Part 33 (1/2)
He is a great deal of his tien's, and is an enthusiast about fine bells Ah! we are great friends, and I a to him after supper”
”People say he is crazy,” said his nantly ”People say that of everybody who has ideas they can't understand They say _I_ am crazy when I talk of ets the credit of my work; but hted with a kind of wild enthusiasm whenever he talked on this subject
His rew sad, as she laid her hand on his shoulder
”Why, Otto, thou art not thyself when thou speakest of those bells”
”More my real self, mother, than at any other time!” he cried ”I only truly live when I think of how my idea is to be carried out It is to be my life's work; I know it, I feel it It is upon me that my fate is woven inextricably in that ideal chireat work, but the maker is possessed wholly by it Don't shake your head, reat cathedral belfry, and then shake it if you can”
His mother smiled faintly
”Thou art a boy,--a enius, I must confess Thy hopes delude thee, for it would take a lifetime to carry out thine idea”
”Then let it take a lifetime!” he cried out vehemently ”Let me accomplish it when I am too old to hear it distinctly, and I will be content that its first sounds toll ood luck, dearest mother” And he stooped and kissed her tenderly
Otto did not fail The strange old enius in the boy, and grown very fond of him He was so frank, so honest, so devoted to his work, and had accoe, that Monsieur Dayrolles saw a brilliant future before hientleman, with a Frenchman's vanity, felt that if the ”Harmony Chio down to posterity with that of the maker He believed firmly that the boy would soh the revolt of the Netherlands had begun and he was preparing to return to his own country, he advanced the necessary funds, and saw Otto established in business before he quitted Ghent
In a very short ti and terrible war the manufacture of cannon alone made the fortunes of the workers in iron So five years froen we find Otto Holstein a rich e But the idea for which he labored had never for a , his thoughts were busy perfecting the details of the great work
”Thou art twenty-four to-day, Otto,” said his goodGertrude home to me?
Thou hast been betrothed now for three years, and I want a daughter to corievous wrong to delay without cause The gossips are talking already”
”Let thehed Otto ”Little do Gertrude or I care for their silly tongues She and I have agreed that the 'Harood mother, no man can serve two mistresses, and my chime has the oldest claim Let s to Gertrude, and thou, too, best of hed his mother ”Thou hast cast bell after bell, and until to-day I have heard nothing more of the wild idea”
”No, because I needed ht, too, to make experiments All is matured now I have received an order to reat cathedral that was sacked last week by the 'Iconoclasts,' and I begin to-morrow”
[Illustration: BELL-TOWER, GHENT]
As Otto had said, his life's work began the next day He loved his erness hich he threw himself into his labors He had been a devoted lover to Gertrude, but he now never had a spare ive to her,--in fact, he only seemed to remember her existence in connection with the peal which would ring in their wedding-day His labors were prolonged far over the appointed tied more furiously, and the Netherlands were one vast battle-field No interest did Otto see events around him The bells held his whole existence captive
[Illustration: BELL TOWER OF HEIDELBERG]
At last the moulds were broken, and the bells ca as stars in Otto's happy eyes
They were reat belfry, and for the test-chiers in the city
It was a lovely May ; and, almost crazed with excitement and anxiety, Otto, accompanied by a few chosen friends, waited outside the city for the first notes of the Hare of the merits of his work
At last the first notes were struck, clear, sonorous, and so ht But with finger upraised for silence, and eyes full of ecstatic delight, Otto stood like a statue until the last note died away Then his friends caught him as he fell forward in a swoon,--a swoon so like death that no one thought he would recover
But it was not death, and he came out of it with a look of serene peace on his face that it had not worn since boyhood He was married to Gertrude that very day, but every one noticed that the ecstasy which transfigured his face seemed to be drawn more from the sound of the bells than the sweet face beside him