No one in Ullerud could say anything of fiddler Lars Larsson but that he
was both meek and modest in his later years. But he had not always been
thus, it seems. In his youth he had been so overbearing and boastful
that people were in despair about him. It is said that he was changed
and made over in a single night, and this is the way it happened.
Lars Larsson went out for a stroll late one Saturday night, with his
fiddle under his arm. He was excessively gay and jovial, for he had just
come from a party where his playing had tempted both young and old to
dance. He walked along, thinking that while his bow was in motion no one
had been able to sit still. There had been such a whirl in the cabin
that once or twice he fancied the chairs and tables were dancing too! "I
verily believe they have never before had a musician like me in these
parts," he remarked to himself. "But I had a mighty rough time of it
before I became such a clever chap!" he continued. "When I was a child,
it was no fun for me when my parents put me to tending cows and sheep
and when I forgot everything else to sit and twang my fiddle. And just
fancy! they wouldn't so much as give me a real violin. I had nothing to
play on but an old wooden box over which I had stretched some strings.
In the daytime, when I could be alone in the woods, I fared rather well;
but it was none too cheerful to come home in the evening when the cattle
had strayed from me! Then I heard often enough, from both father and
mother, that I was a good-for-nothing and never would amount to
anything."
In that part of the forest where Lars Larsson was strolling a little
river was trying to find its way. The ground was stony and hilly, and
the stream had great difficulty in getting ahead, winding this way and
that way, rolling over little falls and rapids--and yet it appeared to
get nowhere. The path where the fiddler walked, on the other hand, tried
to go as straight ahead as possible. Therefore it was continually
meeting the sinuous stream, and each time it would dart across it by
using a little bridge. The musician also had to cross the stream
repeatedly, and he was glad of it. He thought it was as though he had
found company in the forest.
Where he was tramping it was light summer-night. The sun had not yet
come up, but its being away made no difference, for it was as light as
day all the same.
Still the light was not quite what it is in the daytime. Everything had
a different color. The sky was perfectly white, the trees and the
growths on the ground were grayish, but everything was as distinctly
visible as in the daytime, and when Lars Larsson paused on any of the
numerous bridges and looked down into the stream, he could distinguish
every ripple on the water.
"When I see a stream like this in the wilderness," he thought, "I am
reminded of my own life. As persistent as this stream have I been in
forcing my way past all that has obstructed my path. Father has been my
rock ahead, and mother tried to hold me back and bury me between
moss-tufts, but I stole past both of them and got out in the world.
Hay-ho, hi, hi! I think mother is still sitting at home and weeping for
me. But what do I care! She might have known that I should amount to
something some day, instead of trying to oppose me!"
Impatiently he tore some leaves from a branch and threw them into the
river.
"Look! thus have I torn myself loose from everything at home," he said,
as he watched the leaves borne away by the water. "I am just wondering
if mother knows that I'm the best musician in Vermland?" he remarked as
he went farther.
He walked on rapidly until he came across the stream again. Then he
stopped and looked into the water.
Here the river went along in a struggling rapid, creating a terrible
racket. As it was night, one heard from the stream sounds quite
different from those of the daytime, and the musician was perfectly
astonished when he stood still and listened. There was no bird song in
the trees and no music in the pines and no rustling in the leaves. No
wagon wheels creaked in the road and no cow-bells tinkled in the wood.
One heard only the rapid; but because all the other things were hushed,
it could be heard so much better than during the day. It sounded as
though everything thinkable and unthinkable was rioting and clamoring in
the depths of the stream. First, it sounded as if some one were sitting
down there and grinding grain between stones, and then it sounded as
though goblets were clinking in a drinking-bout; and again there was a
murmuring, as when the congregation had left the church and were
standing on the church knoll after the service, talking earnestly
together.
"I suppose this, too, is a kind of music," thought the fiddler,
"although I can't find anything much in it! I think the air that I
composed the other day was much more worth listening to."
But the longer Lars Larsson listened to the music of the rapid, the
better he thought it sounded.
"I believe you are improving," he said to the rapid. "It must have
dawned upon you that the best musician in Vermland is listening to you!"
The instant he had made this remark, he fancied he heard a couple of
clear metallic sounds, as when some one picks a violin string to hear if
it is in tune.
