a beaming smile,--

"I don't know any nice words to say, but maybe you'll tell all the people for me how a boy feels when he's too happy to laugh and too happy to cry."

Up the Alpine road to the village of mud-walled cabins rode a man one day in autumn. His air was that of an experienced traveller, his dress rich but modest, his horse a spirited charger.

At the entrance to the village, a turn in the road brought him face to face with a man in peasant attire who was walking in the opposite direction. The rider bent curiously, and gazed down at the passer-by with keenest interest; then bringing his horse sharply to a standstill, he cried,--

"Pablo! Don't you remember me?"

The man by the way halted in surprise. For a moment he regarded the stranger blankly, then some memory out of his boyhood seemed to awaken, for suddenly he seized the horse's bridle with both hands, and shouted,--

"Tonin Canova! By all the fates and furies, you are the last man in the world I expected to see to-day!"

"I knew you by your quick and springy step. I suppose you are still the leader of the town, Pablo, the foremost citizen of Passagno."

A flush of pride crept into the peasant's cheek, but he merely waved his hand toward the extensive vineyard lying further down the slope.

"That is mine. That's all."

"And enough, too, old friend. Your purse must be ready to overflow, after a harvest from that fine vineyard."

The peasant blushed again and nodded. Then half timidly he addressed the other,--

"I'm glad to see you again, signor--"

The rider lifted his hand in rebuke.

"Not _signor_ to me, Pablo! I am still your friend, and not in any wise changed from the lad who played with you in this very roadway."

"But you have grown powerful and wealthy!"

"Ye-es, but gold coins can never make me anything else than I was before."

"But we have heard that the city of Venice gave you a pension for your whole life, because you had made such wonderful statues."

"Yes, Venice has been good to me."

"And that all the great people of Rome are friends with you."

"True, but--"

"That the Pope has written your name in the golden book of the capital."

"So he did; still--"

"That Napoleon of France invited you to his court, and that the German Emperor has even made you a knight."

"Hark to me, Pablo!" and this time the rider's voice was commanding. "These things are indeed true, for people everywhere have shown me the rarest kindness; but while the palace doors of all Europe are open to me if I care to enter, and ladies and gentlemen of every nation pour their compliments and gold upon me, my heart has turned back to my native village and the dear simple friends of my childhood. I have left the great world for a time, and have come back to see the old faces; and Pablo, on that slope, near the little cottage,"--here his voice broke, as he pointed to the last of the mud-walled cabins,--"I have planned to build a church as beautiful as the Parthenon at Athens. If my good old neighbors cannot travel far enough to see the temples of the world, they shall have one near at hand, which will show them that Canova has not forgotten them."

True to his word, the sculptor lingered in Passagno until there had risen on the mountain side a classic, snowy edifice which was the wonder and pride of all the villagers. When the builders had finished and had gone their way, the man who had designed it all put on his apron, took up his chisel, and completed for the altar ornaments that he had begun twenty years before, when he had lived in the cabin just over the way.

How the people rejoiced in their pillared house of worship, and how grateful they were to the giver of so splendid a gift. Warmly they bade him farewell when his task was at length completed, and he was obliged to go in order to execute the greater works that awaited him.

At last, in the city of Rome, when the sculptor's hair whitened, his step faltered, and his heart grew strangely still, the friends about him, a brilliant company, carried him tenderly up the Alpine road, and laid him to rest beneath the altar of his own carving.

When the service was ended, the lords and ladies, the princes and cardinals, the poets and teachers who had paid him their devotion to the last, wound their way slowly down to the turbulent world; and Tonin Canova slept on the mountain side, in the heart of his Alpine village.

FRÉDÉRIC OF WARSAW

[CHOPIN[4]]

It was the evening study hour at Nicholas Chopin's boarding-school. Twenty-five lads belonging to the oldest families of Warsaw were assembled in the schoolroom, preparing lessons for the following day.

The place was large, well lighted, and comfortably warmed; good pictures hung on the walls, and racks of books filled every available nook. At the upper end of the room, near the master's desk, stood an open piano; and at the lower, a table bearing plates, cups, and wholesome refreshments which would be distributed among the boys when study-hour was over. Throughout the room great cheerfulness and comfort reigned, and the apple-cheeked boys at the desks showed that they were generously cared for under this kindly roof. They were mostly little fellows, ranging in age from eight to twelve years, and a merrier company one would journey far to find.

When Nicholas Chopin sat behind the desk, this hour was always a quiet one; for while he was indulgent with the boys out of school, furthering their enjoyment with all his heart, he was also a strict and thorough teacher, who would tolerate no disturbance from the pupils during lesson-time.

But to-night the master was absent, and the new assistant, a mild-eyed, pale young man, sat in Nicholas Chopin's chair and sought to keep the boys at their tasks. He had been among them but two or three days, and at the very beginning the pupils had decided that this was his first attempt at teaching. His soft voice and worried look filled the boys with glee; and half their playtime was spent in making plans to mock and deride him. Until now, however, they had failed to carry out their mischievous schemes, for Nicholas Chopin had compelled them to treat the new assistant with respectful obedience. But to-night the master had gone from home, leaving his assistant in full charge of the school, and the boys threw all rules to the winds for the sole purpose of vexing the new teacher.

