Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 56, No. 346, August, 1844

"Now it happened that Twirling-stick Mike held a christening, and he not only asked the Dwarf as a guest to the feast, but actually went so far as to invite the creature to stand godfather to his child. Klaus was mightily pleased with the honour, and behaved like a gentleman on the occasion. He made his godson a handsome present, and promised to do a good deal more for him, stipulating only that the child, being a boy, should be named Nicholas after himself.

"There was a merry party at the christening, and at first matters went on smoothly and comfortably enough; but as the eating, and drinking, and dancing advanced, quips and cranks became very plentiful, and the greater number, as might be expected, were flung, and not very lightly, at the head of poor Stringstriker. The fiddler for a time received his cuffs very manfully—but they grew intolerable at last. First, his legs were criticised—then his lank withered arms; even his fiddling was disparaged, and he himself pronounced highly indecorous, because he persisted in smoking his pipe all the while he scraped.

"'Klaus, Klaus!' said the master of the house, his sides shaking with laughter, 'if you don't forswear smoking this very instant, your sponsorship sha'n't stand. As sure as my name is Twirling-stick Mike, I won't allow it; and the boy shall be called Michael after his father.'

"Klaus laughed too, went on smoking, and tuned his fiddle.

"'Did you hear what I said, you bandy-legged Dwarf-piper?' bawled Simon, in continuation.

"Klaus laid his fiddle aside.

"'Gossip!' said he, in a tone of meaning, 'keep within bounds—within bounds, I say—and don't force me for once to fiddle to an ugly tune. I am your boy's godfather; his name is Klaus, and Klaus he shall be called amongst my children!'

"The whole company simultaneously broke out into loud laughter, and exclaimed with one voice—

"'Amongst his children!'

"'Why, where have you left your respectable better-half, then?' asked Simon, 'and what wench ever gave herself up to two such noble shanks?

Where, in Heaven's name, Klaus, was the parson ordained that trusted a poor woman to you for better or worse?'

"The Dwarf smoked away, and could hardly be seen through the cloud that enveloped him.

"'Idiots!' he murmured to himself, 'as if we lived like mere human Creatures'—

"'What's that you say?' asked Simon, interrupting him. 'Don't talk blasphemy, you heathenish imp, or'—

"'Be quiet, gossip!' returned the Dwarf, with a savage frown. 'Don't put me up, or I and my children may be troublesome to you and yours yet. You had better give me some more tobacco, for I love smoking, and so do my people!'

"'If he isn't cracked, I am a Turk!' exclaimed Simon. 'Pride has turned that added head of his quite round. Well, Heaven preserve me from a cracked godfather, any how!'

"'Body of me!' interposed an old boor, one of the party, 'what the crab says is true.'

"'True!' said Simon.

"'Yes! What, have you never heard of the Spirits and Dwarfs who, for thousands of years, have carried on their precious games in all kinds of underground pits and holes? Now, take my word for it, he has something to do with them. Klaus is just the fellow for the rogues. They make choice of a king once every fifty years—one of flesh and blood, like ourselves. His majesty must be shaped like a dwarf—that's quite necessary; but when he is lifted to the throne, the creatures heap upon him all sorts of wondrous gifts. They teach him to play the fiddle, flute, and clarinet like an angel. They put him up to the art of manufacturing wonderful clocks—of eclipsing the sun and moon, and all that kind of thing. They once had a dwarf king, a shoemaker, and that fellow never had his equal. Whenever he took it into his head, he would sit down, call for seventy thousand skins, and then set to work. How long do you suppose he was getting them out of hand? Why, in just one hour and a half the whole stock was manufactured. Shoes, gaiters, spatterdashes, jack-boots and bluchers for five hundred thousand men, and all their wives and children. You may believe it. There never was a chap that flung the things about as he did. And you may take my word for it, Klaus Stringstriker could do something too, if he chose. Why do you think he is so insolent and conceited, and presumes so much upon his playing and smoking? Why—just because these little earthmen are his familiars, and back him up in every thing!'

"'Oh, that's it—is it?' said Simon dryly. 'Klaus is King of the Dwarfs, is he? Then if that's the case, he shall perform a trick for us directly. Now I give you all warning, young and old, not to stop his pipe, or fill his glass again, till he fiddles himself into a fit, and glass and pipe replenish themselves!'

