"I will come!" she answered quickly. "Now I must leave you." And she ran out at a repetition of the shrewish call. Joseph did not attempt to detain her; though the two loved each other well he knew that Dame Farren regarded him with good will no longer, now that Master Handel, his teacher and patron, no longer stood high in the king's favor, and went no more to Carlton House. The father, old John Farren, was still the friend of the young man.
An hour later, and the round table, on which stood mugs of porter and glasses, was surrounded by men, members of the musical club, conversing on a subject deeply interesting to them all. One of them—a very tall man, with large, flashing eyes and a noble and expressive countenance—was addressed as "Master Handel;" another, simple in his dress and plain in his exterior, with a world of shrewdness and waggery in his laughing eyes, was William Hogarth, the painter.
They were talking about the composer's great work, The Messiah, which Handel had not as yet been able to get properly represented. Hogarth was urging an application to the Duke of Bedford. Handel, disgusted at his want of success hitherto, was reluctant to sue for the favor of any patron to have his best work brought before the public.
"If his grace only comprehended a note of it!" he exclaimed petulantly; "but he knows no more of music than that lout of a linen-weaver in Yorkshire."
"Whom you corrected with your fist, when he blundered with your Saul!" cried the painter. "You should have learned better policy, my good master, from your eight-and-twenty years in England! A stupid, great nobleman can do no harm to a work of art! If I dealt only with those who understood my work, my wife and children might starve."
Handel was leaning on the table, his face buried in his hands. His thoughts were wandering toward Germany. When he spoke, it was to express his bitter regret that he had left his fatherland just as new life in art began to be stirring. While the Germans achieved greatness in music, he had been tormenting himself in vain with dolts of singers and musicians in England, whose hard heads could not take in a notion of music! "I will return to Germany!" he concluded. "Better a cowherd there than here director of the Haymarket Theatre, or chapelmaster to his majesty, who, with his court rabble, takes such delight in the warblings of that foppish Italian—Farinelli."
Some other members came in to join them, among them the young German, Joseph Wach. Handel nodded kindly to him, and asked how he was getting on with his part.
"I am very industrious, Master Handel, and will do my best," replied Joseph. "You shall hear me soon."
The conversation about the new work was resumed. The Abbé Dubos described how the chorus, "The glory of the Lord shall be revealed," had sounded all night in his ears. "Your glory, Master Handel, will be revealed through your Messiah when once you can get it brought out. I understand the lord archbishop is against it!"