Part 5

Christlieb was at no loss as to what he wished for, and the persons he most earnestly desired to behold; but this, perhaps, would be impossible, and was too much to expect. He fell into a reverie, and said nothing.

"Speak to me," repeated the lady kindly.

"I should like to have a violin," at length stammered out her patient.

"A violin!" said the lady in great amazement. "Very well, you shall have one when you are a little stronger; but at present you would hardly be able to hold it, or to draw the bow; besides, I fear that its harsh tones might be injurious to your nerves. Therefore you had better wait a short time before you get it."

The lady now assisted him back to his bed; but in doing so, he made a gesture as if in great pain.

"Is there anything the matter with you?" asked his affectionate nurse anxiously.

"I feel a pain in my side," replied Christlieb.

"Ah! I must have touched the part which was wounded by the fisherman when he drew you out of the water with his hook," said the lady.

Several days passed away, and with them Christlieb regained strength and health, to the delight of his affectionate nurse, who requested that he would call her mother as formerly. Christlieb promised to do so, but often forgot his part. As the lady most carefully abstained from all reference to past events, she had now no longer any misgivings about her patient's state of mind; but, in order to see whether he still remembered his lately expressed wish, she surprised him one day by the gift of a beautiful violin.

Christlieb's eyes sparkled at the sight of it, and the lady could not refrain from smiling when she saw the supposed Balduin take it in his hand. She, however, looked rather more serious when she perceived how well he seemed to know how to tune the instrument, how master-like he used the bow, and touched the strings. Her surprise increased every moment; and when he had played softly and with wonderful execution the thema of Rhode's variations, it had reached its zenith. When he had played one or two of the variations, his fingers and his bow becoming animated and full of fire, the amazed lady exclaimed, almost out of her senses, "Stop! you are not my Balduin; and yet you are my son! Had I not twins, and were they not both stolen, while only _one_ was miraculously restored to me? You are my Reinhold, my gentler, dearer child!" She threw her arms around Christlieb, while the violin fell sounding from his hands on the floor.

*CHAPTER XI.*

*THE MISTAKE.*

In the public-house of a small town, situated at the foot of a hill, there sat four young men one sunny morning round a table, on which were placed wine bottles, rolls of wheaten bread, and Swiss cheese. They talked loudly and merrily, every few minutes emptying their glasses, which were plentifully supplied with golden wine. Their jests and laughter showed that they had rather swallowed too much of the exciting liquid. Except the person who waited on them, there was no one else in the room. The two principal speakers soon observed that their fourth companion sat leaning his head on his hand, and was lost in thought. One of them immediately bawled out, "Is the pet of his mother dying with home-sickness, that he sits there so miserable and whining?"

The youth who was thus addressed changed his posture, looked up and said, with a forced smile, "I am not troubled with home-sickness; but my purse is, in which there are now only four dollars. When these are finished, you will be good enough to open _your_ treasures."

This speech made an unpleasant impression on the half-stupified wine-bibbers. Their faces became at once grave, and, in a most sober voice, one of them said, "Why did you not tell us this before? Had we known that the money of which you bragged so much was such a paltry sum, we would have thought twice about it before we became the companions of your expedition, and brought ourselves into disgrace with our guardians and tutors."

"Who incited me more to act as I have done than yourself, Nicholas?" asked the other in an angry voice. "It was you who advised me to borrow the money in the name of my father, and told us how to obtain false passports for our journey."

"Do not scold," drawled out a third; "but rather fight at once. When the money is done, then the comedy is ended! But you, Balduin, you must bear the blame. Crawl back to your parents, give them a few good words, and be our scape-goat; then the affair is finished, which, after all, is only a caprice of genius."

"Let us drink to our scape-goat Balduin," they all laughingly cried, raising at the same time their glasses to their lips. Balduin, to escape their mirth and scornful jests, thrust his head out of the window, while the others took good care that not one morsel of the breakfast should be left.

