we go to Lueneburg----"

"And we go to Lueneburg!" repeated the boy, with a mocking lilt in his
voice. "And Lueneburg is twenty miles from Hamburg. Hadst thought of
that!" He laughed exultingly.

The other shook his head. "I don't know what you mean," he said.

Sebastian was fastening the big violin in place on his back. He looked
up under smiling brows, as he bent to draw the last strap. Then he
touched his sturdy legs with his hand and laughed. "I mean that these
are the horses to carry me to Hamburg and back many times. I shall hear
the great Reinken play!--And I, too, shall play!" he added proudly.

"Do you never doubt, Sebastian?" asked the other thoughtfully, as they
moved on.

"Doubt?"

"Whether you will be a great musician?... Sometimes I see myself going
back--" He paused as if ashamed to have said so much.

Sebastian shook his head. His blue eyes were following the clouds in the
spring day. "Sometimes I doubt whether I am among the elect," he said
slowly. "But never that I am to be a musician." His full lips puckered
dreamily, and his golden head nodded, keeping slow time. "By the
waters--" he broke out into singing. "Is it not wunderschoen!" The blue
eyes turned with a smile. "It is wunderschoen! Ach--wunderschoen! Is it
not, Erdman?" He seemed to awake and laid his hand affectionately on the
boy's shoulder.

The other nodded. "Yes, it is schoen," he said wistfully.

"Come, I will teach it to thee!"

And the notes of Reinken's choral, "An den Wasserfluessen Babylon,"
floated with a clear, fresh sound on the spring morning air, two hundred
years ago, and more, as two charity pupils walked along the road to
Lueneburg.

IV

A tall man with keen eyes and a round stomach stood in the shadow of the
Johanneskirche, lost in thought and humming to himself. Now and then he
took off his glasses and rubbed them vigorously, and put them on again
to peer absently down the street.

A heavy figure, clad in the faded blue uniform of the Michaelsschule,
rounded the corner, puffing heavily.

"Ach, Kerlman!" The tall man started forward with a stride. "You are
late."

The other nodded imperturbably.

"Ja, I am late. Those boys--I cannot make to hurry." He spoke as if
assigning sufficient reason and wiped his brow.

A twinkle came into the keen eyes. "And one of them you have lost
to-day," he said dryly. He cocked his eye a trifle toward the heavy
church that rose behind them.

The other looked q