THE DARKIE FIDDLER. 451 



paused for a moment on the edge of the clearing with tails 

 between their legs, looking after him ; but the sight of his 

 flying form renewed at once their savage instincts, and with 

 a loud burst of yells, they pursued him at full speed. Alas 

 for the unlucky fiddler, had he been caught now, it would 

 have been all up with him, even had his fiddle continued to 

 shriek more unearthly shrieks than that of Paganini ever 

 gave forth. He had broken the spell by running, for had 

 they caught him now, they would never have paused to 

 listen, had he been an Orpheus in reality. 



Luckily the old man reached the hut just as they were at 

 his heels, and slamming the rickety door behind him, he had 

 time to climb out on to the roof, where he was comparatively 

 out of danger. I say comparatively, for the perch he now 

 occupied, was too rickety to make it any thing rather than 

 desirable, except by contrast with the immediate condition 

 from which he had escaped. 



The wolves were now furious, and thronging the interior 

 of the hut, leaped up at him with wild yells of gnashing 

 rage. The poor old sinner was horribly frightened, and 

 it required the utmost activity of motion to keep his legs 

 from being snapped by them. Wild with the agonized 

 terror as he was, poor old Dick had managed to cling to his 

 fiddle through it all, and remembering that it had saved him 

 in the woods, he now, with the sheer energy of desperation, 

 drew his bow shrieking across the strings, with a sound that 

 rose high above all their deafening yells, while, with his feet 

 kicking out into the air, he endeavored to avoid their steel-like 

 fangs. An instant silence followed this sudden outburst, and 

 Dick continued to produce such frightful spasms of sound as 

 his hysterical condition conceived. 



This outbreak kept the wolves quiet for a moment or two, 

 but old Dick soon learned to his increased horror that even 

 wolves are too fastidious to stand bad fiddling, for they com- 



