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THE MAN WITH THE PAN-PIPES _AND OTHER STORIES_
BY MRS. MOLESWORTH
ILLUSTRATED BY W. J. MORGAN
Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge
LONDON
Northumberland Avenue W.C.
NEW YORK
E & J.B. YOUNG & Co
LONDON:
ENGRAVED AND PRINTED BY EDMUND EVANS
RACQUET-CT., FLEET-ST., E.C.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
THE MAN WITH THE PAN-PIPES 7
PIG-BETTY 30
THE DORMOUSE'S MISTAKE 51
THE CHRISTMAS GUEST 59
OLIVE'S TEA-PARTY 67
A LIVE DUMMY 76
A QUEER HIDING-PLACE 83
BLUE FROCKS AND PINK FROCKS 90
THE MAN WITH THE PAN-PIPES
[Illustration: The man with the Pan-pipes.]
CHAPTER I.
When I was a little girl, which is now a good many years ago, there
came to spend some time with us a cousin who had been brought up in
Germany. She was almost grown-up--to me, a child of six or seven, she
seemed _quite_ grown-up; in reality, she was, I suppose, about fifteen
or sixteen. She was a bright, kind, good-natured girl, very anxious to
please and amuse her little English cousins, especially me, as I was
the only girl. But she had not had much to do with small children;
above all, delicate children, and she was so strong and hearty herself
that she did not understand anything about nervous fears and fancies.
I think I was rather delicate, at least, I was very fanciful; and as I
was quiet and gave very little trouble, nobody noticed how constantly
I was reading, generally in a corner by myself. I now see that I read
far too many stories, for even of good and harmless things it is
possible to have too much. In those days, fortunately for me, there
were not nearly so many books for children, so, as I read very fast, I
was often obliged to read the same stories over and over again. This
was much better for me than always getting new tales and galloping
through them, as I see many children do now-a-days, but still I think
I lived too much in story-book world, and it was well for me when
other things forced me to become more, what is called, "practical."
My cousin Meta was full of life and activity, and after awhile she
grew tired of always finding me buried in my books.
"It isn't good for you, Addie," she said. "Such a dot as you are, to
be always poking about in a corner reading."
She was quite right, and when mamma's attention was drawn to it she
agreed with Meta, and I was given some pretty fancy-work to do and
some new dolls to dress, and, above all, I was made to play about in
the garden a good deal more. It was not much of a garden, for our home
was then in a town, still it was better than being indoors. And very
often when kind Meta saw me looking rather forlorn, for I got quickly
tired with outdoor games, she would come and sit with me in the
arbour, or walk about--up and down a long gravel path there
was--telling me stories.
That was her great charm for me. She was really splendid at telling
stories. And as hitherto she had only done me good, and mamma knew
what a sensible girl she was, Meta was left free to tell me what
stories she chose. They were all nice stories, most of them very
interesting. But some were rather too exciting for such a tiny mite as
I was. Meta had read and heard quantities of German fairy-tales and
legends, many of which I think had not then been printed in
books--certainly not in English books. For since I have been grown-up
I have come across several stories of the kind which seemed new to
most readers, though I remember my cousin telling them to me long,
long ago.
[Illustration: Tales of Gnomes & Kobolds]
There were wonderful tales of gnomes and kobolds, of the strange
adventures of the charcoal-burners in lonely forests, of water-sprites
and dwarfs. But none of all these made quite as great an impression on
me as one which Meta called "The Man with the Pan-pipes," a story
which, much to my surprise, I found years after in a well-known poem
called "The Pied Piper of Hamelin." It was the very same story as to
the facts, with just a few differences; for instance, the man in the
poem is not described as playing on _pan-pipes_, but on some other
kind of pipe. But though it is really the same, it seems quite, quite
different from the story as I heard it long ago. In the poem there is
a wonderful brightness and liveliness, and now and then even fun,
which were all absent in Meta's tale. As she told it, it was strangely
dark and mysterious. I shall never forget how I used to shiver when
she came to the second visit of the piper, and described how the
children slowly and unwillingly followed him--how he used to turn
round now and then with a glance in his grim face which made the
squeal of the pipes still more unearthly. There was no beauty in his
music, no dancing steps were the children's whom he dragged along by
his power; "they just _had_ to go," Meta would say. And when she came
to the mysterious ending, my questions were always the same.
"Are they still there--shut up in the cave?" I would ask.
Meta supposed so.
"Will they never come out--never, never?" I said.
She shook her head.
"And if they ever did," I said, "would they be grown-up people, or
quite old like--like that man you were telling me about. Rip--Rip--"
"Rip van Winkle," she said.
"Yes, like Rip van Winkle, or would they have _stayed_ children like
the boy the fairies took inside the hill to be their servant?"
Meta considered.
"I almost _think_," she said, seriously, "they would have stayed
children. But, of course, it's only a story, Addie. I don't suppose
it's true. You take things up so. Don't go on puzzling about it."
I would leave off speaking about it for the time; I was so dreadfully
afraid of her saying she would not tell it me again. And even though I
knew it quite well, and could correct Meta if ever she made any part
of it the least different, I was never tired of hearing the story. I
would ask for it over and over again, and I used to have exactly the
same feelings each time she told it, and always at the part where the
children began to come out of their houses, some leaving their
dinners, some tiny ones waking up out of their sleep, some only
half-dressed, but all with the same strange look on their faces, I
used to catch hold of Meta's hand and say to her, "Hold me fast, I'm
so afraid of fancying I hear him," and then she would burst out
laughing at me, and I would laugh at myself. For she was far too kind
a girl to think of frightening me, and, indeed, except for a curious
"coincidence"--to use a very long word which means something of the
same kind as another thing happening at or about the same time--I do
not think the story would have really taken hold of my fancy as it
did.
One of my questions Meta was not able for some time to answer to my
satisfaction.
[Illustration: and Dwarfs]
"What are Pan-pipes?" I asked. The word "pipe" was so mixed up in my
mind with white clay pipes, out of which we used to blow soap bubbles,
that I could not understand it having to do with any kind of music.
"Oh," said Meta, "they're made of reeds, you know, all in a row like
this," and she held up her fingers to her lips, "and you play them by
whistling along them, do you see? It sounds something like when you
fasten tissue-paper on a comb and blow along it. And they're called
'Pan'-pipes because--oh, I forgot, of course you haven't learnt
mythology yet--'Pan' was one of the old pagan gods, a sort of fairy or
wood sprite, you know, Addie, and the pictures and figures of him
always show him playing on these reed pipes!"
I said "Yes," but I didn't really understand her description. It left
a queer jumble in my head, and added to the strange, dreamy medley
already there. But, though it was not till years afterwards that I
learnt about "Pan," before Meta left us I was able to see for myself a
set of his "pipes."