Instead of the usual stillness maintained at this hour, the room was a-buzz with whispers. The boys noisily shuffled their feet, rattled their papers, and tossed their books about on their desks. The teacher rapped sharply with his ruler again and again, but these warnings were greeted with impudent chuckles and laughter.

At one of the side desks sat Frédéric Chopin, the master's son, toiling at a much blotted copy-book. He was heartily liked by every boy in the house, and for some reason, whenever he spoke in his quiet way, the others obeyed his wishes without a syllable of complaint. John Skotricki, who had the strongest arms and legs at school, was the ringleader on the playground; but Frédéric was chief councillor and fun-maker at all other times and places. Although the master's son, he enjoyed no special favor or liberty, but was held to the same line of duty prescribed for the other students. In the classroom he was not noticeably clever, for he was very bad at numbers, and it is doubtful if he could have found his own country on the great globe in the corner; but there was one thing that Frédéric Chopin could do better than any other boy in the school, better than any other boy in Warsaw, better, probably, than any other boy in all the country of Poland: he could play magnificently on the piano. So remarkably he played that everybody wondered, and strangers often came to the house for a glimpse of the young musician.

A year before, when he was nine, he had played at a great charity concert given in the city hall, and after the performance the people had surged by the stage to shake his hand and praise him; and in the excitement and pleasure of it all, he might have become very vain of his powers and success, but he remembered just in time that while he could play brilliantly on the piano, he could not jump as far by ten inches as John Skotricki, and that he did not know as much about grammar as the youngest pupil at school.

One boy who had attended the concert, and who loved music passionately, was the young Prince Radziwill. He decided that evening that he would like to know the boy pianist, and soon it was no uncommon thing for the prince's carriage to roll up to the Chopin school. Frédéric went often with the young nobleman to drive, sometimes even accompanying him home to the palace; but of these things he never spoke to the boys at school, and not one of them was jealous because Frédéric had become the prince's friend.

He practised diligently for many hours every day in his own room; but he never mentioned the subject of music to the other lads, and when in their company he was as happy-go-lucky as any schoolboy in Warsaw.

To-night, however, when he saw the new teacher's face flush with displeasure in the noisy schoolroom, he felt a bit sorry, for he knew that the young man would prove to be a good-natured companion if he were not enraged at the outset.

Frédéric glanced uneasily about him from time to time as the confusion increased, realizing that even the most patient of teachers would not long endure such rebellion. He, as much as any one, enjoyed the antics that kept the whole school tittering, and was strongly tempted to join in the mutiny; but he had promised his father to stand by the new assistant this evening, and he felt honor-bound to do it.

The crisis came when John Skotricki leaped from his seat and ran down the room in pursuit of a boy who had given him a cuff on the ear in passing. The teacher sprang up with an angry light in his eye, and flourished the ruler threateningly. Frédéric exchanged glances with the assistant, and threw down his pen with the announcement,--

"Boys, if you'll all be quiet in your seats, I'll tell you a story."

The others, supposing that Frédéric was on their side, and that this was a part of the joke, folded their arms; and instantly the room grew so still that one could hear the ticking of the clock in the hall beyond.

Frédéric turned out all the lights, for "a story always sounds better in the dark," he explained. Then seating himself at the piano, he began to speak, playing all the while music that helped to tell his story.

Every student rested his arms on his desk, and bent attentively to listen.

"Once upon a time there stood a great house on the bank of a lonely river." (Here came a lightly running passage on the piano, like the rippling of water.) "A band of robbers riding through the country paused in the glade at nightfall. Seeing the old mansion by the river side, they decided to force an entrance at midnight and carry away the gold and jewels that were probably secreted there.

"They laid their plans carefully" (sounds of many gruff, deep-toned voices, one at a time, then all together in a rumbling chorus), "and at the solemn hour they had chosen" (twelve clanging tones), "they tied their horses farther up the dell, and marched, two by two, toward the house by the swirling river. Noiselessly they approached and surrounded the many-pinnacled dwelling, each robber choosing a window through which he would make his entrance. At the signal of the leader" (a high faint trill), "each man climbed to his window ledge, sawed straight through the iron bars that protected it" (a steady rasping sound as of edged tools), "and ripped out the glass with the point of his dagger" (tinklings as of shattered crystal).

"Now for the treasures! Each man had one foot inside the house, and one hand on the inner sill, when, all at once, lights flared up in every room" (a reckless sweep of notes), "dogs barked fiercely, shouts were heard from the upper corridors, pistol-shots burst on the stillness of the night, and the robbers leaped from their perches, rolling over and over in the mud below" (loud discordant notes, and the _bang, bang_ of the pistols mingled with the furious growling and yelping of dogs).