Newfoundland Stories by Eldon Drodge Page A

the heavy artillery and the blood and gore that would not permit him to sleep, and invariably, night after night, slumber would not come until daybreak. Then, sleep was fitful, and he generally awoke drained and almost too tired to face another day.
    He walked for three years. Then his plight worsened when his mother, with whom he had lived since returning home, died. Oddly, it was this sad occurrence that set in motion the curious sequence of events that would finally set Elijah on the road to restoration and the achievement of a degree of happiness that had hitherto seemed impossible. A family relative, while searching through the drawers of a dresser looking for a suitable garment in which to bury his mother, had unearthed a dilapidated old fiddle and presented it to Elijah. The sight of the battered instrument stirred long-buried images in his mind. When he handled the fiddle, it felt comfortable and familiar in his hands.
    Suddenly, despite the loss of his mother, a sense of purpose crept back into Elijah’s life. He started working on the fiddle, trying to restore it to some semblance of working order. For hours on end he cleaned, rubbed, and polished until he was finally satisfied with its appearance. Then he set about trying to tune it. Vague memories of his father showing him how to do this as a young boy and teaching him how to play simple ditties strengthened in his mind as he worked. He tweaked and manipulated the fiddle’s tuning pegs, and gradually the sound he was searching for emerged from the old instrument. In the process, the musical talent long dormant bubbled to the surface.
    â€œElijah’s got his father’s ear, that’s for sure,” Uncle Ezra would often say. “And there was never anyone better.”
    During the ensuing weeks and months, Elijah practised and experimented, mastering every song he put his mind to, until eventually, he had a repertoire of jigs, reels, hymns, and ballads, along with a number of his own compositions, to make any musician proud. When he played, he was as one with the fiddle. He would close his eyes and breathe deeply as he lived the music and the moment with every fibre of his being.
    His walks became shorter and fewer.
    And then he started something completely out of character. He began to appear at houses around the settlement, bringing his fiddle with him and playing his music for the people who lived there. His first appearances were tentative, and the recipients of his visits were surprised, if not shocked, to see him. But when he began to play, they knew they were being treated to something special, something wonderful which was being offered to them by this war-weary young man.
    He developed a routine from which he rarely varied. He would show up in the evening, usually after supper dishes had been cleaned and put away. He did not want to impose himself on anyone for a meal; he simply came to play. He rarely spoke other than to say hello. Placing his scruffy green felt hat on the chair and sitting on it, he would make a few tentative strokes of his bow across the strings to make sure the instrument was in tune, and then launch into an hour’s worth of playing. His impromptu kitchen concerts, given once a week, were never identical although the format was consistent. He would usually begin with a familiar hymn or two, or a ballad, followed by a long interlocking sequence of jigs and reels in which the transition from one song to the next was so masterful and transparent that everything blended wonderfully into a single uninterrupted medley. Then, the fiddle would become a violin and his last two or three offerings would be plaintive and haunting, and so poignant they invariably brought tears to the eyes of his listeners. Finally, standing and beating his rumpled hat back into shape, he would take his leave. Sometimes, he would accept the cup of tea and the biscuit or two he was usually offered before he left.
    Elijah played his music for