the woods ring again.  I, nothing loath, took out my fiddle, and played and sang with a will.  Then one glanced meaningly at the others; he who played the horn stopped puffing out his cheeks and took the instrument down from his mouth; at last they all ceased playing, and stared at me.  I ended my performance also, and in turn stared at them.  “We supposed,” the cornetist said at last, “from the length of the gentleman’s coat that he was a traveling Englishman, journeying afoot here to admire the beauties of nature, and we thought we might perhaps earn a trifle for our own travels.  But the gentleman seems to be a musician himself.”  “Properly speaking, a Receiver,” I interposed, “and I come at present directly from Rome; but, as it is some time since I received anything, I have paid my way with my violin.” “’Tis not worth much nowadays,” said the cornetist, as he betook himself to the woods again, and began fanning with his cocked hat a fire that they had kindled there.  “Wind-instruments are more profitable,” he continued.  “When a noble family is seated quietly at their mid-day meal, and we unexpectedly enter their vaulted vestibule and all three begin to blow with all our might, a servant is sure to come running out to us with money or food, just to get rid of the noise.  But will you not share our repast?”

The fire in the forest was burning cheerily, the morning was fresh; we all sat down on the grass, and two of the musicians took from the fire a can in which there was coffee with milk.  Then they brought forth some bread from the pockets of their cloaks, and each dipped it in the can and drank turn about with such relish that it was a pleasure to see them.  But the cornetist said, “I never could endure the black slops,” and, after handing me a huge slice of bread and butter, he brought out a bottle of wine, from which he offered me a draught.  I took a good pull at it, but had to put it down in a hurry with my face all of a pucker, for it tasted like “old Gooseberry.”  “The wine of the country,” said the cornetist; “but Italy has probably spoilt your German taste.”

Then he rummaged in his wallet, and finally produced from among all sorts of rubbish an old, tattered map of the country, in the corner of which the emperor in his royal robes was still to be discerned, a sceptre in his right hand, the orb in his left.  This map he carefully spread out upon the ground; the others drew nearer, and they all consulted together as to their route.

“The vacation is nearly over,” said one; “let us turn to the left as soon as we leave Linz, so as to be in Prague in time.”  “Upon my word!” exclaimed the cornetist.  “Whom do you propose to pipe to on that road?  Nobody there save wood-choppers and charcoal-burners; no culture nor taste for art—­no station where one can spend a night for nothing!” “Oh, nonsense!” rejoined the other.  “I like the peasants best; they know where the shoe pinches, and are not so particular if you sometimes blow a false note.”