Читать книгу The Man with the Pan-Pipes, and Other Stories - Molesworth Mrs. - Страница 2

IT was just before my merry cousin left us, to return to her own home across the sea.

One day several of us were out walking together. Meta was in front with mamma and one of my elder brothers, I was behind with Tony and Michael, the two nearer my own age. Suddenly Meta glanced round.

"Look, Addie," she called back, "there's a set of Pan-pipes; you wanted to know what they were like. They're a very doleful set, certainly; did you ever see such a miserable object? He must be silly in his head, poor thing, don't you think, aunty? May I give him a penny – or Jack will."

For even Meta did not seem inclined to go too near to the poor man, whom she was indeed right in calling "a miserable object."

Jack ran forward with the penny, and we all stopped for a moment, so I had a full view of the Pan-pipes. They were fastened somehow on to the man's chest, so that their top just came near his lips, and as he moved his head slowly backwards and forwards along them, they gave out the most strange kind of music, if music it could be called, which you ever heard. It was a sort of faint squeak with just now and then a kind of tone in it, like very doleful muffled whistling. Perhaps the sight of the piper himself added to the very "creepy" feeling it gave one. He was not only a piper, he was, or rather had been, an organ-grinder too, for he carried in front of him, fastened by straps round his neck in the usual way, the remains of a barrel organ. It had long ago been smashed to pieces, and really was now nothing but an old broken-in wooden box, with some fragments of metal clinging to it, and the tatters of a ragged cover. But the handle was still there; perhaps it had been stuck in again on purpose; and all the time, as an accompaniment to the forlorn quaver of the reed pipes, you heard the hollow rattle of the loose boards of what had been the barrel-organ. He kept moving the handle round and round, without ever stopping, except for a moment, when Jack half threw, half reached him the penny, which brought a sort of grin on to his face, as he clutched at the dirty old tuft of shag on the top of his head, which he doubtless considered his cap.

"Poor creature," said mamma, as we turned away. "I suppose he thinks he's playing lovely music."

"I've seen him before," said Jack. "Not long after we came here." (Perhaps I should explain that my father was an officer, and we had to go about wherever his regiment was sent.) "But I've not seen him lately. There's some story about him, but I know some of the boys at school declare he's not mad a bit, that he finds it pays well to sham he is."

"Any way he doesn't need to be afraid of his organ wearing out," said Tony, gravely, at which the others couldn't help laughing.

"I shouldn't think it likely he is only pretending," said mamma. "He looks almost too miserable."

"And sometimes there's quite a crowd of children after him," Jack went on; "they seem to think him quite as good to run after as a proper barrel-organ man."

"I hope they don't hoot and jeer at him," said mamma.

"His Pan-pipes are nearly as bad as his organ," said Meta. "Still, Addie, you know now what they're like, though you can't fancy how pretty they sound sometimes."

It did not need her words to remind me of the story. My head was full of it, and I think what Jack said about the crowds of children that sometimes ran after the strange musician, added very much to the feelings and fancies already in my mind. And unfortunately Meta left us the very next morning, so there was no one for me to talk to about it, for my brothers were all day at school and did not know anything about our story-tellings. I do remember saying to Meta that evening, that I hoped we should never meet that ugly man again, and Meta could not think what I meant, till I said something about Pan-pipes. Then she seemed to remember.

"Oh, he didn't play them at all nicely," she said. "One of the boys at home had a set, and he really made them sound lovely. When you come to Germany, Addie," for that was a favourite castle in the air of ours – a castle that never was built – that I should one day pay a long visit to my cousins in their quaint old house, "Fritz will play to you, and you will then understand the story better."

I daresay I should have told her the reason why I so hoped I should never meet the poor man again, if I had had time. But even to her I was rather shy of talking about my own feelings, and it was also not easy to explain them, when they were so mixed up and confused.

It was only a few days after Meta left, that we met the man with the Pan-pipes again. This time I was out walking with our nurse and the baby, as we still called him, though he was three years old. I don't think nurse noticed the man, or perhaps she had seen him before, but I heard the queer squeal of his pipes and the rattle of his broken box some way off, and when I saw him coming in the distance I asked her if we might turn down a side street and go round another way.

She said she did not mind, but though she was kind, she was not very noticing, and did not ask my reason, so for that day it was got over without my needing to explain. But for some time after that, we seemed to be always meeting the poor "silly" organ-man, and every time I saw him, I grew more and more frightened, till at last the fear of seeing him came quite to spoil the pleasure of my walks, even when I was out with mamma herself. Now I dare say all sensible children who read this will say, "Why didn't Addie tell her nurse, or, any way, her mother, all about it?" and if they do say so, they are quite right. Indeed, it is partly to show this very thing – how much better it is to tell some kind wiser person all about any childish fear or fancy, than to go on bearing it out of dread of being laughed at or called babyish – that I am relating this simple little story. I really cannot quite explain why I did not tell about it to mamma – I think it was partly that being the only girl, I had a particularly great fear of being thought cowardly – for she was always very kind; and I think, too, it was partly that from having read so many story-books to myself, I had got into the habit of being too much inside my own thoughts and fancies. I think story-books would often do much more good, and give really much more lasting pleasure if children were more in the habit of reading aloud to each other. And if this calls for some unselfishness, why, what then? is it not all the better?

But to return to my own story. There came a day when my dread of the man with the pipes got quite beyond my control – happily so for me.