At this moment an aged man and a young girl entered the room in the dress of peasants. After a polite greeting, which was, however, only returned by the person who waited, the two travellers seated themselves on a bench near the door, and laid down their bundles.

"Bring us some bread and cheese," said the old man to the waiter, who immediately supplied him with what he asked. "There, Malchen, take and eat something; you will be much the better of it after our long journey this morning." Before the maiden complied with this request, she broke a small piece of the bread into crumbs, and then put her hand into a little bag, from which she drew forth a starling, who, delighted to escape from its prison, hopped about, and picked up the bread from the table. The young peasant, stroking the bird with her hands, said, "To-day you will see your old master. How pleased he will be to see you again!"

"And, it is to be hoped, still better pleased to see us," said the old man, "when he hears that we have come to live near him. I am not anxious about you, for you have learnt to work and to be useful; besides, town people generally prefer a servant-girl from the country. As to myself, I am sure God will not let me want; and when I have Christlieb again near me, I will fast gladly."

The young gentleman named Balduin now drew in his head from the window, and sat down at the table beside the others. He was seated with his back to the two strangers, yet in a moment they both recognised him, and almost screamed for joy. Our friend Kummas motioned with his hand to his companion to be quiet; and wishing to give, as he thought, his dear Christlieb a pleasant surprise, he advanced on tiptoe towards the table, giving the others a hint to say nothing, and suddenly placed his hard hands over the eyes of the sullen Balduin, saying in a feigned voice, "Who am I?"

"No nonsense!" cried Balduin, seeking to free his face from its unwelcome covering. But Kummas held his hands firm as a vice, repeating in tones trembling with pleasure, "Who is it?" The supposed Christlieb, in a passion, tore away the hands of the old man from his face, and sprang from his seat. "What do you mean by this impertinence?" asked Balduin enraged, while Kummas took hold of him and said, "It is your foster-father, dear Christlieb; and here is Malchen,"----

"And your starling, too!" continued the young girl, weeping with joy.

The three young idlers at this broke out into a loud scornful laugh.

"Brother dear, we congratulate you on your new relations, not forgetting the starling. Ha! ha! ha!"

Balduin drove the old man from him with violence, and paid no heed to Malchen. "You vagabonds," he cried, "you will pay dearly for your insolent jest!"

Kummas stood petrified; he raised his arms, and then let them fall down powerless. At length he found strength to say, "Christlieb! are we really so much changed that you do not know us? I am Kummas, this is Malchen, whose grandfather is dead, and we are going to the town in which you live."

"Now I hope you understand!" again shouted Balduin's rude companions. "Such a father is not found every day on the street, neither such a smart young peasant girl."

Balduin trembled with passion. "You must have escaped from Bedlam!" he cried; "away with you! You will get nothing from me!"

The old man could scarcely believe his ears. "No, it is impossible," he said to himself, "that within the short space of one year an angel could be thus changed into a demon. Christlieb!" he continued, "dissemble no longer; you are breaking my heart with your jokes. I have not deserved this treatment; but I need not speak of what I have done for you, as you have always gratefully acknowledged it."

Instead of answering, Balduin paid the reckoning, and left the inn with his noisy companions, leaving Kummas and Malchen behind, who both stood as if rooted to the spot.

A long pause ensued. "Is he really gone?" asked Kummas, scarcely able to speak.

"Quite gone!" Malchen was only able to answer by a sorrowful shake of the head.

"He has denied us, Malchen!" said the old man. "He is in prosperity, as you may see by his dress and well-filled purse. He has been ashamed of us before the other scholars. Alas! alas! I was not ashamed, for his sake, to become like an old nurse." Kummas laid down his head and wept bitterly. "See," he continued after a time, "how soon our soap bubbles have burst! Now we may return the way we came to our old home in the village. You will be able to get something to do; perhaps to herd the cows or the geese; and I---- will find a grave. The ingratitude of my child will be my winding-sheet! What could I now do with a violin? Never again shall I handle the bow, and I will burn the instrument as I did the violincello in which---- Christlieb was cradled." He again laid his grey head on the table, which became wet with his burning tears.

