om Rohrau. He came occasionally to Rohrau to see his
relatives, and one day he surprised Haydn keeping strict time to the
family music on his improvised fiddle. Some discussion following about
the boy's unmistakable talent, the schoolmaster generously offered to
take him to Hainburg that he might learn "the first elements of music
and other juvenile acquirements." The father was pleased; the mother,
hesitating at first, gave her reluctant approval, and Haydn left the
family home never to return, except on a flying visit. This was in 1738,
when he was six years of age.

Hainburg

The town of Hainburg lies close to the Danube, and looks very
picturesque with its old walls and towers. According to the Nibelungen
Lied, King Attila once spent a night in the place, and a stone figure
of that "scourge of God" forms a feature of the Hainburg Wiener Thor, a
rock rising abruptly from the river, crowned with the ruined Castle
of Rottenstein. The town cannot be very different from what it was in
Haydn's time, except perhaps that there is now a tobacco manufactory,
which gives employment to some 2000 hands.

It is affecting to think of the little fellow of six dragged away from
his home and his mother's watchful care to be planted down here among
strange surroundings and a strange people. That he was not very happy
we might have assumed in any case. But there were, unfortunately, some
things to render him more unhappy than he need have been. Frankh's
intentions were no doubt excellent; but neither in temper nor in
character was he a fit guardian and instructor of youth. He got into
trouble with the authorities more than once for neglect of his duties,
and had to answer a charge of gambling with loaded dice. As a teacher
he was of that stern disciplinarian kind which believes in lashing
instruction into the pupil with the "tingling rod." Haydn says he owed
him more cuffs than gingerbread.

"A Regular Little Urchin"

What he owed to the schoolmaster's wife may be inferred from the fact
that she compelled him to wear a wig "for the sake of cleanliness."
All his life through Haydn was most particular about his personal
appearance, and when quite an old man it pained him greatly to recall
the way in which he was neglected by Frau Frankh. "I could not help
perceiving," he remarked to Dies, "much to my distress, that I was
gradually getting very dirty, and though I thought a good deal of my
little person, was not always able to avoid