FullReads

As they walked along the road he hummed contentedly to himself, speaking now and then a word to the boy. “What makes one Bach great, makes all. Remember, my child, Reinken is great–but he is only one; and Bohm and Buxtehude, Pachelbel. But we are many–all Bachs–all great.” He hummed gayly a few bars of the choral and stopped, listening.

The boy turned his face back over the road. “They are coming,” he said softly.

“Ja, they are coming.”

The next moment a heavy cart came in sight. It was laden to the brim with Bachs and music; some laughing and some singing and some playing–on fiddles or flutes or horns–beaming with broad faces.

The man caught up Sebastian by the arm and jumped on to the tail-board of the cart. And thus–enveloped in a cloud of dust, surrounded by the laughter of fun-loving men and youths–the boy came into Erfurt, to the great festival of all the Bachs.

II

“Sh-h! It is Heinrich! Listen to him–to Heinrich!” There were nods and smiles and soft thudding of mugs, and turning of broad faces toward the other end of the enclosure, as a small figure mounted the platform.

He was a tiny man, unlike the others; but he carried himself with a gentle pomposity, and he faced the gathering with a proud gesture, holding up his hand to enjoin silence. After a few muttering rumbles they subsided.

Sebastian, sitting between his father and a fat Bach, gulped with joy. It was the great Heinrich–who composed chorals and fugues and gavottes and–hush! Could it be that he was rebuking the Bachs–the great Bachs!… Sebastian’s ears cracked with the strain. He looked helplessly at his father, who sat smiling into his empty beer-mug, and at the fat Bach on the other side, who was gaping with open mouth at the great Heinrich.

Sebastian looked back to the platform.

Heinrich’s finger was uplifted at them sternly…. “It was Reinken who said it. He of the Katherinenkirche has said it, in open festival, that there is not a Bach in Germany that can play as he can play. Do you hear that!” The little man stamped impatiently with his foot on the platform. “He has called us flutists and lutists and ‘cellists–” He stopped and held up a small instrument that he carried in his hand–“Do you know what this is?”

A response of grunts and cheers came from the crowd.

Sebastian stretched his neck to see. It was a kind of viol, small and battered and torn. Worn ribbons fluttered from the handle.

The small man on the platform lifted it reverently to his chin. He ran his fingers lightly along the broken strings. “You know the man who played it,” he said significantly, “old Veit Bach–” Cheers broke from the crowd. He stopped them sternly. “Do you think if he were alive–if Veit Bach were alive, would Reinken, of Hamburg, dare challenge him in open festival?”

Cries of “Nein, nein!” and “Ja, ja!” came back from the benches.

“Ja, ja! Nein, nein!” snarled back the little man. “You know that he would not. He had only this–” He held up the lute again. “Only this and his mill. But he made the greatest music of his time. While you–thirty of you this day at the best organs in Germany…. And Reinken defies you…. Reinken!” His lighted eye ran along the crowd. “Before the next festival, shall there be one who will meet him?” There was no response. The Bachs looked into their beer-mugs. The great Heinrich swept them with his eagle glance. “Is there not one,” he went on slowly, “who dares promise, in the presence of the Bachs that before Reinken dies he will meet him and outplay him?”

The Bachs were silent. They knew Reinken.

Sebastian, wedged between his father and the fat Bach, gulped mightily. He struggled to get to his feet. But a hand at his coat-tails held him fast. He looked up imploringly into his father’s face–but the hand at his coat-tails restrained him. “I will promise,” he whispered, “I want to promise.”