a dog barked in the village
which lay farther down the valley, buried, as it were, beneath foliage
and moonlight. I gazed up at the heavens, where a few clouds were
sailing slowly and now and then a falling star shot down from the
zenith. Thus this same moon, thought I, is shining down upon my
father's mill and upon his Grace's castle. Everything there is quiet
by this time, the Lady fair is asleep, and the fountains and leaves in
the garden are whispering just as they used to whisper, all the same
whether I am there, or here, or dead. And the world seemed to me so
terribly big, and I so utterly alone in it, that I could have wept
from the very depths of my heart.

While I was thus sitting there, suddenly I heard the sound of horses'
hoofs in the forest. I held my breath and listened as the sound
came nearer and nearer, until I could hear the horses snorting. Soon
afterward two horsemen appeared under the trees, but paused at the
edge of the woods, and talked together in low, very eager tones, as
I could see by the moving shadows which were thrown across the
bright village-green, and by their long dark arms pointing in various
directions. How often at home, when my mother, now dead, had told me
of savage forests and fierce robbers, had I privately longed to be a
part of such a story! I was well paid now for my silly, rash longings.
I reached up the linden-tree, beneath which I was sitting, as high
as I could, unobserved, until I clasped the lowest branch, and then I
swung myself up. But just as I had got my body half across the branch,
and was about to drag my legs up after it, one of the horsemen trotted
briskly across the green toward me. I shut my eyes tight amid the
thick foliage, and did not stir. "Who is there?" a voice called
directly under me. "Nobody!" I yelled in terror at being detected,
although I could not but laugh to myself at the thought of how the
rogues would look when they should turn my empty pockets inside out.
"Aha!" said the robber, "whose are these legs, then, hanging down
here?" There was no help for it. "They are," I replied, "only a couple
of legs of a poor, lost musician." And I hastily let myself drop, for
I was ashamed to hang there any longer like a broken fork.

The rider's horse shied when I dropped so suddenly from the tree. He
patted the animal's neck, and said, laughing, "Well, we too are lost,
so we are comrades; perhaps you can help us to find the road to B. You
shall be no loser