A Cathedral Singer | Page 6

himself. He was strongly built, frankly fashioned,
with happy grayish eyes, which had in them some of the cold warrior
blue of the sky that day; and they were set wide apart in a compact
round head, which somehow suggested a bronze sphere on a column of
triumph. Altogether he belonged to that hillside of nature, himself a
human growth budding out of wintry fortunes into life's April, opening
on the rocks hardy and all white.
But to sit there swinging his legs--this did not suffice to satisfy his
heart, did not enable him to celebrate his instincts; and suddenly from
his thicket of forest trees and greening bushes he began to pour forth a
thrilling little tide of song, with the native sweetness of some human
linnet unaware of its transcendent gift.
Up the steep hill a man not yet of middle age had mounted from the
flats. He was on his way toward the parapet above. He came on slowly,

hat in hand, perspiration on his forehead; that climb from base to
summit stretches a healthy walker and does him good. At a turn of the
road under the forest trees with shrubbery alongside he stopped
suddenly, as a naturalist might pause with half-lifted foot beside a
dense copse in which some unknown species of bird sang--a young bird
just finding its notes.
It was his vocation to discover and to train voices. His definite work in
music was to help perpetually to rebuild for the world that ever-sinking
bridge of sound over which Faith aids itself in walking-toward the
eternal. This bridge of falling notes is as Nature's bridge of falling
drops: individual drops appear for an instant in the rainbow, then
disappear, but century after century the great arch stands there on the
sky unshaken. So throughout the ages the bridge of sacred music, in
which individual voices are heard a little while and then are heard no
longer, remains for man as one same structure of rock by which he
passes over from the mortal to the immortal.
Such was his life-work. As he now paused and listened, you might have
interpreted his demeanor as that of a professional musician whose ears
brought tidings that greatly astonished him. The thought had at once
come to him of how the New York papers once in a while print a story
of the accidental finding in it of a wonderful voice--in New York,
where you can find everything that is human. He recalled throughout
the history of music instances in which some one of the world's famous
singers had been picked up on life's road where it was roughest. Was
anything like this now to become his own experience? Falling on his
ear was an unmistakable gift of song, a wandering, haunting,
unidentified note under that early April blue. He had never heard
anything like it. It was a singing soul.
Voice alone did not suffice for his purpose; the singer's face,
personality, manners, some unfortunate strain in the blood, might debar
the voice, block its acceptance, ruin everything. He almost dreaded to
walk on, to explore what was ahead. But his road led that way, and
three steps brought him around the woody bend of it.
There he stopped again. In an embrasure of rock on which vines were

turning green, a little fellow, seasoned by wind and sun, with a
countenance open and friendly, like the sky, was pouring out his full
heart.
The instant the man came into view, the song was broken off. The
sturdy figure started up and sprang forward with the instinct of business.
When any one paused and looked questioningly at him, as this man
now did, it meant papers and pennies. His inquiry was quite breathless:
"Do you want a paper, Mister? What paper do you want? I can get you
one on the avenue in a minute."
He stood looking up at the man, alert, capable, fearless, ingratiating.
The man had instantly taken note of the speaking voice, which is often
a safer first criterion to go by than the singing voice itself. He
pronounced it sincere, robust, true, sweet, victorious. And very quickly
also he made up his mind that conditions must have been rare and
fortunate with the lad at his birth: blood will tell, and blood told now
even in this dirt and in these rags.
His reply bore testimony to how appreciative he felt of all that faced
him there so humanly on the rock.
"Thank you," he said, "I have read the papers."
Having thus disposed of some of the lad's words, he addressed a
pointed question to the rest:
"But how did you happen to call me mister? I thought boss was what
you little New-Yorkers generally said."
"I'm not a New-Yorker," announced the