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Who could refuse our wounded? There is no bell-master in our department; and only one bell-mistress.... To find anyone else to play the Nivelle carillon one would have to pierce the barbarians’ lines and search the ruins of Flanders for a Beiaardier a Klokkenist, as they call a carillonneur in the low countries.... But the Mayor asked it, and our wounded are waiting.
The old man straightened his bent shoulders a little proudly. "For thirty years, m’sieu, I have been Carillonneur of Sainte Lesse." He smiled; then, saddened, he held out both hands toward Burley. The fingers were stiff and crippled with rheumatism. "No more," he said slowly; "the carillon is ended for me. The great art is no more for Jean Courtray, Master of Bells."
The old carillonneur, Jean Courtray, began to speak in a low voice of his art, his profession, and of the great carillon of forty-six bells in the ancient tower of Sainte Lesse. A carillon, he explained, is a company of fixed bells tuned according to the chromatic scale and ranging through several octaves.
These bells, rising tier above tier in a belfry, the smallest highest, the great, ponderous bells of the bass notes lowest, are not free to swing, but are fixed to huge beams, and are sounded by clappers connected by a wilderness of wires to a keyboard which is played upon by the bell-master or carillonneur.
All Sainte Lesse came to its doorways to listen to the playing of their beloved Carillonnette; the bell-music ebbed and swelled under the stars; the ancient Flemish masterpiece, written by some carillonneur whose bones had long been dust, became magnificently vital again under the enchanted hands of the little mistress of the bells.
"What is a carillon?" inquired John Burley simply. Blank incredulity was succeeded by a shocked expression on the old man’s visage. After a silence, in mild and patient protest, he said: "I am Jean Courtray, Carillonneur of Sainte Lesse.... Have you never heard of the carillon of Sainte Lesse, or of me?" "Never," said Burley. "We don’t have anything like that in America."
"Monsieur," he went on in a voice which began to grow a little unsteady, "the Huns have destroyed the ancient carillons of Louvain and of Mechlin. In the superb bell-tower of Saint Rombold I have played for a thousand people; and the Carillonneur, Monsieur Vincent, and the great bell-master, Josef Denyn, have come to me to congratulate me with tears in their eyes in their eyes "
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