"Klaus remonstrated against the proceeding—but the guests were brimful of fun and mischief, and wouldn't listen to him. It was evident that nothing would satisfy the company but the exhibition of the misery to which they resolved to subject the unhappy knave forthwith. The Dwarf implored, threatened, cursed; he struck about him like a madman, screamed, roared, and struggled to escape; all in vain. The untractable little fellow was held fast, and then, amidst the jokes and gibes of the assembly, securely tied, with his fiddle in his hand, against the roof-tree of the room. Once pinned, there was no use in further resistance. The poor deformed creature had nothing better to do than to play, as commanded.

"And he did play, so touchingly and heartbreakingly, that the listeners were very soon in agonies before him. The eyes of the Dwarf rolled like little fire-balls in their cells—his cheeks grew paler and paler, and cold sweat poured down in a stream from his forehead. Nevertheless, he fiddled away incessantly—now merrily, now mournfully, now slowly, now quicker than ever. Every dancer had reason that night to thank his stars, if he left off without having thrown himself into a phthisic; for, when he once began, it was as easy for him to fly into the air as to come to a stand-still, until it pleased Klaus Stringstriker to make a pause with his fiddle.

"The horrible jest lasted till towards midnight, and then the tormentors were willing to grant their victim some indulgence. The fiddler was unbound, and he would have had to eat and drink, and his own dear pipe of tobacco would have been restored to him, had not the company immediately perceived to their astonishment that both his pipe and glass stood already filled before him, although not a single soul amongst them had lifted or touched either one or the other. If the guests had been riotous before, they were hushed and quiet enough now. And Klaus, too, struck up another tune instanter. He bowed ironically to the assembly, emptied his glass, lit his pipe, and tucked his fiddle under his arm.

"'Thank you, gossip!' said he, 'thank you kindly for your christening. I have enjoyed every thing—thoroughly; your compliments, your beer, your tobacco, and your sport! Rest assured, Mike, I shall quit scores with you, in good time, for all. As to my little godchild, you'll be pleased to call the boy Nicholas, that is to say, if you are not tired of your life. For yourself, Twirling-stick Mike,' he continued with a frown, 'depend upon it, you shall be settled, all in good time, very comfortably amongst my children. Meanwhile, Fare-you-well!'

"And with these words, the little fellow, repeating his scornful obeisance, hobbled away. He was heard to strike up a lively air, and some of the guests, whose curiosity took them out of doors, averred that he cut across the fields with supernatural swiftness, whilst there glittered around him a bright tremulous light, in which at times the tiniest phantoms were distinguishable.

"Whether this statement were really true, or whether a mere imagination, came never to be rightly known; and it is most likely that nothing more would have been said about it, if, on the following morning, the report had not run like a fire through the village, that the Dwarf-piper, in the night, had come to an untimely end, and was then lying as dead as mutton on Twirling-stick Mike's farm and field, with his fiddle jammed under his broad chin, and the bow still resting on the strings. Half the village, headed by the authorities, sallied forth upon the intelligence. Simon, you may be certain, was not long in following—and sure enough, there lay the poor Dwarf, dead upon the ground. His head was half immersed in the Dwarf's Well, which, in the dark, he had probably not observed. But whether or not, Klaus Stringstriker had been upset, and had stumbled, poor wretch, upon his death!

