“Only the second best?” the stranger said again, and laughed, very, very softly.  A prickle went up Joost’s spine at the sound of it, but he couldn’t be afraid, not with the warmth of drink still in him.

“Tell you what, stranger,” he said boldly. “We’ll fiddle again.  Prove which of us is the best.”

“We shall, indeed,” said the stranger.  “And winner take all.”

Well, it was a wonder for music that followed then.   Joost played like a man inspired, but the stranger kept right with him, note for note.  And as Joost played, the warmth of the drink began to leave him, and a chill took its place.  Who was this stranger, now?  What was he doing out on the road in the dark of night? Dark? Wasn’t there a strange sort of darkness about him that had nothing to do with the honest night?

Joost was afraid now, he was.  And if he’d fiddled like a man inspired before, he fiddled now like a man playing for his very soul.  Oh, he fiddled high and he fiddled low, he fiddled sad and he fiddled sweet. And at last he fiddled that night right away and the early morning in.

“Enough!” cried the stranger.  “Enough!”

Joost glanced at him, and saw only red flame where eyes should be.  And he knew in that moment just who’d been playing with him.  But Joost slid neatly from the dance tune he’d been fiddling—right into a hymn!

The stranger lost his fine manners.  “Well, don’t that beat the devil!”  he cried, and flung down his fiddle.  He stamped his foot, and a clap of thunder answered him. He flung his dark cloak about him and a great blast of wind threw Joost right off his feet.

When the fiddler finally dared open his eyes and get up again, he was alone.  The stranger was gone.  But there in the rock where he’d stamped his foot in rage was the print of a cloven hoof.

And poor Joost fainted dead away.

Well, Joost went right on being a fiddler.  But folks wondered to note how he minded his Sabbath manners after that.  And, strange to tell (or maybe not so strange at that), he never touched a drop of drink again!