Malchen sprang up in haste. "Father! father!" she cried, "look at the starling." The poor bird lay with its breast bruised flat, close to the table where the young men had been drinking. His supposed master had accidentally put his foot on it when he had jumped up in rage at the old man.

"Father!" said Malchen, weeping, and holding the poor little thing by its legs, "the starling is dead!"

Kummas looked up. "It has been treated like me," he said with indifference. "The starling is only a senseless bird; but me has my child killed. Oh! that I, too, were dead!"

*CHAPTER XII.*

*THE UNEXPECTED DISCOVERY.*

Some time elapsed before Kummas found himself able to resume his journey. The bread and cheese remained untouched, which, however, Malchen put into her basket; and the starling, yet warm, she again placed in her bag. They went a long way without speaking; at length Kummas broke the silence--"I now believe," said he, "that it was Christlieb who destroyed your grandfather's nets! Who could have thought him such a liar, unless to-day we had had the most convincing proof of it! So it would appear there is no knowing people; not even if we do eat a bushel of salt with them! Who is to be trusted?"

"Trust me," said Malchen confidently.

"You!" replied Kummas, smiling in bitterness of feeling. "Why, I would have built houses on Christlieb,"----

"And on me too, father, and bridges into the bargain," continued Malchen. "You must not take it amiss if I say that perhaps you have been too hasty in turning back. The wine may have affected Christlieb; and if he had been alone he might have spoken differently."

"'Drunken words, true words,' says the proverb," answered Kummas; "and had I been a king, and Christlieb only a cowherd, would I have been ashamed of him? His comrades, the young players, are no better than we are! Am I not a musician as well as they? If Christlieb is already so proud, what will he be when he becomes a Paganini? It would have been my greatest joy if I could have taken my place behind him and said,--See, I took this Paganini out of a manger, and brought him up in a violincello!"

"He will come to his senses again," whispered Malchen, "when he has had his own way for a time."

"No, no; he must be a demon to have acted as he has done," replied the much injured Kummas.

"Don't speak in this wicked way, father!" rejoined the young girl; "have you no longer a spark of love for your Christlieb?"

The old man stood still, strove with his feelings for a few minutes, and then said more mildly, "God forgive me! I am too severe; and yet I mean it not in earnest. Yes, Malchen, I would joyfully give up my life, if by so doing I could make Christlieb what he was, although he has broken my heart."

They soon came to the town where they had rested the previous night, and which was now all bustle and confusion,--it being the day of the yearly fair. With difficulty the wanderers pressed through the moving crowd. As they turned the corner of a street close to the market-place, they met a man and his wife, the former blind, and playing on a pipe; the latter, whose countenance was the colour of copper and much swollen, was playing on a barrel organ, accompanying it with her screeching voice.

Kummas started at the sight of them. "Look!" he said to Malchen, "that miserable pair might have been sitting comfortably in a warm house had they acted properly. The blind man was the landlord of a small inn in the village of Toumern, where I often used to play. His wife drank up everything, and brought herself and her husband to begging. They are called Hicup."

