Fiddler

“ She continued to wend her way through the figure of 8 that was formed by her course, the fiddler introducing into his notes the wild and agonizing sweetness of a living voice in one too highly wrought; its pathos running high and running low in endless variation, projecting through her nerves excruciating spasms, a sort of blissful torture. The room swam, the tune was endless; and in about a quarter of an hour the only other woman in the figure dropped out exhausted, and sank panting on a bench.
The reel instantly resolved itself into a four-handed one. ”

“ Matthew Wilmart was the best fiddler in the city of Hesdin. There was no village for ten miles round, where they would have enjoyed their dancing, if any one but Matthew Wilmart fingered the violin for them. ”

“ It was a strange thing for the homeless fiddler to find himself the object of affectionate care and solicitude—to feel, when he woke up in the morning, no anxiety about the day’s success. He could not have found a better home. Naturally attractive, and without serious faults, Phil soon won his way to the hearts of the good doctor and his wife. The house seemed brighter for his presence, and the void in the heart of the bereaved mother was partially filled. Her lost Walter would have been of the same age as Phil, had he lived. ”

“ Our manners, however, are changed, and neither the fiddler nor the dancing-master possesses the fine mellow tints nor that depth of colouring which formerly brought them and their rich household associations home at once to the heart.
One of the most amusing specimens of the dancing-master that I ever met, was the person alluded to at the close of my paper on the Irish Fiddler, under the nickname of Buckram-Back. This man had been a drummer in the army for some time, where he had learned to play the fiddle ”

“ Also the Poetry Society of South Carolina, which awarded the poem “Oberammergau” the Blindman Prize for 1923.
“Fiddler’s Farewell” was read at the College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Va., before the Alpha Chapter of the Phi Beta Kappa at the author’s initiation as a member of that Society. ”

“ The saltatory tendency which the fiddler and his cunning instrument had ever been able to start in her was seizing Car'line just as it had done in earlier years, possibly assisted by the gin-and-beer hot. Tired as she was she grasped her little girl by the hand, and plunging in at the bottom of the figure, whirled about with the rest. She found that her companions were mostly people of the neighbouring hamlets and farms—Bloom's End, Mellstock, Lewgate, and elsewhere ”

“ It'll be a poor season, Brian MacConnell.
BRIAN
The season's not so bad, after all.
CONN God help them that are depending on the land and the weather for the bit they put into their heads. It's no wonder that the people here are the sort they are, harassed, anxious people.
ANNE The people here mind their own business, and they're a friendly people besides.
CONN People that would leave the best fiddler at the fair to go and look at a bullock.
ANNE (to Brian) He's not satisfied to have this shelter, Brian. ”

“ As to wizards and devils, if I meet any, they shall dance to the sound of my violin. They will tell me if the musicians in hell play a better fiddle than old Matthew Wilmart.'
In finishing these words, which made the young people laugh, and the old men shake their heads in displeasure, he enveloped himself in his cloak, and set out at a firm pace on the path which led through the forest to Hesdin. ”

“ But Fiddle was not sailing celluloid fish. Columbus-like she had decided that there were wider seas than the water pan. Once upon a time [Pg 187] her grandmother had taken her to the bottom of the hill, and at the bottom of the hill there had been a lot of water, and Fiddle had walked in it with her bare feet, and had splashed. She had liked it much better than the chickens' pan.
So she had picked up her three celluloid fish and had trotted down the path. She wore her pink rompers, and as she bobbed along she was like a mammoth rose-petal blown by the wind. ”

“ Some weeks later Fiddles came into my room, locked the door, pulled down the shades, looked under the bed, in the closet and behind the curtains, and sat down in front of me. (I had to return to Munich the next day, and this would be our last night together.)
“You have been very good to me, Master,’ he said with a choke in his voice. ‘I love people who are good to me; I hate those who are not. ”

