II
It was a stove of 1532, and on it were the letters H. R. H., forit was in every portion the handwork of the great potter ofNuernberg, Augustin Hirschvogel, who put his mark thus, as all theworld knows.
The stove no doubt had stood in palaces and been made forprinces, had warmed the crimson stockings of cardinals and thegold-broidered shoes of archduchesses, had glowed in presence-chambersand lent its carbon to help kindle sharp brains in anxiouscouncils of state; no one knew what it had seen or done or beenfashioned for; but it was a right royal thing. Yet perhaps it hadnever been more useful than it was now in this poor desolateroom, sending down heat and comfort into the troop of childrentumbled together on a wolf-skin at its feet, who received frozenAugust among them with loud shouts of joy.
"Oh, dear Hirschvogel, I am so cold, so cold!" said August,kissing its gilded lion's claws. "Is father not in, Dorothea?"
"No, dear. He is late."
Dorothea was a girl of seventeen, dark-haired and serious, andwith a sweet sad face, for she had had many cares laid on hershoulders, even whilst still a mere baby. She was the eldest ofthe Strehla family, and there were ten of them in all. Next toher there came Jan and Karl and Otho, big lads, gaining a littlefor their own living; and then came August, who went up in thesummer to the high Alps with the farmers' cattle, but in wintercould do nothing to fill his own little platter and pot; and thenall the little ones, who could only open their mouths to be fedlike young birds,--Albrecht and Hilda, and Waldo and Christof,and last of all little three-year-old Ermengilda, with eyes likeforget-me-nots, whose birth had cost them the life of theirmother.
They were of that mixed race, half Austrian, half Italian, socommon in the Tyrol; some of the children were white and goldenas lilies, others were brown and brilliant as fresh-fallenchestnuts. The father was a good man, but weak and weary with somany to find for and so little to do it with. He worked at thesalt-furnaces, and by that gained a few florins; people said hewould have worked better and kept his family more easily if hehad not loved his pipe and a draught of ale too well; but thishad only been said of him after his wife's death, when troubleand perplexity had begun to dull a brain never too vigorous, andto enfeeble further a character already too yielding. As it was,the wolf often bayed at the door of the Strehla household,without a wolf from the mountains coming down. Dorothea was oneof those maidens who almost work miracles, so far can theirindustry and care and intelligence make a home sweet andwholesome and a single loaf seem to swell into twenty. Thechildren were always clean and happy, and the table was seldomwithout its big pot of soup once a day. Still, very poor theywere, and Dorothea's heart ached with shame, for she knew thattheir father's debts were many for flour and meat and clothing.Of fuel to feed the big stove they had always enough withoutcost, for their mother's father was alive, and sold wood and fircones and coke, and never grudged them to his grandchildren,though he grumbled at Strehla's improvidence and hapless, dreamyways.
"Father says we are never to wait for him: we will have supper,now you have come home, dear," said Dorothea, who, however shemight fret her soul in secret as she knitted their hose andmended their shirts, never let her anxieties cast a gloom on thechildren; only to August she did speak a little sometimes,because he was so thoughtful and so tender of her always, andknew as well as she did that there were troubles about money,--though,these troubles were vague to them both, and the debtors werepatient and kindly, being neighbors all in the old twistingstreets between the guard-house and the river.
Supper was a huge bowl of soup, with big slices of brown breadswimming in it and some onions bobbing up and down: the bowl wassoon emptied by ten wooden spoons, and then the three eldest boysslipped off to bed, being tired with their rough bodily labor inthe snow all day, and Dorothea drew her spinning-wheel by thestove and set it whirring, and the little ones got August downupon the old worn wolf-skin and clamored to him for a picture ora story. For August was the artist of the family.
He had a piece of planed deal that his father had given him, andsome sticks of charcoal, and he would draw a hundred things hehad seen in the day, sweeping each out with his elbow when thechildren had seen enough of it and sketching another in itsstead,--faces and dogs' heads, and men in sledges, and old womenin their furs, and pine-trees, and cocks and hens, and all sortsof animals, and now and then--very reverently--a Madonna andChild. It was all very rough, for there was no one to teach himanything. But it was all life-like, and kept the whole troop ofchildren shrieking with laughter, or watching breathless, withwide open, wondering, awed eyes.
They were all so happy: what did they care for the snow outside?Their little bodies were warm, and their hearts merry; evenDorothea, troubled about the bread for the morrow, laughed as shespun; and August, with all his soul in his work, and little rosyErmengilda's cheek on his shoulder, glowing after his frozenafternoon, cried out loud, smiling, as he looked up at the stovethat was shedding its heat down on them all,--
"Oh, dear Hirschvogel! you are almost as great and good as thesun! No; you are greater and better, I think, because he goesaway nobody knows where all these long, dark, cold hours, anddoes not care how people die for want of him; but you--you arealways ready: just a little bit of wood to feed you, and you willmake a summer for us all the winter through!"
The grand old stove seemed to smile through all its iridescentsurface at the praises of the child. No doubt the stove, thoughit had known three centuries and more, had known but very littlegratitude.
It was one of those magnificent stoves in enamelled faience whichso excited the jealousy of the other potters of Nuernberg that ina body they demanded of the magistracy that Augustin Hirschvogelshould be forbidden to make any more of them,--the magistracy,happily, proving of a broader mind, and having no sympathy withthe wish of the artisans to cripple their greater fellow.
It was of great height and breadth, with all the majolica lustrewhich Hirschvogel learned to give to his enamels when he wasmaking love to the young Venetian girl whom he afterwardsmarried. There was the statue of a king at each corner, modelledwith as much force and splendor as his friend Albrecht Duerercould have given unto them on copperplate or canvas. The body ofthe stove itself was divided into panels, which had the Ages ofMan painted on them in polychrome; the borders of the panels hadroses and holly and laurel and other foliage, and German mottoesin black letter of odd Old-World moralizing, such as the oldTeutons, and the Dutch after them, love to have on theirchimney-places and their drinking-cups, their dishes and flagons.The whole was burnished with gilding in many parts, and wasradiant everywhere with that brilliant coloring of which theHirschvogel family, painters on glass and great in chemistry asthey were, were all masters.
The stove was a very grand thing, as I say: possibly Hirschvogelhad made it for some mighty lord of the Tyrol at that time whenhe was an imperial guest at Innspruck and fashioned so manythings for the Schloss Amras and beautiful Philippine Welser, theburgher's daughter, who gained an archduke's heart by her beautyand the right to wear his honors by her wit. Nothing was known ofthe stove at this latter day in Hall. The grandfather Strehla,who had been a master-mason, had dug it up out of some ruinswhere he was building, and, finding it without a flaw, had takenit home, and only thought it worth finding because it was such agood one to burn. That was now sixty years past, and ever sincethen the stove had stood in the big desolate empty room, warmingthree generations of the Strehla family, and having seen nothingprettier perhaps in all its many years than the children tumblednow in a cluster like gathered flowers at its feet. For theStrehla children, born to nothing else, were all born withbeauty: white or brown, they were equally lovely to look upon,and when they went into the church to mass, with their curlinglocks and their clasped hands, they stood under the grim statueslike cherubs flown down off some fresco.