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Updated: May 2, 2025
The man who had now rediscovered Hurdy-Gurdy was evidently not curious as to its archæology. Nor, as he looked about him upon the dismal evidences of wasted work and broken hopes, their dispiriting significance accentuated by the ironical pomp of a cheap gilding by the rising sun, did he supplement his sigh of weariness by one of sensibility.
It was almost a month since she had sent off her last letter to him and yet there seemed to be nothing to say. She added a line or two, dropped her pen and went back to the window. The girls were dancing to the music of the hurdy-gurdy. Alice Waite was standing on the edge of the crowd, hugging a huge rag-doll in her arms as if it was her dearest treasure.
He turned his head and saw a little Savoyard, about ten years of age, coming up the path and singing, his hurdy-gurdy on his hip, and his marmot-box on his back. One of those gay and gentle children, who go from land to land affording a view of their knees through the holes in their trousers.
"Does it matter? Does God care for the epitaph and tombstone?" "Datemi qualche cosa!" said the Savoyard, in his touching patois, still smiling, and holding out his little hand; therein I dropped a small coin. The boy evinced his gratitude by a new turn of the hurdy-gurdy. "That is not labor," said my companion; "and had you found him at work, you had given him nothing.
I was informed of it by Jeannette the hurdy-gurdy player, who saw Catherine brought in a cart to the spittel, as she left it herself after having been cured of an evil ailment by the surgeon's art at least I hope so, please God! And Catherine is to be transported, and no reprieve to be expected." And Friar Ange at this point in his discourse groaned and shed tears abundantly.
And so the time came in which Daniel was to earn his own bread. Spindler journeyed to Eschenbach to confer with Marian Nothafft. The woman did not understand him. She felt tempted to laugh. Music had meant in her life the droning of a hurdy-gurdy, the singing of a club of men, the marching of a military band. Was her boy to wander from door to door and fiddle for pennies?
I stopped at once, and asked her to let me investigate the instrument. I have a fancy for ancient musical instruments. A handle is turned that grates on one catgut string, and the fingers of the left hand, passed under the hurdy-gurdy, touch notes that stop the string at various lengths, and so vary the tone.
These southern people, like the Arabs, the Apulians, and the Spaniards, seem to find their music in a hurdy-gurdy swell of sound. The other day we met a little girl, walking and spinning, and singing all the while, whose song was just another version of this chant. It has a discontented plaintive wail, as if it came from some vast age, and were a cousin of primeval winds.
While they were fastening him he laughed, and shouted, "Blow, old hurdy-gurdy, bellow. I've seen your equal off Cape Machichaco." And when secured he clutched the helm with that strange hilarity which danger awakens. "All goes well, my lads. Long live our Lady of Buglose! Let us steer west." An enormous wave came down abeam, and fell on the vessel's quarter.
Now "Loch Lomond" pleaded for pennies from the upper windows: "For you'll tak' the high road, and I'll tak' the low road, And I'll be in Scotland before ye: But I and my true love will never meet again, On the bonnie, bonnie banks of Loch Lomond!" The hurdy-gurdy was strident and insistent, but for a long time no response came.
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