While Malchen was looking at the man and woman a scene occurred, not at all unusual in such places and at such times. A rather aged woman, carrying on her bent back a small raree-show, pushed her way into the midst of the throng, where the two wretched musicians had taken up their quarters; and here, by the assistance of a companion who was along with her, the show was lifted from her back, and arranged for the benefit of the idle and curious passers by. This attracted the notice of dame Hicup, who, seeing her domain invaded, began most furiously to abuse the woman, when a serious quarrel took place. In the progress of the squabble our former hostess of the nether inn was somehow or the other enlightened in a way about her rival, which quite changed the character of her abusive epithets. In order to be the more able for her work, dame Hicup left her tambourine on the top of the organ, and advanced to the show-woman with arms a-kimbo. "So you have given up the crockery and stoneware trade!" she shouted to her antagonist in the fine arts. "Have you not another pair of brats to give me? I can tell you where one of the two is which you left with me fifteen years since. He is now a beer-fiddler, and may help you to earn your bread. He can play while you exhibit your trumpery pictures. Bless me! is that you, Kummas? I will now confess that I put your Christlieb in the manger at the door of the inn, from which you took him out and carried him home. If I had known that you were so fond of children, I would have given you the other young one too, his brother. They were as like as two drops of water. You may thank this woman for your foundling, and ask her where she got them. It was easy to be seen they were not her own, the thief that she is! Oh, you child-stealer!" she shouted to the woman with the show, who turned pale, and quickly disappeared, leaving the field to her victorious enemy. Seeing this, dame Hicup redoubled her abuse and her scolding; and her shouting soon collected a mob, from the midst of which Kummas and Malchen could scarcely make their way out, as they thought they had heard enough to enable them to regulate their future movements.

When Kummas had recovered from the surprise which the conversation of the woman had caused, he turned to Malchen and said, "Did you hear, Malchen, that Christlieb had a brother who was his very counterpart? Might the gay-looking youngster we saw this morning not have been he, while the real Christlieb is still in the tower? My Christlieb had no mole on his left temple, and I think that jackanapes had."

"Now," replied Malchen, "there can be no doubt as to the person who let the birds of my grandfather escape, and destroyed the nets."

"Come, then, let us retrace our steps," said Kummas, in a more cheerful voice. "It is fortunate we were no further away. I would not have missed the hearing of this quarrel for all the treasures in the world." In spite of weariness, Kummas stepped briskly on, while Malchen skipped merrily after him. Even the dead starling was for the moment forgotten.

The quarrel of the two women had not been without important results. The magistrates had thought it incumbent on them to interfere, and both vagrants were taken to prison. In the course of evidence the truth was not, however, altogether brought out, as the old woman stoutly maintained the children to be those of her daughter, who had been long dead; but confessed that she had left them in the house of dame Hicup. The further examination of the prisoners was therefore deferred until various inquiries had been instituted, and notices of the case put into all the public papers. Meanwhile Christlieb lay ill in the house of the director of the police at the capital, whose owner, in company with his son's tutor, Mr. Werter, was searching for the runaway Balduin. Kummas, followed by Malchen, was making the best of his way towards the small town in which dwelt the leader of the town-band, where Christlieb was expected to be found.

*CHAPTER XIII.*

*THE BAD RECEPTION.*

Balduin and his companions had reached the same town. This happened the very day after Christlieb had been taken to the capital, towards which he had been driven by the memorable event of the breaking up of the ice. The river was still here and there covered with huge pieces of ice, while it had far overflowed its banks. The young adventurers, with many others, stood on the edge of the stream looking at its singular appearance.

"There must be a beautiful view from the tower up there," thought Balduin, as he pointed to poor Christlieb's late abode. "Who will come with me up the long staircase, and see what is to be seen?"

"As we have nothing better to do, we may as well all accompany you," said one of his companions; and they quickly walked in the direction of the cathedral. They passed a baker's shop on their way, which another of them perceiving, exclaimed, "I am sure the view will be seen to much more advantage if we are provided with some cakes or biscuits. Give me the rest of your money, Balduin; and if you will go up and find the best place for us to have a view from, we will follow directly with something nice to eat, and a small bottle of cordial." He gave the other two youths a most significant wink, which they were at no loss to comprehend. Balduin completely emptied his now scanty purse, gave all he had to his faithless friends, and began to ascend the steps of the tower.

"Now, my good fellows, it is high time for us to beat a retreat!" shouted the false friend to whom Balduin had given the money. "We must go back to our tutors and make them believe that we have repented of our doings, and left our leader Balduin, in order not to be corrupted by his wicked society. As I said to-day already, Balduin shall be our scape-goat; we have had a merry life this last fortnight at his expense."

