Cruel Barbara Allen | Page 6

shoulder.
'Do you live here?' he said.
'What has that to do with you?' retorted the fiddler.
'That was my theme you played,' said Christopher; 'and if you live here, I know how you got hold of it. You have heard me play it.'
'You live on the third floor?' said the other in a changed tone.
'Yes,' said Christopher.
'I'm in the attics, worse luck to me,' said the street player. 'Come into my room, if you don't mind.'
He opened the door and went upstairs in the darkness, with the assured step of custom. Christopher, less used to the house, blundered slowly upwards after him.
'Wait a minute,' said the occupant of the attic, 'and I'll get a light.'
There was a little pause, and then came the splutter of a match. The pale glow of a single candle lit the room dimly. Christopher jumped at the sight of a third man in the room. No! There were but two people there. But where, then, was the man who had led him hither? Here before him was a merry-looking youngster of perhaps two-and-twenty, with a light brown moustache and eyes grey or blue, and close-cropped fair hair. The hirsute and uncombed genius of the street had vanished.
'Don't stare like that, sir,' said the transformed comically. 'Here are the props.' He held up a ragged wig and beard.
'The what?' asked Christopher. 'The props,' returned the other. 'Props are properties. Properties are theatrical belongings. There's nothing diabolical or supernatural about it. Wait a minute, and I'll light the lamp and set the fire going.'
Christopher stood in silence whilst his new acquaintance bustled about the room. The lamp cast a full and mellow light over the whole apartment, and the fire began to crackle and leap merrily.
'Sit down,' said the host, and Christopher obeyed. 'I always like to take the bull by the horns,' the host continued with a little blush. 'I didn't want to be found out at this game, but you have found me out, and so I make the best of it, and throw myself upon your confidence.'
He took up the wig and beard lightly between his finger and thumb and dropped them again, laughing and blushing.
'You may rely upon me,' said Christopher in his own dogged and sulky tones. 'If I wanted to tell of it, I know nobody in London.'
'That was your theme, was it?' said the host, throwing one leg over the other and nursing it with both hands.
'Yes,' said Christopher; 'you played it very accurately, you must have a very fine memory.'
'I suppose I have,' said the other, with a little laugh. 'But it's a wonderful thing.'
'Do you think so?' asked Christopher, blushing with pleasure.
'I do indeed,' his new acquaintance answered. 'Play something else of yours.'
There was a bed in one corner of the room, and on this he had laid the instrument and the bow when he came in. He arose now and proffered them to Christopher. Christopher took them from his outstretched hand and played. The other listened, nursing his leg again, and nodding at the fire, in time to the music.
'You write better than you play,' he said at length, with more candour than was altogether agreeable. 'Not that your playing isn't good, but it misses--just misses--the real grip--the real royal thing. Only one player in a million has it.'
'Do you think you have it?' asked Christopher, not sneeringly, though the words might imply a sneer, but speaking because he was shy and felt bound to say something.
'I?' said the other, with a merry laugh.
'O Lord no! A man can't bring out more than there is in him. There's no divine melody in me. Good spirits now and then, a bit of sentiment now and then, a dash more or less of the devil now and then--that's all I'm equal to. If I could have written that gavotte you played a minute ago, I could knock sparks out of people with it. Here! lend me the fiddle.'
He played it through with the grave-faced merriment proper to it, and here and there with such a frolicking forth of sudden laughter and innocent fun as gave gravity the lie and made the pretence of it dearly droll.
'That's it,' he said, looking up with na?ve triumph when he had finished.
Yes, that was it, Christopher confessed, as he took back the violin and bow and laid them on the table.
'What brings a man who plays as you do, playing in the streets?' he asked a little sulkily.
'That eternal want of pence which vexes fiddlers,' said the youngster 'I lost an engagement a month ago. First violin at the Garrick. Rowed with the manager. Nothing else turned up. Must make money somehow.'
'What have you made to-night?' Christopher asked. 'I beg your pardon,' he said a second later; 'that is no business of mine, of course.'
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