After the old man’s death Nicholas led a very lonely life, but his increasing labors at his organ cheered him and occupied his time. His fame kept at its high pitch, and the jealousy of his brother artists was well known.
Fourteen months after his first interview with Lemoinne the latter came again, this time to his home (possibly the attic before described). Nicholas told him how surprised he had been at hearing nothing from him for so long.
“One does not use one’s best and rarest tools often,” said the other with his indescribable smile, “though the highest price paid for them is none the more begrudged on that account; and, again, the finest instruments are used to do what seems the least important work. You know how a glass-cutter uses a diamond? Now, all I want you to do is to ride to a certain place and deliver this letter; you will find the horse ready saddled at St. Martin’s Gate; you have twelve hours to do it in, and by daybreak you will find the same man ready to take the horse at the same place from which you start. The fleetest government messenger would take sixteen hours; but I know the horse and his powers; of his rider I know enough to make me trust him equally.”
The implied trust flattered Nicholas, who took the letter, and, seeing the direction, started a little, but said: “If you say it can be done, it can, but the distance would take a common rider nearer twenty hours than sixteen. Shall I go at once?”
“Yes, and remember your trust goes no further than the delivery of this package to whoever opens the door of that house to you.”
It would take too long to describe the night ride, or even the state of mind in which Nicholas found himself while careering along at a headlong speed towards his goal. This was the first service he had performed for his strange master—an easy and safe one apparently, though secret; the man’s fascination of manner or voice—which was it?—had evidently not lessened since his last appearance. Nothing special occurred; he gave the letter to a commonplace looking person at the door of an ordinary, rather shabby house, and returned by dawn. As to curiosity concerning his errand, it struck him as odd that he should feel none; yet he had never been of a gossipy turn of mind, and these things were, after all, only details in the scheme. This business of Lemoinne’s was probably connected with politics, about which he cared nothing. He did not see his patron again for months, and his work progressed wonderfully.
The next figure which bore the man’s likeness was that of a physician, pouring a liquid from one vial into another, and the expression was that of absorbed attention. The organ-case was to be ornamented with figures representing various saints, the patrons of music, of the Stromwaels, of the chapel, and of the city; then figures typifying the various city guilds; then nine figures emblematic of the traditional nine choirs of angels; but a space was left in the centre, just over the key-board, for the crowning masterpiece. A rose-tree hedge was to run round the instrument, and the pedals were each to be carved so as to represent the seven deadly sins, which, by being trodden under foot, contribute to make the music of the soul before God. Fantastic ideas and odd devices were constantly springing up in his brain and being realized beneath his touch, and in these he encouraged himself to indulge. In one corner of the case, however, was to stand a beautiful, dignified, venerable figure, the glorified likeness of his old master, with no corresponding figure opposite, and robed like a prophet, holding a tablet on which in letters of gold were to be carved in Latin these words: “Be master of thyself.”
His life as a solitary artist and mechanic was a monotonous one to record; even his few tests of obedience to Lemoinne were neither romantic nor terrible. Once he was sent in the disguise of a page to a court entertainment, with orders to follow and observe a high official of the state (who afterwards was proved a traitor and put to death accordingly); another time he was instructed to detain for half an hour a professor of one of the great universities, by which delay the man lost an appointment he much coveted; and another time he was sent to a young man of great position and wealth, but an orphan, to recommend a servant to him. From this, however, sprang some other circumstances worth recording. The young man, Count Brederode, took a violent fancy to him, visited him at his home, entered into his hopes and plans, and begged him to be a friend and brother to him. Nicholas felt drawn to the count, but reminded him of the difference between their stations, and only agreed so far as circumstances would allow. This young man was his very opposite—bright, garrulous, sociable. He always had a love affair on hand, and always confided it to Nicholas, whose words on the subject were never, however, very encouraging. He wasted his money in a way that distressed his prudent friend, and his time in a thousand pursuits for which he had no better excuse than that “gentlemen generally did so and so.” The best-employed part of his day was that which he sometimes spent watching Nicholas at work. At last one day he said suddenly:
“Do you know I am to marry Count Stromwael’s favorite niece, whom he brought up as a sister with his own only daughter? And upon this occasion I am going to ask him a favor, which I am sure he cannot refuse: to let you put up your organ in place of his, which I will take for my chapel in the country.”
Nicholas stared at him in silence. Was this a roundabout fulfilment of Lemoinne’s promise, or a wild, boyish freak, likely to result in nothing?