"It was very natural for Twirling-stick Mike to repent him suddenly of his wanton cruelty. The scoffing words of the dwarf rang in his ears, and he felt by no means easy. To make what amends he might to the deceased, he had him sumptuously buried at his own expense, with funeral oration, psalms, prayer, and benediction; and what is more, put up a very pretty monument to his memory, which, in very legible characters, made known the talents and virtues of the fiddler, and carried them down to remote posterity. The Dwarf, however, was scarcely in his grave, before all manner of strange reports were whispered about in the neighbourhood. In the first place, Twirling-stick Mike's garden was said to be haunted o' nights. Noises were heard and lights seen on the path crossing his fields; and you had only to stray into the vicinity of the Dwarf's Well to be forsaken at once of seeing and hearing. If Simon enquired more particularly into these worrying rumours, every body professed to know nothing at all of the matter. One man referred him to his neighbour, and he to the next; who, in his turn, protested that the whole was a heap of lies; or said any thing that seemed most likely to appease the farmer's anxious state of mind. Simon, troubled as he was by the absurd babbling of the people, was nevertheless unable to suppress it, or prevent its growth. Indeed there was a small chance of its diminishing, when, in less than two months, there was not a soul in the neighbourhood who could not swear that he had been a witness to most unearthly doings. There was no need of further mystery, of doubtful head-shaking, and ominous whispers—every one had seen Klaus Stringstriker near Twirling-stick Mike's house, playing his fiddle in the clear light of the moon. It was true, none could aver that he had heard a single note; but it was impossible to mistake his figure, and that had been seen, time after time, gliding in from the adjoining field, making the tour of Simon's house, and exhibiting all the gesticulations of a violin-player. Many affirmed, too, that the fiddler was followed by a swarm of fluttering lights causing an odd noise, like nothing so much as the multitudinous clacking of little hammers. If the Dwarf and his luminous retinue encountered any one, he stood still until the latter had passed, and then quietly pursued his road. The more inquisitive who had ventured to steal after the apparition, swore deep and high that the Dwarf and his lights had gone hissing into the well that stood upon Twirling-stick Mike's land, and then the ghostly procession altogether ceased.

"Simon gave himself a deal of trouble to witness some of these remarkable things; but he met with nothing; and accordingly, seeing that the ghost of the dead sponsor in no way molested him, he permitted the people to chatter on as they would. His indifference, indeed, had nearly reduced all disagreeable rumours to silence, when another very sensible unpleasantness took rise under his own roof.

"Young Klaus could hardly run alone before he manifested a most undesirable faculty of seeing spirits. It grew with his years; and at last it came to pass that no day or night went by upon which he had not something very extraordinary to relate. The occurrences certainly were chiefly of that nature that it required a most resolute and unbounded— an absolute Christianly-simple faith to believe them: and since the majority of Klaus's auditors were not excessively that way disposed, the accounts of the boy were held for so much downright swagger; and the poor ghost-seer acquired, to the no small vexation of his parent, the unenviable nickname of Mike's Lying Klaus. It was very singular, however, and could not fail to be remarked by every reflecting mind, that all the stories related by young Nicholas were in close connexion with the notorious well belonging to his father. There it was that he saw prodigious flames blazing forth, gold burning, and dances performed by the most grotesque and strangely-shaped little creatures. Passing this spot, earth, sand, glass, and even silver-pieces, would strike him on the head, without doing him the slightest injury. If he led his waggon by the spring, his good horses had to strain and torture themselves for a full quarter of an hour before they could draw the empty wain from the spot. The wheels seemed to have been locked and set fast, and yet the slightest hindrance could not be detected.

"Even to these incidents the ageing Simon had, by degrees, accustomed himself; but at length, and all on a sudden, it became his own frightful lot to perceive that his fine property was diminishing—yes, daily and hourly dropping and dropping away from him. He lived economically, as he had always done, even to parsimoniousness. The produce of his land, the income from his twirling-stick trade, were as satisfactory as could be— both improving! How could it happen then? Simon made known his misery to his neighbours, craved counsel from his pastor. Each chucked in his farthing's worth of wisdom; but it availed him nothing. In the meanwhile, the strapping youth grew every day more and more a ghost-seer; and the Dwarf was said to beset the premises of the farmer nightly. Simon, at all events to show a reason in his complaints, building upon these facts, boldly cast upon his son the imputation of robbing him. Violent scenes ensued between the two—they quarrelled and wrangled from morning till night; and at length, upon Simon's refusing his assent to the marriage of his hulking boy with a very honest, but at the same time somewhat uncouth and very poor girl—went bodily to law.

"Whilst father and son were valiantly tugging against each other in court, the lawyers gleefully rubbing their hands over the case, and many a good joint flying into their larders from the stalls of Twirling-stick Mike, the substance of the honest farmer underwent rapid decay. His neighbours, soon aware that Simon had falsely taxed his son, cleared up the question, as folks in such cases are fain to do, with suppositions and surmises. They gave out that the Dwarfs were gnawing away his fortune; every body believed it, and from that moment forward, he was a marked and doomed man.

