The young hunter tried to collect his thoughts, and related how the solitude had suddenly become so frightful to him, that he wished to escape from it; the evening so dark, the green shades of the wood so dreary, the brook spoke in loud lamentations, the clouds traversing the heavens, drew his longing over to the other side of the mountains. "You are yet young," said the stranger, "and cannot well endure the rigour of solitude. I will accompany you; for you will meet with no house or hamlet within a league of this. On our way we can talk together, and tell tales to each other; so your troublous thoughts will leave you. In an hour the moon will emerge from behind the mountains; her light will also dispel the darkness from your mind." They went on, and the stranger seemed to the youth almost as an old acquaintance. "How came you on these mountains?" asked the former; "by your speech I perceive you are not at home here." "Ah!" replied the youth, "much might be said on that subject; and yet it is not worth the talk, not worth relating. I was forced away by a singular impulse from my parents and relations; my spirit was not master of itself; like a bird which is taken in a net, and vainly struggles, so was my soul ensnared in strange imaginations and wishes. We dwelt far from hence, in a plain where all around, you see no hill, scarcely a height: few trees adorned the green level; but meadows, fruitful corn-fields, and gardens, extended far as the eye could reach; and a broad river glided like a mighty spirit by them. My father was gardener to the castle, and wished to bring me up to the same employment. He loved plants and flowers beyond every thing, and could devote himself the entire day long to the watching and tending of them. Indeed he went so far as to maintain he could almost converse with them; that he learnt from their growth and thriving, as well as from the varied form and colour of their leaves. I, however, was averse to the gardening occupation; and the more, as my father tried to persuade me thereto, and even with threats to compel me. I wished to be a fisherman, and made the attempt; but neither did a life upon the waters suit me: I was then apprenticed to a tradesman in the town; but soon came home from him also. Once on a time my father was telling of the mountains, which, in his youth, he had travelled over; of the subterranean mines and their workmen; of hunters and their occupation; and suddenly there awoke in me the most decisive impulse, the feeling that now I had found my destined way of life. Day and night I mused thereon, and imagined high mountains, caves, and pine-forests, before me: my fancy created for itself immense rocks; I heard, in thought, the din of the chase, the horns, the cry of the hounds and of the game; all my dreams were filled with these things, and therefore I had no longer any rest or peace. The plains, the castle, my father's little contracted garden with the prim flower-beds; the confined