“ It would never have occurred to Fiddle-John to take a critical view of anybody; he approved of all humanity in general, only he had an intuitive suspicion when anyone was making fun of him, and in such cases he found safety only in flight and silence.
By profession Fiddle-John was a ballad-singer; a queer profession, you will say, but nevertheless one which in Norway enjoys a certain recognition. He had a voice which the angels might have envied him—a clear and sweet tenor which rang through the depths of the listener’s soul. ”

“ Fiddle-John and his children and a thousand other poorly clad people from all parts of the world were carried by little steam-tugs to a large building by the water, where there was a babel of noise and confusion. Everybody was shouting at the top of his voice; children were crying, women hunting for their husbands, husbands hunting for their baggage; policemen were pushing back the crowd of screaming hotel-runners who were besieging the doors, and an official, standing on the top of a barrel, was yelling instructions to the emigrants in half a dozen different languages. ”

“ If Jerry could have caught Nettie's eye just then he would have made a significant gesture; the store by Crossman's made tobacco and liquor its chief trade. So a fiddle was one of the things used to draw the boys into it!
"Is a fiddle the only kind of music you like?" Jerry had been accustomed to calling it a violin, but the instinct of true politeness which was marked in him, made him say fiddle just now as Norm had done.
"Oh! I like anything that whistles a tune!" said Norm. "I've gone a rod out of my way to hear a jew's-harp many a time; even an old hand-organ sounds nice to me. ”

“ They denied having taken it, so he had to depart, leaving his fiddle behind him. The chief's son, being a musician, used to play on the Jogi's fiddle, and in his hands the music it gave forth delighted the ears of all who heard it. [44]
When all the household were absent at their labours in the fields, the Bonga girl used to come out of the bamboo fiddle, and prepared the family meal. Having eaten her own share, she placed that of the chief's son under his bed, and covering it up to keep off the dust, re-entered the fiddle. ”

“ In 1858 Fiddletown considered her a very pretty woman. She had a quantity of light chestnut hair, a good figure, a dazzling complexion, and a certain languid grace which passed easily for gentlewomanliness. She always dressed becomingly, and in what Fiddletown accepted as the latest fashion. She had only two blemishes: one of her velvety eyes, when examined closely, had a slight cast; and her left cheek bore a small scar left by a single drop of vitriol—happily the only drop of an entire phial—thrown upon her by one of her own jealous sex, that reached the pretty face it was intended to mar. ”

“ He turned quickly at the sound of their steps and grinned in jovial greeting as he saw Fiddle-Hans.
"Good morning, Mr. Host," said the musician. "Fine doings have you had here the night!"
"He held the letter at arm's length."
"Students' tricks, students' tricks," said the host, suddenly uncomfortable, and slouching back into the kitchen as he spoke. His small eyes blinked furtively away from the sight of the mail-bag, which Fiddle-Hans now heaved on the table. "Bah!" pursued he, "I knew nothing! I busy not my head over gentry's doings or students' pranks. I go to sleep. ”

“ Jens Skoug, the emigration agent, translated the remark; and as the American seemed to have more to say to Fiddle-John, offered his services as interpreter.
“What is your trade?” asked the gentleman.
“I sing and play,” said Fiddle-John.
“But I mean, how do you make your living?” repeated his questioner.
“By singing and playing,” said Fiddle-John.
“You won’t make much of a living by that in America; people won’t understand you, unless you sing in English,” remarked the American.
It had actually never before occurred to Fiddle-John that his songs would be unintelligible in America. ”

“ In fact, it is Fiddle-John’s favorite occupation to hope and dream about the future of his sons.
During the long summer afternoons he sits in the shadow of the vines, outside of his cottage, while his daughter reads aloud to him from the old Norse ballad books which he yet loves so dearly. And it happens very frequently, then, that the young ladies and gentlemen who are visiting at the neighboring villas come, in a company, and beg him to sing to them. They throw themselves down in easy attitudes upon the soft, close-trimmed lawn ”