The others agreed; purchased some cakes to eat on the road, and at once began their homeward journey.

Almost breathless, Balduin reached the top of the steps, and rung the bell at the shut door of the _stadt-musikus_, which was opened to him by the servant girl. "Bless me!" she exclaimed in joyful surprise, "is that you, Master Christlieb? Where have you come from? And where have you got the fine clothes? I scarce would have known you, you are so changed. What will the master and mistress say, who have been in such a way about their kettledrums? We were afraid that, last night, you had been on the ice when it broke up so suddenly, and that you were drowned."

Balduin looked very stupid at this unexpected harangue. "I am surely bewitched!" he muttered to himself. He turned round to descend the steps, not in the best humour, when he was prevented by the appearance of Mr. Dilling, Mrs. Dilling, and all the scholars, who had heard the exclamation of the servant, and came out to see Christlieb, and to hear what happened to him.

"Where have you the kettledrums?" asked the town musician in a voice of thunder, looking very suspiciously at Balduin's fine dress. "Sold, pawned, made away with, I have no doubt!" seizing as he said this, the petrified Balduin by the neck.

"Where are the drums?" screamed the angry lady, shaking her clenched hand in his face.

"Where are the drums?" echoed the malicious boys, delighted at the embarrassment and distress of their companion.

"The drums!" stammered out Balduin, his lips quivering with passion.--"What do I----?"

"Yes, the drums! the drums!" bellowed out Mr. Dilling, accompanying his words with blows and pinches of the ear. "I will have my drums, which cost thirty-six dollars, and twenty groschens. I say, where are they? Where have you got these fine clothes? Are not my drums pawned for them?"

"Let the boy speak, Mr. Dilling," said Rupel, gently.--"He may be quite innocent. In consequence of the breaking up of the ice, he perhaps was prevented crossing the river last night, and had to walk all the way to the capital to cross the bridge; then to come here; and how could he carry the heavy drums all that long way? Most likely he has left them at the inn where the concert was."

"But where has he got the fine clothes?" said Mr. Dilling in a less angry tone.

"That I know not," answered Rupel; "Christlieb himself will be able to explain it all, I am sure; only let him speak."

"Where are my drums?" asked now Mr. Dilling in a composed voice.--"Speak, and tell me where you got these fine clothes!"

"These clothes are my own property," replied Balduin haughtily; "and as for your drums, I know nothing about them."

Scarcely were these words uttered, when the _stadt-musikus_, more enraged than ever, flew at the unfortunate speaker, and began to beat him without mercy. In vain poor Balduin attempted to speak, in vain he tried to defend himself. Even Rupel's remonstrances were not listened to in the midst of the uproar.

Such treatment had the over-indulged Balduin never before received. He was stunned, stupified, and, for the first time in his life, afraid. Whenever he opened his lips to offer some explanation, he was stopped by Mr. Dilling thundering out, "Silence, sir!" and raising his hand to give him another blow. Balduin anxiously awaited the arrival of his three companions, in the hope that they would extricate him from his unpleasant situation; but poor Balduin waited in vain. He seated himself in a corner of the room, weeping bitterly from pain and anger, while the enraged master gave vent to the remainder of his wrath in scolding words.--"I would have the rascal arrested," he continued, after a volley of abusive epithets; "did I not need him to-day; indeed I cannot do without him at the concert which is to take place in the town, and at which he is to play the oboe. Come along, we have no time to lose; evening will soon be here, and as yet we have no rehearsal; all on account of that worthless fellow. Make haste!"

The music-stands were immediately set up, the instruments in the hands of the pupils, and the miserable Balduin shown where he was to take his place. When the oboe was thrust into his hand by one of the boys, he exclaimed, "But, indeed, I cannot----"

"Is he again daring to speak?" cried Mr. Dilling, taking hold of a stick, and threatening to strike him.--"You are there, sir, to blow, and not to reason."