Part of the boys fell with loud shouts upon Walter, while others threw stones at him. The boy parried their blows with his stick, and defended himself bravely; but at last he must have yielded to numbers, had not assistance come from the quarter from which he least expected it. The little man, for whose sake he had encountered the storm, stood suddenly beside him, tore the two boys who were trying to throw Walter down away with great violence, shook them for a moment in the air, and then threw them upon the ground. Then with his long arms and immense hands he seized upon two other boys, and while he held them in the air he cried, "You bad boys, if you don't let the little fiddler alone, and go away quietly from here immediately, I will toss these two boys like balls among you, and not one of you shall return alive to the house!"
The boys were seized with a sudden panic, and with loud shrieks ran away. The man set his two trembling prisoners free, who rapidly fled to join their companions. He then looked round after his little protector.
Walter was standing at the well, washing the blood from his still bleeding brow, for he had been struck with a heavy stone. The little man hastened to him, and said in a compassionate tone, "My brave little defender, I hope you are not much hurt?"
"O no!" answered Walter, "I don't think it amounts to anything. But don't be offended because I came to your aid. I thought you were weak, and that I could help you; but you are very, very strong!"
"Yes, God be thanked! In giving me this strangely disproportioned form, he gave me an extraordinary strength with it, in order that I might be able to protect myself from the ill-treatment my odd appearance might bring upon me. But the laughing and scoffing of bad boys makes, in general, but little impression upon me, and I scarcely ever use my strength, lest I might hurt them. You could not know that, my boy; and that you alone among so many should have struggled to protect me is a sure proof that you have a good heart. Come, child, let me put this piece of healing plaster on your wound; I always carry some about with me in my pocketbook. There, now! it is on, and it will quit bleeding. Now sit down beside me, and tell me what your name is, and why it is that your parents let you travel about alone, at such an early age."
Walter immediately did as he had been requested. The deformed and exceedingly ugly man had won his entire confidence. He related his whole history to him, without concealing anything.
The little man muttered, now and then, some almost unintelligible words, and moved his thick head and short neck strangely about. After Walter had finished his recital, he laid his large hand upon his dark curls, and said friendlily to him: "My dear boy, if you continue to travel about as you have done, from town to town, with your fiddle, you will never become even a respectable man, much less a great artist; for in this way you will never acquire any knowledge of music, or the meaning of the word of God."
"Heaven help me!" sighed the boy; "what will become of me? what had I better do? I cannot go back to Mother Bopp, for she would strike me dead like a dog. Poor, forsaken boy that I am! nobody cares about me; I am entirely neglected. Alas! alas! I have no parents to love me, as other children have!" Thick tears coursed their rapid way over the rosy cheeks of the deserted foundling.
"Be still, and do not weep, my poor child! You have a Father above,—one who is a Father to us all,—who loves you, and will take care of you."
"No, indeed, sir," said the child, while he looked full into the face of the stranger, with his fearless and lustrous eyes, "no, no, I have certainly no father!"