darkest nights, sounded beneath my window.  A guitar was played fitfully, soft, low chords being heard from time to time.  Once I imagined I heard some one down below call up, “Pst! pst!” I sprang out of bed and, putting my head out of the window, called, “Holla! who’s there?” But no answer came; I only heard the rustling of the shrubbery, as if some one were hastily running away.  The large dog in the court-yard, roused by my shout, barked a couple of times, and then all was still again.  After this the serenade was heard no more.

Otherwise my life here was all that mortal could desire.  The worthy Porter knew well what he was talking about when he was wont to declare that in Italy raisins dropped into one’s mouth of themselves.  I lived in the lonely castle like an enchanted prince.  Wherever I went the servants treated me with the greatest respect, though they all knew that I had not a farthing in my pocket.  I had but to say, “Table, be spread,” and lo, I was served with delicious viands, rice, wine, melons, and Parmesan cheese.  I lived on the best, slept in the magnificent canopied bed, walked in the garden, played my fiddle, and sometimes helped with the gardening.  I often lay for hours in the tall grass, and the pale youth in his long surtout—­he was a student and a relative of the old woman’s, and was spending his vacation here—­would pace around me in a wide circle, muttering from his book like a conjurer, which was always sure to send me to sleep.  Thus day after day passed, until, what with the good eating and drinking, I began to grow quite melancholy.  My limbs became limp from perpetually doing nothing, and I felt as if I should fall to pieces from sheer laziness.

One sultry afternoon, I was sitting in the boughs of a tall tree that overhung the valley, gently rocking myself above its quiet depths.  The bees were humming among the leaves around me; all else was silent as the grave; not a human being was to be seen on the mountains, and below me on the peaceful meadows the cows were resting in the high grass.  But from afar away the note of a post-horn floated across the wooded heights, at first scarcely audible, then clearer and more distinct.  On the instant my heart reechoed an old song which I had learned when at home at my father’s mill from a traveling journeyman, and I sang—­

  “Whenever abroad you are straying,
    Take with you your dearest one;
  While others are laughing and playing,
    A stranger is left all alone.

  “And what know these trees, with their sighing,
    Of an older, a lovelier day? 
  Alas, o’er yon blue mountains lying,
    Thy home is so far, far away!

  “The stars in their courses I treasure,
    My pathway to her they shone o’er;
  The nightingale’s song gives me pleasure,
    It sang nigh my dearest one’s door.

  “When starlight and dawn are contending,
    I climb to the mountain-tops clear;
  Thence gazing, my greeting I’m sending
    To Germany, ever most dear.”