HERE ends, my dear child, the romance of your old friend's life; if by
the word romance we may rightly understand that which, even if not
lasting itself, throws a brightness over all that may come after it. I
never saw that fair country of France again, and since then I have lived
sixty years and more; but what I brought away with me that sorrowful
night has sweetened all the years. I had the honour of loving as sweet a
lady as ever stepped from heaven to earth; and I had the thought that,
if right had permitted, and the world been other than it was, I could
have won her. Such feelings as these, my dear, keep a man's heart set on
high things, however lowly his lot may be.
I came back to my village. My own home was empty, but every house was
open to me; and not a man or a woman there but offered me a home for as
long as I would take it. My good friend Ham Belfort would have me come
to be a son to him, he having no children. But my duty, as he clearly
saw when I pointed it out, was to Abby Rock; and Abby and I were not to
part for many years. Her health was never the same after my father's
death; it was her son I was to be, and I am glad to think she found me
a good one.
Father L'Homme-Dieu made me kindly welcome, too, and to him and to Abby
I could open my heart, and tell them all that had befallen me in these
three life-long months. But I found a strange difference in their manner
of receiving it; for whereas the Father understood my every feeling, and
would nod his head (a kind hand on my shoulder all the while), and say
yes, yes, I could not have done otherwise, and thus it was that a
gentleman should feel and act,--which was very soothing to me,--Abby, on
the other hand, though she must hear the story over and over again,
could never gain any patience in the hearing.
"What did they want?" she would cry, her good homely face the colour of
a red leaf. "An emperor would be the least that could suit them, I'll
warrant!" And though she dared not, after the first word, breathe
anything against my sweet young lady, she felt no such fear about the
old one, and I verily believe that if she had come upon Mme. de Lalange,
she would have torn her in pieces, being extraordinary strong in her
hands. Hag and witch were the kindest words she could give her; so that
at last I felt bound to keep away from the subject, from mere courtesy
to the absent. But this, as I have since found by observation, was the
mother-nature in Abby, which will fill the mildest woman with desire to
kill any one that hurts or grieves her child.
For some time I stuck close to my shoemaker's bench, seeking quiet, as
any creature does that is deeply wounded (for the wound was deep, my
dear; it was deep; but I would not have had it otherwise), and seeing
only those home friends, who had known the shape of my cradle, as it
were, and to whom I could speak or not, as my mind was. I found solid
comfort in the society of Ham, and would spend many hours in the old
grist-mill; sometimes sitting in the loft with him and the sparrows,
sometimes hanging over the stones, and watching the wheat pour down
between them, and hearing the roar and the grinding of them. The upper
and nether millstones! How Ham's words would come back, over and over,
as I thought how my life was ground between pain and longing! One day, I
mind, Ham came and found me so, and I suppose my face may have showed
part of what I felt; for he put his great hand on my shoulder, and
shouted in my ear, "Wheat flour, Jakey! prime wheat flour, and good riz
bread; I see it rising, don't you be afeard!" But by and by the
neighbours in the country round heard of my being home again; and
thinking that I must have learned a vast deal overseas, they were set on
having me here and there to fiddle for them. At first I thought no, I
could not; there seemed to be only one tune my fiddle would ever play
again, and that no dancing tune. But with using common sense, and some
talk with Father L'Homme-Dieu, this foolishness passed away, and it
seemed the best thing I could do, being in sadness myself, was to give
what little cheer I could to others. So I went, and the first time was
the worst, and I saw at once here was a thing I could do, and do, it
might be, better than another. For being with the marquis, Melody, and
seeing how high folks moved, and spoke, and held themselves, it was
borne in upon me that I had special fitness for a task that might well
be connected with the pleasure of youth in dancing. Dancing, as I have
pointed out to you many times, may be considered in two ways: first, as
the mere fling of high spirits, young animals skipping and leaping, as
kids in a meadow, and with no thought save to leap the highest, and
prance the furthest; but second, and more truly, I must think, to show
to advantage the grace (if any) and perfection of the human body, which
we take to be the work of a divine hand, and the beauty of motion in
accord with music. And whereas I have heard dancing condemned as
unmanly, and fit only for women and young boys, I must still take the
other hand, and think there is no finer sight than a well-proportioned
man, with a sense of his powers, and a desire to do justice to them,
moving through the figures of a contra-dance. But this is my hobby, my
dear, and I may have wearied you with it before now.
I undertook, then, as my trade allowed it,--and indeed, in time the
bench came to hold only the second place in the arrangement of my
days,--to give instruction in dancing and deportment, to such as desired
to improve themselves in these respects. The young people in the
villages of that district were honest, and not lacking in wits; but
they were uncouth to a degree that seemed to me, coming as I did from
the home of all grace and charm, a thing horrible, and not to be
endured. They were my neighbours; I was bound, or so it seemed to me, to
help them to a right understanding of the mercies of a bountiful
Providence, and to prevent the abuse of these mercies by cowish gambols.
