burst into song; the dogs bayed in the distant villages.  A brook babbled ceaselessly from the depths below us, and here and there glistened in the moonlight.  The hush was disturbed by the monotonous tramp of the horses and by the stir and movement of their riders, who talked together incessantly in a foreign tongue, and the bright moonlight contrasted sharply with the long shadows of the trees, which swept across the figures of the horsemen, making them appear now black, now light, now dwarfish, and anon gigantic.  My thoughts grew strangely confused, as though in a dream from which I could not waken, but I marched straight ahead.  We certainly must reach the end of the forest and of the night too, I thought.

At last long, rosy streaks flushed the horizon here and there but faintly, as when one breathes upon a mirror, and a lark began to sing high up above the peaceful valley.  My heart at once grew perfectly light at the approach of dawn, and all fear left me.  The two horsemen stretched themselves, looked around, and seemed for the first time to suspect that we might not have taken the right road.  They chatted much, and I could perceive that they were talking of me; it even seemed to me that one of them began to mistrust me, as though I were a rogue trying to lead them astray in the forest.  This amused me mightily, for the lighter it grew the greater grew my courage, until we emerged upon a fine, spacious opening.  Here I looked about me quite savagely, and whistled once or twice through my fingers, as scoundrels always do when they wish to signal one another.

“Halt!” exclaimed one of the horsemen, so suddenly that I jumped.  When I looked round I saw that both had alighted and had tied their horses to a tree.  One of them came up to me rapidly, stared me full in the face, and then burst into a fit of immoderate laughter.  I must confess this senseless merriment irritated me.  But he said, “Why, it is actually the gardener—­I should say the Receiver, from the castle!”

I stared at him in turn, but could not remember who he was; indeed, I should have had enough to do to recognize all the young gentlemen who came and went at the castle.  He kept up an eternal laughter, however, declaring, “This is magnificent!  You’re taking a holiday, I see; we are just in want of a servant; stay with us and you will have a perpetual holiday.”  I was dumbfounded, and said at last that I was just on my way to visit Italy.  “Italy?” the stranger rejoined.  “That is just where we wish to go!” “Ah, if that be so!” I exclaimed, and, taking out my fiddle, I tuned up so that all the birds in the wood awaked.  The young fellow immediately threw his arm around his companion, and they waltzed about the meadow like mad.

Suddenly they stood still.  “By heavens,” exclaimed one, “I can see the church-tower of B.!  We shall soon be there.”  He took out his watch and made it repeat, then shook his head, and made the watch strike again.  “No,” he said, “it will not do; we should arrive too early, and that might be very bad.”