CHAPTER IV.
With a glad heart, Gottlieb dressed the next morning before Lenichen was awake, and was off to the choir-master for his lesson alone.
The new hope had inspired him, and he sang that morning to the content even of the master, as he knew, not by his praise, but by his summoning Ursula from the kitchen to listen, unable to resist his desire for the sympathy of a larger audience.
Ursula was not exactly musical, nor was she demonstrative, but she showed her satisfaction by appropriating her share of the success.
"I knew what was wanting!" she said, significantly. "The birds and the blessed angels may sing on crumbs or on the waters of Paradise; but goose and pudding are a great help to the alleluias here below."
"The archduchess will be enraptured, and the Cistercians will be furious!" said the choir-master, equally pleased at both prospects.
But this Gottlieb did not hear, for he had availed himself of the first free moment to run home and tell his mother how things had improved.
After that, Gottlieb had no more trouble about the master. The old man's severity became comprehensible and dear to him, and a loving liberty and confidence came into his bearing toward him, which went to the heart of the childless old man, so that dearer than the praise of the archduchess, or even the discomfiture of the Cistercians, became to him the success and welfare of the child.
But then, unknown to himself, the poor boy entered on a new chapter of temptations.
The other boys, observing the choir-master's love for him, grew jealous, and called him sometimes "the master's little angel," and sometimes "the little beggar of the hermitage" or "Dwarf Hans' darling."
He was too brave and manly a little fellow to tell his mother all these little annoyances. He would not for the world have spoiled her joy in her little "Chrysostom," her golden-mouthed laddie. But once they followed him to her door, and she heard them herself. The rude words smote her to the heart, but she only said:
"Thou art not ashamed of the hermit's house, nor of being old Hans' darling?"
"I hope, never!" said the child, with a little hesitation. "God sent him to us, and I love him. But it would be nice if dear Hans sometimes washed his face!"
Magdalis smiled, and hit on a plan for bringing this about. With some difficulty she persuaded the old man to take his dinner every Sunday and holiday with them, and she always set an ewer of water—and a towel, relic of her old burgher life—by him, before the meal.
"We were a kind of Pharisees in our home," she said, "and except we washed our hands, never ate bread."
Hans growled a little, but he took the hint, for her sake and the boy's, and gradually found the practice so pleasant on its own account, that the washing of his hands and face became a daily process.
On his patron saint's day (St. John, February 8), Mother Magdalis went a step further, and presented him with a clean suit of clothes, very humble but neat and sound, of her own making out of old hoards. Not for holidays only, she said, but that he might change his clothes every day, after work, as her Berthold used.
"Dainty, burgher ways," Hans called them, but he submitted, and Gottlieb was greatly comforted, and thought his old friend a long way advanced in his transformation into an angel.
So, between the sweetness of the boy's temper and of his dear mother's love which folded him close, the bitter was turned into sweet within him.
But Ursula, who heard the mocking of the boys with indignation, was not so wise in her consolations.
"Wicked, envious little devils!" said she. "Never thou heed them, my lamb! They would be glad enough, any of them, to be the master's angel, or Dwarf Hans' darling, for that matter, if they could. It is nothing but mean envy and spite, my little prince, my little wonder; never thou heed them!"
And then the enemy crept unperceived into the child's heart.
Was he indeed a little prince and a wonder, on his platform of gifts and goodness? And were all those naughty boys far below him, in another sphere, hating him as the little devils in the mystery-plays seemed to hate and torment the saints?
Had the "raven" been sent to him, after all, as to the prophet of old, not only because he was hungry and pitied by God, but because he was good and a favorite of God?
It seemed clear he was something quite out of the common. He seemed the favorite of every one, except those few envious, wicked boys.
The great ladies of the city entreated for him to come and sing at their feasts; and all their guests stopped in the midst of their eager talk to listen to him, and they gave him sweetmeats and praised him to the skies, and they offered him wine from their silver flagons, and when he refused it, as his mother bade him, they praised him more than ever, and once the host himself, the burgomaster, emptied the silver flagon of the wine he had refused, and told him to take it home to his mother and tell her she had a child whose dutifulness was worth more than all the silver in the city.
But when he told his mother this, instead of looking delighted, as he expected, she looked grave, and almost severe, and said:
"You only did your duty, my boy. It would have been a sin and a shame to do otherwise. And, of course, you would not for the world."
"Certainly I would not, mother," he said.
But he felt a little chilled. Did his mother think it was always so easy for boys to do their duty? and that every one did it?
Other people seemed to think it a very uncommon and noble thing to do one's duty. And what, indeed, could the blessed saints do more?
So the slow poison of praise crept into the boy's heart. And while he thought his life was being filled with light, unknown to him the shadows were deepening,—the one shadow which eclipses the sun, the terrible shadow of self.
For he could not but be conscious how, even in the cathedral, a kind of hush and silence fell around when he began to sing.
And instead of the blessed presence of God filling the holy place, and his singing in it, as of old, like a happy little bird in the sunshine, his own sweet voice seemed to fill the place, rising and falling like a tide up and down the aisles, leaping to the vaulted roof like a fountain of joy, and dropping into the hearts of the multitude like dew from heaven.
And as he went out, in his little white robe, with the choir, he felt the eyes of the people on him, and he heard a murmur of praise, and now and then words such as "That is little Gottlieb, the son of the widow Magdalis. She may well be proud of him. He has the voice and the face of an angel."
And then, in contrast, outside in the street, from the other boys: "See how puffed up the little prince is! He cannot look at any one lower than the bishop or the burgomaster!"
So, between the chorus of praise and the other chorus of mockery, it was no wonder that poor Gottlieb felt like a being far removed from the common herd. And, necessarily, any one of the flock of Christ who feels that, cannot be happy, because if we are far away from the common flock, we cannot be near the Good Shepherd, who always keeps close to the feeblest, and seeks those that go astray.