Cruel Barbara Allen | Page 6

at a little distance, wonder-stricken still, and half
disposed to return to the charge again. The musician, reaching the
corner of Gray's Inn Road, turned. This was Christopher's homeward
way, and he followed. By-and-by the fiddler made a turn to the right.
This was still Christopher's homeward way, and still he followed.
By-and-by the man stopped before a door and produced a latch-key.
The house before which he stood was that in which Christopher lodged.
He laid a hand upon the fiddler's 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.