At the stranger’s entreaty, Edith again and again repeated the song, which was from her native Tyrol. He listened with deep emotion. By ordinary persons he might have been deemed mad or intrusive, and received accordingly; but he had had the good fortune to fall amongst artists. He passed the evening with them, conversing as kindly and familiarly as though they had been old friends. He found means to draw out Franz, to make him speak of himself, his hopes and wishes, his discouragements and disappointments, his long-cherished desire for fame, his uneasiness about the prospects of his children. Then he asked him to play a piece of his own composition. Müller played one of his best sonatas, to which the stranger listened with the attention of a judge who will not lightly decide. The piece played out, he seemed thoughtful, but said nothing. Poor Müller, who had expected applause, consoled himself by thinking that the eccentric stranger did not understand music. Instead of praising the fine composition he had just heard, the unbidden guest, so kindly welcomed, turned to Edith and asked her for a copy of the Tyrolese air. She had never seen it noted, she said, and doubted that it ever had been, but Franz would note it for him. “Most willingly” was the reply of the good-tempered artist, who could not repress a smile at the ill success of his own performance. In a very few minutes he had covered a sheet of music-paper with spots and scratches. Edith graciously offered it to the stranger. He seized it with an expression of grateful joy, glanced hastily over it, pressed Edith’s hand to his lips, cast an affectionate glance at the children, and left the house, as he had entered it, swift and noiseless as a shadow. He had not mentioned his name; his kind hosts had not inquired it; they never saw him again.
On a certain evening, Count Sigismund returned to Hildesheim Castle, after one of his long absences, his countenance lighted up with a mysterious joy. He spoke to no one, put aside the servants who crowded round him, and shut himself up in his apartment. Soon his piano was heard resounding under his fingers; he at last had found the air he so long had sought. But he did not long enjoy his victory. He had worn himself out in pursuit of his mania. One morning, subsequent to a night during great part of which the piano had been continually heard, a servant entered his room. Sigismund was still seated at the instrument, one hand resting on the keys, the other hanging by his side, his eyes closed, his mouth half open and smiling. He seemed to sleep, but he was dead.
There were present at the reading of Count Sigismund von Hildesheim’s last will and testament the two ladies Stolzenfels; Major Bildmann, a brokendown gambler of braggadocio air and vinous aspect; his wife Dorothy, whose thin pale lips, and sharp, hooked nose, gave her no small resemblance to a bird of prey; and their son Isaac, a horrible urchin with the profile of a frog and a head of scrubby white hair, who, having been ordered by his mother to behave decorously and look sorrowful, had given his features a sulky twist, which considerably augmented their naturally evil expression. The opposed camps of Bildmann and Stolzenfels observed each other with dislike and distrust. After some waiting, the gallop of a horse was heard, and Captain Frederick entered, whip in hand, and his boots covered with dust. All who were interested being thus assembled, Master Gottlieb broke the seals of the will, which the count had deposited in his keeping a month before his death. Divested of customary formalities and of preliminary compliments to the family, the contents of the document were in substance as follows:—
“My mother’s two cousins, Hedwige and Ulrica von Stolzenfels, have at all times shown me the most disinterested affection. To leave me more leisure and liberty, they have kindly taken the management of my house, and have superintended, with unceasing zeal and activity, that of my estates. Frederick, by his youth and gaiety, has enlivened my dwelling. To him I am indebted for the only cheerful moments I for many years have known. Since their establishment under my roof, the Stolzenfels have proved themselves my affectionate and devoted friends; their conduct has excited my admiration and respect, and I desire they should know that I duly appreciate it.”
About this time Hedwige and Ulrica seemed to grow several inches taller, and cast a triumphant glance at the major and Dorothy. As to Frederick, who, since the reading began, had been sketching with the point of his horse-whip, upon the dusty surface of one of his boots, a likeness of Master Gottlieb, he gave the last touch to his work, and commenced upon the other foot the portrait of Isaac. The notary continued.
“The straightforward frankness and integrity of Major Bildmann have been, I here declare, a great consolation to me, after the deceptions of all kinds that I experienced in my youth. Mrs Bildmann has vied with my mother’s cousins in zeal and devotedness. The complete absence of all self-interested views has given a noble and affecting character to their rivalry. In return for so much attention and care, they neither asked nor expected other reward than my affection. The Bildmanns have an equal right with the Stolzenfels to my gratitude.”
This became puzzling. A division of the property was the most natural inference. Master Gottlieb, dubious where to seek the rising sun, smiled benignly on all around. Urged by the impatient hussar, he resumed the reading of the will.
“At Munich, at No 9, in the street of the Armourers, lives a young musician, Franz Müller by name. He has hitherto contrived, by hard work, by giving lessons, to support his wife and children, who tenderly love him. But Müller is no ordinary musician; and his genius, to develop itself, needs but leisure. It is to him, Franz Müller, residing at Munich, at No 9, in the street of the Armourers, that I bequeath my entire property.”
It is highly improbable that Master Gottlieb’s peaceable parlour had ever before been the scene of such an uproar as this paragraph of the will occasioned. The major, Dorothy, and the two old maids, were for attacking the document on the ground of the testator’s insanity; but Frederick, who could not restrain his laughter at this eccentric close to an eccentric life, firmly opposed this, and the bullying major quailed before his resolute tone and mien. Franz Müller not being present, Master Gottlieb no longer troubled himself to smile on anybody; but, in an authoritative tone, called attention to the closing passages of the will.
“Desiring,” the singular document proceeded, “to insure, after my death, the welfare of my farmers and servants, which I feel that I have neglected too much during my life, I make it a condition of my bequest that Franz Müller shall inhabit the castle for nine months of every year, and dismiss none of my people. As to my dear relatives, the Stolzenfels and the Bildmanns, nothing is to be changed in their manner of life, and they are to inhabit the castle as heretofore. Wishing to insure their independence, it is my will that Müller shall annually pay to Ulrica von Stolzenfels one thousand florins; to Hedwige von Stolzenfels one thousand florins; to Frederick von Stolzenfels one thousand florins; to Major Bildmann two thousand florins, with reversion, in case of his death, to Dorothy Bildmann. And that he should take from his first year’s revenue a sum of ten thousand florins, the interest on which is to be allowed to accumulate until the majority of Isaac, to whom interest and capital are then to be paid over.