"But see, hark! The Water-Sprite himself has arrived. I can hear how he
begins to thrum on the violin. Let us hear now if you can play better
than I!" said Lars Larsson, laughing. "But I can't stand here all night
waiting for you to begin," he called to the water. "Now I must be going;
but I promise you that I will also stop at the next bridge and listen,
to hear if you can cope with me."
He went farther and, as the stream in its winding course ran into the
wood, he began thinking once more of his home.
"I wonder how the little brooklet that runs by our house is getting on?
I should like to see it again. I ought to go home once in a while, to
see if mother is suffering want and hardship since father's death. But
busy as I am, it is almost impossible. As busy as I am just now, I say,
I can't look after anything but the fiddle. There is hardly an evening
in the week that I am at liberty."
In a little while he met the stream again, and his thoughts were turned
to something else. At this crossing the river did not come rushing on in
a noisy rapid, but glided ahead rather quietly. It lay perfectly black
and shiny under the night-gray forest trees, and carried with it one and
another patch of snow-white scum from the rapids above.
When the musician came down upon the bridge and heard no sound from the
stream but a soft swish now and then, he began to laugh.
"I might have known that the Water-Sprite wouldn't care to come to the
meeting," he shouted. "To be sure, I have always heard that he is
considered an excellent performer, but one who lies still forever in a
brook and never hears anything new can't know very much! He perceives,
no doubt, that here stands one who knows more about music than he,
therefore he doesn't care to let me hear him."
Then he went farther and lost sight of the river again. He came into a
part of the forest which he had always thought dismal and bleak to
wander through. There the ground was covered with big stone heaps, and
gnarled pine stumps lay uprooted among them. If there was anything
magical or fearsome in the forest, one would naturally think that it
concealed itself here.
When the musician came in among the wild stone blocks, a shudder passed
through him, and he began to wonder if it had not been unwise of him to
boast in the presence of the Water-Sprite. He fancied the large pine
roots began to gesticulate, as if they were threatening him. "Beware,
you who think yourself cleverer than the Water-Sprite!" it seemed as if
they wanted to say.
Lars Larsson felt how his heart contracted with dread. A heavy weight
bore down upon his chest, so that he could scarcely breathe, and his
hands became ice-cold. Then he stopped in the middle of the wood and
tried to talk sense to himself.
"Why, there's no musician in the waterfall!" said he. "Such things are
only superstition and nonsense! It's of no consequence what I have said
or haven't said to him."
As he spoke, he looked around him, as if for some confirmation of the
truth of what he said. Had it been daytime, every tiny leaf would have
winked at him that there was nothing dangerous in the wood; but now, at
night, the leaves on the trees were closed and silent and looked as
though they were hiding all sorts of dangerous secrets.
Lars Larsson grew more and more alarmed. That which caused him the
greatest fear was having to cross the stream once more before it and the
road parted company and went in different directions. He wondered what
the Water-Sprite would do to him when he walked across the last
bridge--if he might perhaps stretch a big black hand out of the water
and drag him down into the depths.
He had worked himself into such a state of fright that he thought of
turning back. But then he would meet the stream again. And if he were to
turn out of the road and go into the wood, he would also meet it, the
way it kept bending and winding itself!
He felt so nervous that he didn't know what to do. He was snared and
captured and bound by that stream, and saw no possibility of escape.
Finally he saw before him the last bridge crossing. Directly opposite
him, on the other side of the stream, stood an old mill, which must have
been abandoned these many years. The big mill-wheel hung motionless over
the water. The sluice-gate lay mouldering on the land; the mill-race was
moss-grown, and its sides were lined with common fern and beard-moss.
"If all had been as formerly and there were people here," thought the
musician, "I should be safe now from all danger."
But, at all events, he felt reassured in seeing a building constructed
by human hands, and, as he crossed the stream, he was scarcely
frightened at all. Nor did anything dreadful happen to him. The
Water-Sprite seemed to have no quarrel with him. He was simply amazed to
think he had worked himself into a panic over nothing whatever.
He felt very happy and secure, and became even happier when the mill
door opened and a young girl came out to him. She looked like an
ordinary peasant girl. She had a cotton kerchief on her head and wore a
short skirt and full jacket, but her feet were bare.
She walked up to the musician and said to him without further ceremony,
"If you will play for me, I'll dance for you."
"Why, certainly," said the fiddler, who was in fine spirits now that he
was rid of his fear. "That I can do, of course. I have never in my life
refused to play for a pretty girl who wants to dance."
He took his place on a stone near the edge of the mill-pond, raised the
violin to his chin, and began to play.
