He went to the window, and peered out into the dark night. It was very late. Twice already since midnight had the great pulpit-orator Time, like a preacher in the days of the Puritans, turned the hour-glass on his high pulpit, the church belfry, and still went on with his sermon, thundering downward to the congregation in the churchyard and in the village. But they heard him not. They were all asleep in their narrow pews, namely, in their beds and in their graves. Soon afterward the cock crew; and the cloudy heaven, like the apostle, who denied his Lord, wept bitterly. CHAPTER VI. SAINT WOLFGANG. The morning is lovely beyond expression. The heat of the sun is great; but a gentle wind cools the air. Birds never sang more loud and clear. The flowers, too, on the window-sill, and on the table, rose, geranium, and the delicate crimson cactus, are all so beautiful, that we think the German poet right, when he calls the flowers "stars in the firmament of the earth." Out of doors all is quiet. Opposite the window stands the village schoolhouse. There are two parasite trees, with their outspread branches nailed against the white walls, like the wings of culprit kites. There the rods grow. Under them, on a bench at the door, sit school-girls; and barefoot urchins in breeches are spelling out their lessons. The clock strikestwelve, and one by one they disappear, and go into the hive, like bees at the sound of a brass pan. At the door of the next house sits a poor woman, knitting in the shade; and in front of her is an aqueduct pouring its cool, clear water into a rough wooden trough. A travelling carriage without horses, stands at the inn-door, and a postilion in red jacket is talking with a blacksmith, who wears blue woollen stockings and a leather apron. Beyond is a stable, and still further a cluster of houses and the village church. They are repairing the belfry and the bulbous steeple. A little farther, over the roofs of the houses, you can see Saint Wolfgang's Lake. Water so bright and beautiful hardly flows elsewhere. Green, and blue, and silver-white run into each other, with almost imperceptible change, like the streaks on the sides of a mackerel. And above are the pinnacles of the mountains; some bald, and rocky, and cone-shaped, and others bold, and broad, and dark with pines.