Cruel Barbara Allen | Page 7

seven or eight shillings,' said the other, disregarding the withdrawal of the question. 'And I won't ask you,' he went on, 'what brings a man who writes like you living near the clouds in a street like this?'
'Are you an Englishman?' asked Christopher.
'No,' said the other. 'No fiddler ever was. I beg your pardon. I oughtn't to have said that, even though I think it. No. I am a Bohemian, blood and bones, but I came to England when I was eight years old, and I have lived in London ever since.'
They went on talking together, and laid the foundations of a friendship which afterwards built itself up steadily. In two months' time Carl Rubach was restored to his old place at the Garrick, and poor Christopher was beginning to find out in real earnest what it was to be hungry. He was too proud to ask anybody for a loan, and Rubach was the only man he really knew. 'When things are at their worst,' says the cynical bard, 'they sometimes mend.' Things suddenly mended for Christopher. The Bohemian turned up one afternoon with an Englishman in his train, a handsome young fellow of perhaps five-and-twenty, with a light curling beard and a blonde moustache.
'Allow me to introduce to you Mr. John Holt,' said the Bohemian. 'This, Mr. Holt, is Mr. Christopher Stretton, a musician of great genius. This--Stretton--is Mr. John Holt, a dramatist of great power. Gentlemen, know each other. Mr. Holt writes charming songs. Mr. Stretton writes beautiful music.'
He flourished with mock gravity as he said these things, turning first to one and then to the other. Mr. John Holt's eyes were keen and observant; and one swift glance took in the knowledge of the composer's hungry pallor, his threadbare dress, the bare and poverty-stricken aspect of the room.
'I have two songs for a new play of mine,' he said; 'I want them set to music.'
Christopher's hand, thinner and more transparent than a healthy man's hand should be, reached out for the offered manuscript.
'When do you think you can let me have the music?' asked the dramatist.
Christopher read the songs through, and looked up.
'To-morrow?' he said.
'So soon!' said the other. 'At what time to-morrow?'
'Will midday suit you?'
'Can you bring them to that address?' 'I will be there,' responded Christopher.
His visitors left him and he sat down to think. He was weak, and the pains of hunger gnawed him, but as he sat over one of the songs the words built themselves into a tune almost without his knowledge or effort. Then he turned to write, and found that he had no music-paper. He laughed bitterly at this discovery, and looking round the bare apartment sighted his violin-case, and rising, took the violin and bow out of it, put on his hat, and, with the case under his arm, made for the pawnbroker's. There he realised half-a-crown, one halfpenny of which was confiscated in payment for the pawn-ticket. He bought paper and pen and ink, and having taken them home, went out again and ate cold sausage at the bar of a public-house, and came back with a few pence still in his pockets. There was a nausea upon him, and he could not recall the air he wished to write. He had eaten nothing for three days and he felt at once sick and drowsy.
He was fain to lie down, and he fell asleep, to awake in two hours' time a little strengthened and refreshed. The tune came back again, and he set it down, and then attacked the second one with like success.
Morning came, and after a meagre breakfast which finished his resources, he went weakly to the address the dramatist had given him. Mr. Holt had left behind him apologies for unavoidable absence. Would Mr. Stretton call again at three? He wandered desolately home, and; waited, and when the time drew near set out again. This time the dramatist was ready to: receive him.
'The lady who will sing the songs is here,' he said, 'and with your permission I will ask her to try them over now. Will you come with me?'
'I would rather await you here,' said Christopher. The tunes he had written were running riot in his head, and he thought them puerile, vulgar, shameful. He would have torn the papers on which they were written if he had not already surrendered them. He had liked them an hour ago, and now he thought them detestable.
'As you please,' said the dramatist, and added 'poor beggar!' inwardly as he went upstairs.
The composer sat in a sick half-dream and faintly heard a piano sounding in a distant room. It played the prelude of one of his songs. Now and then the sound of a female voice just touched his ears. He was so fatigued and