“We shall not pass the night at Weinheim,” said the Baron to the postilion, who had dismounted to walk up the hill, leading to the town.  “You may drive to the mill in the Valley of Birkenau.”

The postilion seized one of his fat horses by the tail, and swung himself up to his seat again.  They rattled through the paved streets of Weinheim, and took no heed of the host of the Golden Eagle, who stood so invitingly at the door of his own inn; and the ruins of Burg Windeck, above there, on its mountain throne, frowned at them for hurrying by, without staying to do him homage.

“The old ruin looks well from the valley,” said the Baron; “but let us beware of climbing that steep hill.  Most travellers are like children; they must needs touch whatever they behold.  They climb up to every old broken tooth of acastle, which they find on their way;—­get a toilsome ascent and hot sunshine for their pains, and come down wearied and disappointed.  I trust we are wiser.”

They crossed the bridge, and turned up the stream, passing under an arch of stone, which serves as a gateway to this enchanted Valley of Birkenau.  A cool and lovely valley! shut in by high hills;—­shaded by alder-trees and tall poplars, under which rushes the Wechsnitz, a noisy mountain brook, that ever and anon puts its broad shoulder to the wheel of a mill, and shows that it can labor as well as laugh.  At one of these mills they stopped for the night.

A mill forms as characteristic a feature in the romantic German landscape, as in the romantic German tale.  It is not only a mill, but likewise an ale-house and rural inn; so that the associations it suggests are not of labor only, but also of pleasure.  It stands in the narrow defile, with its picturesque, thatched roof; thither throng thepeasants, of a holiday; and there are rustic dances under the trees.

In the twilight of the fast-approaching summer night, the Baron and Flemming walked forth along the borders of the stream.  As they heard it, rushing and gushing among the stones and tangled roots, and the great wheel turning in the current, with its never-ceasing plash! plash! it brought to their minds that exquisite, simple song of Goethe, the Youth and the Mill-brook.  It was for the moment a nymph, which sang to them in the voice of the waters.

“I am persuaded,” said Flemming, “that, in order fully to understand and fell the popular poetry of Germany, one must be familiar with the German landscape.  Many sweet little poems are the outbreaks of momentary feelings;—­words, to which the song of birds, the rustling of leaves, and the gurgle of cool waters form the appropriate music.  Or perhaps I should say they are words, which man has composed to the music of nature.  Can you not, even now, hear this brooklet tellingyou how it is on its way to the mill, where at day-break the miller’s daughter opens her window, and comes down to bathe her face in its stream, and her bosom is so full and white, that it kindles the glow of love in the cool waters!”