I let it be understood wherever I went that whoever would study under me
must be a gentleman; for a gentleman is, I take it, first and last, a
gentle man, or one who out of strength brings sweetness, as in the case
of Samson's lion. To please, first the heart, by a sincere and cordial
kindness, and next the eye, by a cheerful and (so far as may be)
graceful demeanour; this disposition will tend, if not to great deeds,
at least to the comfort and happiness of those around us. I was thought
severe, and may have been so; but I lived to see a notable change
wrought in that country. I remember the day, Melody, when a young man
said to me with feeling, "I cannot bear to see a man take off his hat to
a woman. _It makes me sick!_" To-day, if a man, young or old, should
fail in this common courtesy, it would be asked what cave of the woods
he came from. But let fine manners come from the heart, I would always
say, else they are only as a gay suit covering a deformed and shapeless
body. I recall an occasion when one of my pupils, who had made great
progress by assiduous study, and had attained a degree of elegance not
often reached in his station, won the admiration of the whole room by
the depth and grace of his bow. I praised him, as he deserved; but a few
minutes after, finding him in the act of mimicking, for the public
diversion, an awkward, ill-dressed poor lad, I dismissed him on the
instant, and bade him never come to my classes again.
In these ways, my child, I tried, and with fair measure of success, to
ease the smart of my own pain by furthering the pleasure of others; in
these ways, to which I added such skill as I had gained on the violin,
making it one of my chief occupations, when work was slack, to play to
such as loved music, and more especially any who were infirm in health,
or in sorrow by one reason or another. It was a humble path I chose, my
dear; but I never clearly saw my way to a loftier one, and here I could
do good, and think I did it, under Providence. As an instance,--I was
sent for, it may have been a year or two after my trouble, to go some
distance. A young lady was ill, and being fanciful, and her parents
well-to-do, she would have me come and play to her, having heard of me
from one or another. I went, and found a poor shadow of a young woman,
far gone in a decline, if I could judge, and her eyes full of a trouble
that came from no bodily ailment, my wits told me. She sent her people
away, saying she must have the music alone. I have seldom found a better
listener, Melody, or one who spoke to me more plain in silence, her
spirit answering to the music till I almost could hear the sound of it.
Feeling this, I let myself slip into the bow, as it were, more than I
was aware of; and presently forgot her, or next thing to it, and was
away in the rose-garden of Chateau Claire, and saw the blue eyes that
held all heaven in them, and heard the voice that made my music harsh.
And when at last I brought it down to a whisper, seeing the young
woman's eyes shut, and thinking she might be asleep, she looked up at
me, bright and sharp, and said, "You, too?"
I never saw her again, and indeed think she had not long to live. But it
is an instance, my dear, of what a person can do, if the heart within
him is tender to the sorrows of others.
After Abby's death,--but that was years after all this,--I found it wise
to leave my native village. I will not go into the cause of this, my
child, since it was a passing matter, or so I trusted. There was some
one there who had great good will to me, and, not knowing my story, may
have fancied that I was one who could make her happy; I thought it right
to tell her how I had fared, and then, she being in distress, I left my
home, and from that time, I may say, had many homes, yet none my own. I
have met with rare kindness; no man of my generation, I would wager, has
the number of friends I can boast, and all kind, all hearty, all ready
with a "welcome to Rosin the Beau." And now here, at your aunts' kind
wish and your prayer, my dearest Melody, dear as any child of my own
could be, I am come to spend my last days under your roof; and what
more could mortal man ask than this, I truly know not. My violin and
your voice, Melody; they were made for each other; everybody says that,
my dear, and neither you nor I would deny it. And when the _obligato_ is
silent, as shortly it must be in the good course of nature, it is my
prayer and hope that you will not miss me too much, my dear, but will go
on in joy and in cheer, shedding light about you, and with your own
darkness yielding a clear glory of kindness and happiness. Do not grieve
for the old man, Melody, when the day comes for him to lay down the
fiddle and the bow. I am old, and it is many years that Valerie has been
dead, and Yvon, too, and all of them; and happy as I am, my dear, I am
sometimes tired, and ready for rest. And for more than rest, I trust and
believe; for new life, new strength, new work, as God shall please to
give it me.
"I've travelled this country all over,
And now to the next I must go;
But I know that good quarters await me,
And a welcome to Rosin the Beau."
THE END.
* * * * *
Transcriber's Notes:
Obvious punctuation errors corrected.
Page 20, "our" changed to "her" (clapping her hands)
Page 63, " ather" changed to "father" (how my father)
Page 74, "couple" changed to "couples" (a few couples)