“ I started on the run, Gretchen and the good landlady close behind. If the Rudesheimer had upset Fiddles it had worked very slowly; maybe it had revived an old conquered thirst, and the cheap cognac at the public-house was the result. That he was not a man of humble birth, nor one without home refinements, I had long since divined. Had I not suspected it before, his manner in presenting me to the old Baroness, and his behavior in the dining-hall, especially toward the servants, would have opened my eyes. How then could such a man in an hour become so besotted a brute? ”

“ Richard Caramel's face, Anthony saw, was now quite normal. The brow and cheeks were of a flesh color, the nose politely inconspicuous. He had fixed his aunt with the bright-yellow eye, giving her that acute and exaggerated attention that young males are accustomed to render to all females who are of no further value.
"Are you a writer too, Mr. Pats? ... Well, perhaps we can all bask in Richard's fame."—Gentle laughter led by Mrs. Gilbert.
"Gloria's out," she said, with an air of laying down an axiom from which she would proceed to derive results. "She's dancing somewhere. ”

“ Fiddle-John and his family lived in a little cottage close up under the mountain-side, where the sun did not reach until late in the afternoon. In the winter they were sometimes snowed down so completely that they had to work until noon before they could get a glimpse of the sky. The two boys, Alf and Truls, would go early in the morning with their snow-shovels and dig a tunnel to the cow-stable, where a lonely cow, a pig, and three sheep were penned up. ”

“ An English officer, the last of his retiring countrymen, was attracted by the sight of a woman weeping over he body of a fallen man, and approached them. In a few words Fitzgerald explained his situation to this gentleman, and exacted a pledge from him to guard his Julia, in safety, to his mother in England.
The stranger promised everything the dying husband required, and by the time death had closed the eyes of Fitzgerald, he had procured from some peasants a rude conveyance, into which the body, with, its almost equally lifeless widow, were placed. ”

“ I want you to promise me you’ll take me home to America with you when you go. I’m tired dodging these people. I want to get somewhere where I can shoot and hunt and fish, and nobody can stop me. I snared that rabbit; been snaring them all summer; going to keep on snaring them after you’re gone. I love to hunt them—love the fun of it—born that way. And I’ve got something else to tell you’—here a triumphant smile flashed over his face—‘I smashed that cobbler!’
“‘You, Fiddles!’ I laughed. ”

“ She was driven to her last defences, and sore beset. “It air a fiddle,” she said, slowly, at last, and with an air of conscientious admission, as if she had had half a mind to deny it. “A fiddle the thing air.” Then, as she collected her thoughts, “Brother Pete Vickers 'lows ez he sees no special sin in playin' the fiddle. He 'lows ez in some kentries—I disremember whar—they plays on 'em in church, quirin' an' hymn chunes an' sech.” ”

“ I had sent Fidette to her cabin with the solemn injunction that she must be prepared for death. She proved to be a very brave and heroic little woman. She bade me farewell in a tender and affectionate manner, wholly different from the well-remembered parting with the trombone player, as he went over the side of the ship to a death that she knew was prepared for him. I felt that I detected real affection in the playful twist she gave to a lock of my hair that hung down over my forehead.
Every man’s experience fits his own vanity! ”

“ You will recognise the individual at once when I tell you that his name is—Fitzgerald.'
'Fitzgerald!' I repeated. 'Fitzgerald! —can it be Fitzgerald the duellist?'
'Upon my word you have hit it,' replied he, laughing; 'but you have accompanied the discovery with a look of horror more tragic than appropriate. He is not the monster you take him for—he has a good deal of old Irish pride; his temper is hasty, and he has been unfortunately thrown in the way of men who have not made allowance for these things. ”

“ If Fiddle-Hans were surprised at his own success, it was only the humorous twitch of his eyebrows that betrayed the fact. He was of those, apparently, whose talent for seizing opportunities would almost evoke the belief that they have created them.
"Comrades should share and share alike," said he presently, laying down Steven's brush, which he had been wielding dexterously on his own wild locks—"lend me a black riband for my queue—it is out of mode, but I am of the old stock. ”