f 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 s