The girl took a few steps in rhythm with the music; then she stopped.
"What kind of a polka are you playing?" said she. "There is no vim in
it."
The fiddler changed his tune; he tried one with more life in it.
The girl was just as dissatisfied. "I can't dance to such a draggy
polka," said she.
Then Lars Larsson struck up the wildest air he knew. "If you are not
satisfied with this one," he said, "you will have to call hither a
better musician than I am."
The instant he said this, he felt that a hand caught his arm at the
elbow and began to guide the bow and increase the tempo. Then from the
violin there poured forth a strain the like of which he had never before
heard. It moved in such a quick tempo he thought that a rolling wheel
couldn't have kept up with it.
"Now, that's what I call a polka!" said the girl, and began to swing
round.
But the musician did not glance at her. He was so astonished at the air
he was playing that he stood with closed eyes, to hear better. When he
opened them after a moment, the girl was gone. But he did not wonder
much at this. He continued to play on, long and well, only because he
had never before heard such violin playing.
"It must be time now to finish with this," he thought finally, and
wanted to lay down the bow. But the bow kept up its motion; he couldn't
make it stop. It travelled back and forth over the strings and jerked
the hand and arm with it; and the hand that held the neck of the violin
and fingered the strings could not free itself, either.
The cold sweat stood out on Lars Larsson's brow, and he was frightened
now in earnest.
"How will this end? Shall I sit here and play till doomsday?" he asked
himself in despair.
The bow ran on and on, and magically called forth one tune after
another. Always it was something new, and it was so beautiful that the
poor fiddler must have known how little his own skill was worth. And it
was this that tortured him worse than the fatigue.
"He who plays upon my violin understands the art. But never in all my
born days have I been anything but a bungler. Now for the first time I'm
learning how music should sound."
For a few seconds he became so transported by the music that he forgot
his evil fate; then he felt how his arm ached from weariness and he was
seized anew with despair.
"This violin I cannot lay down until I have played myself to death. I
can understand that the Water-Sprite won't be satisfied with less."
He began to weep over himself, but all the while he kept on playing.
"It would have been better for me had I stayed at home in the little
cabin with mother. What is all the glory worth if it is to end in this
way?"
He sat there hour after hour. Morning came on, the sun rose, and the
birds sang all around him; but he played and he played, without
intermission.
As it was a Sunday that dawned, he had to sit there by the old mill all
alone. No human beings tramped in this part of the forest. They went to
church down in the dale, and to the villages along the big highway.
Forenoon came along, and the sun stepped higher and higher in the sky.
The birds grew silent, and the wind began to murmur in the long pine
needles.
Lars Larsson did not let the summer day's heat deter him. He played and
played. At last evening was ushered in, the sun sank, but his bow needed
no rest, and his arm continued to move.
"It is absolutely certain that this will be the death of me!" said he.
"And it is a righteous punishment for all my conceit."
Far along in the evening a human being came wandering through the wood.
It was a poor old woman with bent back and white hair, and a countenance
that was furrowed by many sorrows.
"It seems strange," thought the player, "but I think I recognize that
old woman. Can it be possible that it is my mother? Can it be possible
that mother has grown so old and gray?"
He called aloud and stopped her. "Mother, mother, come here to me!" he
cried.
She paused, as if unwillingly. "I hear now with my own ears that you are
the best musician in Vermland," said she. "I can well understand that
you do not care any more for a poor old woman like me!"
"Mother, mother, don't pass me by!" cried Lars Larsson. "I'm no great
performer--only a poor wretch. Come here that I may speak with you!"
Then the mother came nearer and saw how he sat and played. His face was
as pale as death, his hair dripped sweat, and blood oozed out from under
the roots of his nails.
"Mother, I have fallen into misfortune because of my vanity, and now I
must play myself to death. But tell me, before this happens, if you can
forgive me, who left you alone and poor in your old age!"
His mother was seized with a great compassion for the son, and all the
anger she had felt toward him was as if blown away. "Why, surely I
forgive you!" said she. And as she saw his anguish and bewilderment and
wanted him to understand that she meant what she said, she repeated it
in the name of God.
"In the name of God our Redeemer, I forgive you!"
And when she said this, the bow stopped, the violin fell to the ground,
and the musician arose saved and redeemed. For the enchantment was
broken, because his old mother had felt such compassion for his distress
that she had spoken God's name over him.