"As the belief became general, Simon grew irritable and wild. He cursed, and stormed, and raved, till his people trembled for their master's reason. Vexation ate his flesh away, and Avarice, which had gained entire possession of His soul, drove him restlessly about in the endeavour to save and to secure as much as still remained to him. At night, with his sullenly-burning lamp, he sped from room to room, bearing in his two quivering hands leathern purses of money; then shutting himself up in the most secret of his hiding-places, he counted his dollars again and again—and with such haste and fear, that the cold sweat dropped from him as he laboured. Horrible to relate, as often as he added the same sums together, so often he found the total less. Oh, it was like nothing else than the devil's own game; for the money, unperceived by mortal eye, melted in the pure air!

"Unfortunately for Simon, he was a man of violent passions, and on one occasion his fury betrayed him into blasphemous exclamations. Sadly beside himself, he swore, with a most fearful oath, that he was ready and willing to make over body and soul to the devil, or even to his old gossip the fiddler, provided either of them would undertake to restore to him the mass of wealth that had so unaccountably escaped from him.

"There is an old proverb that runs—'Give the devil your little finger, and he will take your whole hand.' And the truth of this saying Simon was now about to experience; for he had scarcely brought his impious words to a close, before the fiddler popped into his presence, too willing to enter into any arrangement which the reckless farmer was silly enough to propose. 'Here I am, gossip!' said the cunning little rascal with well-assumed affability, 'and ready to do your will. Not that I shall ask your body and soul. I am not so greedy. Bequeath me your head at your death, you shall have all you ask, and I'll be satisfied.'

"'Go to the devil, you bandy-legged monster!' screamed Michael in his fury, poking his lamp at the same time under the Dwarf's beard, so that the vapoury phantom was nigh being in a blaze.

"'Don't put yourself out, Mike; don't put yourself out!' said Klaus patronizingly, seating himself upon a chest, and then tuning his fiddle. 'Getting into a passion won't bring the shiners back! What do you say, gossip, to a tune? Will you dance if I play? I have improved wonderfully, I can tell you, since I left this half-and-half sort of a world. Nobody dances now to my touch who doesn't praise it to the skies. You can't care much for dancing at your time of life, I know; and yet, if you could get a ducat for every step, and one or two for every hop, you would put your best foot forward, and try to do something any how— wouldn't you?'

"'What, what, what? What's that you say?' cried Simon, squeezing his empty money-bags. 'A ducat for every step! two for a hop! Kremnitz or Dutch, my dear old friend?'

"'Kremnitz, old gentleman, and full weight too!' replied the Dwarf. 'But,' added the little monster, 'about the head, Mike—what do you say, am I to get it?'"

Simon put his hand to his hair—involuntarily.

"'Oh! I am no Turk, gossip!' said the fiddler. 'I sha'n't scalp you. I'll gild every hair that you have on your crown; but your pate I must have, or else I can say nothing about the ducats.'

"'But what do you mean to do with it, dear ducat—dear Klaus, I mean?' asked the bewildered Mike.

"'That's my concern. I promise you not to hurt a hair; and your noddle shall be kept warm enough,' added the creature with a hideous chuckle. 'I engage myself to that, by all the Kremnitz ducats in the world!'

"Hesitation seldom prospers. It was fatal to poor Mike. He couldn't bring himself to answer. 'What,' he kept saying to himself—'what can I want with my head when I am dead? What matters who gets it?'

"'Have you settled?' enquired the Dwarf. 'Don't keep me, Mike; there are plenty of fellows who'll jump to get the ducats.'

"'Ducats! ducats!' continued Simon, still arguing with himself.—'What's a dead head in a scale with ducats? Nothing at all!—precious ducats! How many I have lost! one for a step, two for a hop. I had better close the bargain!'

"'You won't have them, then!' exclaimed the Dwarf. "'Yes! Done—agreed!' cried Simon eagerly. 'I'll consent, dear Klaus!' "'Very well!' replied the Dwarf. 'We'll to business, then!'

"'You recollect the terms, dear gossip! One for a step, two for a hop; and you are to have my head as soon as I die, and have no further use for it. Now, play a very slow waltz, there's a good Klaus—very slow, if you love me! Don't fiddle too long, and let the ducats come down prettily!'

