“You have got ten days to learn in,” said a friend of his, who was practical.
So he bought a pipe and began to take lessons from the man who kept the sheep, and one day when he was practising Laurine’s letter was brought to him. He was simply overjoyed.
“I may be a poor musician!” he exclaimed, “but I have the strongest arm for miles round, and now it will stand me in good stead!”
And with that he rushed off to the nearest town and bought a big drum, the biggest that could be got for money; and, going into a solitary field, he laid about it daily, for practice, with such effect that people for miles round were deafened.
When the great day came, Laurine sat in state beside her stepfather and all the musicians were ranged in a row a little way in front of them. There were fiddles and flutes, trumpets and harps, dulcimers and guitars and the big drum in the middle.
When the Baron had taken his seat, he made a sign to a man who had a large golden harp to begin. But no sooner was the first chord struck than the whole assembly burst into sound with a stupendous crash. The fiddlers sawed their fiddles as though they would cut them to pieces, the trumpeters blew and brayed, the flutes shrieked, the harps and dulcimers twanged, and the young man with the drum fell upon it as though it had been his enemy. The Baron leaped up and roared for silence, but his voice might have been the cooing of a distant dove for all the good it did. The noise grew more and more terrible, and at the first convenient opportunity Laurine put her hands over her ears and rushed from the hall.
Away she ran through the courtyard. It was empty, because everybody had gone to see what the awful disturbance could mean, and the castle gates were open. She flew out like an arrow, taking the shortest way to the wood and rushing along with her hair streaming behind her, and at last she came to the hut where the Goblin lived; she never stopped till she got safely into it.
“Did I not give you sound advice?” said he as she sat down, breathless.
“Oh, excellent,” she replied, panting. “By this time I am sure my stepfather has driven the whole lot out of doors.”
“And now I must hide you away,” said the Fiddling Goblin, stepping out of the door and searching the country up and down with his rolling eye.