“Yes; and he and her brother, Clemens Brentano, published that wondrous book, the Boy’s Wonder-Horn.”

“The Boy’s Wonder-Horn!” said Flemming, after a short pause, for the name seemed to have thrown him into a reverie;—­“I know the book almost by heart.  Of all your German books it is the one which produces upon my imagination the most wild and magic influence.  I have a passion for ballads!”

“And who has not?” said the Baron with asmile.  “They are the gypsy-children of song, born under green hedgerows, in the leafy lanes and by-paths of literature,—­in the genial summer-time.”

“Why do you say summer-time and not summer?” inquired Flemming.  “The expression reminds me of your old Minnesingers;—­of Heinrich von Ofterdingen, and Walter von der Vogelweide, and Count Kraft von Toggenburg, and your own ancestor, I dare say, Burkhart von Hohenfels.  They were always singing of the gentle summer-time.  They seem to have lived poetry, as well as sung it; like the birds who make their marriage beds in the voluptuous trees.”

“Is that from Shakspere?”

“No; from Lope de Vega.”

“You are deeply read in the lore of antiquity, and the Aubades and Watch-Songs of the old Minnesingers.  What do you think of the shoe-maker poets that came after them,—­with their guilds and singing-schools?  It makes me laugh to think how the great German Helicon, shrunk toa rivulet, goes bubbling and gurgling over the pebbly names of Zwinger, Wurgendrussel, Buchenlin, Hellfire, Old Stoll, Young Stoll, Strong Bopp, Dang Brotscheim, Batt Spiegel, Peter Pfort, and Martin Gumpel.  And then the Corporation of the Twelve Wise Masters, with their stumpfereime and klingende-reime, and their Hans Tindeisen’s rosemary-weise; and Joseph Schmierer’s flowery-paradise-weise, and Frauenlob’s yellow-weise, and blue-weise, and frog-weise, and looking-glass-weise!”

“O, I entreat you,” exclaimed Flemming, laughing, “do not call those men poets!  You transport me to quaint old Nuremberg, and I see Hans Sachs making shoes, and Hans Folz shaving the burgomaster.”

“By the way,” interrupted the Baron, “did you ever read Hoffmann’s beautiful story of Master Martin, the Cooper of Nuremberg?  I will read it to you this very night.  It is the most delightful picture of that age, which you can conceive.  But look! the sun has already set behindthe Alsatian hills.  Let us go up to the castle and look for the ghost in Prince Ruprecht’s tower.  O, what a glorious sunset!”

Flemming looked at the evening sky, and a shade of sadness stole over his countenance.  He told not to his friend the sorrow, with which his heart was heavy; but kept it for himself alone.  He knew that the time, which comes to all men,—­the time to suffer and be silent,—­had come to him likewise; and he spake no word.  O well has it been said, that there is no grief like the grief which does not speak.

CHAPTER III.  OWL-TOWERS.