"The Dwarf made no reply; but simply laughed like a growling bear. He cocked his fiddle under his chin, however, as quick as lightning; scraped a little by way of timing, and then broke out. Klaus Stringstriker had fiddled for a very few minutes before Simon was springing about, and cutting such capers as no professional performer had ever attempted, whilst the beams and rafters of the house quivered again. The impoverished farmer held in his hands about twenty large empty money-bags, which he grasped very tightly. It was quite wonderful to see how at every caper, at every kick of the foot, there fell at least two dozen real and true Kremnitz ducats, right down from his head straight into the pockets. Down they came faster and faster, so thick that before the dance was half over, the bags were all chokeful, and the dancer himself hardly able to bear the weight of all his treasure. But, mad with joy at the unexpected rushing back of all his wealth, he burst into the wildest laughter, flung himself about like a lunatic, and devoured with greedy gluttonous eyes the clinking, twinkling gold, that in starry showers discharged itself around him.

"At the end of a short quarter of an hour, the bags were bursting in Simon's hands. The Dwarf wriggled with delight, and played on—on—on; and the old farmer, intoxicated and insane, jumped till his hoary and fated skull struck against the ceiling. Now his joints cracked under the weight of gold that he bore; but he could not put it from him, for the bags stuck to his hands, as though they had grown to them. His strength decayed; his thoughts languished. He tried to speak; but he could not stammer out a word.

"'Gos-en-o, Kl-kl-oh-oh-oh'—

"The Dwarf kicked his feet with pleasure, and laughed again like a bear. He never played in right earnest until now. He scraped with all his might and main. Poor Twirling-stick Mike groaned, and his unhappy head dropped exhausted upon his breast. Miserable man, his last capers were cut! His dancing was no longer worth mentioning. He went up a little way, like a baby's shuttlecock, and came down again feebly and dull. The ducats poured out. The bags swelled; playing and dancing—dancing, such as it was—went forward, and one terrible hour passed away. At last the wrists of the farmer snapped asunder; his hands and the bags of gold fell to the ground together. The dancer gave one desperate and convulsive leap into the air. Klaus stopped his violin; and, in the next instant, Simon lay dead upon the floor. Will it be believed that the rascally Dwarf had fiddled every hair of the poor devil's head, and brought them all down to his feet in the shape of ducats! Simon's skull was as smooth and clean as if it had been shorn.

"The Dwarf put his fiddle up; quietly possessed himself of the money-bags, and then grinned at the corpse before him.

"'Well, you old fool!' said he. 'Have I shaved your ugly jobber-nowl clean enough? I don't want any of your tiresome barbers to do my work! Are we quits, gossip? Can we wipe off the old scores yet, friend Simon? No, no! We have something to do still! Let your boy look well to himself, and get reconciled to my people whilst there is yet time!'"

* * * * *

Early in the morning, Simon was found lying dead on the floor. The hairs of the unfortunate man, plucked out, and scattered over the boards, in part confirmed the vehement declaration of the servants; viz. that their master had wrestled with the devil, and had got the worst of the bout. Young Klaus, however, shaken as he was by the unexpected sight, at once guessed the true history. Returning home the night before, from a nocturnal visit to his sweetheart, he had passed his father's house, and here he had not only heard the playing of the fiddler, but, looking through a crevice of the garret-door, he had likewise discerned the very form of the Dwarf-spirit, and heard his laughter, as well as the noisy leaping of his unhappy parent. In his first grief at the frightful termination of his father's career, Klaus hurled the bitterest execrations at the head of the revengeful Stringstriker; cursed him over and over again, and himself no less, on account of his plaguing, ghost-seeing faculty. Raving over the handless body of Simon, he vowed at length, that if ever again the shadow of the fiend crossed his path, he would double him up in a sack, and hang him on the first tree that he came to.

This excited state of mind did not last very long with the volatile youth; for, truth to say, the sudden dereliction of mortality on the part of his quarrelsome old father, did not come altogether amiss to him. What hindered him now from wedding the girl of his heart, and leading as jolly a life as any? According to good old custom, he put on his dress and looks of mourning, donned his three-cornered hat, pulled it deep over his forehead, and walked decently and soberly up the church-path to the parson's house.