“When the yearning heart is stilled
    As in dreams, the forest sighing,
    To the listening earth replying,
  Tells the thoughts with which ’twas filled: 
    Days long vanished, soothing sorrow—­
    From the Past a light they borrow,
  And the heart is gently thrilled.”

I do not know whether he sang any more, for I had stretched myself on a bench outside the door, and I fell asleep in the warm air from sheer exhaustion.

A couple of hours must have passed, when I was roused by the winding of a post-horn, which sounded merrily in my dreams for a while before I fully recovered consciousness.  At last I sprang up; day was already dawning on the mountains, and I felt through all my limbs the freshness of the morning.  Then it occurred to me that by this time we ought to be far on our way.  “Aha!” I thought, “now it is my turn to laugh.  How Herr Guido will shake his sleepy, curly head when he hears me outside!” So I went close beneath the window in the little garden at the back of the house, stretched my limbs well in the morning air, and sang merrily—­

  “If the cricket’s chirp we hear,
  Then be sure the day is near;
  When the sun is rising—­then
  ’Tis good to go to asleep again.”

The window of the room where my masters were stood open, but all within was quiet; the breeze alone rustled the leaves of the vine that clambered into the window itself.  “What does this mean?” I exclaimed in surprise, and ran into the house, and through the silent corridors, to the room.  But when I opened the door my heart stood still with dismay; the room was perfectly empty; not a coat, not a hat, not a boot, anywhere.  Only the zither upon which Herr Guido had played was hanging on the wall, and on the table in the centre of the room lay a purse full of money, with a card attached to it.  I took it to the window, and could scarcely trust my eyes when I read, in large letters, “For the Herr Receiver!”

But what good could it all do me if I could not find my dear, merry masters again?  I thrust the purse into my deep coat-pocket, where it plumped down as into a well and almost pulled me over backward.  Then I rushed out, and made a great noise, and waked up all the maids and men in the house.  They could not imagine what was the matter, and thought I must have gone crazy.  But they were not a little amazed when they saw the empty nest.  No one knew anything of my masters.  One maid only had observed—­so far as I could make out from her signs and gesticulations—­that Herr Guido, when he was singing on the balcony on the previous evening, had suddenly screamed aloud, and had then rushed back into the room to the other gentleman.  And once, when she waked in the night afterward, she had heard the tramp of a horse.  She peeped out of the little window of her room, and saw the crooked Signor, who had talked so much to me, on a white horse, galloping so furiously across the field in the moonlight that he bounced high up from his saddle; and the maid crossed herself, for he looked like a ghost riding upon a three-legged horse.  I did not know what in the world to do.