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THE WONDERFUL MUSICIAN. 53
“Stay there until I come back again,” said the musician,
and went his way.
After a while he said again to himself,
6 IT shall grow weary here in this wood ; I will bring out
another companion,” and he took his fiddle and fiddled away
in the wood. Before long a fox came slinking through the
trees,
“Oh, here comes a fox!” said the musician ; "I had no
particular wish for such company.”
The fox came up to him and said,
“© my dear musician, how finely you play! I must learn
how to play too.”
“That is easily done,” said the musician, “ you have only
to do exactly as I tell you.”
“© musician,” answered the fox, “I will obey you, as a
scholar his master.”
“ Follow me,” said the musician ; and as they went a part
of the way together they came to a footpath with a high
hedge on each side. Then the musician stopped, and taking
hold of a hazel-branch bent it down to the earth, and put his
foot on the end of it; then he bent down a branch from the
other side, and said : “ Come on, little fox, if you wish to learn
something, reach me your left fore foot.”
The fox obeyed, and the musician bound the foot to the
left hand branch.
“ Now, little fox,” said he, “ reach me the right one ;” then
he bound it to the right hand branch. And when he had seen
that the knots were fast enough he let go, and the branches
flew back and caught up the fox, shaking and struggling, in
the air,
“ Wait there until I come back again,” said the musician,
and went his way.
By and by he said to himself : “ I shall grow weary in this
wood ; I will bring out another companion.” |
So he took his fiddle, and the sound echoed through the
wood. ‘Then a hare sprang out before him.
“Oh, here comes a hare!” said he, “that’s not what I
want.”
“Ah, my dear musician,” said the hare, “ how finely you
play! I should like to learn how to play too.”
2?