The Corvallis gazette. [volume] (Corvallis, Or.) 1862-1899, 1879-02-14
Saved by a Song.

Edftu NY OOuS.
1t was Christmas Eve. A cold, old-fash.
inoned Christmas, with snow lying thick on
the ground and still falling heavily, with a
tonch of fog in the air. 1t was past ten
o'clock, and the streets and lanes of the
great city were all but deserted. Merchant
and broker, clerk and warehouseman, and
the rest of the busy crowd who had
thronged those streets by day had enc by
one drifted away to their homes, and the
| lofty warehouses loomed black and forbid
ding over the silent thoroughfares. Here
aid there the CLEAN of solitary window
struggled Intellectually with the outer dark.
| ness, and served but to bring into stronger
| relief the general gloom and solitude.
And nowhere was the darkness deeper OF
| the sense of desol lation more profound
| than in St. Winifred's court. st. Winifred's
| is one of those queer little alleys which in
| tersect the heart of Eastern Londoa, and
consists, with one exception, of houses let
out as offices, and utterly deserted at light.
The court is bounded OH the one side by st.
Winifred's church, while in one corner
stands quaint old house, occupying near.
! ly triangular piece of ground, and forming
the exception referred to, having been for
many years the residence of St. Winifred's
organist, Michael Fray.
Eve, in St. Winifred's court, was CLEAN Of
Pickering fre-light proceeding from one Of
the windows of the quaint three-cornered
house in which Michael Fray passed his soil
| tary existence. Many years before the pc
riod of our story, the same month had taken
from him wife and child, and Michael Fray
had lived desolate, his only companion be-
ing the rare old organ, the friend and COM
panion of his lonely hours. The loss of his
wife and daughter had left him without kith
or kin. His father and mother had died in
his early life, all only brother, a gifted but
wayward youth, had in early life run away
to sea, and had there found watery grave.
Being thus left alone in the world, Michael
Fray's love for music. which had always
been the most marked feature of his charac-
| ter, had become intensified into an absolute
passion. Evening after evening, when dark
ness had settled on the city, and none could
complain that his music nterfered with bus
iness or distracted the attention from the
noble clink of gold, he was accustomed to
creep quietly into the chuch and there ''talk
to himself, as he called it, at the old organ,
which answered him back again with ten
der sympathy and power of consolation
which no mere human listener could ever
have afforded.
The organ at St. Winifred was of COM
paratively small size, and made but scanty
show of pipes and pedals but the black
ened case and yellow, much h-worn keys had
been fashioned by the cunning brain and
skillful fingers of Father Smith" himself,
and never had the renowned organ builder
turned out more skillful piece of work
manship. And Michael Fray, by use of
years and tender study, had got by heart
every pipe and stop in the rare old instru-
ment, and had acquired an almost magical
power in bringing out its tenderest notes
and noblest ha1monies.
Hear him this Christmas Eve, as he sits
before the ancient Keyboard, one feeble
candle glimmering over the well-worn page
before him, ii kering wierdly over the
ancient carving, and calling into nomentary
life the effigies of mitred abbot and mailed
crusader A feeble old man, whose sands
of life have all but run out; sadly weak
and tremulous old man, with sinking hands
and dim, uncertain eyes. But, when they
were placed upon those yellow keys the
shaking hands shake no longer the feeble
sight finds no labor in the well remembered
pages. Under the touch of Michael Fray s
deft fingers, the ancient organ becomes in
stinct with life and harmony. The grand
old masters lend their noblest strains, and,
could they revisit the earth, need ask no
better interpreter.
From the saddest wall of sorrow to sweet
eSG VI CliS ulISC VI
the loved and lost to the pean of the jubi-
liant victor-each shade OF human passion,
each tender message of divine encourage
ment, takes form and color in succession,
under the magic of that old mans touch.
Thus, sometimes borrowing the songs of
other singers, sometimes wandering into
quaint Eolian harmonies, the spontaneous
overflow of his own genius, Michael Fray
sat and made music, charming the sorrow to
temporary sleep.
Time crept on, but the player needed it
not, till the heavy bell in the tower above
his head doomed forth the hour of midnight
and called him to reality again. With two
or three wailing minor chords he brought
his wierd improvisation to an end.
"Dear me-" he said with heavy sigh,
" Christmas again Christmas again ! How
many times I wonder will this be the last ?
and yet Christmas comes again and finds me
here still, all alone. First poor Dick ; and
then my darling Alice and little Nell-all
taken And here am I-old and friendless
and yet live ON. Well, suppose God
knows best! p"
While thus thinking aloud, the old man
was apparently searching for something
among his music books, and now prduced
an ancient page of manuscript, worn almost
to fragments, but pasted for preservation on
a piece OF paper OF later date.
eyes, here it is-poor Dicks Christmas
song! What sweet voice he had, dear
boy If he had only ived-but there
I'm murmuring again. Gods will be
done ;"
He placed the music on the desk before
him, and, after moments pause, began in
tender, fiute-Iik tones to play the melody,
at the same time grooming the words in a
feeble voice. He played one verse of the
song, then stopped and drew his sleeve
across his eyes.
The sense of his desolation appeared to
come anew upon him he seemed to shrink
down, doubly old, doubly feeble, doubly
|forsaken--when 10! a marvel! Suddenly
from the lonely street, in that chill mid
night, came the sound of violin, and a
sweet voice singing the self-same tender air
the song written by his dead and gone
brother forty years before.
The effect on Michael Fray was electrical.
For moment he staggered, but caught at
the keyboard before him and held it with a
convulsive grasp.
cam dreaming or are my senses leaving
me? Poor Dicks Christmas carol and
could almost swear the voice is my own
Nellie's Can this be death at last, and are
the angels welcoming me home with the
song I love So dearly? No, surely either
I am going, or that is real, living voice.
But whose-whose? Heaven help me to
find out !"
And with his whole frame quivering with
excitement-without pausing even to close
the organ or to extinguish his Pickering can
die, the old mon groped his way down the
= IL