This branch of archæology being one in which I was particularly interested, nothing would suffice me but buying the viol of the woman; and having acquired it, I slung it round my neck by a very dirty blue ribbon, and hastened to the station to catch my train to Aix.
Now only did I discover what the magpie portended, for with the acquisition of that hurdy-gurdy my life became a burden to me. I could not pack it into my Gladstone bag. I could not fold it up with my rugs. I was forced to travel with it slung round my neck. Naturally, in a railway carriage I was asked to perform on the singular instrument—but I was incapable of doing this. Fellow travellers disbelieved in my statement. Why did I wander through Provence, the land of troubadours, if I were no troubadour? Surely I was sulky—not incapable; unwilling to oblige—not unable to do so. When I arrived at an hotel—especially late in the evening—I found the host doubtful about receiving me. He looked at my bag, then at my hurdy-gurdy, then scrutinised my boots; wanted to know what priced rooms I required; must consult madam. On the railway platform again, I found myself an object of attention to certain men in plain clothes, with keen searching eyes—and, as I shall relate in the sequel, brought one of them down on me.
Vexed that I was unable to pass the tedious time in the train with a tune on my vielle, and entertain my fellow travellers, I began to practise on it in my room at night. Then the fellow inmates complained: they sent their compliments and desired to know whether there were wild beasts next door—they objected to be lodged near a menagerie.
My experiences with the hurdy-gurdy recall to my memory some others I went through a few years ago.
On one occasion I spent a winter in a city in the south of Germany, where I made the acquaintance of an antiquary who was very old and bedridden, and had no relations, no one to care for him but an old housekeeper. The man had belonged to the town-council, and had spent his life in collecting curiosities connected with the history of his town. Among his treasures above his bed, was the city executioner's sword, much notched. This sword was six feet long, with a huge handle, to be grasped with two hands, and with an iron ornamented knob as counterpoise at the end of the handle.
How life is made up of lost opportunities! How much of the criminal history of the city might I not have learned, if I had paid longer visits to Herr Schreiber, and listened to his account of the notches in the blade, to each of which a ghastly history attached. But the antiquary's bedroom measured fifteen feet by seven, and the window was hermetically sealed; moreover, there was a stove in the room, and—Herr Schreiber himself, always.
"Ach, mein Herr! do you see dis great piece broken out of de blade? Dat vas caused by a voman's neck. De executioner could not cut it drough; her neck vas harder dan his sword. She vas a very vicked voman; she poisoned her fader.—Do you see dis littel nick? Dis vas made by a great trater to the Kaiser and Vaterland. I vill tell you all about it."
I never heard all the stories: I should have been suffocated had I stayed to listen; but I found, whenever I called on my friend, that my eyes invariably turned to the sword—it was so huge, it was so notched, and had such a gruesome history. Poor old Schreiber, I knew, would have to bow his neck before long under the scythe of Time. How he hung on in that stuffy room under the great sword so long was a marvel to me, and would be pronounced impossible by sanitary authorities in England. Nevertheless, he did live on for a twelvemonth after I left the town. When about to depart, I said to the English chaplain: "Old Schreiber can't last long; he must smother shortly. Keep an eye on the sword for me, there's a good fellow. He has left everything to the housekeeper."
A twelvemonth after, as I was about to leave England for a run into
Bohemia, I got a letter from the chaplain: "Schreiber is dead. I have the
sword." I wired at once to him: "Send it me to my inn at Aix-la-Chapelle.
Will pick it up on my way home."
So I went on my way rejoicing, ascended the Rhine to Mainz, trained to Nuremberg, and passed through the gap of the Bohemian mountain-chain to Pilsen, and on to Prague. After six weeks in Bohemia and Silesia, I descended the Rhine to Aix-la-Chapelle, and arrived at my inn.