[Illustration: BIRTHPLACE OF JOSEPH HAYDEN IN ROHRAU.
The house still exists and is very little changed. The windows to the right, the fence and the grass plot have disappeared. There is now a bench under the windows at the left, and a rudely executed tablet inserted in the wall.
Beethoven, on his deathbed, showed this picture to Hummel, saying with great emotion: "See, dear Hummel, this is a present I received to-day and it gives me a childish pleasure."]
Presently Haydn's doom was sealed. One day, in a spirit of mischief, he cut off the pigtail of a fellow student and was sentenced by Reuter to be whipped on the hand with a cane. Haydn pleaded, wept, and remonstrated, but in vain; and at last he declared that he would sooner leave the cathedral than suffer so humiliating and cruel an outrage. Reuter cynically retorted that he had no objection to the alternative, "but you shall be caned just the same, and then you can pack off, bag and baggage as soon as you see fit"; and so Haydn was punished and then sent forth into the streets of Vienna without a penny and with attire so worn and dirty that he was ashamed to be seen. The world was now before him and his outlook was dreary and discouraging enough. He was friendless, without prospects and did not know which way to turn to make either. He could return to Rohrau, where he was sure of a warm and tender welcome from his parents, but he would not burden their scanty means with his support, and besides, he had resolved to succeed by the talent that, from the first, he "knew was in him." His life at the school had inured him to privation and hunger, and if he could only earn enough to keep soul and body together he would be content. His departure from his late home took place on a stormy November evening, and he walked the streets all night hopelessly. Sunrise found him still wandering and ready to faint with hunger and fatigue. Utter despair had seized on him when he chanced to meet with one Spangler, a chorister at St. Michael's, whose acquaintance he had made some time before. The singer found it hard to win enough bread for himself and his wife and child, but he took pity on the unfortunate boy and offered him the shelter of the miserable attic in which he lived with his family. Haydn gratefully accepted the kindness, and dwelt with his benefactor through the winter, suffering, with him, cold and hunger. During this sad time, the boy's courage faltered for the first time and his natural buoyancy of spirits was dulled. He thought of finding some less precarious means of earning enough to eat and drink and to clothe himself than music presented, and for a moment he turned his back on the art he loved so well; but it was only for a moment. His instinct reasserted itself and once more he turned resolutely toward music, and never again did he falter in his determination to devote himself heart and soul to it.